Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life StoryBarker, Joseph
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life Story
Barker, Joseph
Barker, Joseph, 1806-1875; Methodist Church -- Clergy -- Biography; Skepticism
And there was everywhere a tendency downward from the Christian to the
infidel level. If churches do not labor for the conversion of the world,
and endeavor to become themselves more Christ-like and godly,
degeneracy, and utter degradation and ruin are inevitable. And the
tendency, at the time to which I refer, throughout the whole little
world of Unitarianism was downwards to utter unbelief. In many minds
there was as much impatience with old-fashioned moderate Unitarianism,
as with old-fashioned Christianity or Methodism. They wanted preachers
who would openly assail the doctrine of the divine or special
inspiration of the Bible, and the supernatural origin of Christianity,
and try to bring people down or up to the pagan or infidel level of mere
sense and reason.
The Unitarians required no profession of faith; so that deists and
atheists had the same title to membership as believers in Christ. They
administered the Lord's Supper, but they had no church discipline, so
that people defiled with the filthiest vices had the same right to
communicate as people of the rarest virtues. Even the ministers were not
required to make any profession of faith, so that deists and atheists
were admitted, not only into the churches, but into the pulpits.
I was not aware of these things when I first became identified with the
Body. It is possible that the Body was not so corrupt at that time as it
was after. Any way, at the time of my return from infidelity to
Christianity, both deists and atheists were among the ministers. If any
find it hard to believe these things, let them read my pamphlet on
Unitarianism, where they will find testimony from leading Unitarians
themselves, to the truth of these statements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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