Our Unitarian GospelSavage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Religion
Our Unitarian Gospel
Savage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Sermons; Unitarianism
How can we find his words? In the first place there are the great
central, luminous truths which Jesus uttered, the fatherhood of God,
the brotherhood of men, goodness as the condition of acceptance on the
part of God. And, on the theory that he did not contradict himself, we
are at liberty to waive one side those statements which grew up under
the influence of later tradition, popish or ecclesiastical, and which
plainly contradict these. But the main point I have in mind is one
which scholars have wrought out under the name of the Triple Tradition.
It takes for its central thought, "In the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word shall be established." We know that the Gospels
grew up through a long process of accretion after a good many years.
They were not written or planned by any one person; and, so far as we
know, they may not have been written by anybody whose name is
traditionally connected with them to-day. If, however, we find that
three of the four witnesses agree in reporting that he said or did a
certain thing, we feel surer about it than when only one witness
reports it. And if two report, why, even then we feel a little more
certain than we do when the report is from only one. And yet, of
course, the three may have omitted that which only one has recorded,
and which is true. But scholars have wrought out along this line what
is called the Triple Tradition; that is, they have constructed a
complete story of the life and the teaching and the death of Jesus out
of the words which are common to three of the gospel writers. All of
them tell this same story; and this story of the Triple Tradition has
no miraculous conception, it has no resurrection of the body, no
ascension into heaven. The miracles are reduced to the very lowest
terms, becoming almost natural and easy to be accounted for. In this
story Jesus teaches none of the things of which I have been speaking.
I say, then, that along the lines of the very best critical
scholarship, coming as near to the teaching of Jesus as we possibly can
to-day, we are warranted in saying that this which has usurped the name
of the gospel of Christ is not only not good news, but it is not the
news which Jesus brought and preached. As has been said a good many
times, it is a gospel about Christ instead of being the gospel of
Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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