THE EARLY CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES: WHEN ROME THEN ANNEXED, RO- MANISED, AND EMASCULATED CHRISTIANITYn7257 ¶1
The young Galilean’s followers, who could even then scarcely understand the real import of his teaching—for he had to labour so hard many times to keep them from giving a material interpretation to his teachings, to which they were so prone, instead of perceiving the living sprit which breathed through them all— were at first apparently lost without him. They could scarcely understand the situation. They gathered together to take counsel as to their own movements and to cheer and encourage one another in that he had gone from them. They had received a wonderful inspiration from such close contact with him, and a fire and a zeal had been kindled within them that brought them soon to a realisation of their new-found possessions and responsibilities. Others joined them, and they set out in a very simple manner to carry out their Master’s injunctions to them and to spread his teachings.n7257 ¶2
They began to formulate his teachings, but without his own living spirit, and being bred for sO many generations to forms and ceremonies, it was but natural for them to incorporate some of these into their formulations. It could scarcely be otherwise. They on the whole remained, however, true to their Mas- | ter—a simple-minded, earnest band, and gave forth a simple teaching.n7257 ¶3
Other little bands sprang up here and there, and gradually took the form of what later were called Churches. The Galilean never set about to form, and probably never thought of any organisation. He probably would have discouraged it had he foreseen it. He established no church and had nothing whatever to do with the formation of such. He never talked with his disciples in terms of religion—it was always of life; the realisation of the Christ within as he himself had realised it; of love one for another, and of service.n7257 ¶4
It was many years after, that accounts began to be written of his life and teachings. These early Churches were in reality little groups which might properly be termed “ communities.’ They held things in common, they helped one another, they stood by one another in their persecutions for they were never free from these, in some cases they healed the sick and they succoured those in distress—they endeavoured in a simple but wonderful way to carry into actual life the spirit and the power of their Master’s teachings. They aroused great interest at times, and we are led from various accounts to believe that through them numbers were converted to Jesus’ teachings. They were persecuted, at first, chiefly by their own people. The immediate disciples and the earlier followers associated with them, remained staunch adherents to their nationality. Says a thoughtful writer: “For years Christianity was scarcely more than a sect of the Jewish Church. Those years of intense internal and, as it were, chemical activity were necessary to assimilate the new to the old. If even Jesus had come forward with an absolutely new Gospel he would have found no point upon this earth at which he could attach that Gospel to the hearts of men. He might not have gained one follower. That is proved by the fact that Jesus’ personal disciples, Judas only excepted, remained pious Jews to the day of their death, for the most part like other pious Jews, with one difference—they believed that the Messiah had come.” * | These early Christian bands—they were firstn7257 ¶5
*‘The Living Word,” by Elwood Worcester. Moffat, Yard & Co.n7257 ¶6
called Christians in derision by their enemies —gradually grew into more numerous communities. They were animated by a wonderful spirit. They began to make a stir and the more earnest ones carried their teachings into more remote parts. They were carried, among other places, to Rome. They began to attract outsiders. It was about this time that Rome began her more active persecutions. To show their zeal and patriotism for Rome certain ones began to be particularly active in their houndings and persecutions of these lowly and despised Nazarenes, the Christian dogs as they were called.n7257 ¶7
One of the most ardent and enthusiastic of these was one Saul, Saul of Tarsus. A Jew by birth, and a follower of Israel’s religion, such as she then had, he later exchanged his early associations for Roman citizenship. He had received a university education, and he had taken great interest in Greek philosophy and metaphysics, which he had encountered in an abundant degree at Rome. He had but little sympathy with the common uneducated classes. He was thoroughly Roman in his ideas of authority and the recognition of authority. He was one of an intense nature and had to a marked degree the qualities of a leader. He had heard of and had come in contact with these active and now rapidly growing bands of Christian followers of lowly origin. They did not take kindly to Roman culture and authority and display, and they manifested but little sympathy with the cultured ruling classes. They, in turn, were held in contempt by these same classes, and their following was increasing so rapidly that it was showing marks of a distinct menace to Roman institutions and authority. That the movement be retarded or stamped out, and that its chief instigators be suppressed, became a patriotic duty on the part of zealous Roman citizens.n7257 ¶8
There was no one, perhaps, who held these views more zealously and who acted upon them more diligently and aggressively than this same Saul. One day he was on his way to a neighbouring place, Damascus, to combine with others in some fresh persecutions of these little but rapidly growing bands of believers. On his way there something happened—just what it was we perhaps never will know, but the light he saw was a different light—and after he had recovered he straightway became an ardent espouser of the teachings of those he had so vehemently persecuted. He was earnest and sincere now even as he had been before he had seen this new light. His grafted Roman citizenship and associations and culture enabled him to have but little sympathy with the Galilean band. He recognised their source—their leader, the Galilean teacher—but he had no sympathy with and would have nothing to do with his disciples and immediate followers, those who had come in close personal contact with him, and to whom he had given direct instructions in regard to the spread of his teachings: those who had been very near to him and close to his sympathies, and of whom he had said: Ye are they which have been with me in my temptation.n7257 ¶9
After this change had come upon Saul he had changed his name to Paul. He had never met Jesus. He had the pride of the scholar, and he even takes pains to say that he had not obtained his Christianity from the original disciples. He apparently, for a time, went into the desert and there worked out a religion or a Christianity of his own. A little later he said: “ Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem with them that were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia.”n7257 ¶10
Had he possessed the simplicity of mind and heart of the Carpenter, those qualities loved and recognised by him as the open way to the highest attainment and usefulness and that he so earnestly and systematically taught, he would gladly have welcomed contact and association with his Galilean disciples and followers. He would have recognised that Jesus evidently had a recognition of a great fact when he said: “I thank thee, Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes.”n7257 ¶11
At the start evidently Paul thought that if Christianity was to reach and was to be accepted by the more cultivated and higher standing Romans, it would have to be divorced from these common working-class followers and disciples of Jesus, and be presented on a more philosophical and cultured basis. His own immediate followers evidently shared in this thought. He and they seemed utterly incapable of appreciating or of understanding the simplicity of Jesus’ teachings, as also his purpose and personality. His associates were also those of the more cultured schools of Hellenistic philosophy and metaphysics, which were now so numerously represented at Rome.n7257 ¶12
By virtue of this total lack of sympathy— perfectly natural as we survey it—there grew to be two groups of Christians—Jesus’ own disciples and their immediate followers, the Galilean crowd, and the group represented by Paul and his fellow Hellenistic-Roman followers. Theirs became a thoroughly Romanised type of Christianity and with the Galilean band they had but little if any sympathy from the very start. The two groups were continually at variance one with another. Later followed open ruptures and even quarrels, as we find narrated in the Acts and elsewhere.n7257 ¶13
It was unquestionably a difference in spirit which would lead inevitably to a difference in interpretation of the teachings of their common Master. It was the difference between the fundamentally democratic and “ of the people ” nature and life of John, James, Peter, and the rest of the Galilean disciples and followers on the one hand, and the Romanised, imperialised culture and requirements of Paul and his converts and followers on the other. The former, on account of their more humble origin and their lack of scholarship, but giving undoubtedly the purer teaching and spirit of their Master, became the more despised and hated and the more bitterly persecuted. The others, on account of their more active propaganda and reaching out into the more distant parts by regular and systematic journeys, grew the more rapidly.n7257 ¶14
We cannot do otherwise than admire the zeal and the earnestness of Paul, his remarkable literary ability, and also the honesty of his intentions in presenting Christianity so that it could find acceptance on the part of the cultured classes; but at the same time we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the stream was diverted almost at its source, and that through it we have a Christianity radically different from that which the Judzan teacher promulgated—It is through this channel that the Christianity that has come down to us has flowed.n7257 ¶15
The element of authority on the one hand and subjection to authority on the other, the governing and the governed, the ingrafting of forms and ceremonies from a pagan religion— that of Rome was essentially pagan—into a religion where the spirit and the direct communing with God without any intermediary was taught to be the chief thing, the nonentity of woman, and the teaching of her subjection to authority as was taught by Paul—these and other things indicate how the stream was turned and how the original teachings of Jesus have had injected into them various elements and concepts that were never intended.n7257 ¶16
Rome’s persecutions of the Christians continued unabated. They displayed, however, such ardour, and the movement such vigour that it grew in spite of all the hardships and persecutions they were compelled to undergo. With many insurgencies at home and with uprisings on the part of her conquered peoples almost continually abroad, all of which took great amounts of money to suppress, she found herself many times at her wits’ end, for she was not the Rome she formerly was. The more she could reduce these uprisings the less would be the cost to her.n7257 ¶17
Finding that with all her efforts she could not wipe out Christianity, she did the longheaded thing, that for which she had become already universally noted—annexing anything she could use for herself—she annexed it. She took it over and made it into an institution which she could use to her own advantage. She was always practical and what she couldn’t accomplish in one way she always managed to accomplish in another way.n7257 ¶18
The Roman brand of Christianity was already so changed into a system resembling somewhat her own systems, that she did not find it difficult to adapt it easily to her own conditions and institutions. She set out forthwith to imperialise it, and with it she imperialised its Founder. Under her manipulations Jesus was made to doff his carpenter’s apron and his plain coarser garments, for the imperial purple and various other trappings. His teachings were raised or rather changed from a religion for the common people, the common life for which he directly gave it and intended it, to a religion of the upper, the governing classes. Greek metaphysics, injecting into it a form of speculation and controversy and mystery, had changed it from the simple hillside teachings of Jesus, always out under the open sky and clear as the light of day, to a religion of speculation combined with authority.n7257 ¶19
Regular systems were now organised, and in order that Christianity might be made easy and more adaptable as well as congenial, a theological system modelled completely upon Roman lines was worked out. Many of the Roman pagan customs and institutions were carried over into the new system that she evolved. Many of her civil observances were also made a part of it. Says an authoritative modern writer:n7257 ¶20
“Consider for a moment the attitude of Christianity to the Roman world. The Roman religion, be it remembered, was not a spiritual religion, it was not a philosophical or teaching religion. It was incredibly hollow and external, and the Romans themselves were so tired of it that they were ready to exchange it for almost any religion that could speak to their souls in the name of God. It was an affair of temples and material sacrifices, of shows and processions, of festivals spread over the whole year, in honour of innumerable deities. But it was a wonderfully organised religion, simply because it was the religion of the greatest organising people that the world has ever seen. It is interesting to see how many concessions Christianity was obliged to make to Rome, and how many of the old Roman customs Christianity accepted bodily. To read the writings of those who are learned in these matters, one would suppose that Christianity had invented ' hardly anything.n7257 ¶21
The Romans in accepting the new religion insisted on carrying with them much of their old paganism, even to such an extent as seriously to compromise the Church’s original monotheistic idea. For the gods and goddesses she took away, the Church gave back saints, to whom prayer continued to be offered. Gradually, the “ Church Year ” was formed, in which the most important events were celebrated on the great Roman festivals. Christmas took the place of the Roman Saturnalia, and we give Christmas presents primarily because the Romans gave gifts on the Feast of Saturn. So the transition was made as easy for them as possible, and all that could be adopted by the Church was adopted. The great temples of the gods with a few alterations became Christian churches. The sacraments became more material, and acquired an importance at Rome they did not possess elsewhere. A graduated priesthood was formed.n7257 ¶22
Nuns took the place of Vestal Virgins; and, in particular, the Roman conception of a single co-ordinated universal empire became the Church’s highest ideal. . . . The Emperor, Pontifex Maximus, became the Pope. The legates and proconsuls, papal ambassadors and nuncios; the governors of provinces, bishops and archbishops; the college of the senate became the college of cardinals, etc., etc. In short, Christianity presented itself to the Roman Empire as little as possible a new thing, and as much as possible an old thing to which the Romans were well accustomed. The Church was compelled to make many concessions and to depart considerably from its own original plan; and yet who can say that those concessions were not absolutely necessary to attach the heart of the great pagan world ton7257 ¶23
In order that the annexing of Christianity might seem to have the proper seal, Rome, true to her spectacular nature in all things, went through the process of being converted to Christianity. Constantine publicly and solemnly announced that he had become a convert. To the designation, the Roman Empire, the word “ Holy” was prefixed, and we have forthwith and for centuries to come, the Holy Roman Empire. It proclaimed itself thereby a child of Heaven, and another weapon—as the succeeding years and even ages showed—was added to its armoury for its subjugation and exploitation of the people. This she used in a thoroughly effective way. While her armiesn7257 ¶24
Moffat, Yard & Co.n7257 ¶25
and her centurions could in sufficient force put down insurrections and cow the people, their work was effective only while they were in actual action and their activities were always costly. Now she had centurions and cohorts less costly to maintain, but more effective in their results, in that she had the sanction of Heaven for all of her decrees, and through the power of the anathema she could reach even beyond the grave when she once proclaimed her sovereign decree. The ordinance of “ Excommunication ” that she instituted she could use with terrible effectiveness by virtue of the conditions of the minds of the people of the time.n7257 ¶26
An era of speculation followed these deliberate and studied efforts at formalising the life and teachings of the Judzan. Gradually there was crushed out all of the simple but wonderful earnestness that Jesus imparted to his early disciples and followers, and form of expression and observance began to be the chief thing sought for. Gradually more abstruse theories began to be evolved to account for the power and the effectiveness of Jesus’ life and teachings, as well as of his purpose—that an age and a people completely out of harmony with them was utterly incapable of understanding. Mystery and speculation inducing superstition took the place of simplicity and earnestness and life. Abstractions such as the doctrine of the Trinity began to be evolved and proclaimed.n7257 ¶27
Jesus, the simple Judzean carpenter on fire with his message direct from God, was so emasculated that he became a sort of king clothed upon along royal lines. Instead of the energising truths of God that he had perceived and lived and had made the basis of his entire life’s teaching, becoming thereby the way, the truth, and the life, whereby he sought to bring other men also into a knowledge of a newness of life, the religious arm of the Holy Roman Empire took the most dead part of his life—his death—and made it the chief feature of its system. There has come down to us, therefore, the dead Christ and all the mysteries and superstitions that have been woven around his death instead of the living, spiritualising and thereby elevating message of his life. And see what a change then came about. Instead of Jesus’ simple hillside teachings of man’s direct relations through communion with God, and as he directly said: “Neither shall they say, ‘Lo here’ or ‘Lo there,’ for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you,”—in brief his teachings of, look up and not down, these were pushed into the background and were thoroughly emasculated by the Church’s teachings of the depravity of man, of human degradation with no hope of redemption except through the mediumship of some intercessor with God.n7257 ¶28
To play upon the sympathies and the imagination of those who sought deliverance from the effects of sin here and of the wrath to come, a suffering and dead Christ as he hung upon the cross was evolved and used. A belief in his death and his resurrection could bring about redemption, provided, however, tt came always through the Church. Various rites and ceremonies were invented and used to accompany, or rather as accessories to this redemption. The superstitions of the people—and we can hardly realise the extent to which superstition prevailed at the time—were utilised in connection with the mysterious way, understood only by the Church officials, whereby forgiveness of sins and redemption, coupled by the guarantee of a pass to heaven after death, were brought about.n7257 ¶29
Then were introduced bells and candles and vestments and ceremonials and incantations and terms unintelligible to those who heard them, and in connection with them collections and fees, and at times heavy payments for services rendered. It became access to God through the mediumship of another. It became a long, long road from Jesus’ day. No man’s soul was his own—“ Loyalty to the king and to the Church” was to be observed by all men in fear of the anathema or of eternal damnation. The Church’s authority was signalised by the Pope. Organised religion became all-powerful. The Emperor became not only the civil but also the religious head and ruler. The authority of God was invoked through the Pope, who became his divine representative here on earth—he became such representative because a public decree was made to this effect. Rome the dominator found a strong and almost unexpected ally in that her authority in the minds of the people rested upon a spiritual foundation, the Church authority, that through the inventions of the anathema and excommunication could cow many times where the civil authority had failed.n7257 ¶30
The great majority of the population at this time were slaves. In Rome itself slaves numbered about two-thirds of the population. It was in this maze of speculation and purple and pomp and ceremonial and power, coupled all the while with the subjection of the people to absolute authority, that the canons of the New Testament were formed. The earliest church councils were also held, that gave the tenets of belief, the articles of the creeds, and the general organisation of the Church as it existed on through to the Middle Ages and to the time of the Reformation—and from which all modern orthodox church organisation has derived its beginnings.n7257 ¶31
_ The victims of persecutions now change. It was formerly the Christians that Rome hounded and persecuted, it became now those who would not subscribe to her newly enacted forms of Christianity, or those within her ranks who dared take exception to, or who dared entertain any thoughts or ideas that would at all undermine or jeopardise her absolute authority. She became the enemy of all independence of thought and thereby of all advancement of learning.n7257 ¶32
Not occasionally, but for long periods almost continually, these persecutions took place. The Inquisition resulted in thirty-two thousand burnings at the stake—a number so vast when we stop to consider it, that it is not only almost unbelievable but almost inconceivable. In this, as in many other wholesale persecutions and burnings, we find ignorance and fanaticism on the one hand leagued with Rome’s traditional money greed on the other. The money itch on the part of her governing classes was sO prominent and so conspicuous a part of her very life for two or three centuries immediately preceding her downfall and dissolution, that it became and continued at least until the time of the Reformation, an integral part of the religious organisation that was given birth and formation to by her in the early part of the fourth century.n7257 ¶33
In its earlier years or rather centuries spiritual authority became the pretext and the cloak for heresies, burnings, robberies, and confiscations. “‘Her members, and even her priests, had gone from murder to mass and from mass to murder.” Torture was allowed on the slightest suspicion. The suspected or rather the victim was allowed no legal adviser, it was not necessary that the name of his accuser be made known to him. He had no right of appeal. He was either imprisoned or burned or in some other way done away with. His family had no property rights, for all his property was promptly confiscated.n7257 ¶34
Life only, said the edict of one Pope, was to be left to the sons of unbelievers, and it was only as an act of mercy that this was allowed. No recantation was allowed; pity was unknown. There was an equal division of the spoils, for half of the confiscated properties went by decree into the Papal treasury and the other half to the Inquisition. How certain individuals and certain institutions became enriched at the expense of those under them, and through what agencies, it is not difficult to imagine. And what the effect such enrichment through such methods had upon those who were its beneficiaries, the slightest knowledge of the history and conditions of those times will make apparent to all.n7257 ¶35
When the spirit of an organisation, institution, or system is crushed even temporarily under the weight of its organisation, or where it is stifled by the perversions that creep in and get a sufficient foothold, the harm that is done either in its name or directly by it, is incalculable, as is evidenced so many times in the history of the race.n7257 ¶36
“ Most intelligent persons,” says an authoritative writer, “recognise the great good religion has done, and they also recognise the great harm it has done. They remember the seas of blood Catholicism has shed, they have not forgotten the long tyranny of the Church, its bitter hostility to truth. They remind us of the savage and frightful wars which have been waged in the name of religion. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, one hundred thousand Moslems are said to have been put to the sword. ‘ They spared neither sex nor age,’ as Gibbon says, ‘ until they had killed all who denied the Saviour of the world, the Prince of Peace.’ Who knows how many thousands were tortured to death in the Inquisition? It is estimated that the Thirty Years’ War cost Germany nearly three-fourths of her population. The truth of this indictment, the most serious on which our religion can be arraigned, the wickedness of its own past, cannot be denied. Those atrocious acts, that persecution of truth, those fearful crimes against God and man, must ever remain the darkest stain, upon the Christian religion, and to-day they constitute the most valid objection in the minds of educated men to enrolling themselves under Christ’s banner. Heavy indeed must be the good deeds that outweigh such a multitude of crimes. But though these deeds were performed in the name of the Christian religion, can any one pretend that they were done in its spirit? Will any one say that Jesus looked with approbation on the Inquisition or the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s? All the evils that were wrought by Christianity were wrought in defiance of its real principles. All harmful elements in any religion arise from what is false in that religion.” *n7257 ¶37
Things and conditions, however, do not remain always the same. The worm turns. Changes come. Spirits too indomitable to be crushed arise. The people regain faith in themselves sufficiently at least to follow a leader of adequate force.n7257 ¶38
Luther appears in the early part of the sixteenth century. The Church has gotten beyond its persecution stage. The people as well as its own leaders will stand for it no longer.n7257 ¶39
Its inheritance, however, from its organiser, Rome,—its desire-for-gain inheritance,—crops out again in other forms. It pushes it into the most brazen practices in the sale of indulgences and things of a similar nature.n7257 ¶40
These were so publicly and so powerfully protested against by Luther and his associates and followers, that the Reformation took form, and we have the beginning of the Protestant Churches of Christendom. It was from this same beginning, then, that practically every orthodox Church in Christendom to-day has come. Many things, of course, have dropped from them, but their original foundation was the same.n7257 ¶41
So likewise for a number of centuries the attitude of the organised church toward knowledge, learning, science, and investigation presents a very dark and unenviable picture. We have but to recall the names of Galileo, Bruno, Copernicus, Kepler, and others that readily come to mind to realise this. Strange is the antithesis between “‘ Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” as given utterance to by the Church’s nominal head, and the persecution of those who were the embodiments of this principle—leaders of the people out of ignorance into light and, therefore, into freedom. Large is the list of these Godinspired men—*“ Restless spirits and impious heretics ”—who, under the direct command or with the sanction of the Church, were compelled to undergo all types of persecutions and infamies.n7257 ¶42
Almost every type of excess was resorted to as always occurs when individuals or institutions attempt to dominate others in thought, in religion, in life. So through a number of centuries all initiative and all independence of thought was crushed; whenever any torchbearer arose who by any new or different or more advanced ideas would threaten the hold of the Church upon the people, he was thwarted or silenced. Ignorance and superstition are the fertile field for all such domination. The pages of history that deal with these matters are sorry ones indeed.n7257 ¶43
I am citing these facts not merely for the sake of citing them, but to show that wherever and whenever the organisation becomes the matter of chief concern, the spirit always suffers. These persecutions and inquisitions were carried on under the authority of the Christian Church; but the real spirit underlying Christianity, and those, therefore, who were animated by this spirit, had nothing to do with them.n7257 ¶44
For centuries all religious leadership was through the dictation of an infallible Pope of Roman origin. An advancing civilisation, coming along very slowly but with gradually healthier and more pronounced ideas and a wider learning, in time stripped authority from him. At first he was stripped of civil authority, and now even in religious matters, there are very few who recognise any element of the infallible. An infallible Pope was followed on the part of the Protestant churches by an infallible Bible. For a long period no question in connection with its absolute infallibility could be raised by any except they were “ infidels ” or “ atheists.” There could be no distinction made as to one part or portion in comparison with any other. But with increased knowledge and with continually increasing facilities for knowledge, a great change is not only setting in, but has already set in and is now advancing very rapidly. A great sifting and reconstruction process is now going on. The Bible is not losing by this; but is rather gaining in its vitalising influence upon men’s lives, and as they are understanding its real nature and its contents better, intelligent men and women are valuing it ever more highly. Instead of an infallible Bible at many places unintelligible and perplexing to all thinking men and women, and, therefore, a stumbling block to many, we are getting a Bible that is receiving a deeper reverence from all because it is becoming more intelligible to all.n7257 ¶45
SCIENCE AND MODERN RESEARCH IN THEIR VERDICT ON AN INFALLIBLE POPE, BIBLE, AND CHURCH: THE MYTH OF THE “FALL OF MAN”n7257 ¶46
Modern scientific research, the findings of the science of Evolution, Higher Criticism, and the uncoverings and findings of Archzology during the past fifty years have all combined to do away with an infallible Bible in the old accepted sense of the term. They have not touched the fact of inspiration in connection with it, but they have touched the fact that the degree of inspiration in various portions of it differs greatly. There can be no place in a continually evolving and still growing world for an infallible Bible, any more than there can be for an infallible church or an infallible religion.n7257 ¶47
While great changes have come about on the part of thinking men and women everywhere in their attitude toward the Bible, a still greater change has come about in regard to the Church. It no longer speaks with the authority it once spoke with. It fails, comparatively speaking, in its appeal to the great working classes. Thinking men and women in continually increasing numbers are standing outside of it. Hosts of those who have been in it have become indifferent to it. If they have not been in it, they are not being drawn to it. In both cases it is not that they are opposed to it—they are simply indifferent towards it. The rural churches throughout almost all parts of the country, numbering thousands upon thousands, are, with rare exceptions, either dwindling in their memberships or are having hard work to hold their own. Here is a great institution with some of the most splendid men in the world as ministers and workers, that is way below par, so to speak, but with a wonderful field of activity lying before it,n7257 ¶48
In the meantime young men and women growing up by the hundreds of thousands all over the country, are not being attracted to it. They have questionings and longings and needs and problems that are finding but inadequate means of being answered or fulfilled. They are as sheep without a shepherd. They constitute a great potential army for righteousness, without leaders adequately equipped for leading them. Something is unquestionably at fault.n7257 ¶49
Says an alive American minister in a very interesting and suggestive book recently published: * “The second general statement I want to make, is that we must not allow ourselves to be misled by optimistic statistics that seem to show that church attendance is as common and numerous as ever. We will gain nothing by deceiving ourselves in this particular. Now and then we hear it asserted that the Church is not losing its hold upon the people; that there is as much interest in the Church to-day as there ever was. This, it has been well said, is a ‘case of whistling through a graveyard on a dark night.’ No, let us not deceive ourselves by allowing our wishes and desires to supplant our judgment. The fact is undeniable, both in America and Great Britain, that church attendance has steadily and seriously fallen off. I have just laid down a book, recently published, containing a symposium by leading English churchmen and laymen, on the theme of ‘ Non-Church-Going, Its Reasons and Remedies,’ which shows that the condition we face here is not local, but general in all Christian lands. There is only one statesmanlike thing for the Church to do, namely, to recognise the facts as they actually are, to face them fairly, to adapt itself to the new condi-n7257 ¶50
*“ Smith and the Church,” by Harry H. Beattys, D.D... Frederick A. Stokes Co, tions, and then to throw itself into the mastering of the situation with unabated courage and undiminished faith.”n7257 ¶51
What, then, is the matter? It is not a lack of interest in religion, for religion has an eternal appeal to the minds and souls of men. The greater our advance in civilisation, the greater are our questionings and the greater are our desires to stand in some definite intimate relation with God. It is not on account of a lack of interest or of faith in Jesus, because as he is being better understood, his life and his message and his personality are making a continually stronger appeal to the minds and hearts of all kinds and conditions of men.n7257 ¶52
The working classes can’t understand the mysterious convolutions of the theology of organised religion ; but the carpenter of Nazareth —one of them—with his simple life and Gospel, they have a profound admiration and respect for. Thinking men and women who also can’t fully understand, or who have grown careless and indifferent to the pre-medizval theological systems and dogmas of present-day orthodox Christianity, are beginning to interpret the life and the teachings of Jesus for themselves.n7257 ¶53
Freed from the incubus of speculation about him, they are finding new inspirations and lifegiving powers in the teachings and injunctions given by him. All classes revere, honour, and love the Judzan teacher. They are finding the inspiration of his wonderful life and the inspiration of his teachings of ever-increasing value. But they want the Carpenter of Nazareth, whom they want to interpret for themselves, and not a Cesarised, Imperialised, Roman enigma. They don’t want a Christianity to save them from the wrath of God; for the element of fear has lost its hold and has gone for ever—they are taking their chances rather on the divinity of man.n7257 ¶54
The Fall of Man they are relegating to the realm of mythology, where it had its origin and where it always should have been kept. Life is so real now that they want a living, truth-bringing, sympathising Jesus whose inspirations and whose teachings are of help to struggling everyday life. They want to be sure also that the Church is honest in both its tenets and its motives, and that it hasn’t any ulterior motives—that its interest is really in human souls, and not in an increased or increasing membership.n7257 ¶55
We have reached a new age, a new efa, where fear, tradition, authority must prove itself, must show its credentials, or drop completely into the background, and remain simply as a feature of the past, marking the way up which mankind has been slowly coming. When it comes to religion the great majority of men cannot be any longer coerced or cajoled by, or satisfied with any beliefs or dogmas of mystery. Mighty truths have come to light during the past several decades, and others are rapidly coming. Men are more interested in “the moving and flowing present ” and in the future only as it naturally emerges from it, than in the dead, medizval, or even pre-medizval past, although it has been a portion of the steep up which the race has haltingly climbed.n7257 ¶56
The race mind, on account of generations, even centuries of traditional beliefs and teachings, has held to some strange concepts; and the only way we can account for our own beliefs in some of the almost unbelievable things pertaining to religion and to Christianity that we have believed in, or that we have never been quite sure that we never did believe in, is that from our infancy and on through early youth—the impressionable time of life when questionings and a stirring of the religious sense and a certain element of fear are most in evidence—we have lived in the midst of these dogmas and beliefs, and they came almost or quite as a matter of course. In this light they are easily understood. But a new time, different from any in the world’s history has come, and we are in possession of an entirely different as well as an enlarged set of data. We are farther away than ever from the age of mythology, from the age of tradition, and from the age of dogma.n7257 ¶57
We don’t take the astronomy, the medicine, the geography of 1413 or of 1513—why should we take its religion ?—something that far more vitally concerns us than astronomy, or medicine, or geography. Even the clergy repeat with reservation many things that had their origin long before 1413 or 1513, but that have clung with a sort of stifling hold to the Christian religion of 1913. Some of them we now know are not true, and some are totally valueless to-day—why not then be brave enough to drop them?n7257 ¶58
Mythology was early man’s imaginative way of accounting for phenomena or occurrences that he had not information or knowledge sufficient to explain in any other way. To him it was fact and very important fact. It indicates his state of mental development and advancement. As such, an acquaintance with these early mythological tales is exceedingly interesting and stimulating. Many such imaginative explanations of things took for many generations the form of fact and remained as such until a greater fund of knowledge was gradually accumulated. Sometimes again they remained as fact much longer than we can now believe it possible for them to remain.n7257 ¶59
Suppose a young man, highly intelligent, from some part of the globe where the people had never come in contact with any of the institutions or with any of the prevailing beliefs of what we term Christian countries, America, for example, should one day come, and a story identical with or kindred to the following should be told him: A long time ago, several thousand years it was, before anything existed, God the Creator, created the heavens and the earth and all things in them: the waters around the earth and all things in them. This took him five full days. Then on the sixth day, out of the dust of the earth that he had just created, he created the first man and gave the name Adam to him. Then from a portion of Adam’s body—from a rib that he took out of his side after he had cast him into a deep sleep, he created a woman, to whom he gave the name Eve. They were both completed on this day. God was pleased with what he had done, for he had already stated his intention of creating them in his own image, and they were to be his children—the first parents of all his children.n7257 ¶60
He then placed them in a very beautiful spot —it was a beautiful garden where were all kinds of beautiful trees, with streams of crystal water, and every surrounding was a thing of beauty and delight. In the garden were all manner of fruit trees, already bearing fruit and ready to eat.n7257 ¶61
They were given permission to gather and eat the fruit of all the trees—except one. If they ate of this one, it would be the means of giving them a certain knowledge that for some reason God did not want them to have—at least not then. He then left them, pleased with them and loving them as a Father naturally would. While he was away a serpent, evidently overhearing God telling the man and the woman that they should not eat of the fruit of the One Tree, came along and asked the woman if God had said that they should not eat of every tree of this garden. She replied that they were to eat of the trees of the garden —but of the tree which was in the midst of the garden they should not eat, nor were they to touch it lest they die. Thereupon the serpent said to the woman that they surely would not die, for God knew that when they ate of it then their eyes would be opened, and they would be as gods, knowing good and evil.n7257 ¶62
Both of them being without experience of any kind, and not knowing whether the serpent was advising them wisely or unwisely, whether it was a friend or a foe, they did pick and eat of this tree, apple, or pear, or pomegranate, or possibly fig, for the story says that soon after this they made aprons for themselves by sewing fig-leaves together. Soon after this God returned and immediately recognised the fact that they had eaten of the fruit of the tree that he had given them orders not to eat of. Adam became very much afraid and confessed that he had eaten of the fruit, but blamed it on Eve, saying that he had eaten of it because Eve persuaded him to, although he was the older and naturally should not have done it merely because the woman had given it to him. But God became instantly very angry, so angry that he cursed the serpent and sent it away saying: “upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.n7257 ¶63
He then turned the man and the woman out of this beautiful garden, and making it impossible for them to return, he condemned them to everlasting punishment; no mercy was to be shown them even if they repented of their great and awful sin. He was so angry that he pronounced like condemnation upon the children of Adam and Eve that were still unborn, and likewise upon their children and their children’s children through all eternity—or at least until such time as he should repent of his act and get over his anger, and, longing for the return of his children to him so strongly he would establish some method whereby his great and awful anger could be appeased, and a reconciliation could be brought about between them again. Then, for some thousands of years, millions of his children were born and lived, and dying went into this eternal punishment because of this one act of disobedience on the part of this their common first parents.n7257 ¶64
Finally God did repent himself—because of his great love for his children—and he then sent his Son, who was with him, to the earth to be born here of an earthly mother, but not according to his established laws of all birth. His son was to appease his anger by taking upon himself the sins of all the people of the earth. He then brought it about that he was to be put to death by being nailed to a cross, which was the established method of executing slaves and felons that one numerous branch of his children on the earth had in the meantime adopted. For all those who believed that God’s son bore their sins, God’s condemnation was raised, and they were to be saved from this eternal punishment. Those who did not believe were still to remain under the condemnation, and dying, were to go as those before them into the everlasting punishment—because of the sin and degradation that fell upon them, coming down through the ages, on account of the disobedience of their first parents in eating the fruit that they were told not to eat.n7257 ¶65
Infants and very young children who couldn’t understand this, or who couldn’t do anybel oa thing for themselves, were also to meet with this punishment, unless their parents succeeded in getting them to a church or to a priest to be baptised before they died. Those whose parents neglected this, were to share the same fate as those whose parents didn’t get them there in time. It was in this way that the Fall of Man came about. I am sure that our friend from Somewhere would be pleased with what he would regard as an interesting mythological tale. Intimate to him that centuries ago this was taken and made the very foundation of the religious System of all Christendom, and remains so to this day, and he would be sceptical as to your statement. Tell him that it is a positive fact, and he would be astounded. The creeds of the Roman Catholic, of the Greek Catholic, and of practically all Protestant churches in the world, are based upon the following: that man is estranged from God and fallen.n7257 ¶66
This estrangement and this Fall of Man came about through the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in that while still in the Garden of Eden they ate of the fruit of a certain tree that God had commanded them not to eat of; that man is, therefore, sinful and lost, and it is only by some form of vicarious atonement that he can be reconciled to the father and saved from the consequences of his fall; that God then sent his son Jesus who was to take upon himself the sins of the world; that Jesus was crucified and was buried, that he arose from the dead, and now sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead; that for those who would be re- _ deemed and saved it is necessary to believen7257 ¶67
all of this. Whoever will repent and believe this, will be saved from the consequences of his own sin and from the consequences of the original sin.n7257 ¶68
In reply to the question in one of our Catechisms: “ How many things are necessary for thee to know, in order that thou, in this comfort, mayest live and die happily?” the following answer is given: “ Three things: First, how great my sin and misery are; secondly, how I may be redeemed from all my sins and misery ; and, thirdly, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.”n7257 ¶69
In reply to the question: “ Whence then cometh this depraved nature of man?” the following answer is given: “From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise; hence our nature hath become so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin.”n7257 ¶70
Universally accepted modern science has shown us that Genesis in its interesting and poetic account of the first six days of Creation during which the “ Fall of Man” took place, was the imaginative effort on the part of the writer of Genesis to account for a series of facts that must be accounted for, and they were accounted for in the most natural, and in fact, the only possible way at the time.n7257 ¶71
Some fifty years ago Darwin, after he made his deductions in connection with his theory of Evolution—which marked one of the great epochs in the world’s advancement in knowledge—showed that instead of man’s being there at the time of the occurrence of the Genesis account, it was many thousands of years or even ages before he appeared on the scene at all. Hence he wasn’t there—in or near the Garden of Eden—during the first six days of the Creation, to fall by his own volition or by a prearranged plan of God, who, being displeased and angry with him, condemned him to eternal perdition unless some possible way could in time be worked out whereby his great anger might be appeased. How easy to trace the workings of the early mythological mind in this as in so many other cases.n7257 ¶72
Then according to the Genesis account upon . which one of the very foundations of even modern theology is built, it took God several thousand years to work out a way whereby his children could be saved from this initial blunder of one inexperienced man and woman. The old accounts give the total age of the world as some six thousand years—four thousand from Adam to Jesus, and two thousand from Jesus’ time to the present. It is indeed saddening to think of all the millions of people in all the nations and parts of the world, who had to undergo this fate before some method of redemption was discovered and instituted.n7257 ¶73
It is not only well but it is necessary to ask if the bases of some of our modern beliefs are true. Can all the foundations upon which modern theological and Christian doctrine are founded be sustained in the light of facts that we are now in possession of? Modern science, particularly the now well-established theory of Evolution, which is accepted by all scholars and scientists of repute the world over, though they are not as yet fully agreed as to all the methods of its workings, demonstrates conclusively that many readjustments of theory to accord with facts are now necessary. It shows that the Genesis account of creation and of early man is pure imagination ; then also of necessity is the account of his “fall.” It shows, therefore, that one of the very fundamentals upon which modern theological teachings are based is fancy and not a fact. It, in connection with modern discoveries along Archeological lines, which have produced already abundant material evidence to prove that the earth is not of the age the Bible depicts, but older not only by centuries but even by zeons, has demonstrated the fact that the Bible is not an infallible book. They have not demonstrated the fact that it is not an inspired book, at least in its chief portions, but that it is not infallible.n7257 ¶74
Recent discoveries in archeology under the patient toil of eminent men in its field, have brought to light the fact that civilisation has succeeded civilisation to such an extent that we have to go infinitely farther back than the Bible indicates, even in tracing the life of man, to say nothing of the beginnings of creation. As we have unrolled the pages of history and have come in contact with the actual remains of the accompaniments of man’s endeavours, we have discovered almost undreamed of chains of facts. Step by step, as excavation has followed excavation, we have found the actual remains of one civilisation built upon the hidden remains of the civilisation that immediately preceded it.n7257 ¶75
The antiquity of the race has gradually been brought to light “in libraries made of ancient tiles which had long outlived their makers, in fragments of ancient architecture from city after city buried one below the other, and each succeeding city shut off from its predecessors by ruins, by solid earth which intervened between each pair. In these ways ever being confirmed by new investigations, by these physical methods which appeal to the physical mind of men, the existence of those old civilisations was proved, and none now ventures to deny that well-nigh endless past of civilised man.”n7257 ¶76
Comparatively recent explorations and excavations have also brought to light additional facts in connection with New Testament accounts, some pertaining even to the life and the direct sayings of Jesus. They may yet bring to light, as some expect, facts and material that may make an entire reconstruction of the New Testament and of the prevailing accounts of Jesus, absolutely necessary. They have helped to make a reconstruction of the Old Testament necessary, and it is not at all improbable that they will make at least some radical changes in the construction of the New necessary.n7257 ¶77
Their findings have produced facts of such a material and concrete nature that there is no choice but to accept them. They cannot be explained away or discredited as was attempted at first by some of the upholders of our present theological systems in connection with Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Finding, however, that Darwin’s deductions are not built upon “‘ materialism,” that they do not deny the existence and the power of God, but that they have merely brought to light the way in which God works—the systems of immutable and unchangeable laws whereby he not only has worked, but is continually working, in the process of creation—the early antagonism has abated. Some also are finding, and with gladness, that it is making God and his wondrous works more intelligible and more interesting and inspiring. God’s laws are ever working, and it took a Darwin to interpret to us some of their methods. Instead of being a sustainer of materialism and, therefore, of atheism, Darwin’s findings, linked with those of Huxley and Agassiz and others, are all powerful in leading men to a divine Creator working with infinite system and order and plan through the instrumentality of great spiritual forces. Says an able and thoughtful writer:n7257 ¶78
“ Ultimately science confirms and inspires all | the upward-reaching thought of man and deepens the conviction that the primal germ is not an atom but an unseen spiritual force. ‘ All things are parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul.’ A remarkable thing it is that atheism, after trailing its black length for centuries across European thought, should have its doom pronounced by scientists and not by theologians. . . .n7257 ¶79
“The process by which all things have come to be what they are is worthy of our deepest reflection; for by this token may we hope to solve the question of what shall be. Was creation an instantaneous act occurring six thousand years ago, or is it an age-long process begun in the dim infancy of time, with no chapter of its bewildering story finished, and a likelihood that centuries will pass before the tale is fully told? The first view is supported by the Biblical story, reinforced by the Dantean and Miltonic theories—the latter view is supported by five decades of scientific re-n7257 ¶80
“Note the contrasts. The traditional Deity is an omnipotent magician and creation is the “spasmodic vehemence of an infinite Jove ’— a melodramatic eruption outside of nature. Science relates an orderly unfolding within nature—a process of development suggesting the work of an intelligent mind. No discovery in human history has so revolutionised the thought of mankind. One only approaches it in magnitude—the Copernican theory of the universe. That, however, had to do with inanimate nature, while this involves every living creature, even man himself. Galileo for astronomy declared that the world of matter moved from west to east ; Darwin for evolution, that the world of life moved from lower to higher. This is the last and most splendid contribution of science to the intelligence, the hope and faith of the world: . . . The new declaration is of a God immanent in nature, while he transcends it, identified with his world, always creating and revealing himself, always inspiring men who aspire after him, and always inseparably joined with the destiny of his creatures. He can no more be apart from the world than a fountain can separate itself from the stream that flows from it. . . . There are no traces of any downward march from a higher state, except in dogmatic theology, but abundant evidence that man has been slowly climbing with the climbing world out of animality up to his destined inheritance as a child of God. His animal passions witness his relation to the brute race; his persistent effort to overcome them is evidence of his rise to manhood.n7257 ¶81
“ Rising from the animal to the human, from sensuousness to spirituality is a far sublimer truth than the Church doctrine of plunging from a pinnacle of innocence to an abyss of depravity. . . . Science and religion are twin companions in the march of evolutionary progress. Apart they are detached polarities ; united they are a dynamo of inspiration—religion scientific in method, science religious in spirit.n7257 ¶82
“This dream of the Infinite, how uplifting to the imagination! This key of higher evolution unlocking the enigma of life! That out of the image made of earth the image of God should slowly appear; that up the ‘ world’s great altar stairs’ man climbs into conscious sonship with God. His animal lust transformed into love, his proneness to sin into a ‘ passion for righteousness,’ his selfishness and greed into an enthusiasm of humanity. Man is the meaning of the whole universe. And the end is not yet. God is in no haste. He takes months to grow and ripen an apple, ten thousand years to make a ton of coal, uncounted zons to create a man with a brain like Plato’s, and a heart like the Lord Christ’s.” *n7257 ¶83
The world scarcely yet fully appreciates the great service that Darwin has rendered to science, to real religion, and to the general advancement of human thought and progress. The Church, as usual, charged him with atheism, irreligion, and as being a leader of men away from God. He, however, went quietly on his way making no reply, with full faith that the world of real thought would soon be along to his vantage ground, and a little later be using it as a fresh starting-point for reading God’s thoughts after him.n7257 ¶84
It is strange that the Church cannot learn from history—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler,n7257 ¶85
* George Alexander Smith, A.M., in “ The Nautilus.”n7257 ¶86
Magellan, Darwin—these and hosts of others. “ Not to throw Christ’s kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies,”—was the consistory of Stuttgart’s first warning to Kepler. The discovery of new facts concerning the earth and its movements might make unstable some of the foundations on which the orthodox religion of the day was built. Biblical accounts always spoke of the sun and other heavenly bodies, except the earth, as moving. The Bible was infallible, was used as the basis of an infallible church, and its accounts were, therefore, beyond contradiction.n7257 ¶87
By 1546 Copernicus—the father of modern astronomy—had proved alone and without instruments, the earth’s rotation on its axis. He was at once an enemy of the Church. Nearly a hundred years after—in 1610—Galileo with his new telescope actually saw the four moons revolving about Jupiter, proving a miniature Copernican system. The movement of the earth was getting to be too serious a thing. Some time later—toward the close of his life— a paper is drawn up by the Church authorities for Galileo to sign or to bear witness to. “I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on my knees, and before your eminence, having before my eyes the holy gospel which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.” He perhaps valued life more than the influence that such a statement would have upon the actual rotation of the earth, and he was quite willing, under the circumstances, to subscribe to the falsity of such a heresy. .n7257 ¶88
The antagonism to Darwin was not so intense, for the world has advanced greatly in thought, and there are certain things it will no longer stand for. Even the terms “ Atheist ” and “Infidel” have lost much of their sting. As time has passed the Church itself as well as all mankind has come to recognise its debt of gratitude to some formerly referred to in these terms. “Their atheisms and agnosticisms were at most but the rejection of definitions, and their disbelief only of dogmas that affront human reason and belie human consciousness. The scientists are disarming the warriors against the faith.” It is strange and it is pitiable that in practically every great advance in the world’s thought, the Church has had to put itself on the defensive and has fought, only to be beaten as it invariably has been. Up to the present time at least it has always lagged just a little behind, instead of being a leader of men. Does this indicate something radically wrong or unsound as to the basis it has been built upon? I believe it does. Will it some time lead instead of following? After the great change comes that must inevitably come and come soon, I believe it will.n7257 ¶89
Any fears that truth can be unseated, indicates that we do not yet know the real nature of truth. Anything, on the other hand, that is not fully founded upon truth will not stand, and the quicker the transition is made to another foundation the more stable and enduring will be the structure. Any organisation that does not keep itself open always to the living and flowing present becomes necessarily dead in its influence upon men, although its form still maintains a semblance of life. It is a strange fact that intelligent men who will not take their science from an antiquated or medizval past, will take their religion, or rather a statement of their confession or beliefs of religion, from a time long antedating even the dark ages.n7257 ¶90