Organized Christianity

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Chapter I

What is the matter with- the Protestant and Evangelical Churches of the twentieth century ?

One thing is certain ; there is an evident, widespread, profound disappointment in the spiritual developments of the last seven years. The "Great Awakening" is indefinitely postponed, the "Forward Movement" malts, and in this autumn of nineteen hundred and seven there is an ominous hush — a pervading sense of uncertainty and perplexity with no inspiration of intelligent hope from the past, and no promise of intelligent hope from the future. It is as if the disciples had toiled all the night and taken nothing, and then when the morning was now come and they were weary, dreary and hungry, there was no cheering", assuring voice of the Master, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship and ye shall find."

At the opening of the century, men said, "The Kingdom of God is at hand; the entire world at last awaits the messenger of redemption — Heaven as always with its truth and grace, earth as never before, with its contributions of thought and all facilities, proffer boundless resources and afford boundless encouragement."

And necessity as well as opportunity, demand as well as supply, were conspicuously evident. Japan, China and other non-Christian nations were not only in sin and misery as ever before, but were passing all determining crises of their political and religious life. With them at last, "one day" of present opportunity was as "a thousand years." Moreover, necessity was upon the Church from within. Educated young men to an astounding degree turned aside from the ministry. Rationalism was emasculating her creeds. Destructive criticism was discrediting her Sacred Book. Church members were prevailingly worldly and not unfrequently rascally. Her pulpits in general had lost power in Church and world alike.

And the darkness over Church and world alike, that could be felt, was felt and reckoned upon as at once demanding and presaging the dawn — the morning dawn of brighter things — even the "Great Twentieth Century Revival !" Nor were there lacking men and measures, leaders and schemes for its realization.

In the fall of 1900, Mr. William Phillips Hall (partly in the name of what Mr. Moody was supposed to intend to do), with others, having indeed religious fervor and evangelical ideas and business energy and methods and highly confident predictions (yet on the fatal basis of "existing organizations"), notoriously failed of any "twentieth century" success.

J. Wilbur Chapman followed with unlimited financial support, General Assembly patronage, 3 thorough organization, untiring energy. And then \Y. J. Dawson, of London, with his "culture," and R. A. Torrey with his Bible soundness and severity and zeal, and next Gipsy Smith, with gospel truth and exciting power, calling saints and sinners to ''listen." These indeed did not "labor in vain in the Lord," but they did conspicuously fail to organize the exodus and lead Israel out of Egypt.

Upon all of which the Rains Horn significantly comments : "An apostasy or a revival ! That is the alternative which the Christian Church is facing. For nearly twenty years we have been marking time, but we have not been making progress. True, we have been adding wealth and numbers, but we have not been gaining power. Sporadic revivals break out in places, but evangelism does not spread like a holy contagion. There is no use blinking facts. Conditions are serious. But they are exceptional. Compared with those of some previous ] eriods they are discouraging, but compared 4 with other epochs they appear far from hopeless. The march of the Kingdom seems to be measured by the ebb and flow of the spiritual tide. To-day the tide is low. It has been falling- steadily # since the stirring days of Dwight L. Moody. There are many signs that low-water mark has been registered, and that henceforth we will see a rising flood. God is calling the Church and individual Christians to higher walks of faith and duty. It must be either advance or apostasy. We cannot stand still."

And listen to Congregational testimony : "Therefore there comes to-day a mighty call to the Church to save the life of the nation in saving its own life. Of the seriousness of this juncture there can be no question. I am content to be called an alarmist if you will. There are times when the watchman must blow the trumpet and warn the people. I believe that my habit is sufficiently optimistic, but optimism is treachery. It is not well with the Church 5 this day; it is ill with the Church. Her grip is loosening, her energies are flagging ; there is a perceptible slackening in her progress. Something is wrong and every thoughtful man knows it. Something is wrong with our evangelism. What is it? Is it the higher criticism and the new theology? Read Dr. Brown's sober, searching, candid review of the Chapman meetings in Oakland: 'All the churches, of every name, cooperated most cordially. These churches were crowded (with church members) every day for weeks; the theology of all the preaching was above suspicion ; the higher criticism was put to shame, and sociology was not so much as mentioned; but the great outside multitude, the multitude of the unchurched, was practically untouched.' "

And here is Episcopal testimony ; "I am in

favor of a change. I do not know what is the

best way of doing things in the churches, but

I know the way we are doing now is not the best way, or the world would be nearer its salvation than it seems to be."

And the Presbyterian : "Now to be wholly frank in so momentous a matter, in the present attitude and aim and effort of the ministry there is not even a shadow of hope for the lost world of this generation, even if there be for any of the next ten generations. The awful outlook of a thousand millions of the human race passing on to hopeless death, has the dreadful promise of being monotonously repeated with each successive generation, away into the indefinite future! Is not this the real state of the case? And if so, is it not high time to 'awake out of sleep' — this sleep of death? If God's work is to go forward at the pace set for it by Christ in the great Commission and by the 'signs of the times,' the impulse must be given by a mighty and complete transformation of the life and conception and purpose and work of the ministry. Is not that patent to every one who 7 has breadth enough of spiritual vision to take in the present conditions and needs?"

At the beginning of the century it seemed to the writer so evident that an epoch of supreme transition was at hand — and that of the "Hosts of Christ's Triumphal March, for which alone," as Dante says, "these spheres have rolled and reap their harvests" — that of these hosts, the unseen, the invisible, the celestial division was in fact already marching on, and that God was imperatively calling the earthly cohorts to fall in line and to fall in line according to His own New Testament plan of campaign, that he published in the New York Tribune of January 7, 1901, the following protest :

"To the Editor of the Tribune.

Sir : Can you put me forth a little space in which to suggest some elemental considerations to William Phillips Hall and his coadjutors in their most praiseworthy plan for a deep-

ORGAXIZED CHRISTIANITY

er religious life on the part of all of us for the twentieth century?

First — Where the divine and human are at all in rivalry, the human — as we all theoretically admit — must unconditionally surrender, and wherein God's Christianity and man's Church are in competition the Church must give way or he brought to confusion, and 'her candlestick removed out of its place' sooner or later.

Second — According to the Bible, and, indeed, the guileless honesty of all Christian prayers, men, singly or organically, are 'earthen vessels,' and until first of all and unqualifiedly polarized, in thought, heart, plans, associations to Jesus Christ, in supreme aims, and to the Holy Spirit in supreme applications and dependence, are doomed to paralysis, blundering, failure.

Third — The Apostolic Christians rose from utter weakness to world-wide power, from ignorance and feebleness to the conquest of humanity in all its extent and variety outward, 9 and its depravity downward, in setting aside everything- of creeds or ritualistic ceremonials or formulations of organization, until each and all, with a glowing passion of enthusiasm, had accepted Christ in His love and His law, as 'the Head of all things to the Church,' 'in whom all fullness dwelt,' and experienced accordingly the all corrective, all restraining, all constraining enchantment of the Holy Ghost. Their Bible, like our Bible, mentioned fasting, Sabbath observance, ordinations, baptism, the Lord's Supper, but with not a word of primary and absolute legislation as to any particulars of any of them, and to this end, that these might take their place duly in and after organization before the all preeminent Christ, and with all the infinite advantages in the determining and administration of them, that the Spirit of God would subsequently and consequently give.

This the early and victorious Christians fully understood and observed, and we, too, understand and observe it in part, and suffi- 10 ciently to condemn ourselves before earth and heaven in that we do not altogether accept it as the Apostles did. We are saying : 'Let us rise to New Testament conceptions of Christ and the Holy Ghost and the promise, the law, the liberty of them, and so organized let us then determine as to our Church fasting and prayers and praises and giving and Sabbath observance, and all sorts of particulars as to rites and creeds. Yet now, after all, let us keep back part of the price, let us have some reservations, let us hold back and organize around something for our own human glory and gratification, the celebration of our own opinions and convictions, aside from and below the heavenly heights of Christ and the Head.'

So the Presbyterian says : 'My creed, my standards first !' And the Baptist says : 'No creed but the Bible! Yet not after all entirely — not entirely the Bible plan of Christ, and the Holy Ghost first, and then ordinances — but let us have one exception, the mode and subjects ii of Baptism, first, and then Christ and the Holy- Ghost !' And, correspondingly, other sectarians make exceptions and insist on some ritualistic or historic or dogmatic name to be put in before 'the Name' which, by God's unalterable and eternal decree, is, for truth and rite and life and organization of earth, and for heaven beyond, 'above every name.'

And as a result of all this we see, for instance, in Presbyterian pulpits and at Baptist communion tables, men freely accepted who openly confess that they have no passion of heart or thought for Christ, and no imploring eagerness for the Holy Spirit's ministries, and men rejected of whom, in their quadration of quest and love and faith and zeal, as God has appointed these, 'the world is not worthy !'

Fourth — As far as appears, God cares very little for terrestrial, low-down, far-off 'unity.' What the New Testament and the present higher socialism, and thoughtful philosophers of humanity, and government commissioners 12 and army and navy commanders, returning from heathen lands, and the awakening heathen themselves demand, is a general and unqualified rallying of Christians around and for genuine Christianity — around and for the lonely, but all accessible Height of Christ, where God meets men !

Gentlemen of the twentieth century evangelism, you have your work cut out for you already. For a Christianity of power, for the fellowship of God's children, and the confession of Christ before men and the plans and organization of redemption work which belong to Christianity — Christ first, and everything after ! Until you reach His height, failure is yours, and what is more, when you have gained that strategic, that sacred, that all commanding acropolis, you will have no time or energies or appetite for — as, indeed, you will have no need for — any subordinate or rival station below.

The twentieth century preacher, in his closet and his study, consumed in prayers to !3

ORGAXIZED CHRISTIANITY

God and thoughts for God and man, and the twentieth century layman laying aside every weight' as he 'runs' and looks,' will thus 'find' his 'life,' and the Church her organization, her development, her mission, her 'joy and crown,' and thus, fully satisfied at last — how, how have all been straitened until this was accomplished ! From all directions of earth and heaven the one call is for God's Christianity. Shall we hear it?"

Yes, and from earth and heaven shall we hear, if we have ears to hear, not only the call for God's Christianity, but as well, definite and indeed revolutionary specifications under the call.

This explains the unique and illuminating career of D wight L. Moody and in this "he being dead yet speaketh," and to a degree probably not at all fully appreciated even by his own children.

Not since the days of the apostles has a man 14 anywhere on this planet been more clearly endorsed of heaven and believed in by men, as God's messenger, than he. Whether weighed in the balances of a city reporter or a humble pastor, or a cultured thinker, or Catholic in Ireland, or prelate in England, or "double distilled" Presbyterian in Scotland, or sailor on the sea, or soldier on the main, or any critical men of church or world in his own land, the one reverent verdict upon his work has been : "This is the finger of God" ; and upon himself : "He is right with God."

And now all this in what peculiar and significant twentieth century interpretations from the Heavenly Headquarters ? These :

i. That spiritual power experienced or transmitted is not confined to the highly organized, historic Churches.

2. That these have no advantage whatever in the operations of God-given power.

3. In the events and experiments of the Churches since his day, the revolutionary and startling lesson that divine power, in the appointed measure and conquests of it, will be denied to persons and establishments, in any marked degree diverging from Mr. Moody's evidently New Testament spirit and Christocentric ideals — that the one coming hope of the Church and of humanity is in Christianity as discriminated from "Churchianity" and in an evangelical creed as distinguished from denominational "standards.''

The shechinah voice of Israel in the wilderness to-day is, 'Them that honor Me, I will honor," and "You have got to confess Christ before men !"

And there are other handwritings on the wall of the ecclesiastical palace. Twenty years ago the sectarians were served with eviction notices in the providential discovery of the "Teaching of the Apostles." In this Baptists were notified that baptism by immersion only was really unscriptural ; Presbyterians that infant baptism, and teaching, as distinguished from ruling 16 elders, had no scriptural support; and Episcopalians that the three orders of Bishop, Priest and Deacon were unauthorized. Nevertheless, as it is most edifying to observe as a new illustration of the familiar fact that, as Herbert Spencer says, "organizations are rarely reformed from the inside," during all the twenty years these significant warnings of coming dispossession have been unanimously and studiously ignored by all the denominationalists. Said the small boy, reminded by the nurse of his mother's unwelcome order, "Stop 'minding me, I's trying to forget it."

And in more recent days the divine "rising up early and speaking" in these respects, has been strikingly illustrated in the publications of up-to-date and thorough-going scholars — Rudolph Sohm for example. It is scarcely conceivable that any intelligent mind-free man could read Sohm's "The Church and Its Origin in Primitive and Catholic Times," as interpreted by Walter Lowrie, without being satisfied 1/ that in a New Testament organization of Christianity there must be the vital headship of Christ in the love of God and the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit at the centers, with all matters of rite and ceremony, offices and officers, creed and code, remanded to the background — the background of Christian liberty and executive expediency. But what manner of man would the minister be who at the present day could at all accurately represent the New Testament personality ? And what the manner of the modern New Testament organization? You would probably detect a fairly accurate answer to the first question in a composite portrait of Dwight L. Moody and Richard S. Storrs, and to the second, in a slightly extended and modified Young Men's Christian Association, as all ordained and marshalled under the banner inscription, "Bible principles to please God and business principles to win men !"

It ought never to be forgotten, as quite fla- 18 grantly and frequently it undoubtedly is, that the issues of the present hour are referred to power — not so much light as power. The question of a man just now is not "Is he presumably or possibly a Christian?" but, "Is he a Christian duly experiencing and exerting power?'' Says Herbert Spencer: "An overvaluation of teaching is necessarily a concomitant of this erroneous interpretation of mind. Everywhere the cry is educate, educate, educate ! Everywhere the belief is that by such culture as schools furnish, children, and therefore adults, can be molded into the desired shapes. It is assumed that when men are taught what is right they will do what is right ; that a proposition intellectually accepted will be morally operative. Yet this conviction is contradicted by every-day experience." Yes, and spiritual facts correspond with this philosophy.

The up-to-date demand is not for any ecclesiastical unity of Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, 19

Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist and a score of others, on the basis of a minimum of possible Christian experience, but for organized unity on the basis of New Testament conditions of power. What are these — and what is, indeed, New Testament Christianity? Most portentous, delusive and pernicious are the current replies given in these days by journals, such as the Outlook and Independent, and by multitudes of more or less "new" theologians, to the simple question — What is Christianity?

Chapter II

And what is God's New Testament Christianity, as to ends and means ? The first specified end of Christian aims is the exaltation of Jesus Christ. As to this point, to be sure, analysis fails, and Christ as "All and in all," in the first stages, preempts the entire domain of a Christian's activities, as at once end and means. "For Him are all things, by Him are all things." God, indeed, has not been pleased to declare to us the philosophy of the matter — the reasons why Christ "having humbled Himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name," but the revelations of the fact glow with celestial radiance in gospels and epistles alike, and with ineffable reflections from the bright world of which, in the "glory of God," the record is, "the Lamb is the light thereof," and from art and music and philosophy and poetry and history — as well as piety and hymnology, of "this present evil world."

The first great constraint upon a Christian as to his sonship or his discipleship, is to follow Christ. This was the primal law of discipleship when He was upon the earth, and it is the same now. The present "follow me" from the celestial shores is just as plain as the "follow me" of the shores of Galilee and means the same : humble, penitential, absolute subordination, the most unqualified, enthusiastic, passionate, joyful devotion, the most unquestioning and reposeful confidence, in childlike dependence, and the most hallowed and affectionate and all constraining and all contributive personal intimacy, and ever more and more, exact imitation in character, speech, action. St. Paul, so eagerly polarized for highest, noblest aims, records "in Christ" thirty-three times.

Says Dr. Robert F. Coyle, speaking for thousands of his fellow Christians, Presbyterian and otherwise, and unconsciously portraying spiritual campaigns : "To be a Christian is first and last and midst, a personal relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. Love for Him, devotion to Him, enthronement of Him in the affections, in the will, in the whole life — that is what it means. It is the union of my soul, your soul with Christ, as the branch is in the vine and the vine in the branch. All other questions are subsidiary and unessential ; this personal relationship is vital and fundamental. . . . That is what it is to be a Christian, to be loyally, devotedly, unalterably attached to Christ. Begin there and everything else will take care of itself. Doctrines and creeds will fall into their proper places, morality will be shot through and through with life, and conversion will be a matter of daily occurrence, a daily pledge of fealty to Jesus."

But an interesting practical question emerges 23 at this point. Are Dr. Coyle and his fellow Presbyterians, and fellow Christians generally, executively consistent ? Have they attained or are they striving to attain, an organic realization of Christianity on this, their own basis — according to their own concessions — in the line of the New Testament and experimental principles what they advocate ?

•At the conclusion of a thoughtful article on "Federation," in 1902, Dr. Daniel H. Evans says : "My own 'personal conclusion is that God is exercising over the varied parts of His beloved Church, a kind and impartial supervision; and that, with a view to fulfill His desire for the paramount object of saving the world by His Spirit, He is drawing His people into tender sympathy and active cooperation ; that in the divine process of evolution, we have reached the stage of federation, and that the growth of a widespread spiritual life from within will ultimately compel the devoutly tobe-wished consummation of a real hearty and 24 holy organic union of the Church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." And at the opening he remarks : "We are not, in connection with this topic, to consider what was the original condition and the divine intention; for at first the Church was one and our Lord prayed for the unity of its members. Xor are we to dwell upon the Kingdom of God as it shall shine in the light of the millennial glory; for that union will then characterize the Church, I think all will allow. But at present, with things as they are, is union practical or even possible?

"We remember that denominational differences by lapse of time have been strengthened into traditions, and that they are fortified by conscientious interpretations of Scripture. The varying shades of theology are as fixed as the inborn temperament of men. There is besides a wide range of taste as to modes of worship which cannot be changed in a day. There is on the other hand, however, a practical possibility for the gathering of religious forces in 25 behalf of evangelical work and moral reform and civic regeneration."

But why is there this "practical possibility" for federation and not for all the ends of Christianity by the appointed New Testament plan of organization ? Because, as here in fact conceded, of men's multiform obstinacy in "denominational differences," which appear in countless "traditions" and "interpretations" and "shades of theology" and "tastes as to modes of worship." All which duly interpreted means that God is indeed now calling upon His children to unite, to organize before and for Jesus Christ, but that from numberless biases and habits of religio-intellectual self-gratification, they refuse the Saviour's divine administration of spiritual and practical headship, and do as they please.

And are not Doctors Coyle and Evans together unconsciously charging their orthodox and Trinitarian brethren with an offence closely corresponding to Unitarianism ? Yea, verily, 26 with a heterodoxy more inveterate than that of Unitarians, who do indeed subordinate the all divine Christ in the categories of the Trinity, and degrade Him from His due personal rank in the Kingdom of God? What have we here, indeed, but God's orthodox children subordinating Christ to themselves in His administrative functions?

"Organization ought to be for, and before Christ the Head," they say. "It shall be for and before our denominational difference, traditions, inborn temperaments, tastes in worship — our biases and self indulgence." Unitarians slight Christ in a false philosophy ; these in false, delusive self-esteem.

The Federation convention of November, 1905, shut the doors in the face of Unitarians, while a keen bird's ear listening to the proceedings, first to last, would have detected these unconscious deliverances :

"1. God's children are now peremptorily called to be duly organized under Christ's per- 27 sonal leadership, in the power of the Holy Spirit, for knowledge, experience, work. Organic unity is now demanded by God's word and the present-day facts.

2. They could be, only the Christians have intrenched themselves in imposing institutions, vested interests and pride of personal debate and acquired attachments. So organic unity will be difficult.

3. The thirty sets of Federators positively refuse to forego themselves and accept God and the facts, and say, 'We will enter no organization of Christianity except our thirty sets of denominational biases are provided for first' So organic unity will be impossible."

The summons of the "Next Great Awakening" will be for Unitarians and Trinitarians alike to honor Christ as God has appointed, as the first supreme objective of organized Christian thought, affection, activity, anticipation !

The second special end of New Testament Christianity is development of Christian char- 28 acter; a studied development, rapid, steady, comprehensive, symmetrical; a development of mind in the knowledge of the truth and capacity for the truth ; of soul, in faith and love mounting upward, and love and purposes pushing outward, in the happy and indeed ecstatic experience of those who are "pure in heart," and "see God."

New Testament Christianity calls for persons all aglow in the loveliness, the attractions of self-control, self-sacrifice, genial altruism and withal sunny speech from fresh and winning thought showing forth, without, as projected reflections from the transcendent "beauty of holiness" within, and for communities and assemblies pervaded, actuated, sanctified by a Zeitgeist, which is not simply parallel with and dependent upon any earth-born spirit of the times, but which is due to the educations and inspirations of God Himself!

The third end of Christian aims is Christian fellowship — the outreaching love, fruitful and 29 realized in mutual patience, forgiveness, charity, sympathy and multiform helpfulness — with fitting communion in and with the Lord, at His table and otherwise, and such speaking one to another as the Lord, hearkening, shall hear — as He opens a "book" of gracious "remembrance" and says, "They will be mine."

Fourth, Christian work: Every Christian going forth as an ambassador for Christ, constraining sinful and miserable men, near and far, to be "reconciled to God" — every Christian constraining a fellow Christian to deeper knowledge, deeper spirituality, deeper consecration. The Christian is indeed to abound in otherworldness in his character and prayers, but after all, for just this — that he may abound in this-worldness in his activities. His "life is hid with Christ in God," indeed, yet no Christian is permitted to register himself as a heavenly absentee from earth's sins and sorrows and problems, moral, social and political. His headquarters, his "heart's true home," is in heaven, 30

ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY .

but as an excitedly interested, busy, eager commuter, he must regularly come to earth for business. His heart passion may be above the world — his hand passion must be down here.

To quote from Dr. D. S. Gregory : "Who that has made the experiment, has not found greater help from the intercourse with Brainerd and McCheyne and Hannington — and just because their struggle Godward was made safe and noble by their earnest life of action — than from the contact with the fascinating and intense, but narrow, monkish, impractical, Romish spirit of the author of the 'Imitation of Christ?' "

And says Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg : "The true Church will be reformatory in social matters in exact proportion to the depth and purity and efficiency of its spirituality. It will be as natural for it to seek to promote economic equity, to purify politics, to regenerate institutions, to uplift the masses, to establish hospitals, orphan asylums and reformatories and 3i to relieve poverty and all forms of misery, as it is for the sun to shine. These 'works of God' have their warrant in the works of Christ and the apostles, in the deeds of the early Church, in the merciful activity of Christians in all ages, and in the doctrines and spirit of the New Testament."

The fifth end of New Testament Christianity is anticipating heaven, which, however, like happiness, will be realized incidentally and as an insured way-side result of due regard for Christ, holiness, unity and energetic activity.

These, plainly — according to gospels and epistles alike, and the concurrent testimony of personal piety and general Church history of all lands and all periods for nineteen hundred years — are the ends of New Testament Christianity.

But what of the means ? Of course anybody,

anything — a flower, a bird, a laughing child, a

conceited scientist or self-satisfied philosopher,