Part 1 (1/2)

Modern Subst.i.tutes for Christianity.

by Pearson McAdam Muir.

I

POPULAR IMPEACHMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY

That there is at present a widespread alienation from the Christian Faith can hardly be denied. Sometimes by violent invective, sometimes by quiet a.s.sumption, the conclusion is conveyed that Christianity is obsolete. Whatever benefits it may have conferred in rude, unenlightened ages, it is now outgrown, it is not in keeping with the science and discovery of modern times. 'The good Lord Jesus has had His day,'[1] is murmured in pitying condescension towards those who still suffer themselves to be deceived by the antiquated superst.i.tion.

The statements in which our forefathers embodied the relations {4} between G.o.d and man are no longer, except by a very few, considered adequate; and there is everywhere a demand that those statements should be recast. Is not all this an irresistible proof that the beliefs of the Church have been abandoned, that the old notions of the Divine care, the spiritual world, the everlasting life, cannot be maintained, must be relegated to the realm of imagination? The blessings with which Christianity is commonly credited spring from other sources: the evils with which society is infected are its result, direct or indirect.

I

Such accusations, it may occur to us, cannot be made seriously: they bear their refutation in the very making; they cannot be propounded with any expectation of being accepted. This may seem self-evident to us: it is not self-evident to mult.i.tudes of eager, {5} earnest men.

The accusations are persistently made by vigorous writers and impa.s.sioned speakers, and are received as incontrovertible propositions. However astonis.h.i.+ng, however painful, it may be for us to hear, it is well that we should know, what, in largely circulated books and periodicals, and in ma.s.s meetings of the people, is said about the Faith which we profess, and about us who profess it.

Listen to some of the terms in which Christianity is impeached.

'I undertake,' says Mr. Winwood Reade, 'I undertake to show that the destruction of Christianity is essential to the interests of civilisation; and also that man will never attain his full powers as a moral being, until he has ceased to believe in a personal G.o.d, and in the immortality of the soul. Christianity must be destroyed.'[2]

'The hostile evidence,' says Mr. Philip {6} Vivian, 'appears to be overwhelming. Christianity cannot be true. Provided that we see things as they really are, and not as we wish them to be, we cannot but come to this conclusion. We cannot get away from facts. Modern knowledge forces us to admit that the Christian Faith cannot be true.'[3]

'I want,' exclaims Mr. Vivian Carey, who has apparently, like Lord Herbert of Cherbury, received a revelation to prove that no revelation has been given, 'I want to destroy the fetich of centuries and to instil in its place a life of duty, and of faith in G.o.d and man, and I believe there is a power that has impelled me to attempt this task....

A system that has produced such results must be essentially bad.... It will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion that will serve the needs of humanity, where Christianity has so deplorably failed.'[4]

{7}

'If Christianity,' argues Mr. Charles Watts, 'were potent for good, that good would have been displayed ere now.... The ties of domestic affection, the bonds of the social compact, the political relations of rulers and ruled, all have surrendered themselves to its influence.

Yet with all these advantages, it has proved unable to keep pace with a progressive civilisation.'[5]

'In a really humane and civilised nation,' Mr. Robert Blatchford contends, 'there should be and need be no such thing as Ignorance, Crime, Idleness, War, Slavery, Hate, Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Vice. But this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its religion. These are my reasons for opposing Christianity.'[6] 'Christianity,' he iterates and reiterates, 'is not true.'[7]

'Onward, ye children of the new Faith!' {8} exultantly cries Mr.

Moncure D. Conway. 'The sun of Christendom hastes to its setting, but the hope never sets of those who know that the sunset here is a sunrise there!'[8]

Such is the manner in which the downfall of Christianity is now proclaimed. And the impression is prevalent that, though in all ages Christianity has been the object of doubt and of scorn, yet never has it been rejected with such intensity of hatred as now, never have keen criticism and deep earnestness, wide learning and shrewd mother-wit been so combined in the attack. It is not merely the reckless, the dissolute, the frivolous who turn away from its reproofs, seeking excuses for their self-indulgence, but it is the thoughtful, the austere, the high-principled, the reverent, the unselfish, who are engaged in a crusade against all that we, as Christians, hold dear.

'To the old spirit of mockery, coa.r.s.e or refined, to the old wrangle of argument, {9} also coa.r.s.e or refined, has succeeded the spirit of grave, measured, determined negation.'[9] Men whose integrity and elevation of character are beyond suspicion, take their places among the rebels against the authority of Christ. They are fighting, they a.s.sert, not for the removal of a check to their vices, but for the introduction of a n.o.bler ideal. In the demolition of Christianity, in the sweeping away of every vestige of religious belief, religious custom, religious hope, they imagine themselves to be conferring inestimable benefits upon mankind. Christianity, in their view, is the product of delusion and the b.u.t.tress of all social ills.

II

The contrast which so many are drawing between the present and the past is not a little exaggerated. There have been few periods in which Christianity has not been the {10} object of animadversion and attack, in which its speedy downfall has not been confidently predicted. It was two hundred years ago that Dean Swift wrote _An Argument to prove that the Abolis.h.i.+ng of Christianity in England may, as things now stand, be attended with some Inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby_': the Dean, with scathing sarcasm, ridiculing at once the conventional customs by which Christianity was misrepresented, and the supercilious ignorance which a.s.sumed that it was extinct.[10] It was about a quarter of a century later that Bishop Butler, in the advertis.e.m.e.nt to his _a.n.a.logy of Religion to the Const.i.tution and Course of Nature_, stated, 'It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fict.i.tious. And accordingly they treat it as if, {11} in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a princ.i.p.al subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.' And the Bishop drily gave as the aim of the _a.n.a.logy_: 'Thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted but proved, that any reasonable man who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much a.s.sured as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case that there is nothing in it.'

The a.s.sumption that Christianity is a thing of the past can hardly be more prevalent now than it was then; and the groundlessness of the a.s.sumption then may lead to the conclusion that the a.s.sumption is equally groundless now. Since the days of Butler or of Swift, the progress of Christianity has not ceased: its developments of thought and {12} life have been among the most remarkable in its whole career.

The exultation over its decay in the twentieth century may possibly be found as premature and as vain as the exultation over its decay in the eighteenth century, or in any of the centuries which have gone before.

III

The most popular impeachments of Christianity are mainly these.