ANGLICAN MODERNISM

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2127, 20 April 1914, Page 6

ANGLICAN MODERNISM

THE RESURRECTION

FOOTNOTES TO THE CREEDS

VIEWS OF REV. A. M. JOHNSON. Modernist views regarding the Insurrection of Christ, which woro referred to in Saturday's Dohixion, luitler tho heading'of' "Keligious Activity," werediscussed by the Rev. A. M. Johnson yesterday. morning, in the course of a striking sermon at St. Paul's Anglican Pro-Cathedral. Mr. Johnson based his remarks on St. John xx, 17: "Touch Mβ not, for I am not yot ascended to My Father, but go to My'brethren and say unto them I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." There are two messages in this test, said Mr. Johnson, firatj "Touch Me not," secondly, "Go to My 'brethren." They both are messages of the Risen Christ to the Church of to-day. Our Lord did not—Ho could not—forbid Mary of Magdala that touch for which her nature craved. Hβ allowed her to come to Him. The force of the tense in tho original is rather that Ho forbade hor from clinging to Him. Ho granted the touch; He forbade her from making that all her reward. ThLs message has si present-day meaning. At the present time there is α-reactioiragainst such views of the Resurrection as are embodied in the volume of essays entitled "Foundations." "The. Bishop of London has presented' a petition from 676 clergy to the Upper-House of Convocation, asking the Bishops to repudiate tho claini of such clergy as feject tho actual Resurrection of Christ's body from the tomb. It seemed to the preacher that such a petition as this, if it .meant' that 'the signatories would make' a , test of orthodoxy tlio theory that the Body that rose was composed of tho particles that made tho preOnicifixioii body, would wring from Christ Himself the command: "Cling not to. me":■ make not whntis but the transitional form tho buttress of your faith. To do so is to limit the power of God, to' forget the iin'iquencss of the body that had never been touched by sin of its own, to forget that -he ResurTootion appearances themselves were paramount to ■ the laws of the natural body. Such a petition would put tack the clock of faith. No .statement of any man or body of men on any subject except that of ephemeral interest could stand for two generations without footnotes. The accepted dictum that oneand one make two requires treatises of explanation to-day. Every live statemerit requires restatement from time to time. 'The creed of Christendom , is for-all time, and to that creed each generation could append its footnotes without disturbing tho creed. Tho Resurrection of tho body ia a statement for all timo, and the twentieth century, that has grasped something of tho meaning ofpersonality apart from tho atoms that compose the body at any given time, can restate or reinterpret what tho fourth and fifth centuries had stated as the Resurrection of tho body. Wo can tentatively bring before ourselves a personality subject to the will of Him who took it that could he touched bv the Magdalen, could over-ride tho limits of space and present itself through closed doors, and could vanish ns spontaneously out of the sight of thoso whom He had convinced. To limit, as the notition desired, the faith in the Risen Lord to the wearing of the same flesh and blood as had been His before tho Resurrection waa to run counter to His command—a command which recognised the appearances aa a transition stage; to substitute the material for tho real. Tlip Resurrection appearances were the prelude of the Ascension. In tho Ascension truth there was a firmer clasp than that of the hand. For that Jesus was preparing the Magdalen and His disciples.

The Biehop of Wellington (Dr. Sprott) read the lessons, and was celebrant at the Communion service.