REVIEW

Kumara Times, Issue 1100, 9 April 1880, Page 4

REVIEW

The Religion of To-day :—From the North American Review, suggested by a perusal of the Address by the Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Otago and Southland, delivered at Dunedin, J3th January, 1880, Dunedin ; Joseph Braithwaite.

The present age is one of inquiry, and the present generation are not inclined to accept for gospel, all that its teacherschoose to tell it. Progress is the law of nations, and a spirit of anxious inquiry is true faith. Blind, passive obedience is valueless, and hence science in its higher and more enlightened form is not content to rest content with passiveness. In the Colonies, and especially in New Zealand, the religion of doubt, —as it is called—has found a stronghold in Dunedin, and this is not to be wondered at, for Dunedin is the hotbed of ultra-Presbyterianism, and there but one step from ultra-Presby terianism to the religion of doubt. It was the same feeling which raised up the early reformers, and the reformers of the middle ages—it was the same feeling that made J ohn Wesley—at one time a strict Ritualist—a Methodist. The shackles which the Church have endeavored to bind the growing spirit have had their effects—“ absurd and vain attempt to hind with iron chains the human mind,” was the cry of one religious poet, and so it is. The Church instead of moving onwards with the spirit of the age, has aimed at crushing it. Instead of being teachers, it acted the part of gaolers* It was absurd on the part of popes and priests to burn the bibles and the heretics, as the advanced thinkers were called, in endeavoring to crush out or retard the reformation. It was as vain an attempt as that of the Roman emperors to try and suppress early Christianity by the torture of the Christians in the circus, and the forum—therefore the duty of the Church is not to impede but to aid the progress of truth, and to stimulate inquiry. In the present age it is as absurd to paint the terrors of Hell or hades in glowing colors of fire and brimstone, as it was some few years since to represent the Spirit of evil In the guise of a satyr, with a trident waiting to pitch his unfortunate victim into a kind of auto-da-fe bonfire. Above all places in New Zealand the endeavor to force down the Bible in its literal meaning should not be tried in Dunedin. The address of the moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Otago, and Southland, delivered on the 13th January, 1880, was the occasion that called for the reply, in the shape of an article roprinted ftom the North American Review, and in which the writer alludes to the change that is gradually making way. The writer opens his article thusly “That the intellectual world of to-day is drifting away from the religious belief and dogmatic theology of the past is a fact which is more evident to the student the wider his acquaintance with the current of contemporary thought in Christendom. In France it would be difficult to show that what the church a century ago professed to consider the essentials of religious belief exist among any considerable number of the educated classes. In Germany the idea of a supernatural' element, either in the creation of the world or in the origin of Christianity, has almost entirely disappeared from the intellect of the nation outside the ranks of theologians and their devotees. All that the theology of that country now exacts from the leaders of thought and action is that they refrain from criticisms on Christian doctrine, and admit its great importance to society as an instrument to restrain the lower classes from attacks upon morality and social order. In England thought is drifting in the same direction, but, drawing the broad church with it, finds expression in more cautious and reverent forma than upon the Continent, To suppose that this wave of scepticism will not reach our own country would be illogical, though it may be difficult to see precisely what form it will assume.”

Alluding further to the change the writer says;— . “® DQ suggestive circumstance is seen ™ “f e almost total disappearance of the old-fashioned doctrinal sermon from a large class of our fashionable pulpits A heathen desiring to learn the doctrines of Christianity might attend the best of these churches for a whole year and not hear one word of the torments of hell or the anger of an offended Diety, and not enough of the fall of man or the sacrificial sufferings of Christ to offend the most bigoted disciple of evolution. Listening and observing for himself, he would infer that the way of salvation consisted in declaring his faith in a few abstract doctrines which both preacher and hearer seemed quite ready to explain away as far as possible: become a regular attendant at church and church sociable ; put something Into the contribution-box every Sunday, and in every way behave as much as possible like his neighbor. Why is this? Simply because the demand for doctrinal preaching is dying out. The law of supply and demand in our time controls sermons as wellasflour—doctrines as well as goods. Men have ceased to demand doctrines, not necessarily because they have ceased to believe in them, but because they have taken the first step toward unbelief by losing their interest fn them. Their faith is dragging its anchors without their knowing it.