MR. BRAITHWAITE’S SECESSION.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 5, 1 February 1884, Page 7

MR. BRAITHWAITE’S SECESSION.

In reference to the foregoing correspondence, Mr. Wm. Pratt, President of the Christchurch Freethought Arsociation, has forwarded us the following letter on the subject, which we have much pleasure in publishing :

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREETHOUGHT REVIEW. Sir, Mr. Braithwaite has thought it necessary to signalise his retirement from the Freethought party in Dunedin by occupying a column of each of the Otago daily papers with his reasons, and the Morning Herald considered it of sufficient importance as to warrant a sub-leader. In acting upon his convictions he has simply exercised the right of private judgment which the Freethought Association with nidi lie has long been connected regards as one of its fundamental principles ; but the most singular and contradictory feature of his withdrawal is the statement that he considers ‘ ‘ the mere right to think for one’s self ” is not only of no positive value, but absolutely powerless for good, as offering no principle of union for combined effort, and cites for admiration and example the grand results which have followed the positive teaching of the Church. Whether true or false appears to him of secondary consequence ; assume the truth, and make belief in the assumptions imperative, and non-belief a crime visited with the severest penalties, as the Church did for centuries when she possessed the power, appears to Mr. Braithwaite to be the sine qua non of a religion for ensuring human happiness here and hereafter. 11 , Holding these views, one is led to enquire how, or why, he ever left the Church, or fell into the delusion that he was a Freethinker when merely “ the right to think for one’s self ” appears to him such a poor and powerless factor for human improvement, as compared with an authoritative and dogmatic theology—for stopping short with a belief in God and a, future life—or swallowing the whole formula of the fall of man, vicarious atonement, redemption, heaven and hell, are merely questions of degree; besides, the latter constitutes the positive teaching of the Church, which ho claims to have produced such grand results. If the noblest specimens of humanity have held these beliefs, and thereby enjoyed worldly honor and profit, in addition to the comforting assurances of future bliss, always provided they were

able to allay the distracting doubts inseparable from such beliefs, History also records that many noble men and women have discarded them, and in so acting lost everything but honor, preferring to encounter inconceivable pains, tortures, and cruel deaths rather than subscribe to what they conscientiously considered to be false and deluding superstitions. Mr. Braithwaite gravely informs us that “unessentials of religion as hell-fire, the Church will modify or let go.” We are led to ask how a positive truth can be modified or let go, and which lies at the very foundation of theological teaching, without the whole structure tumbling down. But it is not true that the Church regards a belief in hell-fire as one of the non-essentials of religion, although from the growing intelligence of the age it is not made so prominent in the pulpit as it was fifty years ago It is still regarded as an integral part of her positive teaching ; especially is a belief in it Impressed upon the tender minds of children; and their evidence is refused in our Law Courts, unless they are found to be well-grounded in this comforting belief.. Mr. Braithwaite supplies us with a surprising and novel reading of history in the words : “ The Church always espouses a new fact, or new version of an old truth when mankind are ready to receive them,” which would have been nearer the truth if rendered when the majority outside of, and in defiance of, the Church have received and adopted them. What says Professor Fowler, the Professor of Logic at Oxford, in his great work “ Bacon’s Novum Organum,” in explanation of Aphorism, 89, book I. : “A new discovery in science is at first decried as contrary or even fatal to faith ; then, after a time, it is grudgingly admitted and incorporated into the received doctrine, till at last no one dreams of calling it in question. But the the process soon begins afresh with some more recent discovery, so that a constant warfare is going on between the unwise theologian and the scientific investigator.” In Mr. Braithwaite’s reasons for withdrawing from the Dunedin Freethought Association there is an implied,if not plainly expressed, failure to remodel it in a “constructive religious sense,” with, it may be safely inferred, Theism and Spiritualism for its positive truths,—we are afforded pleasing evidence of its strength and vitality in maintaining first principles. There are many other fallacies in the letter referred to, but space will not permit of further references. Holding opinions more in harmony with the Romish Church than a Freethought Association, Mr. Braithwaite appears to be unable to realise the possibilities of a character religion progressing with its environment, unfettered by the chains of a theology based upon tradition and unauthentic paper records. Yours, &c., William Platt, President of the Christchurch Freethought Association. Christchurch, January 21st, 1884.