Anarchy in Religion'

New Zealand Tablet, 24 September 1908, Page 10

Anarchy in Religion '

Time and 'tide "keep' working' for the Catholic and Scriptural •principle of authority in 'religion - Like many other .new inventioiVs "made in' Germany,' the 'right, of private Judgment,-.-' as against "-the principle, of "authority, in religion was, .during the , tim^s 1 while" it was still' a novelty, panegyrised beyond what' it : .was worth, and the man who dared to question.it took the risk of being kicked' past the Tropic of Capricorn, or sent' to a worse : or world. ' But even the Reformers found it necessary ; to "curb the exercise of the ' right Jaf private judgment.'" And ■ this- they- did .by -making their own priVaXe judgment" the' standard' from which it was perilous to depart, by drawing up creeds ana confessions, and by the aid of the secular arm, with its -ungentle suasion of penal codes of 'unexampled 'severity.. Catholic apologists in those days predicted anarchy and disintegration in religion as the result of the new invention of the sixteenth century revolution. "And they and the ieaders- of the new movement" lived to see the prophecy fulfilled in .quite a -remarkable degree. - ' The principle has gone farther and fared worse. The latest realisation of the evils of this anarchy in religion tomes to us through a - recent issue of the American Congregationalist organ, the Advance.^ 'It is somewhat 'peculiar,' says the Advance, 'that just at a time when there is a general outcry against anarchy in the. State there should be so much of it in religion^. The determination to throw off all authority in religion seems to grow with what it feeds- upon. Creddsmust have no authority, the consensus of opinion formed after a conflict of ages must have no/ authority ; beliefs which made epochs in history and produced generations of heroic men and women must have no authority, the mighty men of the past who changed the face 'of the world must have no authority, the lawgivers of Israel must haVe no authority; the apostles most have no authority, Jesus Christ must have no authority, except such as belongs to other sages, and these have i>o authority, the Bible must have no authority, nothing must have authority except the opi.von of the man -expressing it, and he must be at- liberty (o change tin opinion before noon. A council may be called to pass upon the fitness of. a candidate for ord"nat : on, but- it "must have no authority lo consider Ihe beliefs whWi he holds. . If tMs 's not anarchy Ip religu..,, ih« there mver h.w been anarchy nor ever will bo or can be. And if anarchy is to be treated, this is the place to begin. It is useless to denounce .the anarchy of the man who is haranguing on the street corner while supporting a more fundamental and destructive form of it in the pulpit.'