What is liberal theology?

And what, beloved reader, exists today as the counterpart of this description? Nay, what is it that will finally form Laodicea? It is, in one word, rationalism — that rationalism which is current under the name of Broad church theology, and which, daily on the increase, occupies a large place in the Anglican establishment, and has almost completely flooded whole fields of Dissent. For the teachers of this school bend all their efforts to eradicate the distinctive truths of Christianity; to rehabilitate the first man, notwithstanding he has for ever been judicially set aside in the cross of Christ; and they are never weary of proclaiming that the light of reason, of their own minds, is all-sufficient to guide them, both in deciding what is the word of God, and also in their journey through the mazes of this world. It is their perpetual boast that they are enriched with all the accumulated treasures of the science, philosophy, and civilization of the nineteenth century. Yea, truly, according to their own estimate, they have need of nothing!

And what, beloved reader, exists today as the counterpart of this description? Nay, what is it that will finally form Laodicea? It is, in one word, rationalism — that rationalism which is current under the name of Broad church theology, and which, daily on the increase, occupies a large place in the Anglican establishment, and has almost completely flooded whole fields of Dissent. For the teachers of this school bend all their efforts to eradicate the distinctive truths of Christianity; to rehabilitate the first man, notwithstanding he has for ever been judicially set aside in the cross of Christ; and they are never weary of proclaiming that the light of reason, of their own minds, is all-sufficient to guide them, both in deciding what is the word of God, and also in their journey through the mazes of this world. It is their perpetual boast that they are enriched with all the accumulated treasures of the science, philosophy, and civilization of the nineteenth century. Yea, truly, according to their own estimate, they have need of nothing!

The term New Theology in the eyes of the general public is principally connected with the Rev. R.J.Campbell’s teaching. However, its distinctive tenets are very ancient, and in the main Unitarianism, pure and simple.

Mr. Robert Blatchford, editor of “The Clarion,” an infidel and socialistic newspaper, declares “Mr. Campbell is a Christian minister and I am an infidel editor; and the difference between his religion and mine is too small to argue about.” Mr. Blatchford has written an infidel book called, “God and My Neighbour.” Mr. Campbell’s book, “The New Theology,” he asserts is “God and My Neighbour” with the soft pedal on. “It is,” continues Mr. Blatchford, “Thomas Paine in a white tie.” Indeed, Thomas Paine, the author of “The Age of Reason,” at which the Christian world of that day was aghast, might have been today the Rev. Thomas Paine without shocking the sensibilities of the adherents of the New Theology.

Another event of unmistakable significance is the alarming movement towards what will, when the church is gone, develop into THE APOSTASY, i.e. the absolute abandonment of Christianity. This has already been somewhat explained in a previous article in this journal. The New Theology of the present time is not "the apostasy," inasmuch as it still claims to be Christianity. It does not renounce, but shelters under, the name of Christianity. It indeed denies all the essential doctrines of Christ, but claims that it is a "rearticulation" of them. It says that "there is a beautiful spiritual truth underneath every venerable (sic) article of the Christian faith, but as popularly presented, this truth has become so distorted as to be falsehood." The English of which is that the hitherto known Christianity is false. What the said "re-articulation" is may be judged of by the following: — "Briefly summed up the position is as follows: Jesus was God, but so are we. He was God because His life was the expression of divine love; we too are one with God in so far as our lives express the same thing."**

The theological liberal quite naturally opposes dispensationalism, for he finds completely unpalatable its plain interpretation, which is based on a verbal, plenary view of the inspiration of Scripture. Neither would he agree with other beliefs and teachings that dispensationalists hold in common with other conservatives. Whatever else dispensationalists are, they are conservative in their view of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, an approach unsavory to the liberal.

There may be certain things which hinder, for a season, the natural results of the world's will in having its religion condemned. And this has been the case for some time. For the last fifty years and more, every one knows there has been a certain system of opinion, commonly called "liberalism." This has got hold of men's minds. In no way does it respect God and His word as such. Its great stock-in-trade is the rights of man. Its cardinal virtue is, that all should be left free to think, act, and worship as they please. As long as the idea of man's rights is allowed to have play, the mercy of God turns it into an occasion for Christians, having a conscience towards Himself, to pass quietly through, and worship God according to His will. And as it was always unquestionable that God claimed the right over His own people; as His revealed will alone can rightly govern them; so, as the Father, He now seeks His children, that they may worship Him in spirit and in truth. The renewed heart and conscience delight in His will and find the chief blessedness here in exalting Him. To the believer, that will is more peremptory than the absolutism of the heathen king. Liberalism really dislikes this exclusive claim over the conscience. Still, it has led to a sort of calm in the world; and the full exercise of its authority, as to religion, is in abeyance for the time. For, apart from temporary circumstances, none can deny that, wherever there is a religion introduced by the monarch, for the guidance of his realm, necessarily it does not admit of difference, contradiction, or compromise. This would defeat the purpose for which it is imposed. But it is to fight against God. The monarch himself may have a conscience, and he is, of course, bound to worship God according to His will. But the using the authority of the realm to coerce others is the denial, practically, of God's direct control over the individual conscience.

"Liberal mindedness" is the cry heard all around us. By this is meant easy toleration of every form of religious error, with a frown and a word of contempt for all who hold fast the truth. "Liberal mindedness" has no kindly expressions for the truth, nor for those who still love it. The Ritualist would speak more generously of Romanists and Greeks, with all their blasphemous superstitions, than of the Evangelicals of his own communion. The New Theologian would say better things even of the Spiritualist than of those in his own denomination who preach such a gospel as the late Mr. Spurgeon preached.

I will examine the process of Dr. Newman's mind. He has set it before us for the purpose. I pity Dr. Newman; I feel his difficulties; I have felt them myself; I do not judge him. But as his book is calculated to interest and influence many, I do not think he can complain if I dissect it freely. It is impossible to do so without speaking of Dr. Newman himself; for the whole part of his book which I comment on is an account of himself. I must necessarily expose his state in commenting on his own account of it. In many things I agree; many of his thoughts I have gone over in my own mind. Strange to say, I find I admit constantly all that infidels hold metaphysically. Only the truth remains, the truth of God untouched. I account for some of their thoughts; I cannot for others. What Dr. Newman calls liberalism is infidelity — man meddling, with his own mind as competent, in divine things. I reject this as utterly as he does. In the two points he professes to name, I do in a measure, I suppose, pretty much as he does; but he need not be so afraid of liberalism. What it hates is truth. Its latitudinarianism will favour — is favouring — popery at present more than anything else does, and has been. I believe the time will come when it will pull down popery. I believe the time will come, as Dr. Newman says, when a mere via media will disappear as satisfying nobody, and the struggle will be between popery and infidelity directly. I believe infidel power will triumph, and popery disappear; but triumph to its own destruction by the judgment of the Lord. But at present the liberal principle, and the majority of dissenters with it, are attacking the Establishment, the via media. It stands in their way. Some have boasted to me of their doing so, looking for the result Dr. N. himself anticipates; that is, putting down the Establishment, and then having a final struggle with Romanism. I have no sympathy with this in any sense or way. They are deceiving themselves too. They will find liberalism too strong for themselves as a system. What is religious, as a system among them, will not, does not, satisfy any active religious or infidel mind now. They may grow for a time by the ruin of others; but they are letting loose what will ruin themselves. But there is another thing besides and behind what Dr. Newman is looking at — the truth of God, the people of God. They will subsist and have their place in heaven when the fashion of this world has passed away.

On the other side are those, with whom he ranges himself, still loyal to the adopted church of John Henry Newman and others in a spiritual ancestry of which they are proud, "who do not believe that truth has been stagnating for centuries in theological seminaries; but has been streaming on with ever-increasing force and volume in the channels which liberty has opened to its progress." In contrast to those "who will not allow the least truth or value to the mental and moral progress of recent centuries," theirs is a belief "in time, in growth, in vital and creative evolution." Of one point in all this we may take especial note — on the one hand are those who stand for an authoritative standard of truth, on the other those who press for liberty and free thought.

Looking first to the Continent, we find that, after a lapse of more than three centuries, the doctrines of truth recovered at the Reformation, instead of being the universal delight of those who profess a knowledge of the truth, are becoming daily less esteemed. Romanism, with the kindred yet rival Greek system, Socinianism, Rationalistic theories (varying indeed according to the perverse windings of the darkened mind of nature, yet all far apart from godly edifying which is in faith), Pantheistic Gnosticism, and avowed indifference to all that is called God or worshipped, — occupy, respectively, so large a space in European Christendom, that the places where even a form of godliness remains are by no means numerous. And is it in continental Europe alone that these things are to be found? Let us regard for a moment the most favoured of the Gentile kingdoms. After all that has been done and all that has been hoped, is the love of Christ a growing, not to say a pervading, principle of English society? Is the dark-minded zeal for human ordinances and lifeless works on the one hand, or the more widely-prevailing liberalism which every day demands more room for the free development of what is in man's heart, and already deems professed subjection to the name of Christ a needless qualification for a British legislator, to be regarded as symptoms of a continuance in the goodness of God? The progress of Romanism in this island of late years, and its present accredited standing, are facts sufficiently well known. But there is an evil in England yet more deadly than Popery, difficult as it is to overrate the evil of that which speaks lies in hypocrisy. But there is now in its early development a methodical system of anti-Christian blasphemy, which openly aims at the subversion of the faith even in name. The letter of inspired Scripture is the present object of attack. Modern science is the torch by means of which men who glory in being Protestants are labouring to undermine the foundation of all Divine knowledge. Books in which every distinctive doctrine of Christianity is denied, and the letter of the word, both of the New and of the Old Testament, is openly blasphemed, are put forth by those who are accredited as public instructors of the youth of this country. And I would earnestly call on those who are fondly congratulating themselves on the various existing institutions which the zeal of modern times has created for the furtherance of evangelical blessing,* to remember that what the Spirit of God is contemplating in the passage before us is the aggregate of professing Gentilism, and not a fraction of the whole. The contrast lies between the nation of Israel now discarded, and that which, as a united testimony to the name of Christ, occupies its place dispensationally as the people of God. Few things are more injurious to the soul of a believer than a partial apprehension of a general truth. In such a case, quickness of discernment and decision of conduct will generally increase his blindness to the full revelation of the mind of God; the effect of which on the position of a Christian, as a witness for the truth, I need not stay to point out.