New Theology

“ The New Testament comes to stand, thus, in no merely external and mechanically authoritative relation to the life and faith of the church, but in the most interior and vital relation. And Bible study gets a new significance for us, as we see it, as at one and the same time our chief way to our own vision of God's actual, concrete self-revelation, and our deliverance from our merely subjective dreaming. We come to share in some living way the vision of these others who have seen most directly and most largely. ”

“ The New Theology can consistently make it, but it is difficult to see how that newer theology which calls itself orthodoxy manages to do so. Does the self-limitation of Jesus mean that the Deity was lessened in any way during the incarnation? Why, of course not, we should all say; the Deity continued with infinite fulness unimpaired above and beyond the consciousness of Jesus. ”

“ Those who were broadened and liberated by the new learning found not only a new world in classical literature, but they also found a new gospel in the Gospel. As they studied the New Testament documents themselves and became freed from the bondage of tradition they discovered that the primitive message dealt with life and action rather than with theology. ”

“ What shall we say of those who speak of the "new emphasis" needed in modern theology, when they really mean that the preaching of the old doctrines of sin and salvation must give place to "another gospel" of cooperative Christian work? From their neglect to put any further emphasis upon "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," we can only infer that, for their structure of doctrine, no other foundation than philosophy is needed, and that they, like the Unitarians, no longer accept the fact of a divine revelation. ”

“ Again, I say, there is much in the so-called "New Theology" which we cannot accept, such as the denial of the atonement, its treatment of the Scriptures and the like, but in so far as these fundamental principles of it are concerned—the immanence of God in the world, and the identity of the race of man and divine beings—there can be no question as to their accuracy. ”

“ The war against science, criticism, literature, and art-all that is characteristic of our age—is gradually being limited to a smaller number of theologians and denominations, and there is ever an increasing number of theologians and churches which fully recognize all the achievements of modern times, and who are at work in harmonizing them with the verified Christian dogmas in a larger, grander system—in a new theology representing all that is noblest and best in Christianity as applied to the modern world. ”

“ If we look into the history of Christianity, we shall find that as soon as the Church began to consolidate itself into a distinct community, the reason of man began to exert itself on the facts of revelation, and to attempt to reduce its teaching to a systematic form. From this source have sprung all the various systems of theology which have from time to time predominated in the Church. It has been a plant of gradual growth, and as such may bear a fair comparison with the slow growth of philosophy or physical science. ”

“ It is the regeneration which comes about through union with Christ which constitutes the primary and most essential element in ecclesiology. “We do not stand, first of all, for restricted communion, nor for immersion as the only valid form of baptism, nor for any particular theory of Scripture, but rather for a regenerate church membership. The essence of the gospel is a new life in Christ, of which Christian experience is the outworking and Christian consciousness is the witness. Christian life is as important as conversion. Faith must show itself by works. ”

“ As the dogmatic theologian has too often made a system of philosophy masquerade as a theology by dressing it out with a series of more or less well-fitting proof-texts, so too often modern prophets to a degenerate church, in sublime indifference to the context, time of authorship, and purpose of a New Testament book, and with an equal neglect of the personal peculiarity and vocabulary of a New Testament writer, have set forth as the word of Christianity views which were but bescriptured social denunciation and vision. ”

“ More and more, too, the new scholarship has developed the conception of the New Testament as, like the Old, the growth of literature in obedience to law—a conception which in al probability will give it its strongest hold on the coming centuries. ”

“ The high-water mark of religion in human history is recorded in these writings. To enter into the spirit of these writings is to feel the force of the free, full tides of ethical and spiritual life which rose, as never before nor since, in the dawning day of Christianity. The flow of such a force within the individual soul and through society has been the power of the New Testament in Christendom. ”

“ The idea that the Church would ever modify her teaching to bring it into harmony with modern science seemed utterly chimerical. But if the static theory of revelation is abandoned, and a dynamic theory substituted for it; if the divine part of Christianity resides, not in the theoretical formulations of revealed fact, but in the living and energising spirit of the Church; why should not dogmatic theology become elastic, changing periodically in correspondence with the development of human knowledge, and no longer stand in irreconcilable contradiction with the ascertained laws of nature? ”

“ We have seen in the Old Testament the literature of the people of religion, commissioned with its normal evolution; writings charged with deep religiousness; the records of the various moods and tenses through which religion grew continuously and insistently toward perfection, in an organic process watched and directed by a Higher Power than man. We have seen in the New Testament the record of the realization of this long-sought aim of the people of religion ”

“ Finally, Modern Theology has taken up the work of both of the foregoing epochs by defending the fundamental dogmas of Religion against modern agnostics and heretics, and at the same time carefully attending to the development of doctrine within the Church. ”

“ The Church should return to its great mission of preaching the Gospel. Almost everything else but the Gospel is preached. Science, literature, biography, philosophy, mortality, etc., are the burden of the pulpit today. As a consequence of this men and women are starving to death for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The doctrines of great fundamental principles of Christianity should be preached. If a man is not rooted and grounded in the principles of his faith, how can he be strong, how can he be useful?
[Pg 156]
A cry has gone out for a new religion. We have too much now of the new religion. ”

“ To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without being ever realized in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold the doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted such by all churches and sects—the maxims and precepts contained in the New Testament. ”

“ In the Old Testament an ideal is projected into the future by inspired men, and in Christ and His kingdom it is realized. Moreover, if you look to the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles or to St. Matthew’s Gospel, you will see how full the early Christians were of the sense of this realization, of the sense that in the Old Testament is a forecast and in the New a fulfilment. ”

“ The teaching of the Scriptures, old traditions, the needs of worship and organization, political and social circumstances, changing moral ideals, the trend of philosophies and sciences, the challenge of schisms and heresies, the sanctifying power of blind custom and the mystical authority of the Church itself all combine to make a theology. Once a great theology is so constituted it possesses an immense power over life. ”

“ It is in this sense that the Christian revelation of God claims to be both final and progressive; final, for Christians know but one Christ and do not 'look for another'; progressive, because Christianity claims each new truth as enriching our knowledge of God, and bringing out into greater clearness and distinctness some half-understood fragment of its own teaching. ”

“ To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-Christian churches by disclosing them as the true origines of Christianity, and to replace the false doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by the true doctrine of the potential divinity of all men,—these are among the foremost objects of the New Gospel of Interpretation. ”

“ VI. It is a wrong use of the Bible to manufacture cut of it any one uniform, system, of theology, as the fixed and final form of thought in which religion is to live.
Let me define these contrasting terms, so commonly confounded. Religion is man's perception of the Power in whom we live and move and have our being, and his emotion towards this power. Theology is man's conception of this Power, and his thought defined and formulated.
Religion is man's feeling after God; theology is man's grasp of God. ”

“ Section XIX. That our Church is built on Christ, not a person, but the Principle that Jesus told us is Christ; namely, ‘The Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ That Christian Science is the way, and its foundations are eternal. That in reality we unite with this Church only as we become unselfish and pure, and are new-born babes into the Life that is Truth and the Truth that is Life, which casts out error and heals the sick, thus reestablishing the Christianity of ancient prophet and apostle. ”

“ From this brief explanation of the New Church doctrine of At-one-ment, the reader cannot fail to see that, while it accords with the teachings of both reason and Scripture, it is at the same time a doctrine of the highest practical moment. For as man was originally created in the image of God, so he must now be re-created after the image of Christ's glorification. ”

“ The separation of the new ideas in the teaching of Christ and of the Apostles from the general terms of religion at the time, is the only road to understanding what Christianity meant to those who actually heard the teaching. ”

“ The end for which God created man, according to the belief and teaching of the New Church, was, that there might be a heaven of angels from the human race—a countless host of rational, wise and loving creatures, images and likenesses of Himself, capable of receiving his own life, and of being made unspeakably and eternally happy in the mutual and reciprocal impartation of that life. ”

“ No one, the Author thinks, can read the New Testament with careful attention, without perceiving that the sacred writers treat of two distinct orders of human beings—the natural, and the spiritual man; the one enlightened and renovated, and living in mental fellowship with God; the other, living through life under the governing influence of his constitutional principles, and conventional predilections and habits—in whose estimation, whether he be a libertine or a religious devotee, the necessity of a mental regeneration is viewed as a fiction, or a mere theological dogma. ”

“ The general statements of the innovators amount to this, that the divines of the age of which we speak had neither the inclination nor the power to do any thing but fortify their own systems, which were dogmatical, and not to search out truth for themselves from Scripture; that theology, as a science, was left from the epoch of the Reformation as it had been received from the schoolmen; that the interpretation of the Bible was made the slave, not the mistress, of dogmatical theology, as it ought to be. ”

“ But if, as the source and inspiration of practice, doctrine has been the foundation of a new state of the world, and of that change which distinguishes the world under Christianity from the world before it, miracles, as the proof of that doctrine, stand before us in a very remarkable and peculiar light. Far from being mere idle feats of power to gratify the love of the marvellous ”

“ In the history of the church, as throughout the moral history of mankind, there are two distinct ideals, either of which it is possible to maintain—two conceptions, under one or the other of which we may represent to ourselves men’s efforts towards a better life—corresponding to those two contrasted aspects, noted above, as discernible in the picture afforded by the New Testament itself of the character of Christ. ”

“ But although the Word is spiritual in its nature, being given exclusively for man's spiritual edification—although it contains a spiritual sense throughout, the New Church does not believe or teach that only those who accept this doctrine and who understand the science of correspondence, can receive spiritual instruction from the Word. ”

“ All doctrine, for example, founded on special revelation presupposes doctrine founded on general revelation; all Christian theology must imply and incorporate natural theology. Christian dogmatics has to make use of the results of natural theology, Biblical theology, and comparative theology, and to raise them to a higher stage by a comprehensive synthesis which connects them with the person and work of Christ, as of Him in whom all spiritual truth is comprehended and all spiritual wants supplied. ”

“ But though some extremes of the old sorts still remain, there is now, in the middle, such a fusion of the two pursuits that a plain man is wofully puzzled. The theologian writes a philosophy which seems to tell us that the New Testament is a system of psychology; and the philosopher writes a Christianity which is utterly unintelligible as to the question whether the Resurrection be a fact or a transcendental allegory. ”