Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-16

all VINO DCilSVSu III the uelIy OIL CIIl5tt
until he had vision of the living,
glorif1ed Lord himself, and, honest
enough to admit his mistake, he began
to preach the truth he had up to that
time denied Strange reversion that
there should in the court of centuries
grow up an organization labelling itself
| Christian, the theological successor OF
the Jewish Sanhedrin who condemned
Christ to death and of Saul of Tarsus
before his conversion to Christianity.
"Dr. Foster denies this central ana
fundamental fact of Christianity, as Is
seen by the following quotations.:
Scientific theology, together with
the spirit and thought of our new age
in general, has succeeded in undermin-
ing the ecclesiastical dogma of the
trinity and of the deity of Christ
! page 1882. DR.. Foster and his friends
contend that there is difference be
tween the ecclesiastical dogma of the
deity of Christ and the deity OF Christ.
DR.. Foster says that he rejects the &c
Christ, while he accepts the deity OF
| Christ, while he accepts the diety or
Christ. SO he rejects the ecclesiastical
dogma of the existence of GOD as
creator and ruler, while he accepts the
gods which are manufactured by man
idealizing capacity.
Ecclesiastical Dogma Denied
THE ecclesiastical dogma of the deity
of Christ Is the teaching of the Scrip
lures that Christ was Emmanuel, God
with u.s. that he came down from
heaven; in word, that he was God IN
carnate. This is what DIR. Foster de-
MES while he acknowledges the deity or
Christ in the sense in which he mas ue-
fined deity as the product OF man goa
making capacity. He believes in the
divineness of Christ as he believes in
the divineness of Foster, and he is not
even willing to call him the supreme
man. for he dogmatically asserts that
| human nature did not exhaust ltseI III
growing one bright consummate flower
/ the earth is bursting with new blooms
every day. page 235). The intimatloh
plainly is that human nature with its
man-making and god-making capacity
can produce a better man, and tnere-
fore a better God than Christ.
"In rejecting the ecclesiastical dog
ma of the deity of Christ DR.. Foster
rejects the deity of Christ as denned py
| every creed of Christendom except the
Unitarian. and he rejects the Christ re-
vealed in the Bible. When ne ac-
knowledges in a newspaper article tnaI
! Christ reveals Cod he can mean noun
! inc else than that Christ reveals tho
symbol to designate the universe III
| its ideal-achieving capacity
Accused of 5Iasphemy
eff Jesus were here today in our
modern world would he do and tnlnK
! as he did? In many ways not ne
would cease to think some things ana
begin to think others; cease TO 90 SONS
| things and do others. The crystalline
! clearness of his mind ana naWless
! truthfulness of his conscience Woulu
freely impel him to do this Were ne
alive today he would not copy the Jesus
of that time and place. TO copy even
him is TO kill the SOUL page 222.)
"That last sentence is the worst thing
against Christ ever penned by human
fingers so far as l know. LlpeTal
Christianity has ever exalted Christ
as an ideal exemplar. John stuart MILL
who was not even a liberal Chrisuan.
but an avowed unbelieVer' wrote ol
Christ: When this e-eminent genius
is combined with the qualities of proh-
ably the greatest moral reformer ana
MARTYR to his mission who ever existed
upon earth, religion cannot be SAID 10
| have made bad choice in pitching OIL
this man as the ideal representative
and guide of humanity; nor even now
would it be easy, even Tor an unoex
lever. to find a better translation OF
| the rule of virtue from the abstract
into the concrete than to endeavor so
to live that Christ would approve his
| life.'
"And yet DR.. Foster says ito copy
even him is to kill the SOUL The bias
phemy of it is equaled only by It's
falsity.
book in its practical relation to Chris
tianity are negative, and may be
summed up under six heads:
~. There is no God except as man
has made his god by his idealizing fac
ulty, though as one reads the book one
feels at times that the authors heart
is more logical than his head, for, even
after he has written God out of the
universe, he uses the name of God in
a way which indicates that the light
of early faith has not entirely departed.
"2 There is no Jesus except the hu-
man Jesus of whose historic existence
there may be some doubt.
"3. There is no Bible except some
writings of purely human origin which
should carry no weight and authority
No Hope for Future
"a There are no Christians except as
all men are Christians, since the dis
tinction between lost and saved has
been or ought to be effaced.
"5 There is no Christian church ex-
cept one like an old useless tree whose
| fruit bearing days are over, whose
ministers have 'sliddered down to the
| lowlands, where they can assume the
easy role of the primitive medicine
man. as a priest or execute institu-
tional chores. or dabble into ecclesias-
tical politics as king
| &C. There is no mention of the sin
question and no hope of immortality
intimated in the book, the fair infer
ence being that sin is not worth con-
sidering, and as there is no spirit
apart from matter, death ends all.
christianity has ever stood and
stands today for six things, the oppo-
site of these:
81 For God, who is spirit before and
above all material things, self-existent
and eternal, mans creator and king.
"2. For Jesus Christ as son of man
and son of God, who came from heaven
to earth that he might lift man from
earth to heaven.
"3. For the Bible as a revelation
from God, truthful and authoritative.
"a. For tine birth from above which
marks the Christian as distinct from
the non-Christian.
"5. For the church of Christ, which
is the pillar and ground of the truth
Z "6 For the forgiveness of sin and the
| hope of Immortality.
"He says: But one thing has been
accomplished by criticism. 1t has
shaken off the fetters which the
sacred book has fastened upon the
human spirit. Criticism and authority
are exclusive. Since the Bible has
| lost its authoritative force, we may
now more hopefully take up the burn