The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-05-01
HazleH Lecture Course on Relie-
iious Theme @"A Working Fai1h"
1.-THE CHURCH,
by DIR. HARRIS FRANKLIN RoLD.

Scripture" DIR. Rail aid
What shall he the attitude of our
working faith toward the Scriptures?
What changes have come? They
have come gradually. Yct~we really |
a matter of radicals and conscrva-
tives-the terms are unsatisfactory.
Even with the conservatives the Bible
has changed. Good people were once
terribly shocked at Conybcare and
HoWson's Life of st. Paul." because
they talked about Paul as if he had
really lived. The fact that such hes
itation is almost incomprehensible to-
day shows how far we have come.
Are people undermining the Scrip |
lures by doubling the cosmology of
Genesis or the authorship of the BIZ
hliral ooks? People arc puzzled
without understanding the issue.
mined. that there are enemies OF the
Bible i'm the geological cemeteries as
some n has called the theological
seminaries.
The Old and tho New Spirit.
The old conception made Christian
ity a book religion. Men thought
We must have all doctrines definitely |
given and through Il book. II book
must he mans or Gods Ii the for
''>' = 10 iiiti II tlle tlllCI, iIltIl |
its geology as we'll as theology must
fe absolutely correct. God, not man,
must have guided the pen. The YER
sions. c. a., the Nulgate, must be also
infallibly correct, Some said that the
inserted novels in the Hebrew tex:
must als" lie inspired. Inspiration
must each over all the centuries
down to this last process. To go fur
tncr. In Christ's day jewish scholars
were %disputing as to the authors of
some of the books. The canon was |
not settled. Then the scribcs and
Pharisccs also must have been in
spired.
These are some of tho implications
of the old attitude. What is modern
spirit: 1t SAYS, let me. see things as
they are. I'm this spirit men found
out many things. They found. not
mere discrepancies as to geology.
They found the New Testament did
not carry out the Old. The latter
mad low standards of morality. John
the ritual. saving they were not fit to
take on a Christians lips. These
We're higher critics long ago.
Some men felt they faced the qucs-
ton: Shall we accept what science
SAYS or cling to the Bible" They
feared they were losing the faith.
lhey were sincere and earnest. They
1850 WIN iIdNG Nv SCIlpltfS dlODc, \
Others swung the other way. They
SAID. ! follow the truth. There is
nothing more dangerous than teach
ers who say: Your faith is absolutely
bound up with this certain ronstruc-
,ion of the faith. Thc serious stu
dent is likely to be driven away from
his faith. We must say, our working
faith has a much deeper foundation
than any single question of historical
investigation.
The Vital Issue.
What has Il real working faith at
stake" What is tho vital thing that
is at issue ChristiHnitt does not rest
on n conclusion us t., a book, or |
the whole Bible. There was a. Chris
tlanitN before the Bible. though there
is none today apart from it. The
fundamental thing is the faith that
God exists. He speaks to men. lie
works in history and his working has
been recorded in a certain history.
There is Il revelation and back of that
Il living God. the fact of REDEMPTION.
aIod working out his will in the world.
rms God become known to men es-
peclallE IN a certain history. The
vital thing is God giving himself to
men. In Scriptures are the monu-
mcnts OF this giving.
What follows? How would such a
God work: He must make himself
known gradually: it is a process of
education. because We are as we are.
Evolution, pedagogy, psychology, his.
tory, are only Gods way of working. !
Laws are only the incorporation of
the thoughts of God. Therefore the
Old Testament is of special value for
plane. 1t fits the childhood of The
race and of the individual. There
fore the Old Testament has lower
concepts Of God and morals than the
New. hen shall we throw the Old
testament overheard? Shall We
throw away the whole record of Gods
work in educating man?
An Historical Revelation.
IN inc second place Gods revelation
must he historically carried out.
Christianity is not something drop-
ped down from. heaven, but was work.
60 out through human conceptions.
Ia ~hNlonian and the Hebrew cosmo-
ilogics. The great fact for the He
brews was that in this world. in the
beginning God was there. That OK
plains why certain ideas in the Ola
Testament need correction. why one
prophet cans npon another and WHY
the Christian Interpretation gives us
a God working for all nations through
one; not meaning that he neglected
the other nations. If God is as good
a pedasog as We try to be. his work
was conditioned by what he found in
men. IF God could have given him.
self more fully to India. or China. he
would have done so. He found and
'clected' the nation that was open
M tina he could use.
one result is that our Old 1'esta-
mcnt is the whole literature of that
II nation. Not merely its HYMNS
n sermons. but it's laws, it's specula-
tons, some profitable and some UNI
profitable. its history. are all there.
Gods Interpreter.
Notice a third fact. God must
have, not merely history. but men,
who receive him and interpret him.
1t is a strange fact that this little
buffer state. a little highland people.
with a petty village AS it's holy CITY,
Jerusalem. with no might of arms, no
art. no philosophy. with only a bor-
rowed civilization. somehow or other
looked up to God. Its prophets saw
a God of holiness on the throne Of
tine universe. caring for the poor, car.
Ing for all men. They saw that lin
their affliction he was afflicted and
the angel Of his presence saved them.
In an - Of polytheism they said
their Coo had made tho heavens and
the earth and the kings Of the earth
were before him as tho stubble. No
wonder that today. where one man
reads Plato. q thousand read these
men. So must then if we place first.
not the book, but the living deed.
A New Bible.
Holding this. the Bible has become
to us a new book. a real book. It's