The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-02-12
THE NEW THEOLOGY


 There are two kinds of heretics in this world. The first is the man who holds to his fathers faith blindlyI the second is he who forsakes that faith and goes forth blindly to espouse each new cult which appears on the spiritual horizon. The first man is heretic because he has denied the truth of spiritual development, bindly limiting Gods works and ways to the confines of his own dogged faithi the second man is a heretic because he has forsaken old, and sometimes unwel- come, truth, and worships at the shrine of novelty rather than of God. These two are the evangels of the Old and New Theoogles, and they speak unkindly of one another as reactionaries and radicals.
 In so far as these fear and distrust each other, such fear and distrust are needless, While 1t is true that neither one alone is Fo- ing to advance the world Godwnrd, 1t Is equally true that neither one Is going to lead the world astray. As matter of fact they have much in common, and what they have In common is splendid, 80 far as they are loyal to their respective schools of thought. They have God in common; they both seek God and differ only in their method of search The old school seeks God in the past; in Ills dealings with an ancient people, in His won drous miracles; in His Incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth And God is there. The new school seeks God in the pres ent; in the rise and fall of kingdoms; in the development of industry and in human insti- tutions; the new school seeks God in human life, and looks for increasing knowledge of God in the days which lie ahead. And God is there also. And it is the same Eternal God, who was and Is and shall be. The first school fails in that it misses all the glorious revela- tion which has been.
 The New Tehology, in it's finest sense, is the search for God in terms of life as it is In so far as the life of today rests upon the life of yesterday, the God of yesterday re- mains the rock upon which the God of today must rest. In so far as the life of yesterday eventuated in the life of today, the God of yesterday must be known and understood In life as we know 1t now. There is no change in the nature of God as the years pass on. There is change in us. We discover new needs which God must fill, and which God was always ready to fill so soon as we dis covered them. We see the old Creating Father from the vantage ground of twenty centuries of Christian life and struggle It is neither strange nor wrong if we see Him differently from the fathers.
 The New Theology is new vision of God, and a new understanding of Him who is from eternity-yet ever new. We know Him as loving father, and He never was any thing else, though men thought of Him as a stern and sometimes cruel judge. We know Him as an indwelling Spirit and He always was that-though men believed Him to be a potentate reigning in some distant heaven There is New Astronomy. It does not im- ply that the sun and moon and stars are changed. We have merely entered into some of their age-long secrets. There is New Theology. Its only crime is that it draws the old God nearer, and brings Him into closer union with the life of suffering and shining men.
 MIDDLETON S. BARNwELL