New Britain herald., 1923-02-12
Mhatt Has Ii to Do With Christianity Anyway, He Asks-Wants Liberalism in Religious Doctrines.

New York. Feb, is,-PFeaehln
 again yesterday on religious liberal
 ism, pr, Percy Stiekney Grant, Teego
 ol the Church Of the Ascension, mad a direct denial of the virgin birth Q
 Christ, one Of the fundamental doe
 lrines of the Protestant kpiseepa
 church. His view on the virgin biFtl
 came toward the close Of his sermon
 when he saidl
 T get letters saying You are m
 dermining Christianity, You are de
 nying our Lord, and So forth, Wha
 n crude misunderstanding Of me '
 say because 1 don't believe that Chris
 was born Of virgin that l am de
 stroying Christianity! What has th'
 virgin birth to do with Christianity
 The pulpit utteranees Of pr, Gran
 which brought Bishop William T
 Manning's first letter and suggestion
 of a heresy trial were more genera
 than the statement made yesterday The controversy seemed at an end little more than week ago, when thi Bishop in a second letter informed Dr. Grant that his formal exposition Of his views in a communication tc the Bishop had been conehed in am blgnous terms, and that flor the present" the question Of trying him | for heresy would rest.
 The Apostles Creed recited In Episcopal churches by ministers and congregation. or intoned by the choir as in the Church Of the Ascension, clearly sets forth the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, as follows:
 T believe in God the Father AL mighty. maker of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary ="
 The Nicene Creed in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer carries this passage:
 And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
 "Dogmatic Barriers"
 "I hope to see religion as free to thought as chemistry or physics, and as little bound by dogmatic barriers Dr. Grant declared in beginning his sermon. T hope to see all depart ments of thought and expression, whether religious or scientific or artis- tic or economic pulling together and helping each other. Think of the terrible schisms in the nature of Ed ward Adams, who was a son of Charles Adams, Minister to England through the Civil War, and who wrote that book, The Education of Edward Adams He said he had received a eighteenth century education but that he had lived in the twentieth cen- tury.
 As anybody who has read that book sees. there is a continual pull ing and hauling between the facts of life as he had to meet them and the education given to him. A lot of peo- pie living today have been given an eighteenth century education, or worse, particularly fn religion, me- dieval education
 When an automobile breaks down you want somebody who knows the | of automobiles; you don't want somebody who comes along and discourses pleasantly on literature or philosophy or the manners of the Greeks; you want to have somebody who understands the machinery and can put that automobile in order to go ahead. That is what we want to- of life, the laws governing these facts, of file, the laws governing these facts, and we don't want these schisms in our nature that are pulling against each other.
 We want all this pulling to cease, 50 that whatever we get in church on Sunday is joy and delight and imag- native power behind everything we 10 in the course of the week, whether n work, study, painting or music, or whatever it may be. That is what re- igion ought to be-" pr. Grant said he hoped to see the ime when religious experience and bought are based on such reliable that we don't have to live n fear of being robbed in our religion " scholars and men of science" ( fear and concealment, he ! aid, had been pretty much the at- . itude of intellectual men who also ! ad profound religious consciousness
 
 yer since we have paid a greater at- l. antion to scholarship and science as hey affected the Christian religion" T hope to see the time when all lankind will have a sensitiveness to- ard life such as Jesus showed, and ill have the feeling of it's beauty that e had, and a soul to obey it's pro- ound and wonderful laws"
 Liberalism.
 Arguing that liberalism should be taught, the preacher said nat the country would not be cele- rating Lincoln's birthday if America i'd hot believe in teaching liberalism. And do you think that with such n example as that man before us ho today is probably the supremest lodei that the spirit of America has reduced in spite of those great inn lortal fathers of the revolution and , you suppose with ale ian such as that as our model Am rican, we do not have to go ahead l every direction of freedom and hallenge and insist that freedom 1all win. C And do you suppose there is any g nswer in a country like this to the I uestion should liberalism be gener- t ly taught, except the answer Yes Ii ' all means and of necessity"
 Liberalism is not liberalism that is raid of it's own speeches. pr. Grant id at another point in his sermon. ather it was founded upon great opes as the future and great confi- o