The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-31
TRUCE IN CHURCH
 WAR |s CONCL UDED
Broadsides In ModerniSt FundamentaIiSt Controversy
 Again Hurled From PulpitS

NEW YORK, Dec. 3o.--Without q formal signal. the truce in the Epis- copal church schism, invoked for the holidays by Bishop Manning, ended Sunday, with several rectors ear nestly tackling the modernist-fun mentalist differences in their Sunday sermons.
 "The trouble with much of our present day religion" said pr. Will liam Norman Guthrie from the pulpit of St. Marks-in- the -Bouwerie, "1s that it is bore!
 And nothing is worse than bore; not even murderw
 Each church, Guthrie argued must adapt Itself to the tastes, and those who worship at St. Marks" he said, "Demand an artistic interpretation of their religion and their Bible.
 Average worshlppers of intelli- gence," he said, want an admixture of mysticism with their religion, being loath to accept it literally; and the organism of the St. Marks serv- ices" Guthrie explained, lis intro duced to answer this demand"
 Guthrie tended off charges from the orthodox camp that the liberals, as he termed the modernists, are in- sincere regarding the doctrine of vir- gin birth as unessentia1 to Chris- tian faith. He asserted that the fun damentalsts themselves are guilty Of mental dishonesty" in contending that it is an indispensable shibboleth. snys Liberals Are Honest.
 ''The really honest churchmen are the liberals" he declared, "who ad- init the possibility of development in religion and approach the questions of worship with an open and tolerant mind"
 Guthrie denounced those Episcopa- palians, who close their minds to re- ligous unfolding and demand literal belief in myths embodied in the Bible figuratively.
 "Between shocking my grand mother with modernity, and shocking my grandson with a religious funda- mentalism for which he can have no respect, l should choose to shock my grandmother" he said,
 q am concerned entirely with the future The best way to be true to your parents is to be independent. Be a man. not monkey. l am in my own day, and I propose to do as l think bestH'
 "We lack an adequate social re- 1 ligion," he continued. pleading for
  peal to the sense of all men, You are a little sect, and a sect is a funny thing; it's like an asylum. Modernists Are Rebuked. pr. Joseph c. H. Barry, rector of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, led the fundamentalist broadsiders. Unless the bishops enforce rigid discipline. he said, the Episcopal church would be confronted by se- rious crisis. He rebuked the mod ernists specifically and criticised churchgoers who "are attempting to split the church into factions" Modernism is the result of lgnor- ance," he said, but not all modern ists are ignorant. Professionalism IS going downhill doctrinally because of those who do not believe in orthodox professionalism.
 There is a thing in science which clashes with religion. Scientists. as well as anyone else, are obliged to accept miracles. God is not inter- fering with things nor does he op- pose any established theory. The charge that we are fundamentallsts l is not SO. Cain was modernist Abel was a conservative person. The American modernist is very careful not to say what he means. In fact he doesn't know exactly what he means. Until he stands up and says what he means, l shall have nothing | to say to him.