Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-04-23
BISHOP BROWN HITS
STANDARDIZED GOD
Declares All Are Heretics in
Only Sense of Word
Left by Science.
BY the Associated Press

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK. April 23.--In the robes
of the bishopric. with stole, cassoCI
and ring. Bishop William Montgomery
Brown, twice convicted by ecclesiasti-
cal courts of heresy, defended his be
lief from the pulpit of the Community
Church of New York last night, while
outside the church police reserves held
back the overflow crowd.
Bishop Brown said that he was de-
livering the address he had prepared
for last Sunday at St. Mark s-in-the-
Bouwerie. Bishop William IT. Man
ming of the New York Episcopal
diocese inhibited him from delivering
it in an Episcopal church of the
diocese, and restrained DIR. Guthrie,
rector of st. Marks. from permitting
Bishop Brown to speak there.
Bishop Brown explained that he had
entirely abandoned supernaturalistic
theology, and interpreted the Bible as
categorical and idealistic expression
when it dealt with events unacceptable
in the light of modern scientific
progress.
Sees Church at Crisis.
The address, MY New and Old
Faiths" was on the New Testament
text, Seek We first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness" and held,
in the main, that the Episcopal
Church's failure TO recognize a
changing concept of God" had Gre
ated crisis in religion.
In this crisis" he said, the re
ligious teacher who has been STEPPED
in the traditions of theology finds him
self forced to say:
God is like this. This is the cor
rect concept of God. and you deviate
from it at your peril. Note the label.
Observe that this God has been Off
cially examined and approved. Take
no substitutes. None genuine with
out this signature
Il trust that / am not unduly sar-
castle. That position is the very
essence of heresy trials. 1t was from
such heights of orthodoxy that the
world burned Giordano Bruno. be-
cause he saw God in the whole of
cosmic phenomena, as | see Him to-
day. 1t was with the same devotion
to the supposedly correct label that
it prosecuted the 'God-intoxicated'
SpinoSa."
Hereto i'm Old Sense.
Bishop Brown opened his address
with the admission that he was here
tic, in the sense in which the word
was always used in the days when
they burned people at the stake for
deviating in some particular from the
approved and established codification
of literal belief"
He commended, however, that. judged
by such standards, everybody is a
hereto today" but held that science
had robbed the word of ANY possible
meaning" The church. he said, never
had followed the method dictated by
science, which recognizes only truth
and error" or the meaningful and
the meaningless.
Even to propose a scheme for sep
arating the false and true shocks the
theological mind into complete mac
ton" he said. adding that it is the
dilemma of the old churches that
they are trying to function in this
scientific world with certain theories
as to the nature of truth which the
world has long since discarded.
Denies Atheism. --...
He denied that he was an atheist.
saying that eff any one tells me that
he does not believe in God, he tells me
nothing. for l do not know what he
means by God. The chances are he
merely has given up his belief in
certain conception of God, and every
living mind necessarily passes through
that experience. lie added:
1.-THE important thing in a mans
religious life is not that he hold the
right conception of God, but that he
hold today a larger concept than he
held Yesterday
AS child, he said. he thought of
God as IAN exaggerated man always
with long white beard This con-
ception waned with the years, the
bishop continued, until eventually
my God lost conscious personality
altogether"
I'm spite of the words of the creeds