Personal Religion Divorced From Objective Christianity -- By: R. B. Kuiper

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 06:2 (May 1944)
Article: Personal Religion Divorced From Objective Christianity
Author: R. B. Kuiper


Personal Religion Divorced From Objective Christianity

R. B. Kuiper

UNDER the title Personal Religion1 Douglas Clyde Macintosh, the well-known Dwight Professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion in Yale University, has written a companion volume to his Social Religion, published in 1939. That he has chosen to write the more recent of these volumes is in itself significant. It is evidence that the pendulum of theological liberalism is beginning to swing back from excessive emphasis on the social aspect of religion. Once more the truism, strangely neglected for some time, is being recognized, that society can be no better than the individuals constituting it. From that viewpoint Macintosh’s latest book deserves a hearty welcome.

Macintosh is of the opinion that, while some ministers are greatly interested in personal evangelism and others in social reform, very few ministers are deeply interested in both. That leads him to the observation that, although logically these two interests are allies, psychologically they are rivals. That they are allies logically few will care to dispute, but with the estimate, however neatly expressed, that psychologically they are rivals it is difficult to agree. To be sure, few if any ministers devote themselves equally to personal evangelism and social reform. But what accounts for this disparity? In a great many instances, no doubt, the mere matter of limitation of time. In other instances, however, the minister’s theology is the deciding factor. The adherent of modern dispensationalism, for example, bestirs himself to rescue individuals from the conflagration of society but admits that he is not concerned about putting out the fire,

because Christ will take care of that at his second coming; and many a liberal of one or two decades ago concentrated on social reform because he deprecated interest in personal salvation as narrow. Given a balanced theology, every faithful minister of the gospel is sure to take a profound interest in both personal and social religion. That it does not follow conversely that a deep interest in both on the part of a given minister is conclusive evidence of the soundness of his theological views need hardly be said.

Excellent organization of material renders the summarization of the content of Macintosh’s book a simple task. It consists of two parts: The Principles of Personal Religion and The Propagation of Personal Religion. Under the first head fall three chapters. The first, entitled “Old-Time Religion”, describes, for the most part in their own words, the personal religion of such Puritans as John Cotton, patriarch of New England, and ce...

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