Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 95:380 (Oct 1938)
Article: Editorials
Author: Anonymous

BSac 95:380 (Oct 38) p. 385

Editorials

Vital Issues

In a meeting of the ruling board of a church a few weeks ago the issue between Modernism and Fundamentalism was raised when considering the teaching in the Sunday School. One member of the board asked the moderator, a pastor of a neighboring church, what the difference is between these two systems of religion. The moderator, evading the issue, is reported to have replied that there is practically no difference, especially none that should divide Christians.

This reply is typical of the methods employed by that class of Modernists who seek to keep the rank and file of the membership of the churches in ignorance of the real issues. Every believer in Biblical Christianity, especially those holding offices in the churches, should be in possession of the following quotation for use with those who do not sense the fact that tremendously important principles are at stake. In the January 3, 1924, Number of the Christian Century, a foremost organ of liberalistic religion, appeared these words: “How deep-going is the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy? Is not the whole controversy, after all, scarcely more than a tempest is a teapot? Or are the Fundamentalists right in claiming that the issue is a grave one, going to the roots of religious conviction and involving the basic purposes and almost the genius of Christianity itself? A candid reply to such inquiries must be one of agreement with the Fundamentalist claim.... Christianity according to Fundamentalism is one religion. Christianity according to Modernism is another religion.... For the day of neutrality has all but passed.

“There is a clash here as profound as and as grim as that between Christianity and Confucianism. Amiable words cannot hide the differences. ‘Blest be the tie’ may be sung until doomsday, but it cannot bind these two worlds together. The God of the Fundamentalist is one God; the God of the

BSac 95:380 (Oct 38) p. 386

Modernist is another. The Christ of the Fundamentalist is one Christ; the Christ of Modernism is another. The Bible of Fundamentalism is one Bible; the Bible of Modernism is another.”

There is only one word I would strike out of this clear and true statement. I would eliminate the word almost in the phrase: “involving the basic purposes and almost the genius of Christianity itself.” The very genius of Christianity is denied by Modernism. The substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, “bearing our sins in his own body on the tree,” is said by religious liberalists to be immoral teaching. Referring to this precious substitution, one Modernist, preaching “another gospel,” as Paul brands it, expressed it thus: “It is immoral to teach that a person can go to heaven on ...