{"id":29602,"date":"2017-10-13T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/\/uk\/?p=29602"},"modified":"2017-10-12T15:32:36","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:32:36","slug":"modernism-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/articles\/2017\/modernism-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Modernism, Then and Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Enlightenment, emerging in 18th-century Germany, rejected all\u00a0supernatural religion, stressing the all-sufficiency of human reason. Its rationalistic spirit penetrated deeply into German Protestantism, and by\u00a0the 19th century it was making its impact on Protestantism worldwide. It\u00a0undermined belief in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, encouraging\u00a0a radical form of Higher Criticism that had a long-lasting and dire effect on\u00a0theological training. In Europe it was also responsible for the reactionary rise\u00a0of emotional \u2018Pietism\u2019. The early brand of rationalism within Protestant\u00a0circles was popularized by the writings of men like the Danish theologian,\u00a0Soren Kierkegaard, (1813\u201355) and the German scholar, Rudolf Bultmann\u00a0(1884\u20131976). Kierkegaard, who has been called the \u2018Father of Existentialism\u2019,\u00a0saw the incarnation as a radical impossibility. \u2018God\u2019, he wrote, \u2018is a concept\u2019\u00a0and concepts do not suffer and die. Bultmann wanted to make the Bible\u00a0acceptable to modern man in a time of great scientific advance, so he promoted the idea of \u2018demythologizing\u2019 the New Testament. He saw the\u00a0New Testament as expressed in mythological terms, and what mattered was\u00a0the truth conveyed by the myths \u2013 that is, by the supernatural. The myths were\u00a0like an envelope carrying a message. Therefore discard the envelope!<\/p>\n

However, the message is written on the envelope. Discard the historical in\u00a0the Gospels, and all is lost! So began the \u2018quest for the historical Jesus\u2019, a futile, never-ending search once the Jesus of the Gospels was no longer accepted.<\/p>\n

Evangelicals observing this development dubbed it \u2018modernism\u2019 and\u00a0\u2018liberalism\u2019. Neither term is really accurate: the authority of God\u2019s Word was\u00a0first challenged in Eden, and as J. Gresham Machen comments, \u2018The\u00a0movement designated as \u201cliberalism\u201d is regarded as \u201cliberal\u201d only by its friends.\u2019 In reality it is anti-supernaturalism.<\/p>\n

The Frontal Assault<\/h3>\n

By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, theological\u00a0modernism was rampant in colleges and seminaries around the world. The\u00a0attack on the Bible and on the fundamentals of the faith was open and\u00a0undisguised. Here are typical examples:<\/p>\n

The Old Testament idea of God as the potentate who holds rebellious men\u00a0in derision, the arbitrary and self-centred despot who seeks his own glory,\u00a0is not the conception of God which Christ gave us, but something like its\u00a0antithesis. . . . man is to be saved by recognising . . . his divinity, and his\u00a0possibilities for all that is true and worthy.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those words by a well-known Presbyterian professor were matched by those\u00a0of a Methodist professor of the period.<\/p>\n

The authority and inspiration of the Old Testament depend neither on\u00a0complete inerrancy nor on external consideration of authorship, dates or\u00a0theories of composition. It depends rather on the actual quality of the\u00a0contents. It is the ideas or teaching of the several Books in their essence that\u00a0is divinely inspired and so authoritative.
\nThe personality of Ezekiel reveals much that is fantastic and perplexing. He\u00a0is ecstatic and visionary . . . Chapters xi and xiv show that he also possessed\u00a0gifts of clairvoyance which are associated with the primitive prophets.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above quotations are not taken out of context. I once heard W. J. Grier\u00a0ask, \u2018If a man says that Jesus is not God, how much context is needed to\u00a0change the meaning of his words?\u2019 Good question! It is clear from the writings\u00a0of the early modernists that they were the product of the rationalism spawned\u00a0by the Enlightenment. Man sat in judgment on the Word of God instead of\u00a0bowing before its judgment of him. Those early modernists, in rejecting the\u00a0Bible as inscripturated revelation, also sat in judgment on Christ: they were\u00a0keen to insist that intellectually Christ is not final for us.<\/p>\n

The Subtle Change<\/h3>\n

The attack on the veracity of Scripture and the Person of Christ did not go\u00a0unchallenged. Two names in particular deserve to be remembered. In Ireland,\u00a0W. J. Grier almost single-handedly and at great personal cost exposed the\u00a0nature and source of the teaching that was steadily replacing the preaching\u00a0of the gospel with tepid moral essays. Princeton-trained, his scholarship and\u00a0piety meant that his loyalty to the Saviour and the Reformed Faith never\u00a0wavered. In America, J. Gresham Machen\u2019s calm and incisive analysis of\u00a0modernism proved an effective rebuttal. His Christianity and Liberalism, a\u00a0classic, has never been answered by liberals.<\/p>\n

Gradually the modernists developed a more subtle approach. Increasingly,\u00a0orthodox terms were used with an unorthodox meaning, and the person in the\u00a0pew could not tell the difference. Sadly, when a liberal preacher says that in\u00a0Jesus we see God, or in Jesus we meet God, he is not saying that Jesus is God.\u00a0Karl Barth (1886\u20131968) rejected the old modernism, insisting on the absolute\u00a0authority of Scripture, but found its inspiration in its present use by the Holy\u00a0Spirit. Thus the Bible was seen as the vehicle by which the Word comes to us,\u00a0and not in and of itself the Word of God. When Barth first attracted attention,\u00a0R. A. Finlayson quoted a line from a children\u2019s verse: \u2018Twinkle, twinkle, little\u00a0star, how I wonder what you are!\u2019 It soon became clear that Barth allowed\u00a0for a variety of errors in the Bible. Modernism had simply changed its coat.<\/p>\n

Today the old rationalism has been abandoned. Now the message is that\u00a0there is no objective reality or truth. Something may be true for me, but not\u00a0for you. As David McKay comments, \u2018The influence of the movement known\u00a0as Postmodernism undermines all absolutes and leaves each one to formulate\u00a0a \u201cworld and life view\u2019\u2019 that suits him, regardless of issues of truth.\u20193<\/a><\/sup> No\u00a0wonder that the Pilates of this world ask, \u2018What is truth?\u2019 Theology has\u00a0become increasingly subjective. The spider has the ability to spin a web from\u00a0within itself, and that is essential for its existence. But when man endeavours\u00a0to weave a web of truth from his own mind, he is left with an illusion.<\/p>\n

The Enduring Danger<\/h3>\n

Present-day liberalism is in some ways more philosophical than theological.\u00a0One can preach the doctrines of historic Calvinism, because they are to be\u00a0found in Scripture. But the philosophical subtleties of modern theology cannot\u00a0be proclaimed to needy souls. Edward J. Young used to say that the most\u00a0hopeful thing about modern theology was that no one could understand it!<\/p>\n

Modernism appears periodically in a new dress, but at rock bottom nothing\u00a0changes. P. E. Hughes wrote that the radicals of the 19th and 20th centuries\u00a0rejected the supernatural as fundamentally unacceptable to the modern\u00a0mind.4<\/a><\/sup> That is still true. Incipient rationalism is ever present. There is\u00a0always the temptation to elevate our finite and sin-contaminated reason\u00a0above Scripture. Sadly, we have seen men to whom we are indebted for\u00a0much valuable work begin to wobble as they have denied the doctrine of\u00a0eternal punishment, or seen the opening chapters of Genesis as symbolic\u00a0and parabolic, or presented an erroneous doctrine of justification. Reason\u00a0not governed by the Word of God is a maverick. The Enlightenment\u00a0deified reason. We must see it as God\u2019s gift, to be used only for his glory.<\/p>\n

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Notes<\/h3>\n
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  1. J. E. Davey, Our Faith in God<\/i> (London: Student Christian Movement, 1922), pp. 99\u2013100.<\/li>\n
  2. W. L. Northridge, The Old Testament Today<\/i> (London: Epworth Press, 1937), pp. 14, 114.<\/li>\n
  3. The Bond of Love<\/i> (Fearn, Ross-shire: Christian Focus Publications, 2001), p. 86<\/li>\n
  4. Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology<\/i> (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1966) p. 20.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    Of Further Interest<\/h3>\n