Article May 20, 1911 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from R. J. Campbell, Simon L. Patten, M. Rhodes, C. A. S. Dwight, Clarence R. Skinner

[Christian Register.]

The theological unrest of our time, the occasion of deep anxiety to many, is not without genial prophecy to ourselves. It may mean, it does mean to us, the breaking up of a winter incident upon the coming of a warmer sun. Men are not tired of religion. The soul is as it was: old hopes enkindle it, old dreads appall it, old raptures thrill it. They want, as they have ever wanted, a closer walk with God. Nor are they tired of theology. Man is by instinut a theologian: its themes hold him, entrance him, as none other. They are tired, however, of the old temper and the old method. The old method built a house for the soul, but gave the soul no voice in its structure. In this edifice, reared for you, it said in effect, abide and be content. That is to say, the traditional theology is dogmatic, not spiritual, in its spring. The "building intellect" was ingenious, but it was not spiritually directed. The unrest of which we are so sensible springs from the spirit's discontent with its conditions. It wants another temple whose structure shall express its own monitions. The unrest pleases rather than disturbs us, for we see in it the prophecy of a spiritual theology.

[Rev. R. J. Campbell, M.A., in Christian Commonwealth.]

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