Article October 12, 1912 Issue

In his recent letter our clerical critic alludes to the atonement,...

Frederick Dixon

Sevenoaks (Eng.) Chronicle

In his recent letter our clerical critic alludes to the atonement, yet he knows as well as I do that there is no such thing as an orthodox doctrine of the atonement. He says, for instance, that "the Christian church has never ceased to teach the sacrifice of the Son of God, as removing the sin of the world." These are mere words, which can only deceive readers profoundly ignorant of the subject. Here are the words of a member of the clergyman's own church, the vice-principal of the Theological College in the cathedral city of Lichfield, who has expressed his opinion that the world would not accept any doctrine of the atonement which contradicted its fundamental moral instincts, and that these moral instincts were outraged by the teaching that God could be "appeased or propitiated by the death of an innocent victim." "Our whole mind," he adds, "revolts against the Miltonic view of the atonement, which, besides offending our moral sense, logically and rapidly leads us to undiluted Arianism." I do not know if the critic will still have the controversial audacity to use such an argument again. Then in eleven lines the gentleman disposes of all the difficulties concerning Jesus and the Christ. He knows, as well as I do, that the greatest thinkers in his own church have devoted not merely books, but veritable libraries, to this subject. There seems, therefore, almost a want of diffidence on his part in assuming that it is so casually to be disposed of, and in inviting me to follow him into such a futile process of exegesis.

Next, I come to the really lamentable attempt, on the part of the critic, to explain away what I said about his contention that Christian Scientists never took up the cross. I said, and I repeat with emphasis, that Christian Scientists take up the cross in the fullest sense. One example alone, out of innumerable ones which I could have given, was the one selected of a Christian Science practitioner sitting by the bedside of the sick, striving to save life, with the knowledge that if he failed he would be dragged into the coroner's court and subjected to every sort of insinuation. I added that, after this explanation, I thought the critic was too much of a gentleman to repeat the offense. I have now to apologize to your readers and to him for having thought anything of the sort. He retorts by saying that he regards my argument as too "funny" to be serious. It may be exquisitely humorous to him; as humorous as, I am told, the sufferings of an animal under vivisection sometimes are to the operator. But then the point of view of a Christian Scientist, striving at the cost of insult and contumely to heal the sick, in accordance with the command of the Founder of the Christian religion, is a little different from that of the clergyman who regards that effort as "funny."

The critic differs, as he is entitled to, from the teaching of Christian Science, but in pouring out his scorn he will do well to remember that he differs from a good many people; from the vice-principal of the Lichfield Theological College, on the subject of atonement, and from the theologians of Sevenoaks, in the sixteenth century, if his church existed in those days. Indeed, had the critic had the bad fortune to have had Bonner for a bishop, in the days of the Marian persecution, he might have learned exactly how "funny" it is to expose yourself to bigotry and intolerance. The critic's state of mind is rather like that of the Roman emperor who attributed to perversity the presence of the Christian martyrs in the circuses of the empire.

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In his recent letter our clerical critic alludes to the atonement,...

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