EVANGELISM & DOCTRINE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 117, 13 November 1926, Page 8

EVANGELISM & DOCTRINE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I read with interest your article in Monday's "Post" "Modern Evangelism." Under the'heading of "Emotionalism" it states "Emotionalism is not permanent, it is transient. It passes." Studying the result of this emotionalism we will see if this passes also. Evangelism stresses eternal damnation and hell-fire. ■ Modern life has made man's brain and nervous system a very delicate mechanism indeed. Can it be reasonably supposed by any intelligent person that threats of eternal Hell cannot have some effect either consciously or unconsciously on so delicate an organism, under the worst conditions imaginable to any psychologist. Emotionalism in a mild or harmless form is present .wherever there is a fluent speaker—-say at a political meeting. Here, however, conditions are quite different. On the one hand a person loses everything, and is threatened with eternal punishment. On the other hand the fate of his party or political opinions is at stake. No comparison can be made with this mild and harmless form of emotionalism and the former type. The great danger of evangelistic emotionalism is that modern man's conception of religion is so confused and indefinite. He is asked to question nothing. In fact, he is forced by faith to become a person without reason—a very dangerous state when at the mercy of a skilled evangelist, who generally is aware of it. and takes advantage of it. I contend that this intense emotionalism caused by the evangelist threatening1 people with eternal damnation under these conditions does much harm to many people, especially persons of delicate health. What churches stand by this doctrine? The time is fast coming when the intelligent person is going to ■ demand sane answers to these things, of the modern minister.—l am, etc.,

PREACH SANE RELIGION. 9th November, 1926: