THE NEW THEOLOGY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 11 June 1907, Page 1

THE NEW THEOLOGY.

MR. • CAMPBELL'S ONSLAUGHT

ON OLD BELIEFS

London Darily "Telegraph"

'•'Popular Christianity (or rather pulpit', and .theological collcgM Christianity) idoes -not interpret life. Consequently, the great world of thought and action is ceasing to' troul.-lo about it." So says tho Rev, R. J. Campbell, of the Oity Temple, and it is '"to save religion,' therefore, thait he and his' flnkaucls are preaching the Now Theology. For< religion, toe says, is necessary, to the world, though tho Churches may not be. By this time the general outline: of the New Theology must bo to-ler-l ably mcli known to everyone tviho reads 't'ha papers, or attends a

place of iworship, for the ' contro-

versy has been keen asid loud. Moreover, the -battle has been jo.in-

Ed, not on abstruse points of dogma, however, important, but on the broad fundamental -principles of Christianity itself. Mr. Campbell's position has been hotly, nssailed — from no quarter more strongf--than from the 2J"onconfo^mist— and both his friend's; and foos will ba glad of .-this authoritative exposition of the New Theology in book form— the book is putdishefcl to-day by Messrs. Chapman laaxl Hall — to which he has rl-evc«tod his winter holiday. Mr Campbell retracts nothing and waters j nothing down. Indeed, he seem to taka delight in repeating the passages which have most startled and shock od tho followers of tho Old Theology./ His break with tho Churches is complete amd irrevocable. Tho quarrel deepens. and his claims grow with each sermon that he preaches. TYh New Theology is now proclaimed' to lie, the "i-elig>ious opticuliatiion of tho social mo(ve;meiifi — it is to be tho religion of Socialism), though the Socaalieta hitherto do not seem to ackhow- j

ledgo it— and it is also declared, somewhat arrogantly, to lx; "the! religion of science." Sorance is

is sard to be supplying 1 the : facts-, which the New Theology is weaving into the texture of religious experience.

Mr Campbell tells that each man has twlo selves, or consciousnesses — \ hi 9 ordinary or suvfaoo seilf, and his hiiigher self. This Wgjher self is said to be. "in all probability, a perfect and eternal spiritual beting, integral to the being of .God," amd -to the higher self the,dividing--lino between the higher and tho lower cloc.-i not exist. BThiis rnlajy be a little obscure, but the New Theology wants men to- believie that they are "greater than they seem," and that all througW tho higher snlf, they touch all humanity amd even God' -himself. AH life is fundamentally ono: the> ulbimaite Self of the universe is God; man and God are essentially the same — such is the philosophy of t)he€ity Teniple theology. Jesus is '-'the Divine Man." But he isr not Deity, '. .;exc«pt as we are Deity, though he is far above all other religious masters. '/ 'i'lHe is • first and the riist nowhere; we have no categ-ory for Him." Mr -Campbell simpliftes the matter For his readers! by his emphatic duela-ration ,tha*

■■Humonity, r>i^-iuit^-, anti tooity are fundamentally .and casontjially one, but in scope ant) oxtent they, are different." The Old Theologians would have been horrified at. sucb an assertion of the essential ■. oneness of humanity end God, Ariushimself, while lowerinff the naturo of the ]Son he-low that' af tho Father, nvould have unitod with Athamasius in anathoroatißimg' Mr Oampbell. TliP' latter will have mrtihing to do with the two natures} or persona of Christ— God -mtA man. He will not actooiv[ledgo the possibility of such dualism, for ho says that Oral and man oamno't ho placed in two categories?— there is only one for them both. But I

to his critics, 'who charge 'him with Unitarianism, Jie replies:-

Present-day Unitarianism is preaching with fervour and clearness the foundation truth of the New Theology— the fundamental unity of God and man. But it does not belong to it exclusively, and I decline to : D© labelled Unitarian because I preach it too. The New Theology is not a victory for Unitarianism. . . It does not belong to any one Church, but to all. For my own part I would not even take the trouble to try to turn a Roman Catholic into a Protestant.

Others, perhaps, will say that' the Now Theology belongs not to all the churches, but to none. What! other Church ventures on such- aim assertion as this. "God is essentially man"? Or, again;

Jesus was God, but so are wo. He was God because His life was the expression of Divine love; we, too, are one with God in so far as our lives express the same thing. Jesus was not God in the sense that He possessed an infinite consciousness ; no more are we. Jesus' expressed fully and completely, in so far as a finite consciousness ever could, that aspect) of the nature of God which we nave called the Eternal Son, or "Christ, or ideal Man who is the soul of the universe ,and "the light that lighte'th every man that cometh into tihe world"; we are expressions of the same primordial being. Fundamentally we are all one in this Eternal Christ.

Naturally, (therefore, Mr Oampbell has his own theory of the irecarnation, ridiculing tho i>dca of tH-5 virgin, and actually declaring that "most (reputable thecJoghamsi have g>iven it up." The simple and natural conclusion is that Jesus was tha child of Joseph and Mary, and had an uneventful childhood. There, at least, is a plain stateonent, which admits of lmt one interpretation, yet Mr Campbell immediate envelops it in thin mist by insisting on the metaphorical truthp contained in the idea of the virgin birth, viz., that "a divine element, or spiritual quickening, is rc(o^iarad| for the evolution of anything! Godlike in our mundane sphere." One thing, however, is clear — the Newi Theology rejects /absolutely tth received ■ idea that Jesus was the only-begotiten Son of God, incarnate in Human life. ...There is nothing, apparently, that is- predicab-le 1 of Jrsus which might not be predicable '*>! any one ' of us, ii we only lived up to th-e full measure of over capacity for love amd unselfish ness towards the universal brotherour capacity for love and-unselfish-ness towards the universal brother-i hoodi. Whatever the Old Theology affirms exclusively of Jesus-, the New Theology either denies or af- ' firms to a more limited extent' oE man. ../CBut so are we" is 'ono of I tihe catch iphrasos of this book.. There can be n-o mistake on this point. Sayfl Mr Cambell: It is quite a false idea to think of Jesus and no one else as the Son of

God Incarnate. It is easy to understand the loving reverence for Jesus which would lead men to regard Him as beine and expressing something to which none of the rest can ever attain, but in affirming this we actually rob Him of a glory He ought to receive. We make Him unreal, reduce His earthly life to a sort of drama, and effect a drastic distinction in kind be-

tween Him and ourselves. If He came f from other side o£ -bke gulf ancl w« only from the hither; if we are humanity without Divinity and He Divinity that has only assumed humanity, perfect fellowship between Him and ourselves is impassible. . . We can rise towards Him by trusting, loving, and serving Him; and by so doing we shall demonstrate that we, too, are Christ the Eternal Son. I Thus the New fTheo'logy is eittier;

th« apotheosis oi man or the antWropomorphosis of Got). .Those) passages wall ihave prepared the! reader for Mr Campbell's view of , the authority of Scripture. jHe says "bluntly tbat lthiat supposed authority is a great hindrance to I truth. The Bible is no ''■iinpreg'n- . Bible rock"; belief in an irafalliiblo' , book* te lupossible. '''The BiHJo is mot like a parliamentary BlueBook, an extract and literal etaitei. ment of facts": It is not infallible for the simple reason thab the human naturo of wise and great men is not infallible. . . The best of them had Jheir limitations and shortcomings. They did Bob know all the truth that was to be known, but they kept their faeds to the light. If we allowed ourselves to be fettered by their actual words, we shall be in danger of losing sympathy with them in the spirit which animated those words. And then follows tihe inevitablci "So arty wxs" chorus: "We are writing a Bible with our own livesftoday." It comes to this, therefore, that the Bible is.' authoritative only. , in so far as 'it agrees with wn'd con>V firms the witness of tho "spsir|t' of itruth within your own soul." ..,■

Never mind what the Bible says about this or that if you are in search for truth, but trust tie voice of God within you. Ido not know anything which is such a serious hindrance and stumbling block to spiritual religion to-day as this supposed authority of a Book of Scripture. If only the average Protestant could emancipate himself from this intellectual bondage, the gain to truth would be immeasurable.

' In this mattpr Mr Camplbell is quite consistent. Even SU Paul ife to him simply a minister,, like tha* preacher at the City Temple, but much more liable to error, because of his -Rabbinical upbringing 1 * "^Paul's opinion is simply Paul's opinion.' l Mr agrees with Paul when Paul agrees with. [Mr Campbell. Salvation, according to the New Theology, merely "consists in ceasing to bo selflshi — that is, it represents tho victory of love in, tiho human heart. . . . The true sal■vaUon is the unselfish desir« to minii'Stcr io tho tommon good." And then follows a most curious passage: This is the way in which men like

Bobert Blatchford, of the "Clarion," are being saved while trying to save. . . . His moral earnestness" is a mark of his Christhood, and his work a p&rt of the Atonement. Not another i Christ than Jesus mind ! The very same, Mr Blatchford may laugh at this and call his moral aspirations by quite a -different name. well, let him ; but Ij know the thing when I see it. This is salvation.

Presumably, therefore, the work of the late Mr Brgdlaugh, whoso '■'moral earnestness was undeniable, was part of the Atonement, - laajdj even Mahomet himself, on tlris argument, may "be claimed as> a (iisciplo of Christ" On the subject of Judgment and Punishment, Mr Campbell is equally clear? There is no such thing as punishment, no far-oft" Judgment Day, no great white throne, and no Judge external to ourselves. I say there is no punish menb of sin in the sense in which pun ishnrent is usually employed. The only • punishment is'the padn which the sinful soiil must ultaniajtc, ly feel when ft realises ; its Selfishness and turns to 'unselfishness ! The only judgo is "the. dqepTor self." And the dcoper self? That is^'tha self who is i-tcrnally on© with God,'' tho fraction of the Deity, so to speak, which is in every, one of! us. So Mr Campbell practically'endorses the Omarian dognia, 'I myself am Heavwn and Hell." So far -as we can see, there os only one point where Mr Campbell 'admits that he is in a difficulty. To one question only doco ■ tiha oracle return a hedging answer. But it is the crucial ooe^Wh)4t cA the Resurrection? Did Christ/ whd. according to the New Theology iwas the son of Josciph and 1 . Mary 1 , rico from the" dead or not? 'Mr-'Ootmpibl^ is forcod to admit that all theriißciplos believed in their risen Liorid.. Thiis was, 'indeed, tba ptiVoti of bheir faitli. > Without the Hesur-4 rection, Christianity could never hav<j survived, could never have 1713110 converts. ■ TVere t/lte apoptles, then, the victims of a ialluclnia.'tion' or an .apparition, or ■» Mr Campb.ell finds auother oxplana- ' tion: In my judgment insistence upon the impossibility of a physical resurrection . presumes an essential distinction between matter and spirit which! cannot admit. The- philosophy . underlying the New Theology, as I understand tfc, is monistic idealism, and monistic idealism recognises no fundamental distinction between matter and spirit. 'The fundamental reality, is Consciousness. Thetso-called material' woridris" the product of consciousness exercising it--6elf along a certain limited plane j I the next stage of consciousness above' this is not an absolute break. w,ith it, though it is an expansion of experience or readjustment of focus. Admitting that individual self-consciorisneEsi.:'. persists beyond the change .. called.- !.'death>"-i ;it | only means that snch consciousness is being exercised along another plane; from a three-dimension it has entered a four-dimensioned world. In other words, ' the Christ, as

seen by His mother and His fol-; lowers after the Crucifixfion, wa« "■a. being with a consciouaness be-j lomg to 1 the fourtb-deraensional; plane, which had adjusted itself to the capacity of those on a three?: dfmensfonal plame for the'satoe of proving to them beyond dispute! that !

[ Lifa is ever lord of death ' and lovo can never lose its own." ' We conftss we <)o not find -Uks) fcanvineinb. How this is-; easier- j td> believe than the old story Mjj( Qampbell does not say, nor tamp this, "being" contrived thus to adf just itself in the way idesiTod and to assume tho .w«U-known' bodily, shape, so as to be recognisable endto walk -and talto.

No t&eory of. IK& 'SesoiirveeCion o? ' Jesus is absolutely indispensable, or of first-rate importance ; the mam thing to be agreed upon is that Christianity started with the belief that its Founder had risen from the dead m order to demonstrate that death has no poweito destroy anything worthy of God. .r , But the real paint is wheiiher tho telief was truo or falso. Mr Oajnp-; boll's suggsstion pre-sirpposes a •tic' parturt from .the usual laiws governing "the world quite as roi I markablo as that of the oitdi/rrarj-, belief. iAnd it is well worth no-4 ting that in his concluding: chapter Mr Campbell expressly says fihat ho expects .that before long Vwo shall see a rehabilitation of belief in tho credibility of certain Muds of miraclo, and that thfs rahabiHta-f tion will proceed frotn the side of, psychical science. The power olmiMd over matter is being recognis-. Ed for therapeutic purposes in ai way hitherto undreamed of, and is", receiving -a large kad 1 increasinj!! measure of .attention I ' "fronr the medical profession." Can it be that the New Theology is.^oiTtgi to; join hands with Christian Science?'. More surprising' things might hap-

pen. .. ■ On ithe last paragraph of the book Mr Campbell frankly repeals that the movement represented by tihe New Theology is "only Incidentally theological . . .My mterest in theology is only seconda-ry; lay, chief interest is mankind.'" /The truth of that is visible on every; page, andi it abundantly ccmftnms Mr Campbell's criWcs. The New Theology, in fact, is not a restate-: ment of toe Christian religion; it is a new religion, just as much as (Mrs Eddy's Christian Science, I Madame Blavatsky's Tlheosophy, and Dr, Bowie's Zionism. Mr Campbell has written. an exoueiding--ty interesting book, which many will find stimulating and suggostivo reading, tout he has not doniolished the Old Theology. \