Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again. Joseph Barker
father that should be tenderly indulgent to one of his children, and rigidly severe to the rest, would be regarded with indignation. The doctrine of Divine partiality shocks both our reason and our moral feelings. And it is not scriptural. The Bible says nothing about God dooming the rebellious angels to perdition for one sin, without any attempt to bring them back to obedience; but it does say that God is good to all, and that His tender mercies are over all His works. I accordingly rejected the doctrine. There was quite a multitude of doctrines which entered into the sermons of many of my brother ministers, which never found their way into mine. And there were doctrines which entered into my discourses, which never found their way into theirs. And the doctrines which we held and preached in common, we often presented in very different forms, and put into very different words. They could say a multitude of things which I could not say; things which I could find no kind of warrant for saying. When we met together after hearing each other preach, we had at times long talks about our different views and ways of preaching. I was free in expressing my thoughts and feelings, especially in the earlier years of my ministry, and our conversations were often very animated.
In some circuits, I induced my colleagues to join me in establishing weekly meetings for mutual improvement in religious knowledge. At each meeting an essay was read, on some subject agreed upon at a former meeting, and after the essay had been read we discussed the merits both of the sentiments it embodied, and of the style in which it was written. When it was my turn to prepare an essay, I generally introduced one or more of the points on which I and my colleagues differed, for the purpose of having them discussed. I stated my views with the utmost freedom, and gave every encouragement to my colleagues to state theirs with equal freedom in return. When my colleagues read their productions, I pointed out what I thought erroneous or defective with great plainness and fidelity. I was anxious both to learn and to teach, and it was my delight, as it was my duty and business, to endeavor to do both. I was not, however, so anxious to change the views of my friends as I was to excite in them a thirst for knowledge. And indeed I did not consider it of so much importance that a man should accept a certain number of truths, or particular doctrines, as that he should have a sincere desire, and make suitable endeavors to understand all truth. It was idleness, indifference, a state of mental stagnation, a readiness carelessly to accept whatever might come in the way without once trying to test it by Scripture or reason, that I particularly disliked; and to cure or abate this evil, I exerted myself to the utmost.
When I was stationed in Newcastle in 1831, I met with Foster's Essays, which I read with a great deal of eagerness and pleasure. One of these Essays is "On some of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion has been Rendered Unacceptable to Persons of Cultivated Taste?" Among his remarks on this subject, he has some to the following effect:—
1. Christianity is the religion of many weak, uncultivated and little-minded people, and they, by their unwise ways of talking about it, and by their various defects of character, make religion look weak, and poor, and unreasonable. And many receive their impression or ideas of the character of Christianity more from the exhibitions given of it by the religious people with whom they come in contact, than from the exhibition given of it in the life and teachings of its great Author, or from the characters and writings of His Apostles. An intelligent and cultivated man, for instance, falls into the company of Christians who know little either of the teachings of Christ, or of the wonderful facts which go to prove their truth and their infinite excellency—Christians who never trouble themselves about such matters, and who look on it as no good sign when people show a disposition to inquire seriously into such subjects. He hears those Christians talk about religion, but can find nothing in their conversation but strange and, to him, unintelligible expressions. The speakers give proof enough of excited feelings, but show no sign of mental enlightenment. If he asks them for information on the great principles and bearings of Christianity, they tell him they have nothing to do with vain philosophy.
2. The man of taste and culture hears other Christians harping eternally on two or three points, adopted perhaps from some dreamy author, and denouncing all who question the correctness of their version of the Gospel, as heretics or infidels, while all the time their notions have little or no resemblance either to the Gospel or to common sense; but are at best, only perversions or distortions of Christian doctrines, which have no more likeness to the religion of Christ than a few broken bricks have to a beautiful and magnificent palace.
3. In many cases the Christians with whom he meets have not only no general knowledge of religious subjects, but no desire for such knowledge. The Bible is their book, they say, and they want no other. And they make but a pitiful use of that. They do not go to the Bible as to a fountain of infinite knowledge, whose streams of truth blend naturally with all the truths in the universe, but merely to refresh their minds with a few misinterpreted passages, which ignorance and bigotry are accustomed to use to support their misconceptions of Christian doctrine. They use the book not to make them wise, but to keep them ignorant. They dwell for ever on the same irrational fancies, and repeat them for ever in the same outlandish jargon.
4. He meets with other Christians who read a little in other books besides the Bible; but it is just those books that help to keep them from understanding the meaning of the Bible. And the portions of the books which they admire most and quote oftenest, are the silliest and most erroneous portions. They put darkness for light, and light for darkness. The man of culture speaks to them, but they cannot understand him. His thoughts and style are alike out of their line, or beyond their capacity. If at any time they catch a glimpse of his meaning, they are frightened on perceiving that his thoughts are not an exact repetition of their own.
5. Another cause which has tended to render Christianity less acceptable to men of taste and culture, is the peculiar language adopted in the discourses and writings of its Teachers. The style of some religious teachers is low, vulgar. The style of a still greater number is barbarous. Men soon feel the language of the Law to be barbarous. They would feel the language of theology to be as barbarous, if they were not accustomed to hear it or read it so constantly. The way in which the greater number of evangelical divines express themselves is quite different from that in which men generally express themselves. Their whole cast of phraseology is peculiar. You cannot hear five sentences without feeling that you are listening to a dead or foreign language. To put it into good current English you have to translate it, and the task of translation is as hard, and requires as much study and practice, as that of translating Greek or Hebrew. The language of the pulpit and of religious books is a dialect to itself, and cannot be used in common life or common affairs. If you try to apply it to anything but religion, it becomes ridiculous, and a common kind of wit consists in speaking of common things in pulpit phraseology. A foreign heathen might master our language in its common and classical forms, and be able to understand both our ordinary talk and our ablest authors, yet find himself quite at a loss to understand an evangelical preacher or writer.
Even if our heathen understood religion in its simpler and more natural forms, he would still be unable to understand the common run of religious talkers and writers. If he had religion to learn from such teachers and writers, he would have a double task, first, to get the ideas, and then to learn the uncouth and unnatural language. This peculiar dialect is quite unnecessary. The style of a preacher or a religious writer might be, and, allowing for a few terms, ought to be, the same as that of a man talking about ordinary affairs, and matters of common interest and duty. The want of this is one great cause of the little success, both of our preachers at home, and of our missionaries abroad. They hide beneath an unseemly veil, a beauty that should strike all eyes, and win all hearts. Their style is just the opposite of everything that can instruct, attract, command. And it is vain to expect much improvement in the present generation of religious teachers. They could not get a good style without a long and careful study of good authors, and for this many of them have neither the taste nor the needful industry. They would have to begin life anew, to be converted and become as little children, before they could master the task. They cannot think of religion but in common words. They cannot think there can be divine truth but in the old phrases. To discontinue them, therefore, and use others, would in their view, be to become heretics or infidels. In truth, many of them seem to have no ideas. Their phrases are not vehicles of ideas, but substitutes for them. If they hear the ideas which their phrases did once signify, expressed ever so plainly in other language, they do not recognise