The Churches and Modern Thought. Vivian Phelips
href="#n22" type="note">22 This curious truce between Believer and Unbeliever, each still holding fast to his belief or unbelief, only serves to demonstrate with added force that there is not, and cannot be, a reconciliation between Faith and Knowledge.
§ 4. The Genesis and Character of the New Outburst
It is imperative that the Churches should appreciate the real character of the new outburst of scepticism. The controversy with rationalism has entered upon another phase—a phase far more dangerous to the security of Christendom. As was inevitable, the suspicions regarding the faith have filtered down to classes that are not content to be duped because, forsooth, it is said to be for their good. They have none of the reasons of the upper-class agnostic for “lying low.” The enlightenment of the working man has been accelerated during the past year or so by the issue of cheap reprints from the books of our great scientists and thinkers, and by a direct attack upon religion by the well-known editor of the Clarion, Robert Blatchford. That the Churches are already partly alive to the new danger is evinced by their present anxious attitude towards the spread of knowledge likely to be damaging to the Faith. It was one of the subjects discussed at the Canterbury Diocesan Conference in June, 1904, and will, doubtless, be earnestly discussed at the next Church Congress, together with the whole question of the rapid increase in unbelief. While, however, the Church inveighs against the “reprints,” she gives out, also, that “Christianity is always strengthened by being attacked.” This is hardly consistent. For why not, then, allow the process of strengthening to continue by these means? Certainly, if Christianity be true, the Church ought to be strengthened. How could it be otherwise? It might compel her to discard some of her dogmas; but that would only be if they were false, and, in such case, she is better without them. Nothing but good should arise from a thorough examination of her tenets. She would be enabled to find out where her weakness lies, and thus to emerge from the ordeal stronger than ever.
Those who wish, as I do, to learn the whole truth concerning Christianity, hope that she will no longer postpone a complete and unbiassed investigation of the whole of the anti-Christian arguments. Doubtless we shall get our wish in time; but meanwhile we deplore the delay, for reasons I have more particularly set forth in the concluding chapter of this book. If the honest truth be that she is not confident of the security of her position, are we to understand that the cause of Untruth is thought to be more likely to prosper than the cause of Truth?
Of the two conflicting views regarding the effect of anti-Christian attacks—the pessimistic and the optimistic—it is the former which appears to me the more likely to be correct. For consider what would occur should attacks of far greater severity be delivered—a contingency by no means impossible in the near future. Suppose the “rational” propagandists, instead of being hampered by the want of funds and influential support, were to become endowed with a fraction of the wealth of the Church, and were thus in a position to popularise their views by spending money in extensive advertisement of every description, by subsidising platform orators who would propound rationalism and non-theological ethics in every town and village, by relieving distress, and so on, would the Christian Faith be strengthened? Has it not already suffered since the sixpenny reprints began to bring knowledge within the reach of the people—the people who have, many of them, little or nothing to fear from an expression of their agnosticism? If militant rationalists were sufficiently possessed of this world’s goods to start an adequate fund for the lucrative employment of clergymen who find they can no longer subscribe to the articles of the Christian Faith, and who would leave the Church if they could do so without having to face absolute ruin, would not the secessions increase in direct proportion to the increase of the fund and the consequent means of support?23 If those men of note who are even now agnostics at heart were to proclaim the fact and assist in propagandism, would not the flock follow the bell-wethers?
Whether hastened or not by the action of the propagandist, the masses, in these days of universal education, are bound to hear sooner or later of these grave doubts. The questioners of the Faith are no longer only the philosophers, scientists, and those who join hands with the Churches in prescribing a dietary of fairy tales for the preservation of the moral health of the masses. Many of the working class24 are far more thoughtful and intelligent regarding questions of science as it affects religion than is generally supposed. Hitherto they have been under two very considerable disadvantages—the costliness of the books and the want of leisure to read them. The leisure disability still holds good, though less so now that temperance is on the increase; but the books are to-day offered at popular prices, and are also finding their way into public libraries. The Church can, perhaps, depend for some time to come upon the non-interference and even active support of the upper classes, however sceptical they may be; but it is the proletariat which she will in future have to deal with more and more. She is in a dilemma; her hand is forced. She realises that discussion will cause the unsettlement of minds hitherto unclouded by doubt, and yet matters have reached a stage when silence is impossible. It is doubtful whether she has yet fully realised the gravity of the task before her. I have explained how she seems to have been deceived as to the real meaning of the apparent suspension of hostilities during the past few years. She has also to learn how impossible it will be for the ordinary mind to accept the unconvincing and contradictory expositions of the Faith which are now offered to us under the title of Christian apologetics.
§ 5. Apologetics “Found Wanting.”
The time, then, has arrived when the pastor can no longer ignore or gloze over the thoughts that are stirring the minds of the intelligent portion of his flock. The cheap literature problem cannot be solved by applying disparaging adjectives, such as “shallow,” to writings emanating from the pens of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, S. Laing, Matthew Arnold, Sir Leslie Stephen, Renan, Haeckel, etc., easy though it be to excite prejudice by the use of a condemnatory adjective. Books that are still costly will some day be available at popular prices, and increase the perplexities of the people. I refer to books of the type of Lecky’s Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England, Frazer’s Golden Bough, Forlong’s Short Studies of the Science of Comparative Religions, Doane’s Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions, J. M. Robertson’s Christianity and Mythology and Pagan Christs, Spencer’s Principles of Sociology (Vol. I., Part I., giving the Data of Sociology), Metchnikoff’s The Nature of Man, Haeckel’s The Evolution of Man,25 etc. Will not the Encyclopædia Biblica, with a title so innocent, and with an editor and many of its contributors in Holy Orders, soon find its way into our public libraries and be a thorn in the side of the orthodox? Think how a book such as Nunquam’s (Robert Blatchford) God and My Neighbour must already have been read by and have affected the convictions of thousands of the working class. And the grave doubts of a hard-headed artisan are not in the least likely to be dispelled by Anti-Nunquam,26 or any of the literature so far published as a panacea “in relief of doubt.”27 Indeed, some apologetic works are enough in themselves to create mistrust, though the reader had not read a single anti-Christian work! The extraordinary divergence in the views of the authors, to say nothing of the transparency of some of their arguments, prevents all chance of apologetics convincing any but those already determined to be convinced. The writer in one stage of thought absolutely contradicts a writer in another stage. Compare Goulburn and Pusey in their awful assertions of everlasting punishment with Allin’s Universalism Asserted and Larger Hope leaflets, or the views of a Wace regarding Evolution with the views of a Waggett. If we confine ourselves to making comparisons only between the advanced thinkers themselves, compare the opinions of Dr. Gore, Bishop of Birmingham (late of Worcester), with those of Canons Henson and Cheyne. The deplorable state of religious apologetics is becoming notorious, and articles bearing on the subject are now appearing from time to time in our leading magazines.28
In defending the Faith the advanced school of the Church now frankly admit the difficulties of the old belief, and ask us to accept their new interpretations of Christianity. The older school
The Secretary of the Rationalist Press Association has received several private letters from clergymen expressing their desire to leave the Church if they could find some employment. They usually have large families dependent upon them for support.
I omit all mention of the trading or domestic classes who often depend directly for their support on strict religionists. The way in which “their bread is buttered” is bound to enter considerably into their calculations, and also they have often even less leisure for the study of modern thought than a steady (temperate) working man.
A cheap edition has since been published by the R. P. A.
See Appendix.