The Globe Republican

Progressive Christianity.

We reproduce beneath the sermon delivered by Rev. S. E. Russer at the First Presbyterian church of this city last Sunday evening, January 8. Text, Isaiah xi: 6,7,8.

It has been my pleasure to demonstrate to you heretofore that the essential principles of Christianity have been the same in all ages of the world and that Christianity, as taught by Christ, conforms to the eternal laws of the human consciousness. To-night I propose to show you that we preach a progressive revelation of God; that the truth must be recast into new forms; that Christian work must be adapted to the times and that the modes of work of our forefathers have become obsolete; and that Christianity, without this adaptation to the wants of the age in which we live, is and must be a failure; and that the church, in order to accomplish this grand work of saving the world, must undergo thorough reorganization.

The first heresy I wish to obliterate is that common one which, in importance, places the church and revealed religion before the race. My opinion is the contrary—that the race is grander and more important than the church in any or all of its teachings; that humanity, by reason of its inherent preciousness and golden possibilities, must ever stand first; that the aims of the church ought to be to study the necessities of the race and bring to bear on them the sublime solutions of Christianity.

My reason for giving the right of precession to the human race is twofold: first, because there can be no doubt of humanity's divine origin; second, because thereby all agencies in the world become supplemental and are directly concentrated on the only worthy object to pray and work for—the elevation of men. The very first thing to do in marking out a system of religion is to get a basis to build on. Right here is where the old and new school theology begin to diverge. It has been taught for centuries that mankind was a great machinery established to glorify God; that God made man knowing he would sin; that all necessary influences were exerted on him to lead him in that direction and that, by means of the darkness of human degradation, God's perfections were to glisten resplendently on the universe.

It is the admitted teaching of Calvinism that God predestined a part of the race to hell and the rest to heaven in order that his divine sovereignty might be declared. Indeed, it has been held that from all eternity God's plan was that human degradation and suffering should become the medium in which to make glorious the cross of Christ.

And so when Judaism sprang up, man was in subjection to it. The whole life of a Jew was to extend and glorify Judaism. The Aaronic priesthood became a stupendous despotism; men were its subjects, and an unquestioning faith in the sacrifices of the altar was demanded. The temple and tabernacle were the higher objects to work for. Millions of men became tools with which great kings labored to perfect what was called a theocracy or exaltation of God. Man was a slave to the ceremonial law. It ruled the Jews like a rod of iron. Everywhere mankind was overshadowed by mighty mysteries and sacred institutions. The dignity of human nature was hidden and kept from asserting itself by what was called the awe-inspiring majesty of Jehovah. As we go down along the Jewish history, we discover the same conception even until Christ came, who placed man where he belonged—the summum bonum of creation and the ultimate object for which everything in the universe or Bible exists.

He enunciated the sublime principle that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and that man, in righteousness and love, was a son of God. It was for the assertion of this truth that they stoned him and at last crucified him. He destroyed the religious aristocracy of the Jews and told them, in plain speech, that the harlots and whoremongers would go into heaven before them.

"Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall all perish." This is what incited them to murder.

So, too, this is what made Paul that pestilent fellow stirring up seditions and hushed his eloquent voice in a Roman dungeon. The sublime inspiration that enabled Paul to shake to their centers the effete civilization of Rome and Asia Minor was this possibility of humanity. He saw in man the germs of a higher existence. The third heaven showed him man's future and that made him the fearless advocate of what they stigmatized as heresy. In Paul's theology man was the object to work for. He permitted God to govern the universe and concentrated his efforts to make man like God. If any one talked to Paul about ordinances and Sabbath days and church festivals, he became indignant and asked them, "Who hath bewitched you? I came to preach the gospel and to emancipate mankind, not to increase oppression."

It has always seemed strange to me that this spirit of Paul was overlooked in later teaching. It was hardly a hundred years after his death at Rome when the short lived liberty of man through Christ's gospel was struck out by the growth of a closely organized church. The old testament conception, which Christ so scathingly rebuked, came to the front again in the hands of Roman Catholicism as an external hierarchy and, at a later day, Calvinism as a system of thought. Again, as of old, man was a subject of an institution, instead of the summum bonum of creation. The old errors of Judaism were renewed and so to-day, to a large extent, the fatal error of the first age of the world is fastening itself on what seems to be the last.

This, then, in brief, is the old theology. The Bible and church stand first. We are to build massive temples and get ourselves in them, and when Gabriel blows his trumpet we shall be removed from sin and suffering to heaven.

Now, I frankly say to you, my convictions are all the other way. God reproduces himself in man. Every one of you is God's son. You came from him along the scale of reproduction, just as the stalk of wheat comes from the seed and a harvest from that stalk, ad infinitum. God placed his son in the midst of a world calculated to call forth his powers and develop his true character. Good and evil are two contrary forces, the one the negative of the other. Adam found the devil just as soon as he opened his eyes, and if the devil hadn't been there, there would have been no use in his creation; for all human progress is conditioned on our overcoming evil. And without evil man would have been God or nothing.

Now, I believe the universe was enlarged to educate man. Judaism was the cradle of the race in which God rocked man. Christ was sent to show him a higher life and the power of love and sacrifice. All inventions and discoveries in science, all the unfoldings of history, are lessons taught by the divine teacher, and man is the ultimate object of them all. Hence, we place man first, before all revelation, all institutions, all religions, all doctrines, all churches and all ceremonies. This is to shape all our thinking and praying and working.

How are we to get at man? How are we to elevate him? How are we to relieve him of the great embargoes that rest on him? In laying this foundation for a progressive Christianity, we accomplish three grand objects:

First. We have a basis sure and steadfast on which to work. There are reasonable doubts as to whether God wrote the Bible. The multitudinous claims and duties urged on mankind by the church are, for the most part wrapped in mystery. The meaning of many passages of Scripture entirely beyond our comprehension and the future of the race as portrayed in the Apocalypse is so fanciful that a sage saint is required to even approximate its signification. But when we settle down on man as the basis of Christian work, we have something tangible and susceptible of study through our own experience. That humanity is a divine institution is beyond question. That the volume of nature is inspired, no one can dispute. If you should ask me, is it not our first duty to glorify God? I should answer, "By all means." But it is with difficulty we can reach him. Yea, it is impossible directly to commune with him. We must worship him through his works and the greatest of these is man. My advice to you is to learn those things that are knowable and let the others go. Don't squander your life in solving mysteries. I knew a man who devoted all his learning to unravel the problem of the seven candlesticks and pale horse in the book of Revelations. If he had spent his strength on man and his needs, his contribution to human progress might have amounted to something. So I say to you, don't worry about what God will do, but catch on to the work of elevating love and the growth of man's higher nature. It is not necessary to know God's purposes in order to save men. You needn't read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek to make men better and happier. But again this view inspires us to work. It's not building castles in the air without a scaffolding, but it is working in the light. It opens up the grandest field for thought imaginable. Every soul here is the germ of an eternal life. This world, with its evil and suffering is the horrid chrysalis out of which shall come the beauty-winged being of immortality.

We are going to get above these degrading associations bye and bye. Out of the mate is to come forth a high and holy spirit life. Every relationship you sustain to others or to the state and love-level burden you bear and temptation you conquer, as son, husband, father, friend, citizen—will become open doors to infinite enjoyment and knowledge.

Standing with one foot on human nature and the other on God's universe, we are in a position to take a view into the future that exceeds human speech and that aureoles man's destiny with a glory inexpressible. So Paul must have stood when he said, "Eye hath not seen, etc."

It is this view that inspires human eloquence. To see in every man a son of God enfolding infinite possibilities makes the business of preaching the sublimest work of life. No minister need be at a loss for subjects; his only difficulty will be to find words rightly to convey his inspiring theme to men. When, in the theological seminary, the old school theology was laid before me, it was hard to find a theme and harder to treat it; but when my mind began to grasp the Christ of all time, I saw before me a hundred themes and every sermon I wrote suggested a hundred more.

So majestic is Christ rearing himself up the mighty sovereign of a new life that no heart need be impoverished in ascribing universal praise and dominion unto him. But this view—making man stand first in Christian work—also suggests to us how to run our machinery and adapt our means to man's salvation. It destroys all reverence for Bibles, Sabbath days, ordinances and churches. It removes all delicacy in our handling of these things. It shows us that all such auxiliaries are only secondary to man and that we may cut at them and sharpen them to do this work.

It takes off all that sacredness which, for so long, has been an obstacle in the way of human progress. It emboldens us to heroic measures and, instead of sentimentalists, makes practical philanthropists of us all. It makes us fearless iconoclasts among the sacred images that, for many years, have been worshipped in place of man. We no more hesitate to criticize and tear down a theological system than we would an old fence that blocked up the way into our house. It makes the revision of the Bible a perfectly easy matter. We weed out of it errors and superstitions just as readily as we would cut Canada thistles off our farms. It therefore helps us to simplify and make effective the organization we must have in order to guide our work and sustain our enthusiasm.

We go to work like men on men and for men, and we will muster into the sublime service every species of knowledge and every available influence. We will be astronomers to bring from the universe inspiring instruction. We will be geologists to reproduce ages that are gone.

The Bible will become to us the grandest book ever written, and Jesus will become our Redeemer in a way and fullness that no painted religion of a past century can make him. Art, music and science are, in the nature of things, obedient auxiliaries to this Christianity.

The printing press, the plough, the steam engine and the telegraph will subserve the grand purpose of human salvation. Then, too, let me assure you it will increase our interest in the Sabbath school work. We will not support such schools because it's the order of the day and we hope that when the children grow up they will be converted, but because in each one we have the beginning of an immortal existence. According to this system, every child, as soon as it thinks, becomes a Christian or character builder, and, instead of teaching them to memorize the Bible, we will show them how to brighten the world. The motives that will underlie our work will not be to get to heaven when we die, but how to conquer evil and do good. We will let death and the judgment take care of themselves. We will get all we can out of this world while we are in it and be ready to learn the lessons of the next when it comes.

Here, then, is the basis of a progressive Christianity. This is the foundation on which we are to rear heavenwards the majestic temple of humanity. This is that foundation other than which no man can lay; that is laid from all eternity in the nature of things; the same yesterday, to-day and forever. With our position thus established on humanity, let me say to you that a true progressive Christianity will emphasize the existence and love of God. Hence the first article of the Apostles' creed must be lighted within our hearts—“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

Then, again, it is evident that God has revealed himself to the world and that his design in that revelation should be illustrated before men so as to bring forth virtue and effect an eternal union between the race and God. It is in Christ that I find of the higher relations of God. The grand purpose underneath the Scriptures and Jesus Christ is that men might have a holy and ennobling ideal to follow. A model after which to work—a standard of moral excellence towards which to center our life—is absolutely necessary in the progress of the race. Hence, I say we must worship God and all his revelations.

And let me tell you who oppose Jesus Christ, that it was his mission to bring man and God together. He lived and died in order that men might have the sublimest example of moral heroism and self-sacrifice. "And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me”—that is the text that makes transparent the cross of Christ and destroys its similarity to the bloody offering of the Jews. The cross of Christ began the reign of love and showed man how to reach the higher life—through the sacrifice of self and the material.

So, then, the great question with us will be how to make men Christ-like?—how to get the human soul to God? It will not consider religion a special business disjoined from other spheres of life. It will frown on the attempt to make theology and religion a profession; but every household will become a church and every man, woman and child a preacher or missionary of the cross. The work of the editor and doctor and school-teacher will be just as sacred a work as that of the preacher. It will elevate the blacksmith beating his anvil to a level with the theologian pounding his Bible. It will consider not only subjects suggested by the Bible but will comprise every species of knowledge and instruction.

Agriculture will therefore become more than mere turning the soil and raising produce; it will be a revelation of God's hidden powers and every bushel of corn you send to Europe will be a messenger of a renewed civilization and elevated manhood. And so we will not put the old questions to men any more. We will not stop a man and say, "Do you believe on Christ?" but we'll say, "Have you raised a good crop? Have you been faithful to your work? Have you learned a little something about the first great work of man—agriculture?"

And to the blacksmith we will say, "Have you increased your ingenuity to help along society? Have you a new stroke on the anvil? Are you supporting your family? Are you paying your debts?" "Are you filling the high and holy position of a man or woman?"—these questions will be always prominent in a true progressive Christianity.

But again I remind you, a true progressive Christianity will organize schools and print papers, build hospitals and orphans' homes, and sustain institutions that contribute to the highest nature and smooth the pathway of life. It will condemn the custom of locking up a fortune in stones and mortar to be used once or twice a week, and call it a temple of God. You may say what you will about the temple of Solomon costing $7,000,000. I answer—the Jews are a poor example to follow; and when we think of the sufferings of the people and the embargo it placed on that age, and when we remember that but a short time after the whole nation forsook God and were scattered abroad, we don't have very much admiration for that Temple as a religious institution.

It is the curse of our religious life to-day to saddle on the people such expensive temples simply to become the basis for a boast of the people and minister who built it. Take that money and put up a building that will be a sun-spot in the community to every young man and woman. Let there be a reading room, with all the high grade papers. Let there be a bowling alley and billiard hall, and room for theatricals, and a hall for lectures. Let the mothers and fathers congregate there, and let music and art light up the company, and I am sure we would get nearer Christ's idea than to run a spire heavenward while there is naught but a graveyard beneath. Saloons wouldn't flourish in such a community, and one such church would be all that was needed to lead men along the path to heaven. But I would like to show you, too, that a true, progressive Christianity will cut off the destructive agencies of humanity, and hence every true disciple will be a temperance man. But time has failed me and I must proceed to close.

In conclusion, then, let me say a few words to you in a frank and familiar manner. Believe me, brethren, to follow Christ is to cultivate a love for the race. That for which Christ died—humanity—must be first in your thoughts. Not the righteous, but sinners; not God, angels and heavens, but mankind. Christ died for, which probably is the strongest argument I have advanced in support of this view I have given you. To him to whom the demands and necessities of the race stand first, it is a pressing duty to study and strive to increase the usefulness of all institutions. Brethren, fellow men, here we dare not shrink. Coward—

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Results are puerile nonsense that ought to be booted out of the pulpit and the pew. Here is a field for the noblest thought, work of elevating the race, you are co-working with God and you are a savior with Christ of men. You are inspiring virtue and obliterating vice and assisting in fulfilling the text pictured in such wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them. My dear friends, there is a more heavenly work than to champion the doctrines and institutions of old churches which, in a large measure, are relics of barbarism. There is a broader field marked out for you than that laid down by the priests of a by your dear, despondent, sin-enthrilled, suffering, crying, appealing to your charity and Christian judgment. Will you sit in your pews and sing in your meetings and refuse to be moved by these cries coming up from a fellow man? Will you hone yourself in your church and say, in the spirit of so many sermons and councils and creeds—epitomes of selfishness as they often are—we have a divine institution; we have salvation here; let humanity come here and bow down to us and get our permission to go to heaven? Oh, away with such a spirit. It is high-handed rebellion against God. Jesus Christ despises it. He who called all men unto him—he who saw in the most depraved the possibility of a new life—he who opened the eyes of the blind and bore our heaviest burdens, disowns such disciples. You call the church sacred. It is not sacred unless engaged in this ministry of love. Oh, that I could make you feel that nothing is superior to this holy vocation of removing the ills and brightening the hopes of the race. If, then, you comprehend the foundation as presented and catch the spirit of this work, you are ready to give a hearing ear and understanding heart to the new religion to which we are coming which is to sweep the world before some of us are in our graves. I know many Christian people are not ready for this advanced religion by reason of the tenacity with which they hold to old forms and beliefs; but I want you to be ready. I would see the masses, instead of forming into trade unions and clubs, influenced by the spirit of Christ and guided under the wings of his great life and love. I would see great evils abolished from our society. I would see a truer sociality, a broader liberality, a more generous thought, a more sturdy honesty, and the great jewels of character glittering in the crown that God is putting on human nature. We may be in advance of our age; but God and Christ are ahead of us, and the glad prophetic day is breaking when this text shall be fulfilled. The world and church may be asleep, but God is awake and 'he ever rides in solemn majesty his wonders to perform.'