Then there is the evangelical modernist, who accepts almost
everything in the Higher Criticism, but holds to Christ as an
incarnation of the Divine purpose, an incarnation, if you will, of God,
all we can know of God limited by His human body, as God we must suppose
is not limited, but still God. And, finally, there is the Catholic
modernist, who believes in a Church, who makes the sacraments his centre
of religion, and exalts Christianity to the head of all the mystery
religions which have played a part in the evolution of the human race.
This is not likely to be the prevailing type of modernism.
It looks as if the main body of modern opinion is moving in the
direction followed by the second of these schools--the evangelical. Here
is preserved all that great range of deep feeling and all that fine
energy of unselfish earnestness which have given to Christianity the
most effectual of its impulses. A man may still worship Christ, and
still make obedience to the Will of Christ the chief passion or object
of his existence, although he no longer believes that Jesus was either
born out of the order of nature or died to turn away the vengeance of
God from a world which had sinned itself beyond the reach of infinite
love.
Like Goethe, such a man will say: "As soon as the pure doctrine and love
of Christ are comprehended in their true nature, and have become a
living principle, we shall feel ourselves great and free as human
beings, and not attach special importance to a degree more or less in
the outward forms of religion.
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