IS THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 425 



assume much greater dimensions. Many think that dogma has 

 had an exaggerated importance in the past, and, from their point 

 of view, the Christian religion has made an advance by pushing 

 dogma back to a less dominant position. Those who maintain that 

 dogma is of supreme importance naturally think that the Chris- 

 tian religion declines wheji dogma is discredited in the Christian 

 community. There can be little doubt that a large number of 

 men absent themselves from church attendance because they dis- 

 like the popular orthodoxy, which seems to them antiquated, un- 

 scientific, and untrue. Many refuse to unite with religious organi- 

 zations which are dominated by an orthodoxy representing the 

 theories of scholastic theology. Many remain apart from the 

 churches because they are unwilling to be responsible in any way 

 for their official orthodoxy. Many, born and trained in Pres- 

 byterian families, refuse to remain in an organization which is 

 responsible for the hard doctrines set forth in the Westminster 

 Confession. Many Methodists refuse to be compromised by Wes- 

 ley's doctrines and Wesley's rules of hie. Many refuse to remain 

 Baptists because of what is involved in close communion. Many 

 refuse to be Episcopalians because they resent the doctrines and 

 practices of sacerdotalism. And so we could find, more or less 

 in all religious communions, a dissatisfaction with dogmas — some- 

 times superficial, giving a plausible excuse for absence, sometimes 

 profound, inciting active hostility to the Church. If all of these 

 dissatisfied ones are to be regarded as hostile or indifferent to Chris- 

 tianity, then it is evident that an army of Christians have prac- 

 tically separated themselves from the Church in our time, and we 

 must say that Christianity has in this respect declined. If, on the 

 other hand, we think that these dissatisfied and disgruntled ones 

 are yet Christians, and that they are maintaining their faith in 

 Christ in opposition to an unreasonable church, that they are exert- 

 ing an important influence in the transformation of the dogmas of 

 the Church, then we may say that this is an evidence that Chris- 

 tianity is in a state of transition, that it is on the move away from 

 an untenable position of exaggerated dogma to a truer and stronger 

 position, in which dogma will be transformed and given its normal 

 place and importance. 



The effort to throw off the bondage of the popular and the scho- 

 lastic dogma is an advance, and not a decline; it is an advance into 

 the realm of freedom. It first gives the possibility of a critical 

 re-examination of the dogmatic faith of the Church. Only by the 

 application of the scientific methods of our age to dogma is it pos- 

 sible for our age to verify dogma and accept it as valid and reli- 

 able. We can not rely on anything that is merely traditional or 



VOL. LVI. — 33 



