CANON E.W. BARNES
True religion takes up that place in the mind which superstition would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us under the strongest obligations to oppose it.—BISHOP BUTLER.
Socrates looked up at him, and replied, Farewell: I will do as you say. Then he turned to us and said, How courteous the man is!—PLATO.
In this able and courageous Doctor of Science, who came to theology from mathematics, a great virtue and a small fault combine to check his intellectual usefulness. His heart is as full of modesty as his mind of tentatives.
He is possessed by a gracious nature, and could no more think of raising his voice to shout down a Boanerges than he could dream of lifting an elbow to push his way through a press of people bound for the limelight. It is only a deep moral earnestness which brings him into public life at all, and he endeavours to treat that public life not as it is but as it ought to be.
In "the calmness and moderation of his sentiments," in his dislike of everything that is sensational, and of all "undue emphasis," he resembles Joubert, who wanted "to infuse exquisite sense into common sense, or to render exquisite sense common."
Modesty might not so hamper the usefulness of Canon Barnes if he knew a little less than he does know, and was also conveniently blind to the vastness of scientific territory. But he knows much; much too much for vociferation; and his eyes are so wide open to the enormous sweep of scientific inquiry that he can nowhere discern at present the ground for a single thesis which effectually accounts for everything—a great lack in a popular preacher.
I am disposed to deplore the degree both of his modesty and his scholarship, for he possesses one of the rarest and most precious of gifts in a very learned man, particularly a mathematician and a theologian, namely, the gift of lucid exposition. Few men of our day, in my judgment, are better qualified to state the whole case for Christianity than this distinguished Canon of Westminster Abbey, this evangelical Fellow of the Royal Society, who is nevertheless prevented from attracting the attention of the multitude by the gracious humility of his nature and the intellectual nervousness which is apt to inhibit his free utterance when he approaches an audience in the region of science.
What a pity that a clergyman so charming and attractive, and yet so modern, who understands the relativity of Einstein and who is admirably grounded in the physical sciences, should lack that fighting instinct, that "confidence of reason," which in Father Waggett, an equally charming person, caught the attention of the religious world thirty or forty years ago.
His mind is not unlike the mind of Lord Robert Cecil, and it is curious that even physically he should at certain moments resemble Lord Robert, particularly in his walk and the almost set expression of his eyes. He is tall and thin, and has the same stoop in the shoulders, moving forward as if an invisible hand were pressed against the back of his neck, shoving him forward by a series of jerks; and he seems to throw, like Lord Robert, a particular sense of enjoyment into the motion of his legs, as though he would get rid of all perilous swagger at that, the less harmful end of his two extremities—the antipodes of his reason. Like Lord Robert, too, he has a most pleasant voice, and a slow deliberate way of speaking, and a warm kindly smile which fades at the first movement of serious thought, leaving the whole pale face, even the dark eyes under their heavy brows, almost deathlike in immobility. One seems to see in such moments the spirit withdraw from the surface of things to take up its duty at the citadel of the intellect.
The same conflict between temperament and purpose which has prevented Lord Robert Cecil from taking his place at the head of a Government prevents Canon Barnes from advancing at the head of modern Churchmen to the rich future of a depaganised and wholly rational Christianity. His heart says "Fight," but his reason says "Watch." Fighting is distasteful; watching is congenial. Besides, while one is watching one can review all the hypotheses. A man who is not careful in destroying a fallacy may damage a truth.
But let us be grateful for his public utterances, which show a high spirit, a noble devotion, an enviable range of culture, and, for the discerning at least, tell the true time of day. It is one of the encouraging signs of the period that such distinguished preaching should have made a mark. Moreover, he is yet three years from fifty, with a mind so hospitable to growth that it has no room for one of those prejudices which are the dry-nurses of old age. Those who love truth die young, whatever their age. Canon Barnes may yet give the Church a proof of his power to lead—a Church at present aware only of his power to suggest.
He considers that we are living in a time of revolution, and, judging by historic precedents, particularly the Renaissance, he thinks we are now in the second stage of our revolution, which is the most difficult of all. First, comes the destruction of false ideas—a bracing time for the born fighter; second, comes the tentative search for new ideas—an anxious time for the responsible philosopher; third, comes the preaching of these new ideas with passion—the opportunity of the enthusiast. Happy were the divines of the seventeenth century!
We, however, are in the second stage.
This is not a period for new ideas: it is a period of searching for the best idea. He who rushes forward with an untried new idea may be more dangerous than he who still clings, in the Name of Christ, to an old idea which is false. We must be quite certain of our ground before we advance with boldness, and our boldness must be spiritual, not muscular.
Modernism has fought and won the battle of verbal inspiration. No man whose opinion counts in the least degree now holds that the Bible was verbally inspired by God. It is respected, honoured, loved; but it is no longer a fetish. In ceasing to be a superstition, and in coming to be a number of genuine books full of light for the student of history, the Bible is exercising at the present time an extraordinary influence in the world, a greater influence perhaps on thoughtful minds than it ever before exercised.
The battle which modernism is now fighting over this collection of books concerns the Person of Jesus and the relative value of the gospels which narrate His life, and in the case of the Fourth, endeavour to expound His teaching. This great battle is not over, but it looks as if victory will lie with the more moderate school of modernists. Outside very extreme circles, the old rigid notions concerning the Person of Jesus are no longer held with the passion which gave them a certain noble force in the days before Darwin. There is now a notable tell-tale petulance about orthodoxy which is sometimes insolent but never effective.
Ahead of this battle, which the present generation may live to see fought out to a conclusion, lies a third struggle likely to be of a more desperate character than its two forerunners—the battle over Sacramental Christianity. Already in France and Germany the question is asked, Did Jesus institute any sacraments at all? But even in these two countries the battle has not yet begun in real earnest, while over here only readers of Lake and Kennedy are dimly aware of a coming storm. That storm will concern rites which few orthodox Christians have ever regarded as heathen in their spirit, though some have come to know they are pagan in origin.
It is not wise to ignore this future struggle, but our main responsibility is to bear a manful part in the struggle which is now upon us.
There are three types of modernists. There is, first of all, the Liberal, who regards Christianity as a form of Platonism resting on the idea of absolute values. This is dangerous ground: something more is required. 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."
The critics of modernism do not seem able, for some reason, to grasp a truth which has been apparent all down the ages, a truth so old that it is almost entitled to be regarded as a tradition, and so widely held that it is almost worthy to be called catholic, namely, the truth that Jesus loses none of His power over human history so long as He abides a living principle in the hearts of individual men. So long as He expresses for mankind the Character of God and reveals to mankind the nature of God's purpose, so long as men love Him as they love no other, and set themselves to make His spirit tell, first in their lives and after that in the world about them, does it greatly matter whether they speak of His divinity or His uniqueness, whether they accept definitions concerning Him (framed by men in the dark ages) or go about to do His will with no definitions in their mind at all beyond the intellectual conviction that here is One who spoke as no other man has spoken since the creation of the world?
Canon Barnes, who disowns the name of modernist, but who is the very opposite of an obscurantist in his evangelicalism, is careful to insist upon a rational loyalty to Christ. I tried one day to tempt him on this head, speaking of the miraculous changes wrought in men's lives by religious fervour pure and simple; but it was in vain. He agrees that religious fervour may work such miracles: he is the last man in the world to dismiss these miracles as curious and interesting phenomena of psychology; but he insists, and is like a rock on this matter, that emotional Christianity is not safe without an intellectual background.
He makes me feel that his modernism, if I may presume to use that term, is an evangelical desire of his soul to give men this intellectual background to their faith. He wants, as it were, to save their beliefs rather than their souls. He regards the emotionalist as occupying territory as dangerous to himself and to the victory of Christianity as the territory occupied by the traditionalist. Both schools offend the mind of rational men; both make Christianity seem merely an affair of temperament; and both are exposed to the danger of losing their faith.
To convert the world to the Will of God, it is essential that the Christian should have a rational explanation of his faith, a faith which, resting only on tradition or emotion, must obviously take its place among all the other competing religions of mankind, a religion possessing no authority recognised by the modern world.
The modern world rightly asks of every opinion and idea presented to its judgment, "Is it true?" and it has reason on its side in being sceptical concerning the records of the past. If not, there are religions in the world of an antiquity greater than Christianity's, whose traditions have been faithfully kept by a vaster host of the human race than has ever followed the traditions of Christianity. Is it to be a battle between tradition and tradition? Is age to be a test of truth? Is devotion to a formula to count as an argument?
The emotionalist, too, is no longer on safe ground in protesting his miracles of conversion. The psychologist is advancing towards that ground, and advancing with every theory of supernatural evidence excluded from his mind. The psychologist may eventually be driven to accept the Christian explanation of these phenomena; but until that surrender is made the emotionalist will not be the power in the world which he ought to be. His house, too, must be founded upon a rock.
Let us not be afraid of examining our faith, bringing our minds as well as our hearts and our souls to the place of judgment.
I will give here a few quotations from the utterances of Canon Barnes which show his position with sufficient clearness.
We all seek for truth. But, whereas to some truth seems a tide destined to rise and sweep destructively across lands where Jesus reigned as the Son of God, to me it is the power which will set free new streams to irrigate His Kingdom.
As is obvious to everyone, all the Churches realise, though some do not acknowledge, the necessity of presenting the Christian Faith in terms of current thought.
We have seen the urgent need of a fuller knowledge of the structure of the human mind if we would explain how Jesus was related to God and how we receive grace from God through Christ.
I am an Evangelical; I cannot call myself a modernist. I have welcomed the intervention of those who, disclaiming any knowledge of scholarship or theology, have in simple language revealed the power of Christ in their lives. For theory and practice, speculation and life, cannot be separated. We cannot begin to explain Jesus until we know how men and women are transformed by the love of Christ constraining them.
Those to whom religion is external and worship formal are of necessity pretentious or arid in speaking of such matters as the Person of Christ or the value of creeds.
We do not affirm that the Lord's Person and work have been central in Christianity in the past. There is much to be said for the view that they were, from the end of the second century to the close of the Middle Ages, concealed beneath alien ideas derived from the mystery religions; that the Reformation was the hammer which broke the husk within which, under God's providence, the kernel had been preserved during the decline and eclipse of European civilisation.
. . . as religion grows in richness and purity, Jesus comes to His own.
Reason and intuition combine to justify the belief that our Lord had a right understanding of what man can become.
We say that man is not only a part of the evolutionary process. His highest attributes must serve to show its purpose. They reveal the nature and the end of God's plan.
. . . as man develops in the way predestined by God, he will continually approach the standard set by Jesus. Jesus will ever more completely draw men and inspire them because they will more fully understand that He explains them to themselves.
The present degradation of human life is due to man's refusal to accept Christ's estimate of its values and duties. It will endure so long as the work and Person of Christ are refused their right place in human thought and aspiration.
Jesus still lives, great and unexplained.
From these quotations it will be seen that Canon Barnes is not searching the documents of Christianity for a new hypothesis, but rather for a new understanding by which he may be able to present the historic power of Christianity in terms of modern thought. Jesus remains for him the central Figure of evolution. "Human thought," he declares, "as moulded by developed aspirations and accumulated knowledge, will not sweep past Jesus but will circle round Him as the centre where God revealed Himself."
Perhaps we shall best understand the position of Canon Barnes if we see him, neither on this side nor on that of the warring controversy, but rather among the entire host of Christianity, warning all schools of thought, all parties, all sects, that they must prepare themselves for the final strife which is yet to come, that great strife, foreseen by Newman, when the two contrary principles of human life, the Good and the Evil, shall rush upon each other contending for the soul of the world. Christianity must become united and strong at its centre, if it is to withstand this onslaught.
He is not to be thought of as one who would adapt religion to the needs of the day, but as one who believes that, thoroughly understood, religion is adequate to the needs, not only of our day, but to the needs of all time. For to Canon Barnes, religion is simply the teaching of Christ, and Christ is the revelation to man of God's nature and purpose. He would simplify dogma in order to clarify truth. He would clarify truth in order to enlarge the opportunities of Christ. He would call no man a heretic who is not serving the devil. None who seeks to enter the Kingdom will ever be hindered by this devout disciple of truth in whose blood is no drop of the toxin of Pharisaism.
You may see the intellectual charity of the man in his attitude towards other teachers of our time whose views are opposed to his own. Of Dean Inge he has spoken to me with almost a ringing enthusiasm, emphasizing his unbounded force, his unbounded courage; and of Bishop Gore with the deepest respect, paying reverent tribute to his spiritual earnestness; even the Bishop of Zanzibar provokes only a smile of the most cheerful good humour.
He inclines quietly towards optimism, believing in the providence of God and thinking that the recent indifference to religion is passing away. Men are now seeking, and to seek is eventually to find. This seeking, he observes, is among the latest utterances of theology, a fact of considerable importance. To keep abreast of truth one must neither go back nor stand still. Men are now not so much swallowing great names as looking for a candle.
Not long ago he paid a visit to a favourite bookshop of his in Cambridge, and inquired for second-hand volumes of theology. "I have nothing here," replied the bookseller, "that would interest you. The books you would like go out the day after they come in, sometimes the same day." Then pointing to the upper shelves, "But I've plenty of the older books"; and there in the dust and neglect of the top shelves Canon Barnes surveyed the works of grave and portentous theologians who wrote, some before the days of Darwin, and some in the first heyday of Darwinism. He said to me, "Lightfoot is still consulted, but even Westcott is now neglected."
He spoke of two difficulties for the Church. One is this: her supreme need at the present time is men for the ministry, the best kind of men, more men and much better men, men of learning and character, able to teach with persuasive authority. It is not the voice of atheism we hear; it is the voice of the Church that we miss. But, as Bishop Gore claims, most of the theological colleges are in the hands of the traditionalists, and the tendency of these colleges is to turn out priests rather than teachers, formalists rather than evangelists. Such colleges as represent the evangelical movement are, thanks to their title deeds, largely in the hands of pious laymen not very well educated, who adhere rigidly to a school of thought which is associated in the modern mind with an extreme of narrowness. Thus it comes about that many men who might serve the Church with great power are driven away at her doors. Something must be done to get men whose love of truth is a part of their love of God.
The second difficulty concerns the leadership of the Church. Bishops should be men with time to think, able when they address mankind to speak from "the top of the mind"; scholars rather than administrators, saints rather than statesmen; but such is the present condition that a man who is made a bishop finds himself so immersed in the business of a great institution that his intellectual and spiritual life become things of accident, luxurious things to be squeezed into the odd moments, if there are any, of an almost breathless day. This is not good for the Church. The world is not asking for mechanism. It is asking for light. It is, indeed, an over-organised world working in the dark.
Canon Barnes, however, is not concerned only with the theological aspects of Christianity. For him, religion is above all other things a social force, a great cleansing and sanctifying influence in the daily life of evolving man. One may obtain a just idea of his mind from a pronouncement he made at the last conference of Modern Churchmen:
We cannot call ourselves Christians unless we recognise that we must preach the Gospel; that we must go out and labour to bring men and women to Christ.
The Kingdom of God is a social ideal.
Modern Churchmen cannot stand aloof from intellectual, political, and economic problems.
To bring the Gospel into the common life, to carry the message and sympathies of Jesus into the factory, the street, the house, is an urgent necessity in our age.
He sees Christianity, not as an interesting school of philosophy, not as a charming subject for brilliant and amicable discussions, but as a force essential to the salvation of mankind; a force, however, which must first be disentangled from the accretions of ancient error before it can work its transforming miracles both in the heart of men and in the institutions of a materialistic civilisation. It is in order that it should thus work in the world, saving the world and fulfilling the purposes of God, that he labours in no particular school of the Church, to make the reasonableness of Christ a living possession of the modern mind.
Supreme in his character is that virtue Dr. Johnson observed and praised in a Duke of Devonshire—"a dogged veracity."