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.