Kanamori's life-story

by Paul M. Kanamori

Now they have dragged the Bible down to the level of the sacred writings of other world religions, such as the sacred books of the Brahmans, the legendary stories of Shakamuni, the Koran of Mohammed, and others. The religion of the Bible must then become one of these world religions founded by men. So Christianity also must share the fate of all other religions of the world. Once you have dragged Christianity down to a level with other religions of the world, you cannot save it alone amidst the wholesale destruction of all these superstitious world religions by the fires of modern civilization. And I believe the sooner they are destroyed the better it will be for mankind. And Christianity, according to New Theology, must share their fate sooner or later.

In Christian lands we see many who, while embracing such destructive views of the Bible and Christianity, are yet holding on to Christian practise, not as a result of their own thinking, but as a result of time-honored customs, life-long habits, and early training and education in the Christian homes, Christian institutions, and Christian society in which they were brought up. They are like men who, when thrown into a deep well, instead of going down straight to the bottom, cling to the stony sides, or hold on to the ropes, and so are prevented from dropping at once to the bottom. But Christians newly converted, in a heathen land, having no such Christian homes or institutions to cling to, when thrown into the well of doubt and unbelief, will go straight to the bottom. We are standing only upon our own thinking, and if that thinking goes wrong, we shall fall at once and be drowned.

At least I fell to the bottom. I could not hang on the walls midway. I did not hesitate to declare in my book that if Christianity is one of the religions of the world, like Buddhism and Mohammedanism, then it must share the common fate of all these religions. They may have been all right, and have done their work in their own time and in their own field, but now they will not be able to withstand the test of the twentieth century civilization. In this melting pot of twentieth century civilization all the world religions will be melted together and a new religion, which is neither Buddhism nor Christianity, neither Brahmanism nor Mohammedanism, but which discards all the bad, and retains only the good, of those religions, will arise. In fact, a new eclectic religion will arise out of the chaos of the old religions of the world.

You may say, perhaps, that this is an arrogant and extravagant position to take. Yes, it is arrogant and extravagant, but it is the natural and logical conclusion to which Higher Criticism and New Theology will lead their devout followers in heathen lands. There are many such now, but they do not express their skeptical position as plainly and bluntly as I have done here.

It is a common saying among the educated heathen that all religions have the same goal, and are like the mountain paths leading up to the same top. Some go up from the east, and others from the west, some go up from the north, and others from the south, but they all lead you to the same top, and when you get there you find no difference; whichever path you have taken you are at last at the top of the mountain and enjoying the fine view. If that is so, may it not be better to destroy all the crooked old narrow paths, and build one new, good road, on which people can drive their automobiles up to the very top?

Even though Higher Criticism and New Theology may not lead you to such a radical conclusion as this, yet they will certainly do away with the claims of the Christian religion to be the only true religion of the world, and will make it only one of the world religions. If Christianity has to exist in this world side by side with all other religions, possessing only one portion of humanity, while conceding the rest of it to other religions, it can never claim absolute allegiance from the people of the whole world.

According to the New Theology the work of foreign missions is not to convert the heathen, nor to save them from sin and error, but only to introduce Christianity to them as one of the religions of the world. I heard some liberal missionaries making such statements as this when they were preaching in heathen lands: “We missionaries did not come to you to ask you to throw away your own good religion which you have believed in for so many centuries, and to be converted to our religion, but we came here simply to unite the good in our religion with the good in yours. The good in your religion we Christians desire to learn, but Christianity also has good teachings which would certainly be of profit to you. So we missionaries have come to unite the best in all religions for the upbuilding of common humanity, not to impose our religion upon you, and make you give up your own religion.” These men call themselves modern missionaries, and are entirely different from the old ones who went to heathen lands to convert the people, and to save them from sin. They call the earlier missionaries old-fashioned, out of date. But if this is true, these new missionaries are not the messengers of God, but religious traders, and religious trade is not a profitable thing at all. I am afraid if such is the case the missionary enterprise will cease to exist, and the heathen world will be left in darkness and sin.

The New Theology says again, “Oh, don’t bother about the Bible too much. We don’t care nowadays whether men believe in the inspiration of the Bible or not, or what kind of inspiration they hold, total or partial, verbal or moral. One man believes the Bible contains truth and no error. Another man thinks it contains both truth and error. We don’t care about those things. To be too much concerned with these things was the old-fashioned religious belief. Christianity does not stand on the inspiration of the Bible. It stands on the unique personality of Christ. As long as we hold on to Christ there is no danger for Christianity.”

Very well; it may be so. Christ is our sure foundation. Christianity must stand on this rock of ages. But may I ask a question here? Who is this Christ? Who is this unique personality on which you try to stand as on the sure foundation? Is Christ God, or man? Is he the second person of the Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father himself? Is he “the only begotten” Son of God, who was in the bosom of the Father from “before the foundation of the world,” and who came down to this world and became flesh himself in order to save this lost world? Is he the Word of God who was “in the beginning,” and “was with God,” and who was God himself, and by whom all things were made, and “without him was not anything made that was made”? In a word, is Christ the Creator or a creature, infinite or finite?

To these blunt questions New Theology has no other answer than “No!” Christ, according to New Theology, is not God, but man. He is not the Creator, but a creature. He is not infinite, but finite. He may be a godly man, or a man filled with God, or the Spirit of God, but still man, and not God. He may be the greatest, wisest, and holiest man among men, but still he is a man, and not God. New Theology may exalt Christ as high as possible. It can never exalt him to the throne of God. Between God and man there is an infinite distance, and no goodness or greatness or holiness of mere man can ever bridge this distance. If you look up from the plains below to the top of a very high mountain, you see its peaks almost touching heaven, or kissing the blue sky above, but if you climb the mountain and stand on that summit you find the distance between the mountain top and the blue heaven above is just as great as when you were standing on the plain below. Though a man could ever attain to such a height of greatness, holiness, and goodness as to seem to the common eyes almost beside God himself, yet in reality he is as far from God as we common folks are.