The Importance of Dogma # 3

The Importance of Dogma # 3

I shall content myself with the remark, that dislike to "dogma" is one prominent characteristic of the leaders and champions of the extreme Broad Church party. Search their sermons and books, and you find plenty of sad examples - plenty of great swelling words about "the universal fatherhood of God, and charity, and light, and courage, and manliness, and large-heartedness, and wide views, and free thought," - plenty of mere wind-bags, high-sounding abstract terms, such as "the true, and the just, and the beautiful, and the high-souled, and the congenial, and the liberal," and so forth.

But, alas! there is an utter absence of distinct, solid, positive doctrine! And if you look for a clear, systematic account of the way of pardon and peace with God - of the right medicine fora burdened conscience, and the true cure for a broken heart - of faith and assurance, and of justification, and regeneration, and sanctification - you look in vain. The words indeed you may sometimes find, but not the realities - the words in new and strange senses, fair and good-looking outside, like rotten fruits; but, like them, empty and worthless within.

But one thing, I repeat, is abundantly clear - "dogma" and positive doctrinal statements are the abomination off extreme Broad Churchmen. Their cry is continually "Down with dogma, down with it, even to the ground!'

(d.) I am afraid that time and space would fail me if I traveled outside our own communion, in order to find additional proof of the widespread dislike to "dogma" which we need to realize in this age.

We hear of it among Nonconformists - the oldest and soundest of them complain bitterly that the plague has begun among the descendants of the Puritans, and that old orthodox views are becoming scarce.

We hear it from Scotland - not a few Presbyterians are beginning to speak contemptuously of the Assembly's Catechism as a yoke which ought to be thrown off.

We hear it from Switzerland - the Churches of Zwingly and Calvin are said to be so deeply tainted with Socinianism, since they threw creeds overboard, that it might almost, to speak figuratively, make their founders turn in their graves!

We hear it from America - when Mr. and Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith addressed the crowds at the famous Brighton Conference, their simple-minded and well-meaning hearers must have been puzzled to hear the often reiterated expression, "We do not want theology!"

But I trust I have said enough to convince my readers, that when I speak of dislike to "dogma" as one of the largest and most formidable perils of the day - I do not use any exaggerated language, or speak without good reason.

The causes of this dislike to "dogma" we need not go far to seek. There is nothing new about it, and nothing therefore which ought to surprise us. And the older the world gets, and the nearer to the second advent of Christ - the more clearly shall we see that prophecy fulfilled. We only see a full development of an old disease. There never have been lacking thousands of lazy, worldly Christians, who say with the poet - "For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight; He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."

Eighteen centuries ago the apostle Paul forewarned us, "The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear!" (2 Timothy 4:3).

The natural man hates the Gospel and all its distinctive doctrines - and delights in any vain excuse for refusing it.

The plain truth is, that the root of the whole evil lies in the fallen nature of man, and his deeply-seated unbelief in God's infallible Word. I suspect we have no idea how little saving faith there is on earth, and how few people entirely believe Bible truths.

One man is proud - he dislikes the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, because they leave him no room to boast.

Another is lazy and indolent - he dislikes distinctive doctrine, because it summons him to troublesome thought, and self-inquiry, and mental self-exertion.

Another is grossly ignorant - he imagines that all distinctive doctrine is a mere matter of words and names, and that it does not matter a jot what we believe.

Another is thoroughly worldly - he shrinks from distinctive doctrine, because it condemns his darling world.

But in one form or another, I am satisfied that "original sin" is the cause of all the mischief. And the whole result is, that vast numbers of men greedily swallow down the seemingly new idea that doctrine is of no great importance. It supplies a
convenient excuse for their sins.

The consequences of this widespread dislike to doctrine are very serious in the present day. Whether we like to allow it or not, it is an epidemic which is doing great harm. It creates, fosters, and keeps up an immense amount of instability in religion. It produces what I must venture to call, if I may coin the phrase, a jellyfish Christianity in the churches - that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 4)