'Bookless Religion' Menace Told Pastoral Conference

1920

BERKELEY, California, Nov. 17. — A bookless religion may develop from the higher criticism of the Bible unless men and women of the present day rise from an alleged state of illiteracy, was the prediction this morning of a prominent divine speaking at the second day session of an Interdenominational Pastoral conference held at the First Congregational church under the auspices of the Pacific School of Religion.

New religious cults were characterized as the dogma of illiterates by Professor C. A. Johnston Ross of Union Theological Seminary, New York, while a modern Bible to fit twentieth century needs was urged by Rev. W. T. Bentley, pastor of the First Christian church of San Francisco.

"We may come to the time when we shall see a bookless religion," was the statement of Dr. Ross. "Religion was not always organized around a book. Abraham never owned a Bible and never went to a prayer meeting. Religion may be organized about the philosophy of life." Dr. Ross scored ridiculers of the Bible, declaring that when men were unable to make translations which suited their whims that they immediately turned scoffers. He said: "The present criticism of the Bible is but part of the indifference to history as a whole. Because the Bible speaks a language that is necessarily antique, does not mean that it has lost its value. If the state of education were higher in the country today a more truthful interpretation could be made."

"The prophecy of the present day that the church will lose the Bible is not an amazing thing," said Dr. Bentley. "Many people have lost it already. The re-orientation of the Bible to fit present needs is necessary."

Prayer in the present day seems to be regarded as a "kind of pious exercise," Rev. James M. Campbell, D. D., 80-year-old preacher and author of Manhattan Beach., Cal., told the ministers assembled at the opening session of the conference yesterday afternoon.

Ministers, he said, were to be included among those who said their prayers in this fashion. The man who gave an outward appearance of a "holy life," but who "inwardly" was undeserving of respect was scored by the gray-haired minister, whose book, "The Indwelling Christ," and other volumes are well known in religious lay circles.

"The things one thinks are far more important than the things one does," he said in speaking on the subject, "The Inner Life of the Minister." "Being is greater than doing."

"Examine thyself, not others. As ministers you think first of others, but turn your attention to yourselves for a change. Hold yourselves to strict account; scrutinize your every action. Every preacher has a battle to fight — the battle between the spirit and the flesh. Prayer is a necessity, but in this age prayer has come to be a pious exercise instead of what it really is."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Nov. 17, 1920, p. 2.