Christ Worship Versus Creed Worship

— George E. Fifield American Sentinel, Sept. 24, 1896

The assertion is constantly made by the agnostic that Christianity is opposed to progress; that the progress of the world for many centuries has been in despite of Christianity rather than by its aid. The names of Bruno and Galileo, and a thousand other heroes, and heroines too, who, by the church, were persecuted for the truth's sake, are often mentioned in support of these assertions.

It seems to me that this grave accusation against Christianity is seldom fairly answered. It is not enough to point to the fact that Christian lands are the most enlightened. The objector may present what he considers other reasons for this enlightenment. It is not enough for Protestants to assert that it was Roman Catholicism that thus opposed progress. Has not Protestantism too, in Scotland, in England, and in Geneva made its martyrs? Nay, even here, though not yet so allied with the State as to possess full power to persecute, does not the church often look askance with holy horror at the new idea? If Christianity is true, it can and ought to be shown, that it is in harmony with the very innermost principles of progress, and that only a false, a corrupted Christianity could oppose it.

What is Christianity? If I mistake not, it is more than hero worship, however great, however divine that hero may have been. It was Christ's own assertion, "I am the way, the truth," and also, "I and my Father are one." God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is the infinite All Truth, living and personal, and touched with tender throbbing love. Christianity is the worship of God as thus revealed. Not a God far away in some dim and distant heaven, merely, but a God here and everywhere, in the universe, in touch with a sorrowing and needy humanity.

It was Carlyle, I think, who said, "The universe is the realized thought of God." Grand old Kepler, gazing into the blue depths until those wondrous laws of planetary motion burst upon his ken, with heart throbbing with emotion, and eyes moist with tears, said, "O God, I think thy thoughts after thee!" Perhaps a greater even than Kepler, many centuries before, said, "O God, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep."

All true knowledge is the knowledge of God, for he is the truth. The best that any of us can do, is to think reverently and worshipfully, his thoughts after him. The botanist only traces God's thought through the vegetable world, and the zoologist traces the same divine thought through the various orders of animal life, the mathematician through the mysterious relations of numbers, and the astronomer through the wondrous star-gemmed pathway of the sky. The traveler at Washington, on mounting the dome of the Capitol, discovers that the streets center from all directions at that point. Thus too, in the ancient Roman civilization, it was said that all roads led to Rome. Even so, in the center of his mighty universe, God sits enthroned, and every pathway of knowledge is a magnificent avenue leading to the throne.

The agnostic may prefer to walk backward, admiring the pebbles by the way, but the Christian thinker prefers to face about. He admires the pebbles none the less, but rather more, in that he beholds them in the prospective light of greater glories farther on, and sees all the lesser glories centering their tributary rays in him who is the all, and in all—the one who sits enthroned at the end of the road.

God has made the universe thus, that he might lead the devout soul, by every avenue of truth, upward through limitless heights, into the knowledge of himself. This, too, is Christianity, for Christianity is the worship of Christ,—the truth. The worship of God leads men with intense eagerness, ever to seek for more gold, so the worship of truth lifts man above all sordid, all politic motives, into the earnest pursuit of truth,—truth not as a theory merely, but truth to be acted out lovingly in the life.

All truth is divine, and therefore religious in the highest sense, when we view it as such. Nor can it be said, as it would sometimes seem that the church thinks, that any man, in the past, gave us the all truth. Not even Jesus claims for himself this honor. On the contrary, on the last night he was with his disciples before the crucifixion, he said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." But he added, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; and when he the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth." Splendid promise!

It is ever true that God has many things to say unto us that we yet cannot bear. Christianity is the worship not of our little creed,—not of what we may know, or think we know of the truth; it is the worship of the All Truth beyond our present knowledge. It is the worship of truth, in the Spirit of truth, given to guide us into all truth. Nothing more grandly uplifting than this can be even dreamed of. This is the divine secret of all human progress. Such are the worshipers who have ever stood upon the frontiers of truth, holding high the standard for the tardy millions.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." He also said to his church, "Ye are the light of the world." His church was to be the organized body of truth worshipers, who should catch the latest ray from the divine All Truth, and reflect it upon the world. It was therefore His design that the church should be the conservator of all true progress.

How then has it come that the church has so often arrayed herself against progress, persecuting the worshipers of truth? It is because there has been too little Christianity, and so much "churchianity," so little Christ worship, and so much creed worship. I dare say, the history of Christianity has never been written. The history of the church has been written often enough, and it is too often the history of persecution, of selfishness, of intrigue, and of crime. The history of Christianity never can be written till the last great day shall make manifest the secret of all lives, for it will be the history of those lives which went out in the vanguard of human progress,—went out hated, maligned, persecuted, crucified for the truth, their very memory blackened by the prejudice and bigotry of their time.

Creed worship is very different from Christ worship. When a church writes out its creed, from that moment it ceases to be the light of the world, and becomes an organized institution for resisting the more light which God ever has to give. First, it resists by its social and ecclesiastical power. It looks askance at the progressive man, and next it anathematizes him as a dangerous fellow. Finally, when he will walk in the dawning light, notwithstanding the social damnation and ecclesiastical scorn, the church asks the State for power to enforce its creed and persecute this man. This is the philosophy of all persecution. It is ever the creed that persecutes and crucifies the Christ,—the that is born of the flesh only, that persecutes him that is born of the Spirit,—the Spirit of Truth.

The spirit of Christ is the spirit of humility, of progress, and of hope in the great future. The spirit of the creed, whatever creed it may be, is the spirit of pride, of glorifying the present, and of deifying the past. According to Paul, the first step into idolatry is to change God into the image of a man, that is, to think that God is identical with my conceptions of him; only equal to the measure of my mind. An idol was but a creed in marble, seeking to make permanent the present thought of God. Creed worship is idolatry. It was the custom once to carve the creed—the ideal of God—in marble; it is the custom now to hold it in the heart, or write it in a book. The principle is the same in each case.

Now, as then, a splendid edifice, artistic music, and a magnificent ceremonial are too often dedicated to the making permanent the present thought of God,—of the truth,—instead of being dedicated to the splendid work of lifting humanity ever toward the All Truth.

Now as ever, there are many who will guard the creed, and only a few who are willing to be crucified for the truth. There are thousands who will shout for the truth triumphant, but only a few who will follow it to Gethsemane and Calvary. The willingness to do this last, however, is Christianity; and what a mistake to charge up to Christianity that opposition to progress which in every age has been in reality the opposition to Christianity itself.