Neology: Roots of Modern Liberal Christianity

"The term Neology, or Rationalism, has been applied to the actual

creed of a large portion of the members of the German church, who profess a nominal adhesion to the Augsburgh Confession of Faith, while they reject its fundamental principles, and maintain tenets which the Saxon reformers would have regarded as "damnable heresies." (2 Peter 2:1)

Like many other forms of error, 

---Neology did not make its first appearance among the common people. 

---Neology had its birth among those, who held the part of watchmen on the walls of Zion; among professors of theology, whose rank, learning, and talents gave them a controlling influence over the opinions of the religious world. 

These were the men, who applied their strength to rend down the pillars of the temple of truth, who labored by every insidious art of false interpretation to pervert and render 4 powerless that book, which its Author designed to be "a lamp to our feet and a light to our path." (Psalm 119:105)

The time had not arrived when a religious instructor might announce that he believed in no other religion than that of nature. Some latitude might be allowed, on the ground that though he was not a believer of

Luther's school, yet he was a rational Christian, as might naturally be expected of one, who lived in "the age of light." 

He might be a skeptic in heart and life, so long as he pretended to be a disciple of Christ. He must profess to believe the Bible, while he was allowed, by every art of fallacious criticism, to explain away all those doctrines, which hold a vital alliance with the redemption of man.

Such was the origin of Neology. Its form has varied with the changing breath of public opinion and the exigency of circumstances. At one period, it boldly took the field against evangelical religion, and hardly sought a disguise. 

In the writings of Fichte and Forberg, and some others of the transcendental school, it would have received the name of atheism, in our land. In the hands of other artists, it has assumed the shape of the Pantheism of the Greek philosophers. Now it is "liberal Christianity," or "Rationalism"-again it is marked by an icy indifference to all revelation.

In all that addresses itself to the conscience of man, he is sure to fail, because, in his own conscience, there is no chord that responds to the touch of truth. If, perchance, he should feel at all, he will be offended with those declarations which announce his danger as a sinner, and his entire dependance on God.

It might naturally be expected, that, in the war waged against the

holy writings, the inspiration of the prophets would be the earliest point of attack. 

The celebrated W. Gesenius, as we have been told by one who heard his lectures on Isaiah, often compared the inspiration of that prophet and the inspiration of the Grecian Homer. In point of strength of imagination, he represented the two poets as nearly on a level.

Semler, Professor of Divinity at Halle, began to lecture and publish on the subject of interpretation, in a manner that excited the attention of the whole German empire. The grand principle by which he explained away whatever he did not think proper to believe, was that which has been called accommodation. He maintained that the apostles and the Savior often admitted representations and doctrines into their instructions, which were calculated merely for the purpose of persuading the Jews, being accommodated to their prejudices; but which were not intended to be a real directory of sentiment. In this way, whatever was inconsistent with his own views, he called accommodation; and thus, at once, expunged it from the list of Christian doctrines.

Thus with Eichorn, the account of the creation and fall of man, is merely a poetical, philosophical speculation of some ingenious person, on the origin of the world and of evil. So, in regard to the

offering up of Isaac by Abraham, he says, The Godhead could not have required of Abraham so horrible a crime; and there can be no justification, palliation or excuse, for this pretended command of the divinity.' He then explains it. 'Abraham dreamed that he must offer up Isaac, and according to the superstition of the times, regarded it as a divine admonition. He prepared to execute the mandate which his dream had conveyed to him. A lucky accident (probably the rustling of a ram who was entangled in the bushes) hindered it; and this, according to ancient idiom, was also the voice of the divinity.' 

The same writer represents the history of the Mosaic legislation, at Mount Sinai, in a curious manner. Moses ascended to the top of Sinai, and built a fire there, (how he found wood on this barren rock, or raised it to the top, Eichorn does not tell us,) a fire consecrated to the worship of God, before which he prayed. Here, an unexpected and tremendous thunder storm occurred. He seized the occasion to proclaim the laws which he had composed in his retirement, as the statutes of Jehovah; leading the people to believe that Jehovah had conversed with him. Not that he was a deceiver, but he really believed that the occurrence of such a thunder storm was a sufficient proof of the fact that Jehovah had spoken to him, or sanctioned the work in which he had been engaged. The prophecies of the Old Testament, are, according to him, patriotic wishes, 18 expressed with all the fire and elegance of poetry, for the future prosperity, and a future deliverer of the Jewish nation.

In like manner, C. F. Ammon, Professor of Theology at Erlangen, tells us, in respect to the miracle of Christ's walking on the water, that, 'to walk on the sea, is not to stand on the waves, as on the solid ground, as Jerome dreams, but to walk through the waves so far as the shoals reached, and then to swim.'

Thiess, in his commentary on the Acts, explains the miraculous

effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, (Acts ii.) in the following manner: 'It is not uncommon,' says he, 'in those countries, for a violent gust of wind to strike on a particular spot or house; such a gust is commonly accompanied by the electric fluid; and the sparks of this are scattered all around. These float about the chamber, become apparent, and light upon the disciples.

At present, the leading German critics (rejecting accommodation, and casting off all ideas of the divine origin of the Scriptures) are disputing with great zeal, the questions, whether a miracle be possible? Whether God and nature are one and the same?

Some time ago, many of their critics maintained, that no Messiah was predicted in the Old Testament; but now, they question even whether the Jews had any expectation of one.

Some of the Germans have taken the position that "Moses wrote nothing more than the laws which are contained in the Pentateuch, and that the historical parts have been added in later ages, from traditions." This position is defended on the ground that miracles are impossible.
Having disposed of the claim of Moses to thy authorship of the Pentateuch, these critics are unable to agree as to the real author. Rosenm¸ller, enumerates no less than twelve theories on this single point, all different, and many contradictory.

We have passed thus hastily through this wilderness of error, not that we take pleasure in tracing the downward course of men, who, abandoning the guide which God has provided, wander on in utter darkness; but, because duty demands that their example should be held up as a warning to others. 

It is highly probable that when these writers first commenced their rash speculations, they never dreamed of the results to which they were finally led."
N. N. WHITING 3/1/1844