THE LEAVEN OF THE SADDUCEES, by Ernest Gordon.
Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Association,
826 North La Salle Street. Paper covers, $1.00 net.
This is a timely exposure of the leavening work of Unitarianism in the New England Churches, especially the Congregational. Mr Gordon produces a damaging array of facts, which reveal a very low standard of ethical conduct on the part of Unitarian preachers. He exposes the efforts made by Unitarianism to capture the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., and also its efforts to bring American Universities, Colleges, and Educational Institutions down to its low and degrading views of the Son of God. The chapter on the Religious Education Association is a revelation of the malign influences at work in teaching the most advanced higher critical views to the young. The American Colleges, at least too many of them, seem to be permeated with Unitarian teaching. The bare-faced attempt of the Andover trustees to affiliate the theological school with that of the Unitarian Harvard is one of the most glaring efforts of the unethical attempts of Modernism to divert endowments to other purposes than that for which they were intended. Fortunately the law put a stop to this plan. The story of the apostasy of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, is sad reading. The drift began with Dr Briggs, and has culminated in the daring statements of President McGiffert. Mr Gordon’s book makes sad reading, but he has done an excellent service to Christianity in exposing how widespread the Sadducean leaven is. In his last chapter Mr Gordon goes further afield, and shows how this Modernism is sapping the vitality of religion in Europe as well as in America. It was high time American Christianity rose and met the Modernist foe. It would be well if someone in this country would do a similar piece of work for Britain. It would help to open the eyes of the people to the real seriousness of the religious situation. We very heartily commend this book to the attention of our readers who are interested in the subject.