Morals Without Religion.
Quite a stir has been caused by Mrs. Margaret Knight, Lecturer in Psychology at Aberdeen University by reason of her anti-Biblical and anti-Christian views expressed in broadcasts which she made over the London Regional Service of the B.B.C. Among other evil things, she propounded that children might be told New Testament stories, but as legend, that most people now thought that there was not really a Devil; “and we can tell them that some people now don’t think there’s really a God . . .” She also, during a broadcast, declared that the doctrine of the Atonement by Christ was morally wrong and that she did not believe in the Incarnation of Christ, the Atonement or the Resurrection. Yet this lecturer argues that morals can be inculcated into children without religion. Of course, she means principally the Christian religion. We know that the carnal mind of man is darkness itself and enmity against the very being of God and His Word; and that there are many of Mrs. Knight’s type throughout Britain, prepared to propagate Atheism, which they call scientific humanism. But what many are amazed and alarmed at is this: that the B.B.C. in this professed Christian nation should dream of permitting all this blasphemy to be poured out through the medium of the wireless into the ears and minds of millions of listeners. And Dr. Donald Soper, former president of the Methodist Conference, wrote after all this, criticising the Christian critics of Mrs. Knight. He said, among other empty statements: “There is a case for morals without religion, even if Mrs. Knight has not done it justice.” He agreed that her broadcasts should have been allowed. What a lamentable pass we have come to in our beloved land. And what a crying need there is for all
true Christians to be done with any foolish charity towards those who profess Christianity but are at heart and in their beliefs enemies to the Bible and the Gospel. We may treat with such as fellowmen, according to Scripture, but let us be separate from them in matters of religion. We have in Mrs. Knight the open enemy to Christianity, and we have in Dr. Soper and his type an undermining influence within the professed Christian Church. Let us hold to the precious Word of God; let us be apostolic in our beliefs; let us by grace rest upon the hope of the Gospel of Christ; and let others, if they will, go in darkness to death and the eternal world.
Sir Patrick Dollan and the Poet Burns.
Recently Sir Patrick Dollan, the well-known ex-Provost of Glasgow, suggested in a speech that Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, should be canonised as a saint. It seemed that Sir Patrick made this public proposal quite seriously. A Roman Catholic official declared afterwards that his Church could not do it as Burns, he averred, was a Presbyterian. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland said they had no machinery for doing this. And so here the matter seems to rest. Of course, Sir Patrick’s faith was within the Church of Rome, and whether his suggestion was serious or not, it reveals the lengths to which some in Scotland are prepared to go in adulation of the poet, who was anything but a saint in his moral conduct. Sir Patrick wants us to forget all about that. A saint is any poor sinner regenerated by the Holy Spirit and sanctified by the grace of God while in this world and prepared for heaven. If men are not made saints before they die, they never shall be, world without end.