Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Of these, no less than 23 had graduated from their respective seminaries within the last five years.

Another important experiment is being made toward the establishment of a fourth year by Union Theological Seminary, New York. In this institution, also, the degree of B. D. is granted under two separate conditions. (a) A man of exceptionally high standing may add to his already very heavy classroom work additional courses, which must include sixty in the Old Testament department, and thirty in the New Testament department. In that department which a student elects as his major, and in which his thesis must fall, he must do no less than 180 hours of classroom work besides that required for the diploma. (b) A man who has, during the three years' course either at Union, or in some other approved institution," attained an average grade of not less than 80 per cent, may enter upon a course somewhat similar to that of Princeton. He must do twelve hours of classroom work a week, but he may take one sixth of his session's work at Columbia or New York University. From him, also, a thesis is, of course, required. In the catalogue for 1902-1903, Union reported 22 graduates students, some of whom were working practically on the fourth year for the degree.

The Influence of Comparative Religion. We are all aware of the fierce controversy which has been raging in Germany over the influence of the study of religion as a whole upon the theological departments in universities. On the one hand, we have men, with Troeltsch, perhaps, as their protagonist, who maintain that all theological work must be recast in the light of our modern view of the religions of the world and of their relations to Christianity. For it is urged that we are now compelled to study the Old Testament in all its aspects in direct connection with Semitic religions, and to trace the influence upon Hebrew thought of the religions of the peoples with whom they came in contact throughout their history. Similarly, the New Testament is, we are told, being re-read. The rise of its doctrines and its worship is explained in the light, not only of Judaism, but of the thought and worship of the Hellenic world. The idea of canonicity, it is urged, must have no place in the construction of the curriculum for a theological school, any more than in the individual scholar's investigation of primitive Christianity and the religion of Israel. Old Testament introduction ought to widen out into the religion of Israel. The Biblical theology of the Old Testament disappears into the religion of the Hebrews and of the Jews. New Testament introduction gives place to the larger term, the literature of primitive Christianity, and its theology passes into the doctrines of the several

teachers and circles of the first two centuries; and so on with the rest of the departments. Even in Germany, however, the advocates of this plan do not have it all their own way. Redoubtable champions have appeared in Harnack, Reichle, and others. Reichle especially has written with great intelligence and fervor on the subject.

In America we have not gone so far, but the question in this survey is whether our theological schools have been at all profoundly moved by interest in the science and history of religion.

Dr. Warren, late president of Boston University, taught Comparative Religion in the Divinity School for thirty-five years. Chicago Theological Seminary, I am inclined to believe, was the first seminary in this country to make comparative religion a required subject for all students; and it did this some seven or eight years ago. No less than 40 hours in the junior year were demanded of every student. A large number of seminaries have given some small place to comparative religion without having made it a compulsory study. But some have gone further than that. At the Divinity School of Harvard the Philosophy and History of Religion are dealt with mainly by a Professor of the Old Testament Department. The students are invited to elect from courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the following are among the topics named: Science of Religion, The Religions of India, The Philosophical Systems of India, Germanic and Celtic Religions, History of Babylonia and Assyria. Attention is also directed to certain courses in Philosophy including Ethics, Metaphysics, and the Philosophy of Nature.

In the Divinity School of the University of Chicago a reorganization of the department of Systematic Theology is now being made, which, it is quite evident, has been profoundly influenced by the religioushistory method. The department is to be worked under four main divisions which are described as follows: 1. Philosophical Theology; 2. Scriptural Theology, "Systematic Theology drawing its data exclusively from the Scriptures"; 3. Historical Theology, divided between the departments of Systematic Theology and Church History; 4. Comparative Theology, “in which the theological teachings of the ethnic faiths will be compared with those of the Christian system." This sub-department is to be divided into three sections, the first treating of the Philosophy of Religion, the second of the Psychology of Religion, and the third of the History and Theology of Religions. At Hartford Theological Seminary, within the Department of Systematic Theology there are courses on the Philosophy of Religion and on Introduction to the History of Religions, as well as a reading

course in that history. In the Department of Philology and Exegesis a place is found for the reading of Arabic, the study of the theology of Islam, the history and methods of Mohammedanism, the history of the attitude of Moslems towards the Christian and Jewish religions, and for Christian missions in Egypt and Arabia. Work is also done, of course, in Assyriology, and, in the history of Semitic religion in general, especially in its relations to the history of Israel and early Christianity. In the Mission Courses, instruction is offered in a large number of languages.

At Union Theological Seminary there now exists a department entitled the "Philosophy and History of Religion," which is under the charge of one professor. He offers courses in the Philosophy of Religion, Survey of the Ethnic Faiths, Introduction to the Study of the Philosophy of Religion, Origin and Development of Religion, and Christianity in the Light of the Development of Religion. In addition, many important courses are named in the catalogue which are offered by Columbia University and New York University, respectively.

On the whole matter, perhaps you will allow me to make the following general observations: First, the only point at which, excepting the case of the University of Chicago, comparative religion has come thoroughly into the theological curriculum, is through the study of the Philosophy of Religion. Second, the only school which has attempted to reorganize the substance of its course under the influence of religious history is the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and even there it is limited at present to the systematic department, and has not extended so far as to obliterate the distinction between Old Testament and new Testament literature and the non-canonical literature of those periods. Third, the influence of the religious-historical method on the Biblical and historical departments of a divinity school can, as yet, only appear in the classroom method of individual professors. Fourth, it may be worth pointing out that at Hartford Theological Seminary the inclusion of subjects connected with the History of Religions in the curriculum is associated, not exclusively, but largely, with the effort to train men more thoroughly for the foreign mission field. The aim is to give them some knowledge of the language with which they must be employed in the future, and of the nature and the history of the religion of that people among whom they hope to preach the gospel of Christ. Fifth, and that leads me to hazard the prophecy that, in years to come, in this country, we may find two types of a theological curriculum arising. Under the first we shall find the course of study reorganized from a purely intellectu: stand

point. The History of Religions, including Christianity, will be treated as in some sense co-ordinate. An effort will be made to develop the philosophy underlying the whole vast religious life of man, and the various departments will tend to rest upon an investigation of the history of each religion and of its interrelations with the others. It is not impossible that in America the first programme may be adopted by some great school, which reflects the opinion of the group of agitators in Germany, to whom I referred above. Under the other type, theological schools will continue to be organized, not in relation primarily to the universal fact of religion, but in relation to the life and purpose of the Christian Church, not on the basis of the ideal unity of all religious life, but on the basis of the absolute nature of one religion, Christianity.

DISCUSSION

PROFESSOR GEORGE E. HORR, D.D.

NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION, NEWTON CENTER, MASSACHUSETTS

It may be pertinent to call attention to a fact which has not been mentioned in this discussion. The reformed churches, which received their impulse from Calvin - the Churches of France, of the Rhineland, of Switzerland, Holland, and Scotland - almost without exception, had a pastor and a teacher, or a ruling elder. The meeting-house of the Salem (Massachusetts) Church, which is still standing, holds about thirty persons, but the congregation that worshiped there had a pastor and a teacher. In modern times we have departed from this wholesome practice. Our churches put all the burdens of preaching, teaching, and administration upon one person. The differentiation of function is the mark of evolutionary process, but we do not follow out that sound principle in the ministry. The result is, that our churches are seeking for the rare men who can do the most diverse things equally well, and when they have found him, they proceed to kill him.

We need both classes of men in the ministry- the teaching or preaching pastor, and the ruling or administrative pastor. The two classes of officers need very different kinds of training. But the theological seminary is geared to the training of the preaching pastor. The most necessary reform in the theological discipline of to-day is that the seminaries train both sorts of men, and the most necessary reform in the churches is that churches of any considerable size shall have at least two pastors.

Looking now at the work of theological seminaries, as at present adjusted, three facts are worth noting.

I. The need of a spiritual quickening throughout our country. Various causes are adduced to account for the fact that the young men in our colleges are not making a choice of the ministry. But the underlying cause of the situation is that since 1858 America has not been spiritually moved, so that the spiritual consciousness of the nation has been aroused. I am not arguing for any revival that wastes itself in emotionalism, but I do not see how any religious man can deny that we need a profound reawakening of the spiritual consciousness of the American people to eternal things. Most of the problems that confront the religious world would be largely settled by a deep and general reawakening of the spiritual consciousness of the American people. There would be no Sunday-evening-service problem, no vacant-seat problem in the morning service, no city-evangelization problem, no theologicalseminary-support problem, no lack-of-students-for-the-ministry problem, if we could have such a spiritual quickening as that of which I am speaking.

II. A second fact deserves attention. During this period of spiritual dearth we have been passing through the most prodigious intellectual revolution that the world has ever known. We can fix the date of it. The decade 1870-1880 was momentous in the history of thought, in the attitude of the civilized mind toward the universe. The weltanschauung was revolutionized. In affirming this I do not mean to insinuate, in the slightest degree, whether or not I think that what is vaguely called "the evolutionary hypothesis," can be verified or not. I simply point out that in the period designated we came into a new psychological climate, and the influence of that climate was felt not only in biology, but in philosophy, history, sociology, pedagogy, Biblical interpretation, and theology. It is impossible for men to look at things just as they did previous to 1870, no matter what their individual convictions. At the very least, they have to take account of fresh considerations and answer new objections.

III. There is, however, one aspect in the situation that is bright. with light and full of promise, and that is the increasing intellectual appreciation everywhere of the moral and spiritual content of the Personality of Jesus Christ. Probably no life of Jesus written before 1830 is worth reading, and few of the multitudes of biographies of Jesus that have teemed from the press since 1860 are destitute of worthy spiritual suggestion. When we come to think of it, the just implications of such facts are astounding. There is seen to be a wealth and a power of

« ForrigeFortsæt »