Books: To Infidelity and Back
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Henry F. Lutz >> To Infidelity and Back
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12 Produced by Charles Franks
TO INFIDELITY AND BACK
To Infidelity and Back
A Truth-seeker's Religious Autobiography
_How I Found Christ and His Church_
By
EVANGELIST HENRY F. LUTZ
_Author of "Economic Redemption; or, Hard Times: the Cause and Cure"
etc._
"I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them
in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before
them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them"--Isa. 42:16.
"Slight tastes of philosophy may perchance move one to atheism, but
fuller draughts lead back to religion"--Lord Bacon
CINCINNATI, OHIO
1911
DEDICATION
To the sacred memory of the pioneers of the great Restoration
Movement of the nineteenth century, who forsook the religious
associations of a lifetime and cheerfully endured poverty,
persecution and every hardship in their endeavor to restore Christian
union on the primitive gospel, and who held forth a beacon-light that
helped me to find the truth in its simplicity as it is in Christ
Jesus.
My Soul Struggle in Symbolism
Upon the fly-leaf of my Bible I find the following, which was written
shortly after I emerged from the stormy sea of heartrending agony
through which I passed in my conflict with sectarianism, rationalism,
infidelity and doubt. It was not written for the public, but was
simply an effort of my soul to express in a measure, through human
symbols, the painful experiences through which it passed. It will
seem extravagant language to those who have never had their souls
lacerated by doubt and despair. But the sensitive souls who have
endured similar experiences will understand, and it is with the hope
of reaching and helping them that it is given to the public.
"A TEN YEARS' JOURNEY
From the childhood land of ignorant innocence to the kingdom of
Christ: by way of deserts of negation; mountains of assumption;
rivers of irony, sarcasm and conceit; bays of contention; gulfs of
liberalism; and oceans of infidelity, doubt and confusion--swept by
undercurrents of selfish passion, tempests of blind sentiment,
maelstroms of fear and despair; covered with black clouds of
prejudice and preconceived ideas, dense fogs of theological
speculation, gigantic icebergs of indifference, monstrous sharks of
procrastination, and ruinous rocks of materialism; through the strait
of darkness and absurdity, over the sea of twilight and joy, into the
haven of rest.
"In the ship, religion; pole-star, faith in God; rudder, free will;
compass, conscience; sextant, rationalism and experience; anchor,
hope; guiding chart, creeds and opinions of men vs. the Word of God;
pilot, Jesus Christ.
"Motto: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
"Prayer: O God! thou knowest the secret desire of my heart. Thou
knowest how earnestly I have sought the truth. God forbid that my
life should be a barren waste; that I should so use the powers that
thou hast given me that the world shall not be better for my having
lived in it. Lord, grant I may ever find the work that thou wouldst
have me do. 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my
thoughts, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting. Amen."
This, in substance, was my daily prayer for ten long, dreary years;
for, while my intellect was in doubt and confusion, my heart
continued to cling to God.
INTRODUCTION
One of the clearest expounders of the Scriptures in my acquaintance
is the author of this book, who honors me in asking that I write
these few lines of introduction. His experience is full of interest.
I have listened night after night with profit to his sermons, and he
has dug his way in the most painstaking fashion out of the darkness
of unfaith into the beauty and strength of faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
There is no institution like the church of God, for it is founded
upon the divine Sonship of Jesus, and his Holy Spirit has given to it
divine life, so that Isaiah's prophecy lights up the pathway of
victory, when it is said: "He will not fail nor be discouraged, till
he have set justice in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his
law." Its right to advance has been disputed, and, at times in its
long history, it appears to have stood timidly doubting its power and
right to soul conquest, but this has only been apparent, for every
century has brought with it a greater courage, so that in this day
believers in Jesus are speaking in the language of every nation on
the earth, and hosts of these are as ready to lay down their lives
for their faith in Jesus as did Stephen and James and Paul and that
host of martyrs whose willing sacrifices gave strength and solidarity
to the early church.
The ordinances have naturally suffered at the hands of every
invasion, and, in consequence, some of the most devout have not been
able to find the path to the ordinances as practiced in the apostolic
days, but the skies are brightening, and, without questioning for a
moment the sincerity and devotion of those who think otherwise, the
Scriptures are being read to-day with more freedom than at any other
period in the history of the church, and its ordinances are gradually
coming to light in the public mind. God has been patient with us and
we must be patient with those who do not think as we do. One of the
most important problems now facing us, however, is that all believers
shall find a common way for entrance into the church. When that has
been done, a long step will have been taken towards world-wide
evangelization.
The fields are already white unto harvest. This is the day of
opportunity. Christ is waiting on us. If the time was short, like a
furled sail, in Paul's day, how much shorter is it in our day! The
gospel has been sent to all nations, and God is sending men from all
nations to America to hear the gospel, so that the lines are crossing
and recrossing each other and are so many prophecies of the
fulfillment of the commission of Jesus, when he said: "All authority
hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; and lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world."
Deciding for Christ and being baptized into him is only a small part
of the work that is to be done. Then begins their training into real
discipleship, when they are to produce the fruit of the Spirit, which
is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, meekness, self-control."
This book is a contribution to that end, and may those who read its
pages be brought to yield their best to the glory of Him who is our
all.
Baltimore, Md. Peter Ainslie.
PREFACE
This book contains my religious experience in a forty years' sojourn
on earth. If any doubt the propriety and value of relating one's
religious experience, I would refer them to the case of Paul, who
used this method on a number of occasions. However, we should be
careful not to make an improper use of this method and preach our
experiences in place of the gospel. Paul says: "We preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for
Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:5). We should refer to our experiences simply
to help deliver people from human error and center their attention on
the gospel of Christ, which alone is the power of God unto salvation.
I do not take any great credit to myself for my experiences recorded
in this book, realizing that they were largely the result of my
inherited proclivities and religious environment. It must be admitted
that the great mass of mankind are what they are in religion,
politics, etc., by heredity and environment. This is powerfully
impressed upon us by the ministers who give their experience in "Why
I Am What I Am." Even the fact that it is natural for me to seek to
know what is right for myself, I attribute more largely to my natural
hereditary mental bent, than to any particular merit of my own. I
trust this book will help us all to realize the danger of drifting
with traditionary religion, and thus defeating the revealed truth of
Jesus Christ, and the need of searching the truth for ourselves that
thus we may be used of God to advance his kingdom of unity and truth.
Christian civilization would make much more rapid strides if we all
would struggle to find the truth instead of acquiring our ideas
through the colored glasses of prejudice and ignorance.
My ancestry on mother's side were German Reformed and on father's
side Lutheran. While a boy I lived for three years with Mennonites
and attended their church. I attended a Moravian Sunday-school, was
taught by a Presbyterian Sunday-school teacher, educated at a
Unitarian theological school, graduated from a Christian college and
a Congregational theological seminary, and took postgraduate work at
a United Presbyterian university. I was born and raised in
southeastern Pennsylvania, which may be called "The Cradle of
Religious Liberty" in America. For while the colonies to the north
and south persecuted people on account of their religious opinions,
Penn opened his settlement to all the religiously persecuted in
America and Europe. As a result Pennsylvania became a great sectarian
stronghold. To-day some twenty denominations have either their
national headquarters or leading national center in southeastern
Pennsylvania. The reader can readily see how my contact with this
Babel of sectarianism affected my religious life and experience.
There are some things that seem too sacred to drag before the public.
For years I said very little in my public ministry about my
experience with doubt. While, as city evangelist of Greater
Pittsburg, I was assisting a minister in a revival, he learned
incidentally of my experience with infidelity; and as there were a
number of skeptics in the community, he urged me to preach on the
subject. The message seemed to do much good to the large audience
that heard it. Since then it has been repeated a number of times, and
the largest auditoriums have not been able to hold the people who
were eager to hear it. This demonstrates that the message supplies a
great need, and has encouraged me to prepare this book for the
public. The Christian Temple in Baltimore was packed with people, and
on account of the jam the doors were ordered closed by the policeman
in charge half an hour before time for the service. At Portsmouth,
Va., twenty-five hundred were crowded into a skating-rink, and many
failed to get admittance. At Halifax, Can., hundreds were turned
away. But this has been the experience wherever the sermon has been
thoroughly advertised. To illustrate this, I quote from the
Harrisonburg (Va.) papers of Jan. 9, 1911, where the sermon was
delivered the night before in Assembly Hall, the largest auditorium
in the city. About sixteen hundred people were jammed in the hall and
many crowded out. It was the largest audience that ever assembled in
that city for a religious service.
"Evangelist Lutz says that on every occasion on which he has
delivered his address on 'My Conversion from Infidelity,' no matter
how large the hall may have been, people have turned away for lack of
room. Last night's attendance at Assembly Hall maintained the record.
Presumably the hall has never been more closely packed. Seats, stage,
box, aisles, windows, doorways, were filled, and many found place in
the flies of the theater. A number couldn't find places anywhere and
went away. Mr. Lutz is a fine example of evangelist. He has a
magnetic personality and a strong, oratorical way of talking, fluent
in speech and filled with figurative language and the phrases of his
profession."--_Harrisonburg Daily Times._
"Evangelist H. F. Lutz spoke last night at Assembly Hall on 'The
Story of My Conversion from Infidelity.' The audience showed close
attention and earnestness. Many were turned away because of the
crowded condition of the hall. Many people from the near-town
sections came to attend the service."--_Harrisonburg Daily News._
I trust that my bitter experience with rationalism, infidelity and
doubt will help to reveal their true nature and thus keep many young
men from these dangerous rocks, and will help to deliver many others
from this terrible bondage. May the Father graciously bless my humble
efforts to win souls to Christ and to help bring about Christian
union on the primitive gospel in order to the Christian conquest of
the whole world. Henry F. Lutz.
Millersville, Pa., March 28, 1911.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Soul's Struggle in Symbolism
Introduction by Peter Ainslie
Author's Preface
PART I.--TO INFIDELITY AND BACK.
Chapter I.--To Infidelity and Back
Chapter II.--Parting Message to Unitarian School
Chapter III.--Functions and Limitations of the Mind
Chapter IV.--Looking Through Colored Glasses
PART II.--FROM SECTARIANISM TO PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.
Chapter I.--Scriptural Baptism
Chapter II.--The New Testament Church
Chapter III.--The Church Since the Apostles
Chapter IV.--Our Neglected Fields
PART I.
TO INFIDELITY AND BACK
CHAPTER I.
To INFIDELITY AND BACK.
_To Christ by Way of Rationalism, Unitarianism and Infidelity._
I inherited on the one hand a strong religious nature, and on the
other a tendency to be independent in thought and to question
everything before adopting it as a part of my belief. Ever since I
can remember I was a praying boy, and early in life there came to me
the desire to devote myself to the ministry of the gospel.
Among my earliest religious impressions were those received by having
the story of the Patriarchs and Jesus read to me in German by a
saintly old Mennonite for whom I worked on the farm for a year. Among
the first things that aroused my reason in religion was the
declaration of my Sunday-school teacher that before we are born we
are predestined by God either to go to heaven or to hell, and that
anything we might do would not alter our eternal destiny. This
declaration came like a thunderbolt into my religious life, and
stirred up a violent agitation from which it took me ten years to
fully deliver myself. I was now about fourteen years old, and already
had a desire to measure everything in the crucible of logic or cause
and effect, and to accept nothing which did not come within the range
of my reason. Looking at things from the standpoint of cause and
effect, I was naturally caught in the meshes of fatalism, and this
aggravated the religious agitation above referred to.
At this time in my life there arose many religious questions, and the
answers I received from religious teachers tended to drive me away
from the church rather than to it. I feel to-day that if my case had
been clearly understood and the nature and the limits of the finite
mind had been patiently pointed out to me, in its relation to faith
and revelation, I could have been saved years of agony on the sea of
rationalism. But my questions were not answered and my honest doubts
were rebuked, so that I was naturally driven out of sympathy with the
church and Bible, since I judged that my doubts could not be
satisfied because religion itself is unreasonable.
Through the kindness of Christian people the way opened to prepare
myself for the ministry. But by this time many religious doubts and
perplexities were in the way, and I decided that I would a thousand
times rather be an honest doubter out of the church and ministry than
a hypocrite in it. Thus my fond hope of entering the ministry had to
be given up, and instead I determined to use the teaching profession
as a stepping-stone to law, and law as a means of serving humanity.
I was very fond of study, and read scores of books on all kinds of
subjects. Emerson was my favorite, and I procured and read his
complete works. Gibbon and Macaulay were eagerly read as revealing
some of the religious life of the world. Ingersoll, with many others,
got his turn. But the book that produced the greatest effect on my
life at this time was Fleetwood's "Life of Christ," with a short
history of the different religious bodies of the world attached.
Through my reading and observations I became greatly perplexed over
the religious divisions of the world. I discovered that thousands of
people had died as martyrs for all kinds of religions and sects, and
that each claimed to have the truth and to teach the right way to
heaven. I concluded that since they teach such contradictory
doctrines they cannot possibly all be right, although they might all
be wrong. I formed a desire to make a thorough study of all the
different religious bodies of the world, to find out where the truth
is, if there is any in religion. My first information along this line
was obtained in the above-named history of the religious bodies of
the world. Being of a rationalistic turn of mind, I was naturally
very favorably impressed with Unitarianism and its teaching. I sent
for a number of their works and read them with great interest. I
learned many things that have been a benediction to my life ever
since, but you will see later on how far it satisfied my
rationalistic proclivities. I learned to my delight that I could
enter a Unitarian theological school to prepare for the ministry
without first joining a church or signing a creed. For a person in my
state of mind nothing better could have presented itself. I
determined to go there and make a thorough study of the Bible and all
the different religious bodies, and to fearlessly follow the truth
wherever it might lead me.
The time came and I entered the school. And a fine school it was from
an intellectual standpoint and for the purpose of investigation. I
have been a student at six educational institutions since I left the
high school, but this was far ahead of the others for the development
of the logical and philosophical faculties. Here there was absolutely
no restraint to thought; and all kinds of systems and ideas were
represented, from philosophical anarchy to socialism and from
mysticism to materialism. The moral and spiritual earnestness I
expected to find among the Unitarians I did not find, especially
among the younger and more radical ones. Its effect, on the whole,
was to relax rather than intensify the moral fiber. Their ideals
seemed so grand and noble that I thought those possessed with them
could scarcely find time to eat and sleep in their zeal to put them
into practise; but I discovered that they not only had plenty of time
to eat and sleep, but also for dancing, card-playing, theater-going,
etc. Many of the young men studying for the ministry often spent a
large part of the night in card-playing, and the Sunday-school room
served also as a dancing-floor. Unitarians pride themselves upon the
high standard of morality among their people and upon the few
prisoners you find among their members, but this is due to the
character of the people they reach rather than to the restraining
influence of their teaching
My reading had given me a wrong impression as to the teaching of
Unitarianism. Like many others, I was fascinated and enticed by the
writings of conservative Unitarians, whose contention is largely
against the bad theology of human creeds; but the present-day
teaching of the vanguard of Unitarianism is an entirely different
thing. It rejects all the miraculous in the Bible, and, in many
cases, even denies the existence of a personal God. All the students
were required to conduct chapel prayers in turn. Those who did not
believe in a personal God explained that they were pronouncing an
apostrophe to the great impersonal and unknowable force working in
the universe. I had read Channing, Clark, Hale, Emerson, and other
conservative Unitarians, and found much food for my soul, but I
discovered that these were considered old "fogies" and back numbers
by most of the students in attendance.
But I must tell you of my evolution along the line of rationalism. My
rationalistic proclivities were given a free rein. And as a child,
when left to run away, will soon stop and return to its mother, so
this freedom was the natural cure for my intellectual delusion. To
the statement of the creeds, "The Father is God, and the Son is God,
and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one
God," my rationalism replied, that is logically inconceivable,
therefore I became a Unitarian. No sooner was I happy in this faith
than a Universalist addressed me and said, "If you want to be
rational, you must give up your belief in eternal punishment, for God
could not give eternal punishment for a finite sin." As a
rationalist, what could I do but yield, and so I became a
universalist Unitarian. I felt I had at last found the truth, but my
peace was short; for a student accused me of being irrational,
"because," said he, "an omnipotent, loving God would give an
infinitely large amount of good and an infinitely small amount of
evil; but an infinitely small amount of evil is not perceptible, evil
is perceptible, therefore there is no such God." This was an awful
pill and gave a terrible shock to my religious sensibilities, but as
rationalism was my guide, I had to follow on or stand accused as a
superstitious coward.
Again rationalism declared, through my teachers, that all the
supernatural must be eliminated from the Bible as mythical and
unreliable, and so I was robbed of my Christ, my God and my Bible.
Misguided by rationalism, I thought it my conscientious duty to
accept, step by step, the dictates of destructive criticism until the
Bible was only inspired to me in religion as Kant in philosophy,
Milton in poetry, and Beethoven in music. But when I came to the end
of the matter I discovered that my conscience, which had urged me
along, was gone also. For I was gravely taught that conscience is
merely a creature of experience and education, and that it is right
to lie or do anything else so long as you do it out of love.
Doubtless you have all heard of the farmer and his wife at the
World's Fair who went to see the "Exit." There was nothing in it, and
of course they had to pay to get in again. This was my bitter
experience with rationalism. I thought I was following a great light,
but I discovered there was nothing in it, that I was following an
_ignis fatuus_. Rationalism has indeed proven the "Exit" to
multitudes, from the peace, joy and moral security that accompany
faith in evangelical Christianity into the desert of doubt, darkness
and despair.
But not even here did I find a staying-place. For rationalism, in its
bold confidence, led me on and on until it brought me to materialism
and absurdity. In going too far, it revealed its true nature and
character, and thus led me to see its fallacy and enabled me to get
free from its bondage. From atheism it led me to fatalism, and
declared that there is no free will and consequently people are not
to blame for their sins and shortcomings. If we "shall reap as we
sow," it declared that we cannot give anything to anybody and
therefore philanthropy is a delusion.
But I taught rationalism in guile one day by which it thoroughly
exhibited the absurdity of its teaching. Its continual song was, "You
dare not believe what you cannot conceive to be true." So it declared
one day, in its bold folly, that an object cannot move in the space
in which it is, nor in the space in which it is not; therefore you
cannot conceive of an object moving; therefore you cannot move to
walk, eat or live. So the conclusion to which my rationalistic guide
finally led me was that I must sit down and die or be irrational.
Well, this was too much for me. I refused to die, and concluded that
rationalism is not a safe guide, and commenced to investigate as to
where the difficulty lay.
But before I tell you how I discovered the false tricks of
rationalism, let me say that all these things into which rationalism
led me were against my strong religious nature, and gave me continual
and excruciating pain. I never for a day ceased to pray to God for
help; for while my intellect was held in doubt through the bondage of
rationalism, my heart held on to God, and thus I was in a mighty
conflict. In my despair I cried unto God, and when he had
accomplished his purpose concerning me, he set me free. Blessed be
his name! Surely "he bringeth the blind by a way that they knew not,
and leads them into paths that they have not known. He makes darkness
light before them, and crooked things straight, and does not utterly
forsake the honest in heart."
Most people have come to their religious and political position by
heredity and are held there by inertia. If you can set a person free
from this hereditary inertia, you can convert him to almost anything
at will; for it is but few who are sufficiently informed on any
subject to defend it against an expert, and none are thus qualified
on all subjects. So when I entered this school, free from all
hereditary ideas, determined to accept every position that I could
not refute in argument, you can imagine my experience. At first I was
converted from one thing to another by the different students and
professors until I was about all the "arians," "isms," and "ists"
ever heard of, together with a number of other things for which they
have no names as yet.
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