Atonement is vital to Christianity. It is its very center and core. There is no gospel without it. "Without shedding of blood is no remission " (Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)), is a refrain, insistent and loud from beginning to end of the sacred Scriptures. No system of religion can be sound that does not give prominence to the atoning death of Christ.
How then does The Oxford Group Movement stand in relation to this vitally important and fundamental doctrine? You may read carefully the literature of the Movement, and it is simply a fact that allusions to the atonement and redemption are conspicuous by their absence. It is possible to find a bare allusion here and there to these matters, but they are few and far between.
The late Harold Begbie, journalist and author, wrote a book, entitled "Life Changers," with the sanction of F. B. As F. B. himself writes no books, this is perhaps the most authoritative presentation of the views of the Groupers we can have. In it Begbie gives us the "conversion" of eight young men, largely made up of their own narratives. If we give the testimonies of these young men, who have been drawn into the Movement, we shall have a pretty fair idea of what the Movement stands for, and especially how it stands in relation to the atonement.
Greats, a young man of twenty-four, gives his testimony in 35 pages. " His narrative was written during a busy time in one of the German Universities."
In all these 35 pages he never once refers to Christ as his Savior, nor to the atonement as necessary for his salvation. Christ as an Example is referred to. His conversion is summed up in his own words:- " I came to recognize for the first time the place of the human Jesus in the Christian world-order " (" Life Changers," p. 75). Then he went with F. B. to witness the Oberammergau play of the Crucifixion, and he writes of it as appealing "to the most primitive and vital human emotions-the spectacle of a divine man taking leave of his friends and going consciously and in full faith to his death" ("Life Changers," pp. 75, 76). Nothing in this goes to the length of confessing the Lord Jesus as his Savior. Indeed a Unitarian, who denies the Deity of our Lord, and the atoning character of His death, could go as far. It is the fashion to speak of " the divine man " nowadays, as men speak of the divine Shakespeare, etc., and even a Unitarian might say as much.
Greats girds at old-fashioned ideas, and to do so is indeed a feature of this cult. He says:- "I do not believe in the mechanical repetition of pious formulas about the atonement or anything else. That belief may come. My future is uncertain enough " (" Life Changers," p. 76). No true Christian believes in "the mechanical repetition of pious formulas," but we fear he girded at the real truth of the atonement.
The Rev. C. M. Chavasse, Master of St. Peter's Hall, Oxford, has put it upon record, "I have even known clergy and young laymen who were attracted to the Movement because they disliked, or would not teach, the Gospel of an Atoning Sacrifice; and yet saw in the Groups the means of exerting an effective ministry without it " (An address to the Clergy Home Mission Union, 7th November, 1932).
Again, the Rev. H. Booth Coventry, of Cape Town, who is associated with the Group, writes:-
" Some of us are Modernists and some Fundamentalists, but we do not quarrel. These differences simply do not count, for we read our Bibles in a third way -allowing its spiritual messages to speak directly to our own personal life" ("The Christian World," 13th March, 1930).
But what is the difference between the Modernist and the Fundamentalist? Surely it is vital. One of the vital messages is, " Without shedding of blood is no remission " (Hebrews 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)). Does that not count? It is like two doctors, who are discussing what to do with a patient. Says the Modernist, Remove his heart, and he will live. The Fundamentalist is aghast, believes the Modernist is utterly astray to give such monstrous advice, and replies, To remove the man's heart will ensure death. What would you say if the two agreed not to quarrel, proclaiming that their difference in judgment did not count?
Our illustration sets forth an impossible situation, but it faithfully illustrates what is, alas! possible in religious matters. When the everlasting destiny of precious souls is at stake we need to speak out, for everything depends on the atonement, and a system that can harbor those, who dislike that doctrine or refuse it, is ANTI-Christian, however much it may camouflage its real trend by pious phrases here and there.
A Rugger Blue is a young Irishman with "a turn of speed," which made him famous at football. His testimony occupies 15 pages. He never once mentions the Lord Jesus nor His atoning sacrifice. His idea of conversion is more than vague. It is thus described:- " First, that moral chaos is inevitable where there is no singleness of mind; second, that the power which purifies, strengthens, and upholds can only become real to those who long for it, and open the doors of their cleansed hearts to receive it in silence; and third, that no soul, truly conscious of that power, can be satisfied with his own salvation " (" Life Changers," pp. 86, 87).
Can this be a real conversion where there is no mention of Christ and His atoning work? It looks like a conversion by auto-suggestion, and not by the grace of God.
Persona Grata was brought up in a small American country town. His testimony occupies 18 pages. We are thankful that his testimony is more explicit. He says, "I spoke of the Christ of universal human experience, the Christ who saves, the Christ who redeems, the Christ who has made all the difference to me " (" Life Changers," p. 107).
Persona Grata spoke thus to a Chinese teacher in one of the mission colleges, whom he described as "a complete hypocrite," who drank, gambled and was impure in his life. The teacher responded, "How would I take that medicine?" and he replied, "Will you pray from your heart, 'Jesus, if there be a Jesus, I want you to clean me up'?" ("Life Changers," P. 107). The teacher returned the next day, saying that this worked, and his life was cleaned up.
So Persona Grata, commenting on this, says:- " What strikes me most in all these wonderful experiences—for it is a wonderful thing to see a man born again—is their extreme simplicity. Directly a man is really honest the miracle occurs" (" Life Changers," pp. 107, 108). So he evidently thinks a man by his own honesty can encompass his own new birth.
Beau Ideal, a young Etonian, at Oxford University, is the next witness. His testimony occupies 16 pages. In reading this over one cannot glean that he trusted Christ as his Savior, but that he found in Him his Beau Ideal or Example. He writes:- " The simple ethic of Jesus would work a healthy change. Honesty in commerce, sincerity in the Church, sympathy between employer and employed, purity and decency in social life, idealism and earnestness in political life—what a change would such things effect!" (" Life Changers," p. 119). But all this could be carried out by a man with no living vital touch with Christ as Savior.
However, he adds:- " Something more was yet demanded of him than an intellectual acknowledgment of the ethical value of Christianity" (" Life Changers," p. 119). What then is necessary for conversion? We are told, "A complete submission... to the supreme ideal of human life, Christ Jesus, with an instant and rejoicing readiness to make any sacrifice of himself and his fortunes at the call of the least of those whom he could help " (" Life Changers," p. 120).
What is this but blank Unitarianism? " The Supreme ideal of human life, Christ Jesus," not a word is said of receiving the Lord Jesus as a Savior, nor of the value of the atonement.
Princetown, an agreeable American of twenty-five, is our next witness. His testimony occupies 11 pages. He does not once mention the Lord Jesus nor His work on the cross. We read, "Directly, he says, a man feels that religion is a real power in human life, not merely a subject for theological discussion, he becomes interested in it. And directly he discovers that it can work a miracle in his own soul he seeks to understand it" ("Life Changers," p. 136). One would have imagined that if a young man had been really brought to know the Savior as his Redeemer, he would at least have mentioned gratefully the name of his great Deliverer.
A Young Soldier, who distinguished himself in the first great war by notable courage, is our next witness. His testimony covers 10 pages. Alas! not once is the name of Christ mentioned, nor His atoning work on the cross. The nearest account to a conversion that we can glean is as follows:—"M. tells me that one of the greatest things F. B. did for him was freeing his mind for discussing this moral trouble with other men. An enormous change came into his life directly the sense of secret shame was dissipated. The evil lost its power. He found himself possessed of an altogether new strength. He was conscious of an altogether new liberty " (" Life Changers," p. 142). Does this bear the marks of a soul truly converted to God? Is it remotely like the convincing testimony of the three old women in Bedford, sitting in the sun, and overheard by John Bunyan?
The Virginian, as his sobriquet implies, is an American, his home looking from " the hilltops of Chesapeake Bay to the rim of the Atlantic." His testimony occupies 13 pages. He says, " This is my theology: God has left a part of Himself in each of us, and this divine part of our nature, in every moral crisis, recognizes the historic Jesus and the Christ of experience as its necessary complement. Of course the traditional, the ecclesiastical, the theological mind has obscured Him... What changes life is, first, a sense of sin, a haunting knowledge that the habits of sin have got one in their deadly grip; second, an experience of the hilarity [italics as given] of Christianity really lived, and third, the immense appeal of Christ's challenge to make a new world " (" Life Changers," p. 156). It seems sad beyond words that there is no testimony of Christ as Savior, no joy in the forgiveness of sin indicated. The Virginian speaks of "the hilarity of Christianity." What can this mean? We can understand Wesley's description of the gospel as sounding forth "the gladly solemn sound," but what does this hilarity mean?
We have gone over the seven testimonies given in "Life Changers." We are appalled by what is omitted. The speaking of Christ as a Savior, of His precious blood as cleansing from sin, of His atoning sacrifice on the cross, are conspicuous by their absence. Christ as an Example, but not Christ as Savior, is their theme. New birth and conversion by auto-suggestion and self-improvement takes the place of the new birth and conversion of the Bible. "Life Changers," though a book issued to praise the Movement, is in reality its most deadly condemnation.
As F. B. has hitherto written no books, we are bound to gather our knowledge of the trend of the teaching from the writing of others, who are prominent in the Movement. Perhaps the most prominent of those associated with the Movement is