Notes: The New Method of Preaching
The Light (Pakistan), 1st January 1923 Issue (Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 1)
It is an open secret that the doctrines of the Church cannot stand the searchlight of reason. They can only be couched in an emotional language to appeal to sentimentality. That is why the Christian missionaries have now abandoned the controversial methods in preaching, because in a controversy we have to argue, and this is the thing which goes directly against the faith of the Church.
Dr Sherwood Eddy has recently made a short appeal
“to abandon the polemic method, which has been tried and found wanting.”
The most effective way, in the opinion of Dr Eddy, is the
“positive presentation of Christ as the saviour without mention of the points wherein the Moslem [Muslim] doctrine of Christ or any other tenant of Islam differs from the Gospel.”
The same principle is now going to be applied to literature, as we read the following in The Moslem World:
“A group of workers which met at the close of the month of meetings advocated the application of the same principle to literature, including the maxim: ‘Mohammed will have to be left severely alone.’”
They added:
“The only literature for Moslems which should be suffered to remain is literature of a suasive informatory type, e.g., invitations to read the Bible, studies of aspects of the redemptive work of Christ.”
We must admire the ingenuity of the Christian workers, and quite appreciate the standpoint with which the new plan is inaugurated; yet we do not think that it will be conducive to any good for the propagandism of Christianity. The Bible is a book which is obsolete for this age, and no thinking mind will have any inspiration from it. It is, therefore, no good to ask people to read the book. Besides it does not support the novel doctrines of the Church, and one who reads it carefully is bound to condemn Christianity as Paulinity or Churchiniaty.