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S i d e b a r
CONFESSION OF A HISTORICAL CRITIC
By A.C.MCGIFFERT
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BIBLICAL criticism has had theological effects of the very greatest significance. It is not that simply our view of the Bible has changed as a result of it, but our whole view of religious authority has changed. As we have learned not to think of the Bible as a final and infallible authority, as the ultimate court of appeal in all matters of human concern, we have come to see that there is no such authority and that we need none.
The result has been a change of perspective and a readjustment of values of simply untold consequence. Biblical criticism may seem often to concern itself with matter of minor importance and of very small religious interest, but it has cut deeper into the traditions of the past than any other single movement and has made our modern theological liberty possible.
The conservatives who feared and opposed it in its early days, because they saw what a revolution it portended, were far more clear-sighted than most of the liberals, who thought that it meant simply a slight shifting of position, and imagined that they could retain religious and moral infallibility while giving up all other kinds.
Fortunately, few realized all that was involved, or they would have feared to go forward, as Luther declared he would have feared to begin his reforming work had he known how far it would lead him.
But now it is becoming clear that, largely through modern biblical criticism, we have at last won that spiritual freedom which even the Reformers failed to attain and without which permanent progress is impossible in religion as in everything else.
A. C. McGiffert
President
Union Theological Seminary
1916
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