In a recent number of The Harvard

Theological Review, Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh of

the Yale Divinity School outlines in a very interesting manner the religious

system to which he gives his adherence. For “substance of doctrine” (to use a

form of speech formerly quite familiar at New Haven) this religious system does

not differ markedly from what is usually taught in the circles of the so-called

“Liberal Theology.” Professor Macintosh has, however, his own way of construing

and phrasing the common “Liberal” teaching; and his own way of construing and

phrasing it presents a number of features which invite comment. It is tempting

to turn aside to enumerate some of these, and perhaps to offer some remarks

upon them. As we must make a selection, however, it seems best to confine

ourselves to what appears on the face of it to be the most remarkable thing in

Professor Macintosh’s representations. This is his disposition to retain for

his religious system the historical name of Christianity, although it utterly

repudiates the cross of Christ, and in fact feels itself (in case of need)

quite able to get along without even the person of Christ. A “new

Christianity,” he is willing, to be sure, to allow that it is—a “new

Christianity for which the world is waiting”; and as such he is perhaps

something more than willing to separate it from what he varyingly speaks of as

“the older Christianity,” “actual Christianity,” “historic Christianity,”

“actual, historical Christianity.” He strenuously claims for it, nevertheless,

the right to call itself by the name of “Christianity.”