Eastern Nazarene College - Nautilus Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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baccalaureate Sermon, 1926 Text: St. John 19:7. We have a law and by our law he ought to die Theme: Jesus Christ the Outlaw. Ultimately all law is the expression of will, and its execution is an act of will. For all who appreciate the true significance of personality, the single center from which all energy, physical, psychological, or spiritual, emanates is a person, a supreme and final Person — the Deity, God. The source or standard of moral law is not expediency or utility or human desire, but the character of Deity and the dictates of His will. When law which is delegated to a deputy is used to outlaw the donor of that power, then there is mutiny, revolu- tion. The fundamental ailment of our race lies just here: the laws of human legislation rela- tive to morals and religion, the expressions of human wills, which while ethically independ- ent, are yet metaphysically dependent upon God, — these laws outlaw the Christ of God himself. You, the graduating class of 1926, go forth to face a world which declares that according to its law Jesus Christ ought to die. I shall ask the human legislators to speak for themselves. We biologists have a law and by our law He ought to die, for He made himself the incarnate Son of God — incarnate by a process impossible to our Science, which violates the fundamen- tal law of procreation. His claim is that He is of immaculate conception, the sinless son of a virgin, begotten of the Holy Ghost. This is the legislation of modern biological science relative to Jesus Christ. Professor Loeba announces that 82% of modern biologists deny the existence of God, and it is but a fair inference to assume that even a more startling majority deny the deity of the Son of God. No single doctrine has more universal adoption among the biologists than the law, so- called, of evolution. Wood of Dartmouth affirms, The sacred book is nature. It is independ- ent, self-existent, self-moving, creative. Biological evolution includes Jesus Christ and all His works as products of evolution. Evolution has no place for such myths as the creation and fall of man; no need of an atonement, no tolerance for the sacrifice of Calvary, no accept- ance of the incarnation of Deity. It has no place for Jesus Christ the Redeemer. He is need- less, and if He ever lived at all is but a product of the all-embracing cosmic process — evolution. By this law Christ ought to die. He and His claims crucify such science; He there- fore must be crucified — He ought to die. We physicists have a law and by our law He ought to die, for He made Himself the miracle worker. In this universe there is but one king: physical law, which is eternal, unalterable, inexorable. Given matter, motion, and law, the universe is self-productive, self-preserving, self-regenerating. In view of such law Christ ' s miracles were lawless. The turning of water into wine, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, healings, tempest stillings, raising the dead, resurrection, — such interjections of the miraculous assault our law. The record is therefore mythical, those who believe in miracles are unscientific , He who claims to work them is an impostor, and by our law He ought to die. We psychologists have a law and by our law He ought to die, for He claimed to be conscious of a unique sonship, a oneness with God; indeed He claimed to be God. Abnormal psychology reveals the fact that men are subject to numerous psychical disorders, hallucinations, obses- sions, phobias, and delusions. These are abundant under the influence of dominant ideas or hopes. Now at the time of the birth of the child Jesus, all the Jews were expecting the Messiah. Jesus, as He developed, was emotionally unstable, He was given to day-dreaming and reveries, and in His thinking He became obsessed with the idea that He was the Messiah. Thus Jesus was deluded concerning His sonship to God, concerning His relation to sin, concerning the significance of His death and concerning the possibility of His resurrection. Page Twenty

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The Story of Saltern D [a%arene College Eastern Nazarene College — how often have we heard the faith expressed — is a vine of God ' s planting ; she is becoming a sturdy tree of grain storm-strengthened on a windy site. Hers has been no mushroom growth; every gain has been hard won and made her own. Her story is that of a steady widening of interest, burden, faith and financial support. For years she was kept alive only by the vision and effort of a few persons who recognized her worth and insisted that she should not die; now she belongs to us all, and we are proud to claim her. The name Eastern Nazarene College dates only from 191 8 and the location in Wollaston from 1919; but the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute was organized in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1900. It was cradled in the home of Rev. W. E. Riley, where the project was first discussed, and began its work in a bu ilding on Broadway. Its organization was heartily approved by the Annual Assembly of the Pentecostal Churches of America, and a supervisory Educational Committee was chosen. The first principal was Rev. F. W. Albrecht. Among the first four-year graduates were Rev. E. J. Lord, now Superintendent of the Northwestern District; and Miss Agnes Gardner and Dr. Julia R. Gibson, missionaries to India. In 1902 the institution was removed to the buildings of the famous Lapham Institute in North Scituate, Rhode Island. There, particularly under the far-visioned, godly leadership of Rev. E. E. Angell, who was principal from 1906 to 1914, P. C. I. knew glorious days of spiritual and intellectual growth — still as an accredited academy and a training school for Christian workers. Those were days of sacrifice, prayer, and persistent faith that paved the way for later advance. The equipment was inadequate; the burden rested heavily upon Brother Angell and his devoted faculty; but God was faithful. There the Pentecostal Trade Schools were organized in 1910; district superintendents and missionaries owe their educa- tion to the broom and mop factories. There many leading ministers of the church received their calls to the work and their solid grounding in the doctrines of holiness and Christian living. After the break in health of Brother Angell, Revs. J. C. Bearse, A. R. Archibald and J. E. L. Moore held the leadership for longer or shorter terms. In 1 91 8, incorporated as Eastern Nazarene College under a charter from the State of Rhode Island, and deeded to the four Eastern educational districts of the Church of the Nazarene, the institution offered one year of college work to a class of four students. The following year Eastern Nazarene College, through the influence of its new president, Rev. F. J. Shields, purchased the buildings and equipment of the Quincy Mansion School in Wollaston, Massachusetts, with a beautiful eight-acre campus. Since that time two dormi- tories have been built, an athletic field has been purchased (by the aid of the alumni), and a new gymnasium is being projected. During the presidency of Rev. F. W. Nease the college has known a steady gain in numbers, in educational standing, and in spiritual calibre. Its outstanding events have been revivals that have meant a deepening of spiritual insight and piety. Year by year new courses and instructors have been added, so that since 1922, in addition to Academy and Theological courses, four years of standardized College work have been offered, leading to the degrees of A.B., S.B., or Th.B., graduates being admitted on equal terms to postgraduate study in New England colleges and universities, and making good. Although the college is under the control of the Church of the Nazarene, the students enrolled represent numerous denominations, states and foreign countries. Their dynamic loyalty is demonstrated by the drives for a chapel piano and for a new gymnasium. But the story of these days is being told by The Nautilus. Eastern Nazarene College will live and grow because she is needed. Eastern United States has many larger colleges, but none that offers what she has to give. She stands for the gospel of Christ in experience, for sound Christian ethics, and for a type of education that is equally removed from shoddy superficiality and from godlessness. Page Nineteen

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All these assertions of Jesus Christ violate fundamental psychological law, and psychologists, 86% of whom do not even believe in God, declare that He ought to die. We aestheticians have a law and by our law He ought to die, for He claimed to found a religion based on sacrifice, blood, gore, ignominy, renunciation, humiliation, shame, death, even the death of the cross. A slaughter-house religion, let it be Anathema! Away with the Christ of the Cross! We philosophers have a law and by our law He ought to die. Now philosophy is essentially the love of truth. Its objective is truth, its method is the rational processes of analysis and synthesis, its spirit is scepticism, and its unfailing criterion is reason. This Jesus Christ of the orthodox theology represents more implications which are unphilosophical than any other figure of human history. Philosophy being the clearing house of thought, all the objections to the Christ of other departments of human thought concentrate here and with absolute finality the con- cepts of a personal God, special creation, sin as reality, the necessity of an atonement, the incarnation of deity, a suffering Savior, a God-man, and personal immortality, are pro- nounced false, irrational, and abhorrent to the truly philosophical mind. Christ ' s claim to be the truth revealed from above, collides irrevocably with the philosophical claim of the derivation of truth only by rational procedure. And by this law He ought to die. We religionists have a law and by our law He ought to die. Anderson of Scotland has said, The purpose of criticism of the New Testament has been to undermine the doctrine of its central figure and to discover a human Jesus. There is not an outstanding claim relative to the life and work of Jesus Christ which has not been attacked by the liberalistic movement within the church. Modern Christianity outlaws its founder, Jesus Christ. It took a Benedict Arnold to become the arch-betrayer of his country; none but an apostle could have been a Judas Iscariot; and we cannot but believe that the greatest modern betrayers of the Christ of the New Testament are those who take shelter under the cognomen of Christianity, and yet join those who cry aloud: We have a law and by our law He ought to die. We, the common folk — the young, the middle-aged, the old — have a law. By our law, the law of pleasure, success, commercialism, vote-getting, modern progress, He ought to die. Here, class of 1926, is the challenge, the ultimatum which is hurled in your teeth as you leave the halls of your Alma Mater, Eastern Nazarene College. This world can never reach normalcy until Jesus Christ is crowned rather than crucified, until He is inaugurated instead of outlawed, and it is your task to go forth and change the law that outlaws Jesus Christ. Yes, and that must be accomplished individually in order to affect society collectively. Where and how shall you begin ? Would that I could propose an easy way, but there is none. To change the fowl, the egg must be changed; to alter the effect, the cause must be altered; to change the affections, inclinations, preferences and longings of men, their hearts, natures, characters, must be changed by the birth of the Spirit of God — the birth from above. Go forth then proclaiming, We have a law and by our law He ought to live, to be crowned, to be adored, to be worshipped as very God himself. By the eternal law of righteousness and truth, by the unchangeable demand for verity and holiness, He must be crowned for what He is, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He ought to live, live in men ' s hearts. He must reign, reign in men ' s lives. We will not wait until we have reached the heaven beyond death; we will arise now and join the everlasting song which sings: Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him Lord of all. This is your task, your debt to Christ, the claim of your Alma Mater upon you, and the charge of your president today. F. W. Nease. Page Twenty-one