R. G. Lee on “objective scholars”

                                                                                         Vol. XIX, No. 7, September 2007

R. G. Lee (1886-1978) pastored Bellevue BC, Memphis, for 33 eventful years from 1927 to 1960. He also served four annual terms as president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, and three consecutive terms as SBC president. In his sermon, "Bed of Pearls" in commenting upon "objective scholars" who begun with the presupposition that there is no supernatural, he said:

"Down all highways, down all bypaths, we must shout the truth that in religion we have no truth but Christ, in sin no sacrifice but Calvary, in all things no authority but the Bible, and always, everywhere no confessional but the throne of grace!

"Believing all this, shall we claim fellowship with and give obedient ear to men who, bearing the university brand, claiming the authority of a self-elected scholarship, substitute a 'Thus saith the mind of man' for a 'Thus said the Lord' men who see no virgin birth in Bethlehem, men who read no deeper meaning in the Cross than heroic martyrdom, men who cannot find in Joseph's garden an empty tomb? God forbid."

"Philistines of transcendent cleverness submit the warm wonder of Christianity to cool and merciless analysis. Evils that would lead our greatest graces to the grave and leave no copy abound. Many fat deformities ask us to substitute for Christianity's vital bread a chunk of cloud bank buttered with the night wind. This is a day of invertebrate theology, of jellyfish morality, of India-rubber convictions, of see-saw religion, of somersault philosophy. There are spiritual latitudes as wide as the Sahara Desert and correspondingly dry. Civilization seems to be undergoing the frightful processes of self-burial. We are in danger of handing down our blood-bequeathed legacies reduced in quality and in quantity."