This warning from J. C. Ryle from 150 years ago seems like he's talking about the situation in 2011! We call it Post-Modernism or Relativism, but it's the same devilish scheme. Seemingly reasonable "let's all just get along" principles, all designed to make the truths of the bible appear quite "unkind" and "closed-minded." What is "unkind" is knowing that many of the people around us are going to be judged by a holy and righteous God and then keeping to ourselves the truth about the only way to avoid eternal punishment. It's not at all unkind to see a person about to be hit by a bus and run over and shove that person out of the way with all possible force. Or to see a distracted person about to walk off a cliff, and shout with all rudeness, "STOP!" Shouldn't we show "kindness" by warning people of the wrath to come in whatever way is necessary to grab their attention?
Deliver Us From Pantheism
I feel it a duty to bear my solemn testimony against the spirit of the day we live in, to warn men against its infection. It is not Atheism I fear so much, in the present times, as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is not the system which says there is no Savior, so much as the system which says there are many saviors, and many ways to peace! It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true. It is the system which seems ready to honor others as well as our Lord Jesus Christ, to class them all together, and to think well of all. It is the system which is so careful about the feelings of others, that we are never to say they are wrong. It is the system which is so liberal that it calls a man a bigot, if he dares to say, “I know my views are right.” This is the system, this is the tone of feeling which I fear in this day, and this is the system which I desire emphatically to testify against and denounce. From the liberality which says everybody is right, from the charity which forbids us to say anybody is wrong, from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth – may the good Lord deliver us!
~ J.C. Ryle
Knots Untied, “Only One Way of Salvation” [Cambridge, England: James Clarke & Co., 1977], 30, 31.
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