Luther's Points

Glenn Frank,* journalist-lecturer, describing himself as a modernist criticizing modernism, prophesied the coming of a second Martin Luther to put positive vitality into the ineffectual religion of the modernists. He supplied the anticipated Luther with 14 points. They were:

1). The substitution of the religion of Jesus for Christianity.

2). The making of a faith a matter of adventure rather than a matter of assent.

3). The preaching of the gospel of Jesus rather than the gospel about Jesus.

4). The application, as well as the announcement, of the principles of the religion of Jesus.

5). The demand that men should believe only what they can use; only what is true for them.

6). The modernization of the religious vocabulary.

7). The use of science by religion rather than the reconciliation of science to religion.

8). The dramatization of rationalism with ritual beauty.

9). The knowledge of God as the mind and the heart of the universe rather than as its judge.

10). The Church to be the voice of the living as well as the dead.

11). The breaking of the chains that now bind the Church to the State in times of crisis.

12). The definition of sin as something that hurts life rather than offends God.

13). The "Scheme of Redemption" to take into account institutions as well as individuals.

14). The merging of the sacred and the secular.

*Editor Century magazine.