"Farce"

The University of Iowa has just organized a school of religion in which earnest men will strive to teach religion as a dynamic force in life, rather than as a matter of creed, tenets, rites, thaumaturgy or priestcraft. At this aim, endorsed by the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, the Presbyterian, "an official organ of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America," last week scoffed:

"[The school] includes in its plan the religions of the Protestant Christians, the Roman Catholics and the Jews. That these three parties should live in harmony and cooperate in civil and secular relations, is reasonable and time-tested. But these religions and beliefs are in deadly antagonism. The Protestant Christians through all their history have believed and testified that Christ is very God and very man. The Jews crucified Christ and have persistently declared He was only a man, and even a man worthy of death. He has no special value either as a man or a Savior. The Protestant declares that Christ offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, that He is our only High Priest and Holy Intercessor, and that through Him alone we have access to the Father. The Roman Catholics, while they acknowledge His deity, declare that man must at least in part pay the penalty of his own sin, and that the hierarchy fills the place of intercession between the believer and a just and holy God. The attempt to unite these three religions in any way is a farce."