Page 106 - History of UB Church by A. Funkhouser Ver 1
P. 106
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CHURCH AND EDUCATION
Some one has declared that nine-tenths of all education since the founding of Christianity has
sprung from the tradition and purposes of the Church. Of course the mathematical character of the
statement is for the purpose of giving definiteness to a strong claim. It was the policy of the
Church of the Middle Ages to keep the Bible from the mass of the people and to discourage popular
education, so that all Christendom might be kept in intellectual slavery to a crafty and thoroughly
organized priesthood. The Reformers, including those who appeared before the Reformation of the
sixteenth century, were not at all in sympathy with this idea. They believed most firmly that all
persons should be able to read and write, although their zeal in the cause of education was
primarily religious. They insisted that their people should read the Bible for themselves, so that
their faith might rest on a sure foundation. Therefore schools, open to the public generally, sprang
up in all the portions of Europe that were deeply influenced by the Protestant Reformation.
But the sect which in 1627 called itself the United Brethren found that "a more enlarged
acquaintance with literature and philosophy had, in some instances, paralyzed the zeal of ministers
in promoting the edification of their flocks, and, by the false gloss of heathen philosophy, obscured
the bright purity of Christian doctrine, which derives all its luster from Christ crucified." These men
"laid greater stress on piety, moral conduct, and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, in persons
sustaining the pastoral office, than in human learning."
These criticisms are of precisely the same character as those which have been urged by the
present United Brethren Church. The higher education of the earlier day consisted very greatly in
the study of the dead languages of Greece and Rome. When these languages were living tongues,
they were spoken by nations that were pagan, although at the same time quite highly civilized. The
ideas presented in their literatures sprang from a heathen and not a Christian source, and to minds
imperfectly trained were likely to be prejudicial. And it must be added that until within the last half-
century there was no very material change in the course of study in all colleges.
Otterbein was recognized as one of the cultured men of his day, and he used at least five
languages, ancient and modern. But to him and those who thought as he did. religion is almost
wholly an individual and personal work within the soul. It is only incidentally an affair of the
intellect. Otterbein was not a man to believe very much in educational religion, which was almost
the only form recognized in the state churches. He could work consistently and harmoniously with
persons like Boehm, Guething, and Newcomer, whose education was not above the level of a
country school training of to-day. Intellectually, they were not his equals. But in the matter of
religion they stood on common ground. It is perhaps because he regarded the work of the
established churches as comparatively inefficient that he let his scholarship lie in the background.
He preached in much the same manner as his associates, and he never wrote a book. And yet he
was the more effective because of his scholarship. Whether the advanced education be a curse or a
blessing is after all a personal affair. Nevertheless, Otterbein does not seem to have been a
strenuous advocate for higher training in others. He perceived that the preaching most needed by
the time in which he lived was of the sort presented by men of his own kind. "There is no evidence
that Otterbein ever impressed upon his associates and disciples the necessity of educational
training. Did he feel that necessity, or, rather, did he share the popular feeling that scholarship was
generally conducive to spiritual coldness and formality? At any rate, he acquiesced in choosing and
sending out new preachers whose only claim to ability to teach was that they knew God in a
powerful, personal salvation from the power and fear of sin. With some ability to speak in public,
with untiring zeal, and an industry that abated not, and with assured support from their own
resources, (he pioneers carried on a propaganda that made adherents wherever they went."
"Having fled from the persecutions of those in authority in Europe, who represented, of course,
the educated classes, our ancestors felt that the best in life was to be secured in the quiet of
domestic home life, apart from the knowledge of the world."
For several decades after Otterbein, the United Brethren ministers had little respect for what
they called "'preacher factories." Their prejudice against college training came largely by noticing
Chapter XXIV 106 The Church and
Education
THE CHURCH AND EDUCATION
Some one has declared that nine-tenths of all education since the founding of Christianity has
sprung from the tradition and purposes of the Church. Of course the mathematical character of the
statement is for the purpose of giving definiteness to a strong claim. It was the policy of the
Church of the Middle Ages to keep the Bible from the mass of the people and to discourage popular
education, so that all Christendom might be kept in intellectual slavery to a crafty and thoroughly
organized priesthood. The Reformers, including those who appeared before the Reformation of the
sixteenth century, were not at all in sympathy with this idea. They believed most firmly that all
persons should be able to read and write, although their zeal in the cause of education was
primarily religious. They insisted that their people should read the Bible for themselves, so that
their faith might rest on a sure foundation. Therefore schools, open to the public generally, sprang
up in all the portions of Europe that were deeply influenced by the Protestant Reformation.
But the sect which in 1627 called itself the United Brethren found that "a more enlarged
acquaintance with literature and philosophy had, in some instances, paralyzed the zeal of ministers
in promoting the edification of their flocks, and, by the false gloss of heathen philosophy, obscured
the bright purity of Christian doctrine, which derives all its luster from Christ crucified." These men
"laid greater stress on piety, moral conduct, and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, in persons
sustaining the pastoral office, than in human learning."
These criticisms are of precisely the same character as those which have been urged by the
present United Brethren Church. The higher education of the earlier day consisted very greatly in
the study of the dead languages of Greece and Rome. When these languages were living tongues,
they were spoken by nations that were pagan, although at the same time quite highly civilized. The
ideas presented in their literatures sprang from a heathen and not a Christian source, and to minds
imperfectly trained were likely to be prejudicial. And it must be added that until within the last half-
century there was no very material change in the course of study in all colleges.
Otterbein was recognized as one of the cultured men of his day, and he used at least five
languages, ancient and modern. But to him and those who thought as he did. religion is almost
wholly an individual and personal work within the soul. It is only incidentally an affair of the
intellect. Otterbein was not a man to believe very much in educational religion, which was almost
the only form recognized in the state churches. He could work consistently and harmoniously with
persons like Boehm, Guething, and Newcomer, whose education was not above the level of a
country school training of to-day. Intellectually, they were not his equals. But in the matter of
religion they stood on common ground. It is perhaps because he regarded the work of the
established churches as comparatively inefficient that he let his scholarship lie in the background.
He preached in much the same manner as his associates, and he never wrote a book. And yet he
was the more effective because of his scholarship. Whether the advanced education be a curse or a
blessing is after all a personal affair. Nevertheless, Otterbein does not seem to have been a
strenuous advocate for higher training in others. He perceived that the preaching most needed by
the time in which he lived was of the sort presented by men of his own kind. "There is no evidence
that Otterbein ever impressed upon his associates and disciples the necessity of educational
training. Did he feel that necessity, or, rather, did he share the popular feeling that scholarship was
generally conducive to spiritual coldness and formality? At any rate, he acquiesced in choosing and
sending out new preachers whose only claim to ability to teach was that they knew God in a
powerful, personal salvation from the power and fear of sin. With some ability to speak in public,
with untiring zeal, and an industry that abated not, and with assured support from their own
resources, (he pioneers carried on a propaganda that made adherents wherever they went."
"Having fled from the persecutions of those in authority in Europe, who represented, of course,
the educated classes, our ancestors felt that the best in life was to be secured in the quiet of
domestic home life, apart from the knowledge of the world."
For several decades after Otterbein, the United Brethren ministers had little respect for what
they called "'preacher factories." Their prejudice against college training came largely by noticing
Chapter XXIV 106 The Church and
Education
