Happiness

Christianity says, "The end of all being is the glory of God." Humanism says, "The end of all being is the happiness of man." And one was born in Hell, the deification of man; and the other was born in heaven, the glorification of God!

Well now, the philosophy of the atmosphere is humanism; the chief end of being is the happiness of man. There’s another group of people that have taken hum bridge with the liberals; this group are my people, the fundamentalists. They say, "We believe in the inspiration of the Bible! We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ! We believe in hell! We believe in heaven! We believe in heaven! We believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ!"


But remember, the atmosphere is that of humanism. And humanism says the chief end of being is the happiness of man. Humanism is like a miasma out of a pit; it just permeates everyplace. Humanism is lie an infection, an epidemic – it just goes everywhere. So it wasn’t long until we had this, that the fundamentalists knew each other because they said, "We believe these things!" They were men for the most part that had met God. But you see, it wasn’t long until having said, "These are the things that establish us as fundamentalists!" The second generation said, "This is how we become a fundamentalist! Believe the inspiration of the Bible! Believe in the deity of Christ! Believe in His death, burial, and resurrection! And thereby become a fundamentalist!"

And so it wasn’t long until it got to our generation, where the whole plan of salvation was to give intellectual assent to a few statements of doctrine. And a person was considered a Christian because he could say, "Ah hah" at four or five places that he was asked. If he knew where to say "Ah hah", someone would pat him on the back, shake his hand, smile broadly, and say, "Brother, you’re saved!" so it had gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to a scheme or a formula, and the end of this was that salvation was the happiness of man, because humanism has penetrated.

If you were to analyze fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago, as it developed, for I am not pinpointing it in time, it would be like this: The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he’s alive, and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies. But again! The end of all of the religion it was proclaimed was the happiness of man.


from "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"