SAYS ENTANGLEMENTS BIND CHRISTIANITY

"Christianity is taking Jesus in earnest", said Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, professor of practical theology in the Union Theological Seminary and pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York, in his address at the Union last night on "What is Christianity?" More than 500 men packed the Living Room to hear him speak.

"Christianity is a way of living, the personality of Christ is at its center, it is the reproduction in our own lives of the spirit and quality of Jesus. No one ever supposed that the "Hallelujah Chorus" was intended to cease when Handel finished composing it. Christianity is like a piece of music, it was meant to be reproduced. Many of you have come here tonight with doubts and disbeliefs in matters of doctrine but do you know of any way of living with yourselves, with your fellows, and with your God, that compares with this?"

Systematic Doctrine not Essential

Dr. Fosdick scored those who insist on a systematic body of doctrine, or membership in any church, or performance of a given ritual as the essence of Christianity. He said that religion must be freed of the irrelevant entanglements, the artificial adhesions, that do not matter, and he stressed the absurdity of the idea that the college man is not a Christian, because he "has had his intellect liberated by that luminous and illuminating view of the universe that has come to us in the concept of evolution."

The pith of Christianity, the speaker said in conclusion, is taking the teachings of Jesus in earnest. "No theological arguments, except those which are associated with the life of Jesus."