RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Adiaphora
dignity in the liturgy, as opposed to the canonicals, music, and spectacles of the Catholic Church. In addition he protested that what might be called the individual character of the Church 7. Flacius's was to be conserved, and that existing Restriction means of edification should be altered of Adi- only in favor of better ones. Under aphora. the circumstances obtaining at the time, he said, even a matter in itself unessential -sould not be treated as permissible, and the concessions of the interim were an act of treachery: they were occasioned by the endeavors of the emperor to restore the Catholic Church, the promulgators being moved by fear, or at best by lack of faith; and in effect they were an admission of past errors, strengthening their opponents, while the rank and file, looking at externals only, would see in the restoration of discarded usages a reversion to the old conditions. The dispute continued after the peace of Augsburg; and the Formula Concordice not only drew the distinction (art. X.) that in time of persecution, when confession was necessary, there should be no concession to the enemies of the Gospel, even in adiaphora, since truth and Christian freedom were at stake, but to some extent appropriated Flacius's restriction of the idea of adiaphora.
In the so-called second adiaphoristic controversy the Lutheran and Calvinistic systems came into conflict. Luther had maintained the right of temperate enjoyment of secular amusements. Calvin, on the other hand, stood for fundamentally different principles, in accordance with which he enforced his Genevan code of discipline. Voetius carried these principles still further. On the Lutheran side was Meisner, who is in this respect the classic opponent of the Calvinists. He puts secular amusements under the head of adiaphora as being actions neither right nor wrong per se but per aliud, — the person and the purpose especially to be considered, — and in concrete instances becoming always either right or wrong. The controversy began at the close of the seventeenth century, when secular amusements were attacked per se by several writers, such as Reiser and Winkler, the Pietistic theologians of Hamburg, Vockerodt, Lange, and Zierold. Lange, for example, contended that in the light of revealed law there 8. Second are no indifferent acts. Those actions Contro- alone are right which are under the versy. influence of the Holy Spirit for the honor of God in the faith and name of Christ; and he holds that the divine will exercises a direct and immediate control. Hence actions not bidden of God are necessarily actions which profit not and are therefore collectively wrong. He enumerates nineteen separate reasons why Christians should take no part in secular amusements, and would exclude from the Lord's Supper those who do. He regards the defense of adiaphora as a heresy which abrogates all evangelical doctrine. Spener's theory was equally severe, but his practise was wisely modified. He counseled that those who participated in secular amusements should be dissuaded therefrom not harshly, but by indirect exhortations to follow Christ; and he
would not refuse absolution to such, since many of them did not really appreciate the wrong of those things. Rothe, Warnsdorf, and Schelwig were the principal champions of the previously existing Lutheran teaching; but their defense was far less resolute than the attack.
The question of adiaphora has subsequently been a subject of discussion. The first to introduce a new point of view of any con- 9. Recent siderable value was Schleiermacher Discussion. (Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre, 2d ed.; Werke zur Philosophie, ii.), who contested the ethical right of adiaphora on the basis of the necessity in the moral life of unity and stability. Only in the realm of civil law, and in the moral judgment of other? whose actions must frequently, for lack of evidence, remain unexplained, does he admit of adiaphora. Most later evangelical authorities, for example Martensen, Pfleiderer, Wuttke, and, most closely, Rothe, are in substantial agreement with this position, though introducing some variations and modifications.
(J. Gottschick.) Among British and American Christians no adiaphoristic controversy has found place; but the types of religious and ethical thought that underlay the opposing forces in the controversies above considered have been in conflict at all times and everywhere. English Puritanism and early Scottish Presbyterianism, as well as New England Puritanism, either rejected adiaphora wholly or reduced them to the smallest proportions. The English Tractarians in seeking to overcome the difficulties involved in uniting with the Church of Rome gave earnest attention to adiaphora. A sign of the times is the watchword of the Evangelical Alliance, " In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity." The Lambeth articles proposing the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, the two sacraments, the open Bible, and the historic episcopate as the basis of union with non-conforming Churches treated as adiaphora the Atl^anasian Creed, uniformity of worship, and use of the Prayer Book. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America has settled the chief point in dispute between Churchman and Puritan by eliminating the State from necessary union with the Church. In the union of religious bodies both in Great Britain and America, for which there is a growing tendency, minor differences are ignored in favor of essential principles. In all Churches some dogmas once deemed essential to the integrity of truth are laid aside never to regain their former position (cf. the Westminster Confession with the " Brief Statement of Faith " published by authority of the Presbyterian Church in the United States). With reference to conduct prescribed by ecclesiastical bodies or recognized as belonging to personal responsibility — the " personal instance "—two diametrically opposite tendencies are evident. In the first case, the spirit of democracy and of enlightened public sentiment is rapidly withdrawing many actions once regarded as legitimately under church jurisdiction, as amusements and the like, from such supervision. In the second case, if life is to be ruled by moral.
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