To Infidelity and Back — Reading Notes

(0 User reviews) 1549

In Category - Sermons Devotion

Authors: Lutz, Henry F. (Henry Frey), 1868-1926 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Lutz, Henry Frey, 1868-1926 -- Biography; Restoration movement (Christianity); Christian Churches and Churches of Christ Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 53,722

Reading time 234 min

Text sections 5

Before opening To Infidelity and Back — Reading Notes, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 53,722 words, 3 hr 54 min estimated reading time, and 5 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 22.0 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Lutz, Henry Frey, 1868-1926 -- Biography,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #7495

Henry F. Lutz's 1911 autobiography traces his journey from childhood faith through rationalism and doubt to a restored Christian conviction, using a symbolic allegory and detailed theological argument to document his evolving views on baptism and church unity.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg7495

Read the Text

To INFIDELITY AND BACK.

_To Christ by Way of Rationalism, Unitarianism and Infidelity._

I inherited on the one hand a strong religious nature, and on the other a tendency to be independent in thought and to question everything before adopting it as a part of my belief. Ever since I can remember I was a praying boy, and early in life there came to me the desire to devote myself to the ministry of the gospel.

Among my earliest religious impressions were those received by having the story of the Patriarchs and Jesus read to me in German by a saintly old Mennonite for whom I worked on the farm for a year. Among the first things that aroused my reason in religion was the declaration of my Sunday-school teacher that before we are born we are predestined by God either to go to heaven or to hell, and that anything we might do would not alter our eternal destiny. This declaration came like a thunderbolt into my religious life, and stirred up a violent agitation from which it took me ten years to fully deliver myself. I was now about fourteen years old, and already had a desire to measure everything in the crucible of logic or cause and effect, and to accept nothing which did not come within the range of my reason. Looking at things from the standpoint of cause and effect, I was naturally caught in the meshes of fatalism, and this aggravated the religious agitation above referred to.

At this time in my life there arose many religious questions, and the answers I received from religious teachers tended to drive me away from the church rather than to it. I feel to-day that if my case had been clearly understood and the nature and the limits of the finite mind had been patiently pointed out to me, in its relation to faith and revelation, I could have been saved years of agony on the sea of rationalism. But my questions were not answered and my honest doubts were rebuked, so that I was naturally driven out of sympathy with the church and Bible, since I judged that my doubts could not be satisfied because religion itself is unreasonable.

Through the kindness of Christian people the way opened to prepare myself for the ministry. But by this time many religious doubts and perplexities were in the way, and I decided that I would a thousand times rather be an honest doubter out of the church and ministry than a hypocrite in it. Thus my fond hope of entering the ministry had to be given up, and instead I determined to use the teaching profession as a stepping-stone to law, and law as a means of serving humanity.

I was very fond of study, and read scores of books on all kinds of subjects. Emerson was my favorite, and I procured and read his complete works. Gibbon and Macaulay were eagerly read as revealing some of the religious life of the world. Ingersoll, with many others, got his turn. But the book that produced the greatest effect on my life at this time was Fleetwood's "Life of Christ," with a short history of the different religious bodies of the world attached. Through my reading and observations I became greatly perplexed over the religious divisions of the world. I discovered that thousands of people had died as martyrs for all kinds of religions and sects, and that each claimed to have the truth and to teach the right way to heaven. I concluded that since they teach such contradictory doctrines they cannot possibly all be right, although they might all be wrong. I formed a desire to make a thorough study of all the different religious bodies of the world, to find out where the truth is, if there is any in religion. My first information along this line was obtained in the above-named history of the religious bodies of the world. Being of a rationalistic turn of mind, I was naturally very favorably impressed with Unitarianism and its teaching. I sent for a number of their works and read them with great interest. I learned many things that have been a benediction to my life ever since, but you will see later on how far it satisfied my rationalistic proclivities. I learned to my delight that I could enter a Unitarian theological school to prepare for the ministry without first joining a church or signing a creed. For a person in my state of mind nothing better could have presented itself. I determined to go there and make a thorough study of the Bible and all the different religious bodies, and to fearlessly follow the truth wherever it might lead me.

Continue Reading →

Henry F. Lutz opens his 1911 autobiography with a striking symbolic allegory titled “A Ten Years’ Journey,” mapping his spiritual odyssey through deserts of negation, mountains of assumption, and oceans of infidelity. This elaborate metaphor, written on the fly-leaf of his Bible shortly after his crisis, sets the tone for a narrative that blends personal testimony with doctrinal exposition. Lutz explicitly addresses readers who have endured similar soul-lacerating doubt, framing his account as a beacon for the skeptical and the despairing. The work is not a detached theological treatise but a confessional record of how he navigated rationalism, sectarianism, and despair to arrive at what he calls “the truth in its simplicity as it is in Christ Jesus.”

A Symbolic Map of Spiritual Crisis

The opening pages of To Infidelity and Back present an unusual literary device: a prose poem that allegorizes Lutz’s decade-long struggle. He describes sailing in the “ship, religion” with a “pole-star, faith in God” and a “rudder, free will,” while navigating by “compass, conscience” and “sextant, rationalism and experience.” The allegory’s concrete imagery—black clouds of prejudice, gigantic icebergs of indifference, monstrous sharks of procrastination—gives tangible form to abstract spiritual conflicts. Lutz acknowledges that this language may seem “extravagant” to those untouched by doubt, but he insists it accurately reflects the “heartrending agony” of his journey. This symbolic framework recurs throughout the narrative, anchoring personal experience in a structured, almost cartographic vision of faith and reason.

The Greek Word That Shifted His Ground

A pivotal episode in Lutz’s intellectual transformation occurs during his study of New Testament Greek at Meadville Theological School. When Professor Cary stated that baptizoo meant “to immerse,” Lutz was “greatly surprised” and began a multi-year investigation. He notes that German rationalists—whom he considers impartial because they “do not care what the Bible teaches about baptism”—unanimously affirmed immersion. Later, at Oberlin Theological Seminary, he found that standard Greek authorities like Westcott and Sanday also taught immersion, even while their denominations practiced sprinkling. Lutz’s method here is forensic: he cites scholarly consensus, tests it against his own reading, and tracks the dissonance between academic findings and inherited practice. This section reveals how philological precision became a lever for doctrinal change.

The Barrier to Christian Union

Lutz argues that baptismal practice is the “main barrier to Christian union,” and he insists that unity cannot be achieved by “agreeing to disagree” or ignoring New Testament teaching. He contends that Christians must first agree on what the Master commanded, and that immersion is the only practice supported by Greek scholarship and early church precedent. His tone is urgent but not polemical: he expresses hope that “inherited and acquired prejudices” will eventually subside, allowing a dispassionate examination of the issue. The chapter includes testimonies from scholars and churches to demonstrate that agreement on baptism is “the easiest thing to unite on” once prejudice is removed. Lutz’s argument is both theological and practical, aiming to clear a path toward the restoration of primitive Christianity.

Readers approaching Lutz’s autobiography should attend to the interplay between his personal narrative and his doctrinal arguments. The allegorical “Ten Years’ Journey” provides a key to interpreting the emotional stakes of his intellectual shifts, while the detailed discussions of Greek scholarship reveal how he sought to ground his faith in evidence. Lutz writes as an evangelist who has tested doubt from the inside, and his book rewards those who read it as both a spiritual memoir and a case study in the reconciliation of reason and belief.

There’s something tender about watching a mind wrestle its way home, as Lutz does in his 1911 memoir. It made me think of old Sunday-school lessons, and how quietly those images linger. I keep a copy of The Parables of the Saviour The Good Child's Library, Tenth Book — Context and Discussion nearby, not so much to reread as to remember that childlike turn of phrase.