September 1927
B u s i n e s s 547 were thick in the head.” (This from the Bouwerie') Further comment is. unnecessary. The San Fran cisco incident should suffice to show the course in which we shall be led when rationalism and Sovietism get the upper hand in the church. & afe C om ing t o T e rm s “I read recently in an American magazine,” said Dr. Orchard at King’s Weigh House, “that if Christianity is going to exist it must come to terms with the modern intellect. That certainly will be very difficult. It will be no small matter for Christianity to humble itself so-that it can be comprehended by the modern intellect. The trouble is that Christianity is too immense fob uS, It is as if a thirsty man, begging a drink of water, were given a tin mug to be filled at a roaring cataract.”
T h e ., K i n g ’ s
the real bogey behind the modernistic young rector from Ann Arbor. “If to sanctify unmarried unions,” he told his grave and startled hearers, “would do away, as some urge it would, with promiscuity and double standards, and better protect the children of legal marriage, then to keep on fussing with rules about divorce, and the idea that all marriages are made in heaven, is titter folly.” He declared that the church might as well realize, whatever it “may think of such conduct,” that young men and women of today are indulging in “sex experiments” and that the church’s message toathem must;be framed on the basis of that fact. . “To many young people,” he said, “what used to be considered lapses from the moral code are, now considered to be acts which are as natural as eating and drinking,” He proposed that the church should encourage the intelligent use of birth control. He took the church to task for seek- ing to impose the rules and standards of the past upon the present generation. “We cannot,” he said, “presuppose a fixed and invari able moral code by which the men of all ages and all de grees of civilization are to be tried and convicted or acquitted. We know perfectly well that there is no such thing as. an absolute moral code.” The .shocking thing about these effusions is that they could even be tolerated in a congress of'clergymen. Such ideas,might-be_,expected from Judge Lindsey, the Amer ican champion of looseness, or from George Bernard Shaw, of England, who holds that marriage is violation of manhood, the sale of one’s birthright, a shameful sur render. It might; have been expected from H. G. Wells,5 who has joined the Lindsey-Shaw crew and now cham pions free love. .Mr. Wells said.recently : “The time will come when the ministrations of the clergyman, the orartge blossoms, the hired carriage and the white favors will be quaint social survivals of the backwoods, suburbs and towns.” There was a time when such views emanated from the leaders of Red Russia, but some of them have learned,- what our Ann Arbor friend has yet to learn, that free love and loose regulations concerning marriage have had a de cidedly demoralizing effect on life in Rtissia. Lenin, just before his death, made the following statement to Clara Zétkin, German Communist ; “You know the famous theory that in society based on Communism it is just as simple to-satisfy one’s wish for love as it is to get a drink of water. ' [ Note this expression and compare the remark noted above: “as natural as eating and drinking.” ] Well, to this drink-of-water theory we Owe the fact that our young generation has gone mad. This theory has caused the ruin of a great many youths.” Bukharin, another Communist leader, says of the Soviet way, that “an orgy of immorality ensued which struck fear into the hearts of Soviet leaders themselves.” Leon Trotsky says of it: “The process of disintegra tion goes on at full speed. Mothers and children are the victims.” The Berlin Rul said recently : “It is with a great sor row that the peasants remember the happy days when cus toms were pure and the family was scjund. Soviet legis lation introduced ruin, family disputes, mutual enmities, numerous court trials, vengeance; assassinations and the destruction of family ties.” While even Red Russia has been forced to admit th a t, the laws of marriage laid down in God’s Word are sound, an Episcopal clergyman of America arises to say that “the New Testament was written by a lot of chumps who
Thanh God fo r Bishop Manning One Episcopalian Bishop who had, the courage to '■give'a, broadside to the proposals, for, ehurch^recgg-, nitioh of Unmarried unions. f ERTAINLY any man "who defends or approves ‘unmarried unions1 is out of place in the- ministry;, of ..the. Episcopal f Church or of<;anyMother.-church,' .Some -people, seem to suppose! ..that -there is something new and modern about the idea of ‘unmarried unions’ or ‘compan ionate marriages.’ “These things are not new. They are only modern and high sounding phrases for the age-old immor ality. They, are only modern names for; free-love.-. The Russian Soviet government is advocating these same ‘sex experiments’ as part of its plan- for de stroying both morality arid religion. “I am aware that these ideas are being propagated among our Young people by some university pro fessors, ,,but' that any Christian minister should ad vocate such views‘Seems incredible. It is becoming clearer every day that Christian morals and Chris tian faith stand or fall together. For those who believe in Jesus Christ there can be no debate as to the Christian standards of morality and purity. : “I would not allow a newspaper to come into my home which advocated ‘unmarried unions’ and ‘sex experiments’ for the young. A clergyman who should advocate these views, if mentally responsible, would be a dishonor to the Christian church and a menace to the community. Such teaching from a Christian minister would be even more vicious than from a tabloid newspaper or a sex magazine. What should we feel, any of us-who are fathers and mothers, about a minister who would commend ‘un married unions’ and ‘sex experiments’ to our daugh ters or our sons? “There are those, as the crime statistics show, who are only too ready to follow such advice. But the straight-thinking and true-hearted young people of today will reject and resent any such teaching. They know there is a Law of God which must be obeyed, and that ‘the wages of sin is death.’ We have had a most striking evidence of the kind of stuff that is in our young people today in the modesty, the poise, the clear moral judgment, as well as the courage of Charles Lindbergh. It is deplorable that such teach ing as that referred to can be even thought of in connection with one who holds the office of a Chris tian minister.”. Mg—Bishop William T. Manning, . New York.
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