live at ease among the world’s lies. I f he is a Christian, there are times when he must fight. Jesus, our Master and Lord, made plain the obliga tion to fight for truth. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance.” A t variance! Sad words. Even though these were words uttered by our blessed Saviour, how much more pleasing to our ears are the words of the Psalmist, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oint ment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew ‘ that descended upon the mountains of Zion.” But Jesus said these words! Jesus the Prince of Peace! “ . . . not peace, but a sword . . . I am come to set a man at variance . . . ” We are to fight, then. We are to fight for truth, for the faith, for the cause of Christ. We are not to assume that we can live in a state of perpetual peace. Whatever tolerance means, it apparently does not mean that we must not fight! We are to fight, not because of a natural belliger ence, and not because of dislike for any particular in dividuals or groups. Look again at the Master’s words: “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother;” These are ties as strong as we can comprehend: father and son, mother and daughter. But even there Christ at times brings division. And note that Christ speaks, not of a father and son relationship that has been marred by strife and misunderstanding, not of a mother and daughter relationship where there have been maladjustments as there can be upon occasion. No, this breakup between them comes not out of any natural dislike. There is love there. Natural love and not misunderstanding, is the background of this teaching by the Master, for you notice, our Saviour goes on to say, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Ah, now we understand this principle! We do not de cide this matter on the basis of whether we like people or dislike them, on the basis of whether we like the Roman Catholic religion, or dislike it. I f we fight, it must be only because we believe we are fighting for princi ple, for truth, for that which is related to man’s wel fare in such matters as liberty, for instance; and whether we decide to fight or remain passive must be settled in accordance with the will of Christ to whom we give our first loyalty. We must ask ourselves whether our Master would have us to enter the lists to do battle. I f it appears that the strife would consume our time and interest to such an extent that our service for Him would be out of balance, that our desire to lead men to the Saviour for redemption would be re duced, then surely that is too great a price to pay. But if the issues are so important that they are related to the promulgation of the gospel in our land, if it ap pears that a battle for the soul of America is being waged, if the liberties of men are endangered, however minutely, even in principle, then it is time to fight. As for me, I must fight. What shall be the rules for such a conflict which will leave us open to much criticisin'and misrepresenta tion? In Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy, one of the char acters has a line that goes something like this, “Fight like a Christian and not like a de’il wi’ a red hot poker.” We had better learn to fight like Chris tians—without rancor, with an understanding of the reasons for our differences, and with a sense of fair ness. But we must also fight to win. Our role for too many decades has- been confined to making innocuous protests. We must seek results more satisfying than the shattering of the atmosphere with words of indig- PAGE TEN
nation. We must close the ranks of evangelical Prot estantism, and then we must plan; we must expose the subtle infiltration of Roman Catholic ideology into the body politic, and reaffirm for posterity what this generation of Americans means by religious liberty and separation of church and state. I f we are so disunited that we cannot rise to the challenge that has been thrown us in the last few decades, then we deserve to lose our religious and civil liberties. The process has already begun. Our ideo logical enemy is prepared. His strategy for the con quest of America, you may be sure, is planned a hun dred years in advance. We cannot blame him for that insofar as his plans are fair, and shaped so as not to conflict with the law of our land, but we can be sure that he will continue to be oblivious to some principles which we believe are inherently American. What is the Situation That Confronts Us? The I^oman Catholic Church has so dominated mo tion pictures that religious scenes are played up to their advantage. A pagan public must conclude that all Roman Catholic priests are paragons of perfection and that almost all Protestant ministers are imbeciles. In the motion picture, The Green Years, the little Scotch girl refuses to play with the little Irish playmate be cause he is a Roman Catholic. What’s wrong with that? There are Protestant bigots, aren’t there? Yes, of course, but the only bigots who ever get on the screen are the Protestant ones. I challenge Hollywood to name one motion picture which portrays one instance of Roman Catholic prejudice. Is all bigotry and a1! the intoler ance Protestant? Come now, Mr. Louis B. Mayer! Wouldn’t you say that the Roman Catholic minorities in Protestant lands, such as Scotland, have a little bit better time of it than the Protestant minorities in Spain? In another picture portraying a Lutheran community in Wisconsin, little Margaret O’Brien gives a reading in a Lutheran church program in which she speaks with veneration of the Virgin Mary. I do not speak dis respectfully of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the veneration of the virgin. To do so would be to hurt my Roman Catholic friends to whom this doctrine means so much. But I do suggest that either your minister or the Hollywood director has a grave misunderstanding about Lutherans. Subtly, so subtly, that even some of our Protestants are unaware of the deliberate intent of this motion picture strategy, our people are absorbing this propaganda. It is the same in radio. I listened to a drama on Christmas day about George Frederick Handel. This Mr. Handel, it seems, was very discouraged and about to take his life when a lady of shining eyes appeared and dissuaded him. She gave him the immortal words of the Bible story, and he gave them immortal music. After his great creative effort, he was exhausted, but the lady of shining eyes appeared again, and he followed her. Where do you think he went on this Christmas eve? To the Church of the Madonna, of course. And, so they tell it, Handel would have lighted a candle except that he did not have any money-with him. It is true they did point out, in a brief phrase or two, that this was only a vision, and that actually the words of the Bible were delivered by someone else, not the lady. But any one listening to that program would inevitably conclude that Handel was a Roman Catholic and that there again we are indebted to the Catholic Church for a great spiritual and cultural contribution to mankind, the ora torio, The Messiah. But such is the appalling ignorance of many Protes tants that a protest over such things as this would elicit the response: “What does it matter? It was only a story.” They are not astute enough to see that Christ mas is predominantly a Catholic festival, and that, more and more, the spiritual and cultural emphasis that the T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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