April 1924
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
206
Congratulations to Colorado Baptists By the Editor of a Secular Newspaper In an editorial in the News-Herald, Boulder, Colorado, th e Editor, Arthur A. Parkhurst expresses his hearty com mendation of the position taken by the Baptists of Colorado with reference to the Infallible Word of God.
as Christ’s shepherds on earth. It is time churches are awakening to the dangers of Modernism, to the disloyal, destructive teachings and activities of enemies within their folds. The News-Herald extends warmest congratulations to Colorado Baptists who have gone on record as refusing to forsake the glorious truths and heart-rejoicing promises of God’s Holy Word for a mess of materialistic pottage pro duced by minds that God created, that are limited in their comprehension, that belong to mortals who can not create life, and to whom everything in God’s marvelous universe is supernatural and miraculous. True Christian churches can no more play “teeter-totter” with Christian fundamen tals than loyal Americans can accept the teachings of Lenine and Trotzky of Bolshevik Russia. THE THORNLESS ROSE Let us learn a lesson from the parable of the thornless rose. In my garden there grows a wonderful rose, beautiful both in flower and foliage. When first the rose buds ap pear, they seem to be blood red; but as the rose opens I find that only the three outer petals are red, those within being of a pure creamy white. Can we not see in this opening white rose the purity and innocence of childhood? Can we not see our children as we would have them to be, pure and spotless? But the real purity of childhood is pos sible only by the blood of Christ,— the covering petals of crimson. It is the blood of Christ that alone covers and makes pure. In this peculiar rose the red blood is seen also in the veins of crimson bronze on the under side of the leaves. These leaves, outstretched above the roses, are like the bleeding hands of Christ reaching out over His redeemed ones. . And then this wonderful rose has no thorns. It typifies the harmlessness that goes with the purity of childhood covered and protected by the blood of Christ. On this rose there are no cruel thorns to wound the hands that would caress. May it be so with our children. Dallas, Texas. T. T. Holloway.
HE News-Herald rejoices that the Colorado Baptist Convention has gone definitely on record as being opposed to “Modernist” theories and teachings that constitute treason to the fundamentals of the Christian religion. In resolutions passed, the conven tion which has been meeting this week in Denver, plans to expel ministers, teachers, missionaries and secretaries who are disloyal to the principles on which the Baptist Church is founded. Glenn Frank has an article in the September number of the Century Magazine in which he seeks— but absolutely fails_ t o show that William Jennings Bryan has. a “mind divided against itself” _because Mr. Bryan “is a liberal in politics, but a conservative in religion.” If Mr. Frank would do deeper thinking he would see that the very reason why Mr. Bryan can be a liberal in politics is because he is true to the fundamentals of Christianity as presented by the Bible. However, we have mentioned Mr. Frank’s un successful dissection of Mr. Bryan’s mind to present a portion of a commendable paragraph in his-article. He pertinently remarks: “But, it must be admitted, that the Modernists are in no small measure to blame for the present Fundamentalist movement. The net impression one gains from many liberal sermons is that it is the function of the ministry to harmonize Christianity year by year with the transient doubts of succeeding crops of college graduates, with poli tics, economics, science, or philosophy. There is a type of Modernist who spends so much energy ‘adjusting’ his re ligion that he has no energy left to apply it. Now, it is true that Christianity must talk in the vernacular of each succeeding generation, but this does not mean that Christ ianity must one day be made a sort of pious democracy, the next day a sort of mystical socialism, and the next day a mere sales talk for the latest results of biological re search.” But the growing tendency among many ministers and church officials has been to adopt such a “liberal” attitude as to make their churches and the Bible simply commer cialized magnets for. the purpose'of attracting and pleasing immature minds and egotistical intellectuals. But, as the News-Herald has pointed out and as Mr. Frank says, Christianity can not be “harmonized year by year with the transient doubts of succeeding crops of college graduates or with whatever happens to be the current mode in poli tics, economics, science, and philosophy.” It can not one day be made “a sort of pious democracy, the next day a sort of mystical socialism, and the next day a mere sales talk for the latest results of biological research.” The New Testament must be believed as the Gospels and the epistles of Paul present Christ for if it is not so believed the foundation of Christian fáith is destroyed. Colorado Baptists are right in the action they have taken. One major trouble with churches today has been their condemnable habit of refusing to take courageous stand on imperatively required fundamentals of the Christian religion as recorded in the Book of books. Ministers who haven’t backbone enough to fight for God instead of “mind” or who persist in putting their own personal beliefs before the principles of their churches are mentally unfit to serve
’Tis the spring of souls today; Christ hath burst His prison; And from three days’ sleep in death, As a sun hath risen. All the winter of our sins Long and dark, is flying From His light, to whom we give Laud and praise undying.
(Havergal)
READ "RALLY TO THE FIRING LINE” ON PAGE 248— THEN ACT!
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter