June 1927
347
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Do We Pray for Our Country? R ECENT developments in China have served to empha- » size to all people interested in foreign missions the importance of such governments as those of England and
State to State, because it is impossible to get Congressional action. The growing apprehension of their purpose fills intelli gent religionists and ardent patriots with alarm. They realize that we are at this very hour facing one of the greatest religious issues of all time. We have been living comfortably in the assur ance that nothing could befall our soul’s liberty. We awake to find it as precarious as it is precious. "In five years the Fundamentalists have captured seven States. In two of them, Tennessee and Mississippi, their dogma has become a statute. In five other States they have taken the public schools, and determined that all the children of the people, of every faith, shall have no instruction that is contrary to their Bible view of human creation. “There has been nothing so profoundly important in reli gious history since the Reformation as the present conflict. Accordingly, the Fundamentalist strategy is not defensive but aggressive. It is a fight for life.. And the advantage is with their side at the outset, because the great majority of the churches are in the hands of ministers, all of whom are either actively or passively favorable to Biblical authority. And incredible and absurd as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact which no church authority can deny that there is not a man of leadership- and power in any creedal Protestant Church in America who opposes the Fundamentalists. They all prefer to save themselves from ecclesiastical destruction.” T hou S halt N ot C ovet T h e S chools Piffle No. 3, from the B’Nai B’Rith Magazine (Jewish), is the most,unique piqce of logic we have seen in many a day: “A bill for compulsory reading of the Ten Commandments in the New York public schools is* again to be introduced in the State Legislature. If the proponents of this measure have read the Ten Commandments in recent years, they may recall that one of the Commandments reads: ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ This means that thou shalt not covet, not only thy neighbor’s prop erty, but also his rights. One of his rights is to observe or not to observe religious teaching in his own way and to bring up his children in accordance with his own religious opinions. Whoever seeks by compulsion to impose any religious observance upon his neighbor covets his neighbor’s rights. Certainly the champions of the Ten Commandments ought not to covet.” C alls G od A n I rate O ld P arty ' Piffle No. 4 comes from the “Christian Inquirer,” a Canadian Modernist publication. So blasphemous were this editor’s pro ductions that he was arrested under a provision of the Canadian criminal statutes which has rarely been invoked, and which does not permit the blaspheming of Deity. The “beautiful” Modern ist utterance which resulted in this man’s conviction was as follows: “ The God of the Bible walked in the Garden of Eden, talked with a woman, cursed a snake, sewed skins together for clothes, preferred the savory smell of roast cutlets to the odors of boiled cabbage, and sat in a burning bush or popped out from behind the rocks. This irate old party, who thunders imprecations from the mountain or mutters or grouches in the tabernacle, and whom Moses finds so hard to tame, who in His paroxysms of rage has massacred hundreds of thousands of His own chosen people, and would often have slaughtered the whole lot if cun ning old Moses hadn’t kept reminding Him of ‘What will the Egyptians say about it?’—this touchy Jehovah, whom the deluded superstitionists claim to be the Creator of the whole universe, makes one feel utter contempt for the preachers and unfeigned pity for the mental state of those who can retain a serious countenance as they peruse the stories of His peculiar whims, freaks and fancies and His frenzied megalomaniac boast ings of the high displeasure of the Almighty God.”
A m e r i c a treating hea then countries with fairness and kindness. And in each country t h e decision as to w h a t t h a t policy would be has b e e n largely in the hands of the state depart ment without m u c h inter ference 'from Congress or P a rliam e n t. We recognize a l s o t h a t
W ashington at prayer
while this is a particularly critical time in China in which our government should act promptly and generously to the solution of China’s problem, the past years of apparent quietness have brought about the present situa tion. The conduct of nations sending missionaries has hindered the success of the missionary work. The situation in China is but one example, one illus tration of the effect of government on the conditions that affect evangelism at home and abroad. The enforcement of prohibition, the proposal for a national uniform divorce law, the proposal for national regulation of the moving picture industry, the absence of any Sunday law in the District of Columbia, the policy toward Mexico and Nicaragua—all illustrate the effect of governments on the conditions that affect evangelism. And while we pray for the time when nations shall know the Lord and give a definite allegiance to Him, we should also pray for present wisdom to the officers of our government that God would guide, inspire, and strengthen them to do His will. God answered Washington’s prayer. Do we pray for our country ? “The majority religion: o f America is Fundamentalist (Dr. Riley please take notice), and the majority vote in our Legisla tures, it may be found, is Fundamentalist., ■Fundamentalism is monarchist, both in theory and practice, It is alien to America. It represents treason against the principle of democracy, and betrayal of the religion of lesus. This false religion is ulti mately responsible for all of our intolerance, and only by a new birth of freedom in religionHthat is, in the churches, can we restore America and Christianity from a virtual monarchy to a democracy.”. ‘ , H ark ! H ark ! Y e P atriots ! No. 2 in our Piffle collection is from the columns of Thè Independent (Boston) : “The Fundamentalists have set out to make their doctrines the established religion of the United States. They proceed from The Latest Piffle O UR first amazing bit of Piffle comes from Dr. Diffenbach, Unitarian editor :
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