November, 1941
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
415
in America? and Christ is not there to keep the soul steady, the gas jet or the nearest river has been the way out. We cannot appreciate their sense of total homelessness. There is no place where they “belong” while they wait for some opening door, and the very lack of material things but accentuates spir* itual hunger. Many tell of having turned to Christ during that time o f waiting. As these people who once had an abun dance of things search their way to the Lord, they sometimes tell Christian workers, “We do not want to suffocate in hatred." One man said: “Without being guilty, we lost our country for which we gave our blood in the Great War. Now we are looking for a new country, which will stick to us, and we have dis covered it in Christ and the church.” Because r a c i a l anti-Semites of all . countries have been putting forth the claim that Jesus was not a Jew in the flesh but pure Aryan, the Jew is saying, “He is Jewish. He belongs to us after all.” At the same time Martin Niepioel- ler and other pastors of the Confessional Church in Germany have been going to prison and concentration camp because of insistence upon the whole revelation of God in the Old as well as the New Testaments. They have maintained the Jewishness of Christianity and' have further insisted that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28). Jew and Gentile have been inade one body in Christ, insist the German be- - lievers. The enmity is abolished in His flesh “ to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Both are reconciled “unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity there by . . . For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (SEph. 2:15-18). This community o f suffering between Christian and Jew has opened the heart of the latter to the gospel and has given him confidence in the reality of the faith we profess. ' Why the Refugee May Not Find Christ in America The refugee may not find Christ in America because his contacts may be with people who are generous and kind ly, but who cannot share Christ because they do not know Him. They, cannot give what they do not have. •The refugee may not find Christ in America because he m(iy be swept away by the tide of secularism which has en gulfed our nation. His lack of things for a time may enhance their value in
his eyes, if most of his associates are thing - minded, dollar - minded, pleasure- minded, self-minded, f “A man’s life con- sistetb not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Lk. 12:15) is a truth that will be understood by the refugee when it is presented olearly by the Christian. The refugee is better prepared for that message than is the average thing-minded American. The refugee may not find Christ in America b e c a u s e he may not. find friends. The Friendship and Service Committee' for Christian refugees, com posed of individuals from various de nominations, meets in different Chicago churches one Sunday afternoon each month. After a time of fellowship, there -is an informal service in which the refu gees and the hosts participate in music and speaking. At a recent meeting each newcomer to America told where he came from, what he had done there, what he was doing here or would like to do, and described some of his ex periences. The majority of them were Christians and told how the only way they had been sustained was through constant prayer. To get acquainted with these newer Americans, some churches have a Chris tian friendliness committee which pro motes friendship groups in the local churches, a certain number of local women ahd an equal „number of new comers. They meet together each month as a group. Each older American be comes responsible for a newer American to assist in any way possible. At the close of a Sunday afternoon meeting of our Friendship Committee, a young woman invited a refugee family she had just met to ride in her car. She found they had no church home and in vited them to come to her ehurch. The son, a high-school boy, is now active in Sunday-school, church, and young peo ple’s meetings, and is using his gift as a pianist for ther Lord, playing at the regular evening* serviceiffy • Hanne is a young German refugee alone in America. She had a job and a place to live, but she was lonely, hungry
Liberty and Opportunity
Rabbi Stéphen W ise o f New York City has said that the tragedy of the Jew is that “ For eighteen hundred years, certainly for m o s t of that time, jews have not been given an opportunity to know what Christianity :is, least of all to know who Jesus was and what thé Christ means. The very ignorance of the Jew regarding Jesus condemns not the Jew but Christen dom.” Today thé Jew is turning Christward. Will he see the Lord' Jeçus Christ in us in America? for American friends. A Christian wom an called upon her, invited .Hanne to her home on her afternoons off, and in troduced her to a girls’ missionary so ciety in her church. Hanne began at tending regular services including prayer meeting. One Sunday evening she joined the church, having confessed her faith in Christ, and was invited ‘to tell the story of her experiences in coming to America, and of how she came to know Christ as her Saviour. It was the friend liness of the people in that little church, she declared, that brought her to a knowledge of Christ. “ I never saw •a community of people who acted so like Christ,” she said. Anti-Semitism Even Among Christians The refugee, may not find Christ, in America because- of our rising anti- Semitism which is not confined to those [ Continued on Paae 435]
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs