July 1928
400
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
My Labors For the King
“T h e m igh ty master, Michelangelo, W hile work ing w ith his chisel, o ft was known T o place above his head a candle prone T h a t every stroke should be w ith in its glow, T h a t he, across his a rt should never th row T h e shadow o f himself, b u t carve each stone In free accord w ith p romp tings from the throne T o his responsive genius here below. “So may T h y love above my forehead shine T h a t never shadow o f a weary mood, N o r dark reflections sorrow brings to m ind Shall mar the lives God wills me to refine. B u t ever may T h y rad ian t Sp irit brood O ’er all my daily toil for hum an k ind .”
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Dr. Frederick E. Taylor, we believe rightly, says in his recent book, “The Evangelical Church,” “I believe that before any great revival will come to our churches, we who are in the church will have to seek purification from our own sins.” . ate Shall We Deal W ith Psychology? T HE modern college student is being steeped in psy chological teachings which are absolutely soulless. Everything is being explained to him from the standpoint of psychology; consequently our young people come home from college to ridicule the most sacred emotions and ideals, or to be utterly indifferent to all religious appeals. Behaviorism and Freud psychology attempt to explain everything in human nature upon a mechanistic basis. John Watson, of Johns Hopkins University, founder and leader of the school of Behaviorists, teaches his student's that “freedom of the will has been knocked into a cocked hat” and that “the soul, consciousness, God, and immor tality are merely mistakes of the older psychology.” SigJ mund Freud, father of Psychoanalysis, says that “religious ideas are illusions,” and that “science disintegrates reli gion,” which “neglects actual life for fictions.” According to Freud, religion is doomed. Glenn Frank, president.of the University of Wiscon sin, who recently has been in a clash with the Chicago Tribune, over the issue of radicalism in the university, writes.: “I talked the other day with a young man who felt that the theory of Behaviorism advanced in his course in psychology had swept away all his inherited notions of conduct; his contact with the theory of Behaviorism had left him with the notion that sensation hunting is the sum and substance of life and conduct.” Dr. Frank then proceeds with the advice to young stu dents not to embrace new theories until they have been subjected to the test of time and scientific experimentation. He adds:
In our own land, Dr. W. R. Patterson, of the Gen eral Council of the Presbyterian Church, has made a study of three denominations; the Northern Baptist, the Meth odist Episcopal and his own, taking the annual statistics issued by them, respectively, and he finds among the three a total of 11,394 congregations which have had no con verts in the preceding year. This amounts to 32 per cent of the total number of churches in these three denomina tions, we are told. Various explanations are offered, one of which is that,- amid all the talk of psychology, group consciousness, soci ologie responsibility and the évolution of character, a good many ministers have practically lost faith in conversion as a religious experience. Thé process of reducing religion to a science has been entirely too successful in some pulpits. The Dallas Morning News, makes a significant com ment: “The proportion of the people who have a han kering to attend a scientific clinic isn’t great. The heart of the multitude isn’t scientifically inclined. The lecture is a mighty poor substitute for a sermon. A case-hardened sinner that will permit his sins to be denounced from the pulpit and come back for more isn’t going to get much religious reaction out of discourses on literature, ethics, philosophy and the like.” The truth of the matter is that when the pulpit becomes a lecture platform, the congregation becomes a mere audi ence. If the lecturer is big enough and his subject sensa tional enough, he will get a crowd. But who will be saved from his sins ? Who will be led into the life of victory ? Who will be set on fire to save men from destruction? The sad thing is that none of these denominations seem to be tremendously alarmed ab.out it, ,;\yç do not see anything approaching the concern felt by an insurance agency that fails to get anything except renewal business. Church people appear not infrequently to be resigned to the situation. The most alarming feature of all is that even those who are considered the defenders of the Faith are putting in much of their time, energy and money, heckling one another.
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