Arizona republican., 1890-07-21
"INDIFFERENTISM."
IS A MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS
 RELIGIOUS RELIEF.
Third sermon by Dr. Kickerson Upon Modern Inhdelity at the First Baptist Church Yesterday.

Divine services were held yesterday at the Baptist, Southern Methodist and Catholc Churches and at the Advent ists Tabernacle.
 At the Baptist church the pastor gave his third sermon on "Modern lntidel- ity," entitled, "lndifierentism," from the following text;
 John Sl9 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.
 That type of modern unbelief called Inditierentism is perhaps the weakest and most indefinable, but is a subtle and hypocritical enemy ol God and truth. 1t is denial, or tacit ignoring of the fact that man is responsible for his religious belief. One may entertain whatever religious convictions he chooses-they have no intimate relations with his daily acts or character. What ever he believes, or fails to believe, of God and eternal things, is mere mat ter of chance or choice, and has no more bearing on life and destiny than the turn of cards in a game of fortune.
 Where shall we find this denial of res possibility? of course, in its most pos itive form, in all schools of materialism. If materialism be true, all things in the realms of matter and mind exist, as they are, by changeless law of necessity. Once establish the de- velOpment theory, and have no more personal responsibility than the jelly fish, or ape, or vital atom from which am developed. have removed God out of the universe. We shall find it among Pantheists. Emerson, in Representa- tive Men," tells horrible anecdotes" of Bonaparte, but distinctly says that these deeds of blood, this exorbitant egotism and accursed lust of power were not to be charged against him: Ut was not Bonaparte's fault" Theodore Parker eulogized all systems of religion, how ever absurd, for they were "all natural and indispensable. It could not have been but as it was." And this is the animus of the :liberalism" of today. Let us be tolerant, Christ-like. The convictions of others are as sacred as our own. If others go wrong they are to be pitied, not blamed. There is truth in MOhammed, in Jesus, in Coniucius 1: let us not judge. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unty.'" True, if in matters of religions belief there is no higher authority than human judgment or caprice, it makes no difference whether we are Evangelical Christians, Liberal ApOlOgists, AgnOstics or Atheists. But if God lives and has a right to com mand, there is a more serious side to this question. Daniel Webster was once asked, What is the most impor- tant thought you ever entertained ?" He replied, "The most important thought ever had was my individual responsibility to God" How many wiser men we have today, though pos sessing the merest shadow of his brain power. There is a perilous leaven of Indifferentism in all our Christian churches. No greater danger menaces our Christian life and work. Christian men and women ignore their respons- bility to God for what they believe. They place their 'pious" whims above the word of God. They play fast and loose with the plain teachings of the Bible; they join the mad, popular cry against "doctrine;" they flatter and patronize what is weakest and thinnest and sets the mouths of fools widest agape; they run mad over every travelling preacher with a Empowered Bible, a string of pious stories, and a small stock of dramatic enthusiasm they believe what it pleases them to believe. The cause of this Chris tian InditIerentism is sometimes a kind of religious fatalism. Somewhere in the past they had evident symptoms of piety-and "whOm he did foreknow he also did predestinate." God has decreed, by eternal fiat. that every angel in heaven, every man on earth, every devil in hell, shall forever do as he pleases; and here IS the ground of human responsibility. Sometimes the cause may be found in the fact that Christians become practical idolators :: they deify conscience. "I am right be- cause am conscientious. More men are conscientiously wrong than conscien- tiously right. The question with a Christian should be, not lam I con scientious?" but 'are my convictions of right in harmony with the word of God?" Everything that draws the mind and heart away from Gods book as sovereign authority and arbiter, weakens the sense of personal respon- sibility. These are days of drifting from the truth. When the lines are drawn-and the sooner they are drawn the better-God grant that we may stand squarely over the division mark, on the side of God and truth. We can afford to suffer the consequences, let the consequences be what they may.