The herald., 1895-11-18
Church of the New Era

W. G. Bowman discoursed yesterday
morning on the topic: Our So-called
Service of God. In part he said:
1.-The great burden of religious teach ing
has always been pleading for the SER
vice of God. the service OF Christ and the
service of the Master. In short, religion
has been taught and conceived OF under
the dominant idea OF master and servant.
This conception is natural for barbar-
Gus age when master and slave constitut-
ed the only known relations of society
just as the conce ption of God as king
and civil government as kingdom, was
the only possible nception of times
when nothing else was known. Religion
is but branch of human civilization,
and religious conceptions, like all other
conceptions, are limited ny the environ
ments OF their own times. The world s
religious ideas need civiliZing lust as
much as its scientific and political ideas.
The master and slave and king ideas are
as much out OF place in modern religion,
as would be the geocentric theory in
modern astronomy. This is the one great
religious absurdity in all relisions-this
perpetuation OF bsrbarous ideas.
But granting that the idea of serving
God may be properly retained under "a
hig her and truer conception of service.
and nobler conception of Goa, even
then we protest that n hat is now called
the service OF God is "a spurious service,
not being service OF work, but of words,
ritual, praises, tattsri s, all based on the
gross and barbara conception OF God
as personal despot whose chief attr-
butte is a vains glorious egotism and whose
principal occupation is to sit on H is
throne and hear Himself praised. Ac-
Cording to the deepest spiritual teaching
OF the Bible itself, t his is false, not a
true service. The true service of Cod is
the service of humanity, Pure religion
is not saying PRAYERS. but ministering to
the widow and orphan in their Affections.
Talk about serving God aud honcring
Christ in ritual vauities OF ostentatiou.
piety, while the very system of our ifs is
system OF comm ercial living, selfshn ess
and robbery towards our fellow menl
"Christian citizenship indeed That
civic parliament was good thing. but IL
discussed one myth: Christian citizen
ship. There is no such thing. There can
be no Christian citizenship till we have
Christian citizens. laws and customs ;
that is cooperative brotherhood such
as Christ meant to establish.
But we are glad to see that after all the
churches themselves are beginning to see
the necessity of coming to Christ" in a
real and practical way. This is quite
manifest in the recent movement for
applied Christianity We certainly
think it would not be bad scheme, after
nearly two thousand years of Christianity
in tre world. TO make the experiment of
applying some of it's teaching and prin-
ciples to the actual affairs of life We
New Era people believe that both church
and state will yet learn to serve God "
Eith a generous service by serving hu
mainly. Heretofore the main business
of the church has been to look after God
and the priesthood. and the state to look
out for the king and the nobility. But
this New Era demands that both chucrh
and state concern themselves about the
interests OF the common people. Let the
church come back to the sermon on the
mount and the state return to ths decla
ration of independence, and all will be
we'll