The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-21
NO POLITICS In PULPIT
REV. JOSEPH A. MILBURN OPPOSES
PREACHING ON THIS TOPIC.
Yet Ministers Have the Right to Dis
cuss 1t Outside-Dr. Ellison on
the Political Outlook.

1 =
and last night the congregation of DR..
| Sims's church attended the Second Pres
| byterian. At the morning service Mr. Mil
/ burn took for his subject the relation of
| the ministry to politics After stating that
/ it would be conceded by all fair-minded
people that a minister should have the
| right that is accorded to all of holding
| opinions on the political issues of the day
| and expressing them in his daily inter-
| course with people, and even taking the
| stump for what he deemed to be right and
| for the best interest of mankind he came
| to the subject of politics and political
views in the pulpit and said:
But now. after making this concession
10 polltlcal preachers, is the pulpit the
place for the teaching of economies? Is
the pulpit the place for discussing ques-
tons OF party theories and policies? For
instance, has a man the right to get up
in this pulpit or any other pulpit to ha-
rangue his congregation on the money
question? Has he a right to lay aside his
II d,.a as as a teacher of the grace and
ioVe OF God even for little while, just
during political campaign. to denver his
views In regard to the tariff question to
lea the protective tariff has been or is
gong to be? Or, if he be a free trader.
England. or of Perry and David Wells
ana an Godkin. of our own country? Or has
ne the right to take up whatever may be
the paramount political issue of his time
ana deliver his own personal opinion in
regard therto to his people who have come
into his church for quite other purposes?
We'll you know, there are those who
be advisable for the minister to indulge in
political preaching, there are occasions
when it becomes the sovereign duty of
the minister to storm what they call the
citadels of political and economic iniquity
right in the very house of Cod They
ted. that the great human world is so
doyetailed together in all its parts that
questions of right and wrong, and that if a
thing is right and a man believes it to be
wherever he may be. whether he be a law
yer arguing before a jury orator
expounding his views upon the platform,
ways and everywhere it is his duty to be
true to the right as, he sees. it, and to
intense encfgy of truth itself, without
compromise or fear.
And surely, if a thing be wrong. they
say, you would not have any man be 81
lent before it. If a thing be false. and
meretricious, and base, and deceitful.
God stand mute and silent before this base
and lying thing. Surely if any man is
speak, for what is he here for if not to
be minister of truth. if not to lift his
hand against everything that is. deleterious
and base? And these men say 1t is
for you to maintain neither is it logical
for you to hold that 81 man shall preach
ethics and not politics. for they say every
political question involves an ethical ques-
ton.
CHRIST'S EXAMPLE AGAINST IT.
1.-The political and economic worlds are
SO bound together with the moral world
that all government, all legislation must
have moral significance, must either make
for the we'll being for the disaster and
destruction of mankind This is the posi-
ton maintained and these are excuses Of
fered in justification by men who preach
party politics in the pulpit.
Now, then are they right? Is their po-
sition a scriptural position? Is this senti
ment so universal in the church, that po-
litical preaching is wrong, false and
memt we'll VETO founded and political preaehing
wholly out of harmony with the spirit and
intent of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well,
surely if we are to determine the proprie-
ty of any attitude of the ministry, the true
standard would be the standard of Jesus
himself. Was Jesus, then, a political
prophet? You read the gospel and you
will find there many words that have
come come down to US from the lips OF our
duty, many beautiful and pregnant mes
sages of inspiration and hope, but as you
1t not the slightest trace of political bias;
and yet surely if any man should ever
if any man would ever have been justified
in giving a political turn to the messages
He delivered to the people, if any man
had cause for being political zealot, that
was Jesus. because he loved Israel
passionately with all the great love Of his
great and capacious heart with all the
rich warm passion of his fervent and
exuberant nature.
And SO it seems to me that example is
against this thing; the example of Christ
is against it,. the example of Paul is
AGAINST IT, the example Of st. St John da+i Is
saints OF. the church is, against it, the .ex-
it, the example of Fenelon is against it,
the example of Jeremy Taylor is against
that sweet and glorious spirit of our GEN.
fury is against it. All the great spiritual
leaders of the church are oppugnant to the
divisive spirit of economics and politics in
the pulpit.
And further let me remark that not
only is the example of all the great lead
ers of the Christian church against the
intervention of the ministry in politics:
supererogation. Now. l think every man
is willing to concede the Importance of all
political questions We know that the his
tory of England has beer very largely de-
termned by her laws and government We
know that the great achievements of this
and action have also been very largely de
termined by the character of the laws and
institutions under which we live. Granted
a different kind of legislation granted a
theory of government other than the con-
ftitutIonal theory OF of in the
and of all her dependencies would have
been different. Granted also a radical
change in the spirit and structure of our
own government, and there would have
been a variation of our national mind and
character correspondent with this change.
This truth is elementary, and so let us
concede the very greatest Importance to
all these questions that are being discussed
before the people to-day. Let us admit
that they are not auxiliary and subordi-
nate but that they are questions of SOW
ereign significance so far as our national
destiny is concerned.
GOOD OUT OF THE DISCUSSION.
''And let us admit also that the discus
sion of these questions before the people
is going to have a far-reaching and splen-
did consequence in the development of the
American character. for it is. These dis
cussions that we listen to upon the street,
these speeches that are spoken from the
political rostrum, these deliverances that
are coming to the world through the cam
paign literature of the day. these editorials
that being written DAY after day in
our newspapers in all our cities, this de- !
batting pro and con of these great funda- |
mental economic questions are going to |
make this Nation in the course of time |
nation of the most brilliant thinkers that /
this world has ever known. 1t is going /
to make America by and by national |
Athens only 1t viii be an Athens built /
on granite instead Of quicksand
DR.. Milburn then took up the question /
of politics in the past. and showed that if /
there ever was a time when the ministers |
should be politicians it before the /
seventeenth century, and not now. He /
stated that at that time the learning of
the world was locked up in the Iuonaster-