Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1898-12-05
MUST DIE OR CHANGE
PROPHECY OF REV. DIR. j. z. ROB-
ERTS REGARDING THE CHURCH.
He Declares 1t Has Lost Through Its
Persistent AhrOnt to the reason
and the Conscience
of Man.

DR.. ]. z. Roberts. of the Church of This
World, preached yesterday on Why Men
Do Not Go to Church."
The growth Of the humanitarian spirit
in these modern years has been the most
potent influence to undermine the author
ity and the influence of the historic church."
he said. 1T was consistent, once. when
the world. as man knew it. was a small
thing, for the Infinite to have a chosen peo-
pie and 4 royal priesthood and a sGparaat-
ural church. But with the growth of the
modern spirit. with the widening of the
horizon of humanitarianism. the very
sympathy of man for his fellowmen has
so far outrun any provision which the
church has made for the uplifting of hui
mainly, that the church. together with its
God, seems inadequate, unworthy, and both
the church and its God are being rapidly
outgrown. 1t does not seem TO the revercnt
and rational mind that it would be worthy
OF God TO provide a sacrifice late in the
human day. If he We're ever to have one:
II should have been in the morning of
mans life. The cross ought to have been
erected in Paradise. in Eden where the
Savior ought to have died. and 10 every
Child that grew up and went out from the
primal eldest human family. there ought to
have been carried the story of the cross.
There ought never to have been a land nor
an island trod in the seas by the feet of
men where the sign OF salvation; the only.
. piONiN Wv ~ TIC III iioIiI Ao
have been as clear as the sun in the
heavens.
THE church has lost its power through
its steady, persistent unreasonable affront
to the reason and conscience of men in its
most fundamental teachings. In consider
ing the church as a factor we can leave out
OF sight a vast number of its subsidiary
dogEaaS and teachings. 1t exists as IL al
ways has for the declaration of two things.
guilt of man and the infinite plan for his
redemption. And the infinite guilt of man
does not consist in anything that he mas
done. 1t consists wholly in what he has
never done and was never responsible for.
What is to be the outcome of it all?
The church must die or change. 1t is al
meat. economically, intellectually and NOR
ally. In many places it is already dead.
Within a week L have seen a c~ommunica-
ton from a real estate man in Chicago who
has upon his list eighteen church properties
for sale. one of them a building just COM
pieted. equipped in the most approved and
modern fashion. In multitudeS of our small
er towns the churches have been dead for
fifty years and the people have never sus-
pected it. In all of our cities the churches
are more numerous than the needs of the
community demands or even the willing
ness of the payers will support.
is any man. willing to say that the
best utterance of the religious instinct Ct
men? Is it not as much or more of a bur-
den than it is a benefit? Might not all it
does be accomplished with less expensive
and better means and work out unspeak-
ably higher ana better results? The world
is not all sordid. Human nature is not all
~depraved. The impulses of men are not
wholly selfish. Everywhere there is the
possibility of touching a responsive chord
and evoking by the minds deft and skill
full fingers from the tense strings of hui
man life the music as of the paradise OF
God. The world is good. Humanity is
possessed of the elements and qualities OF
a divine Savior.
Il expect TO live to see the time when
by some means or other I can carry on
my work, whatever or wherever it shall
be. without in any way depending upon
those with whom / work for the support
of myself and family. 1t is towards these
things that the church of the future looks
and when free men. independent. emanci.
pated, who are appealing to honest and
sincere men and women, the spiritual and
moral forces will align themselves anew.
Religion, that child of the Infinite without
and the Infinite within: religion, that win.
born of the heavens and of the earth; re.
ligion. that ministration of things high and
holy and, pure: religion. putting off it's su,
perstitions and its errors and putting or
its new robes of coronation, shall go forth
in the name of love to conquer this world
| for God"