Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1907-11-15
QUITS HIS PULPIT
TO Be A SOCIALIST,
REV. HARVEY DEE BROWN, KENO.
SHA, LEAVES BAPTIST MIN
ISTRY WORK.
FORMER MILWAUKEE MAN
Scores Church in Farewell Sermon for
It's Inactivity IN Teaching Faith
Among Wo1kingmen.

KENOSHA, Wis, Nov. 11.-TSpe-
cial Rev. Harvey Dee Brown, Phi. D.,
for the last three years pastor of the
First Baptist church in this city, in his
pulpit yesterday announced that he had
become a convert to Socialism and that
in consideration of his new belief he
had thought it necessary for him to
sever his connection with the ministry
which he had served for fifteen years.
Dr.. Brown gave a remarkable state
ment in which he ararigned the church
for it's inactivity in teaching tho Christ
life among the laboring people and de-
clared that to him George d. Heron
was a man of divine inspiration.
DIR. Brown was former pastor of a
Milwaukee church.
Pastor Arraigns Church.
The reason why the church has lost
power to help and inspire the Masses"
said Rev. Brown, is that it has never
mastered the principles Of economic JUS
tlce and undertaken the establishment of
that justice in life. When conventional
Christianity does Undertake to deal with
the economic life of men, it does SO
rom point of view which is unethical
and unchristian, not to say atheistlc. 1t
speaks from a point of view Of a belief
in justifable Individual selfshness-a
justIiable control Of one man by another
through economic power; a JustlhaDle
sur1eit of plenty on the part of few
and of poverty and need on the part OF
many; justiiable taking from labor
of as large a share OF it's product as
economic power can grasp; Justlnable
progress based upon the destruction OF
human life, upon child labor, and COM
mercial wars; a justiable subordination
ho mol TO tln r1a1 short
it speaks as believing in a justifable
social denial of what Jesus taught i'll
The Sermon on the Mount and reversal
of one of the ruling principles OF his
Efe-the love of neighbor as ones self.
Still Believes in Christ.
at is not a lack of nor hostility to
religion, its2lf-the real religion of
Jesus spirit and consciousness-Whi is
turning the working class from the
church. 1t IS the old and morally out
grown individualistic world assumptions
under which the church without reallz-
ing it's blindness is seeking to teach rell-
gion. Let her teach the spirit and hero
ism and love OF Jesus under the new
neutrality-suspicious. of the Socialist mlnd
OF the working class and her power Will
return.
The vision of the need of the social
and economic world and the failure OF
our conventional religion to touch the
problem has come to be a permanent
conviction of my life. l believe fully IN
.he spiritual and moral realities Of life
as seen in their highest in Jesus Christ.
And because | do believe so strongly IN
them, cannot believe that there is any
thing permanent in the principles which
dominate our common economic life. l
would withdraw none of the things which
[ have been trying to establish in the
ives of those to whom it has been my
good fortune and happiness to minister
during the last fifteen years. shall
always be laboring, according to my
light, to establish these things, though it
Oe by other and newer ways. Any move
ment among men which harbors the de-
.iberate purpose of bringing the economic
world to a new birth of justice and equal
opportunity seems to me to be more di-
cectly doing the work of humanity and
Of Christ
Il am uncertain what opportunity or
form of public service may open to me in
lividually, but of this | am resolved:
that l will accept work of no people as a
minister, unto whom l may not express
my full heart and hopes being true to my
mind and soul as to God"