The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-10-30
Is the Church a Failure?

The pastor of prominent local church has
sent out several hundred missionaries to men
of all closes and conditions. The general tenor
of these questions is, In what way are the
churches of Richmond failing?
This is a symptom of a changed condition in
church affairs everywhere noticeable and pro-
phetic of much improvement. Churches are no
longer self complacent. They begin to take
themselves more seriously and to examine their
own claims for existence. They look about and
outside themselves in order to discover new
fields of usefulness An organization that de-
votes itself conscentiously to the task of self
examination is far from that decadence of
which it has been accused.
Is the church a failure That can never be an
swered until it is first settled to what is church
and what is failure.
Preachers of today studying the New
Testament more keenly than ever before. They
read there the descriptions of the early Pauline
churches which turned the world upside down.
and marked era in human history. They
contrast these marvellous institutions to the
church of today. And then they are ashamed
This discrepancy between the Christian
church of today and the Christian church of the
first century is of the main grounds for
demning the church as failure
But is this quite just? Any person who will
carefully make a catalog of the activities and
functions of that institution called church by
Paul, will Immediately be struck by this, that
the early church fulfilled many functions
fulfilled by other organizations. 1t was school,
hospital, social CENTER political force, chart
table institution, library, missionary board, Sun
day school, theological seminary, house of
prayer, place of preaching, and even in some
cases comprehended banks stores and factories.
In other words, in the Pauline sense, the church
is simply the organized forces of society making
for the betterment of society.
If Paul were here today he would recognize
the college, the school, courts, charitable insti-
tutions, Y. NJ C. AS libraries, factories, stores,
newspapers, and all similar enterprises insofar
as they make for the furtherances of the race,
as parts of the church of Christ in the world.
That which we call church is only fraction
of what Paul meant by the term
"The church is failure may then mean
either that the houses of worship which we
know by the name are failing, or that the insti-
tutions of civilizations are not making good. Be-
fore the question can be answered this discrim-
ination must first be made.
No one, surely, can condemn the Christian
church of today in the Pauline sense. AS to
whether the institution now called church is fail
ing is another question.
If it is failing it is because it is not co-operat-
ing with the other institutions which make up
the great church of the world. No one should
accuse it of failing because it is not doing some
thing it never intended to do.
It would seem that the really crucial ques-
tons for the church to face today are, What is
my peculiar function in the life of today?
How successful am I in fulfilling that function?
and if not What are the means needed to do so?