The Penn's Grove record., 1913-09-05
need TRUER FAITH
Belief That Made Early Church
Overcome All Obstacles
Must Come Back.
Vo the critical the abiding power of
the Christian church remains an
enigma in view of itc orioins Tba

HVo the critical the abiding power of
the Christian church remains an
enigma in view of its origins. The
first believers were simple folk,
and the unlearned and ignorant com
posed the majority. They had a the
ology, as all men must have, but they
were not theologians: 1t was not the
mere statement of orthodoxy, the tell
ing of the facts of Jesus life and death
and resurrection, the teaching of doc
trines by them that made the Church
and compelled their hearers. 1t was
the telling of these facts which they
believed in, of Jesus Christ, whom the
resurrection had INDICATED as supreme
truth and purity and righteousness
not as so much experience, history or
record, but out of the consciousness of
a living, abiding, personal relation
which they had with him. On the oc-
caslon of his martyrdom, st. Stephen,
the Hellenist, affirmed the great facts,
but the secret source and the root of
his power were found in the sense of
his personal relation to Christ, his re-
A01N0o OOAACL dCCldISu III lie WOTuS,
i see the heavens opened and the son
OF man standing on the right hand of
Cod" st. Paul more than other of his
time developed the theology of the
Church, but intellectual giant that he
was he Is not reckoned as an altogeth-
er consistent theologian. He was first
of all a religious genius. The apostolic
Church was primarily a religious or
ganism, hence its power; 1t was not a
charitable organization, but the love Of
each other as brethren in it's members
because of their strong personal love
of the risen Christ made for a strange
and wonderful communism.
First, a Religious Organization.
The Church today, as always, must
avow the belief that it is first of all a
religious organism, and only as it is
e it have power. Sometimes it has
been overmuch Of a doctrinal institu-
ton as in the eighteenth century, when
its spiritual life was at a very low
ebb. Too much of the theological is
not the danger of today, as overmuch
if it may be SO put-of the socio-
logical. There is a belief in the Church
that men nay be saved by making
them members of an organization rath-
er than by making them living parts of
an organization, and there is a fall
lacy. The Church cannot save men
by parish houses or attractive serv-
ices-desirable things, but not neces-
sary to salvation-and yet such non!
essentials have become a mania with
some people. Men want more in the
Church than a sociological unit or a
charitable association; they ask for a
religious society which implies a per-
sonal relation of it's members to a liv-
ing, present, risen Christ, and that
means power. Such a relation of sim
pie folk to Jesus Christ made at the
first a Church that defied the Roman
empire and conquered every obstacle.
If today the same faith in the risen,
present Jesus and the same sense of
personal union with him come in large
MEASURE to many more, it will conquer
Kingdoms here, and effect a national
and political regeneration. Men, too,
with such a spirit will conquer king.
doms abroad, and only as their cam.
paign for missions is fundamentally a
religious n will 1t succeed.-The
Churchman.