The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1914-12-25
BY Peter Radford.

Work at hand is sadly Inadequate to
properly serve their respective COM
munities.
1 Those who put on ecclesiastical
robes are in measure free to unlock
[every door to the human heart and
enter the secret chambers of reason
and every person should submit their
conduct to review and seek the coun-
sci Of those divinely appointed mes
sengers of life, but the moment the
minister closes the Bible and opens
the law book, he becomes menace to
society.
The difficulty of keeping the preach
er in the pulpit is as old as religion.
Christ encountered 1t in the temple
when he drove the priests from the
bargain counter back to the pulpit.
Our pilgrim fathers met it when,
through the influence of the clergy, a
witch court was established at Salem,
Mass, in 1892, that precipitated legal
holocaust threatening to reduce the
population to ashes and which was ex-
tinguished by the laymen uniting and
forcing the preachers back to the pull
pit.
The greatest peril to the church to-
day is politics. The temptation of the
ministry to throw down the cross of
Christ and pick up the club OF the
policeman; to substitute the penalties
of thp law for the power Of the altar
and to legislate religion into human
hearts, never was greater.
The world never needed religious
ministry more nor political preachers
less than 1t does today. We need min
listers to teach US how to live; we
know how to vote.
The religious preacher is the most
capable servant and the political
preacher the sorriest master the world
has ever known. Wherever power is
placed in the hands of the latter they
invariably become intolerant, bigoted
and vicious and resort to the whip and
the faggot to enforce their opinion.
Civilization has many times been
compelled to drive incorrigible preach
ers back to the pulpit at the point of
the bayonet. Many of the pages of
history are wet with blood shed at the
hands Of political preachers who wrote
laws on the statute books that COM
mitted arson upon mankind, manned
human beings with the hatchet and
sent helpless women to the torture
rack, all because they disagreed with
their views. When in control Of gov
ernment, the pulpit politicians invari-
ably undertake to perform legislative
miracles such as casting out witches
with the flame of torch, suborning
conscience with shackles and enforc-
ing opinions with the guillotine.
Mixing Politics and Religion.
Politics and religion will not blend.
No free government can long exist or
the church perform its mission to
society when preachers and politicians
temporarily exchange callings, and
civilization that will countenance
such conduct will soon decay. Such a
traffic in occupations is as unsound in
principle as the white slave trade is
immoral in practice.
The hand that passes the sacrament
should not collect slush funds for DO
litical purposes. The gentle voice that
comforts us In sorrow and pronounces
the last sad rites upon our departed
loved ones should not rave ard rant on
the hustings. l do not believe a
preacher can manipulate political ma
chinery and be righteous any more
than he could become burglar and
be honest. think it as immoral
for preacher to seek to lobby while
he prays as 1t would be for him to
gamble while he breaches.
3 A preacher can no more preach
political sermon without converting his
pulpit into political rostrum than
he could sell Intoxicating liquor from
the altar without converting the
church into bar-room. He can no
more purify politics by playing the
game than he can sanctify gambling
by running lottery.
join in the oft-repeated suggestion
that preacher has as much right in
political brawls as saloon keeper and
we also admit that he has as much |
right to get drunk as anyone else,
but we would rather he would not do
so for the greater the saint the great
er the SIM" think political bishop |
can turkey trot In the name of Chris
tianity as consistently as he can enter
into mud-slinging political contest
to the disgrace of his church.
II s~4 ny oz.nion that when this
world is saved II will be through re.
lfgious sermons and not through poll
teal speeches. Salvation must come
20 us from the Bible and not from
the statute book; 1t will come through
holy councils of consecrated ministers
and not from caucuses of political
preachers.
The Problem Of the Laymen.
There never was time when
preachers and politicians formed an
lnholy alliance that civilization did
not shrek out and Christianity cry
aloud, Since the beginning OF gov
srnment. politicians have sought to
iecoy the ministry into the meshes OF
politics and make them carry banners
n political professions, They have
aiken the ministry to the mountain
Iop of power and offered to make them
of all they surveyed. and
while most OF them have said. get
thee behind me satan.. few have
Iallen with crash that has shaken
every pulpit in Christendom.
The ministry, unsophisticated and
is no match for the poll
lician versed in artful persuasion and
skilled In deceit. and Il is the duty of