The Washington herald., 1914-11-21
BacksHding and Its Causes.

The Rev. William Fulton, in a report made to the
General Assembly Committee on Educational POLICY
of the Presbyterian Church. says that more than
100000 members of that church have been placed on
the suspended list in the last FIVE years This
means that there have been more backsiders in the
Presbyterian Church in the last FIVE years than the
gains in membership since 1906 The census of re-
lgous bodies in 1906 credited the Presbyterian bodies
with I,83o555 members, and Dr. Carol in his annual
statistics of the churches credited that church with
2o275oS' members in 1913, or a gain of 10000 in
seven years
DR.. Fulton in his report says that "the growing
love of pleasure, disregard for the Lords Day and
the word of God, the increasing craze for amuse-
ments and the influence of worldly company-iu
short, the modern view of life which is preached by
many secular organizations, has caused 100000 Pres
byterians to be placed on the suspended lists in the
last five years and 5o,o27 in the year 1913, when a
gain of $4,000 was claimed in membership by the
church. They slipped back into the world. fell
away relegated to the ecclesiastical scrap heap
says DR.. Fulton
This rather secular language is not that of the
secular press, but of minister of the Gospel in an
official report to a great committee of the Presby-
terian General Assembly, and it may be accepted as
indicating that there is something wrong somewhere
But it may not all be the part of the backsding
members. A part of the responsibility may be with
the ministers and others who in the General Assembly
formulate the policy of the church.
Last June this Presbyterian General Assembly
met in Chicago and declared that church members
could not be members of social clubs where any
alcoholic beverages were sold that ministers should
not smoke requested the government to prohibit the
sale of cigarettes well liquors, and put many
other restrictions on the members of that church.
These restrictions also operated against min
listers of the church who INDUCED the weed, pre-
pared their sermons with cigar, and found in
consistency with their sacred calling in being mem
bers of social clubs without nquiring closely as
to what other members of those clubs ate and drank
The action of the General Assembly seemed to indi-
disposition on the part of the church leaders
to regulate the social and political life of the mem
Oers we'll as their religious belief and the back
sliding may not be serious DR.. Fulton thinks it
s. 1t may not be "a slipping back into the world"
out only refusal TO have the church assume that
his is a theocratic government where the church
axes hold of the citizen in all his social business,
and political activities The church NAV relegate
hese backsliders to the ecclesiastical scrap heap
,ut it will probably make little difference in the re-
lgious belief the Christianity of the backsliders
The only difference apparent is in the membership
If the church.
That is not or was the definition of the back
ider in the old camp meeting and revival days. when
ysterical demonstrations with d professional revi-
alist picturing the wrath of God in all the varia-
ated and vulgar language of the street, persuaded
motional men, women. and children to go forward |
onvcted of their sins and converted TO religion |
These emotional converts usually remained converted
ntl the end of the revival and then slipped back
nto the world until another revivaIist came along
With his hysteria and wrath of God
The recurrence of the old-fashioned revivalst
rho counts his by the thousands of converts
he travels about the country calling upon sinners
o hit the trail" may explain a part of the back
ders in Presbyterian and other Protestant churches
or sensational religion now is no more lasting than
was in the past. But the ministers who minister
D their congregations week after week and year
fter year responsible for the revival of the
pecial revvals and his sensational secular language
the pulpit, and they should not expect permanent
esults from temporary excitement and hysteria.
hey should not expect the to the methods of
lilly Sunday to be permanently converted to all the
on-clad exactions of the General Assembly