Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1914-07-17
Subscription Rates.
WHY so MANY CREEDS?

WHY so MANY CREEDS?
Such undenominational minister's
conferences as that held at Eugen
should be the fore-runner of move
ment to ultimately consolidate som
of the too numerous denominations
Although the purposes of the gather
ing is in another direction, The OBJ
server is inclined to believe that con
ventions of this character nigh
eventually be made an agency through
which church union could be wrought
While for five hundred years Christ
ians have been endeavoring to get to-
gether and failed, there is still hope
that a time, now not very remote, will
come when all creeds that believe in
the Messiah will wheel into line and
in solid phalanx, under one standard
take up that march of conquest de-
signed to emancipate all mankind
from the darkness of sin, and lift up
before them the gates which open into
the realms of everlasting light.
To the simple reasoning of the av-
erage sinner there can be no real need
of so many creeds. How out of a
formula such as the New Testament
outlines men can build up hundred
creeds, and each in his own zeal grow
to believe he is right and every one
else is in error, and pursue their es-
tablished faith to war and carnage in
the name of the Prince of Peace, is be-
yond comprehension. Where is the
authority for it to be found in the
scriptures AT least, where in the
teachings of the Master?
Nations frequently revise their civil
and criminal codes to make sure that
in their practice, or in the decisions
of learned judges, which have grown
to be accepted as correct legal inter-
pretations, wrongs have not crept in,
which are working injuries to the
state or to individuals Ought not all
to follow similar practice? If they
look about them they see the world
constantly progressing, every year
taking on new lights, but looking back
ward they discover that the original
simple statement of the Christian
faith does not change, that it does not
need to change, that it not only keeps
up with all progress, but rather the
more the progress the palmer in the
increasing light that code reads, and
when they advance far enough they
discover that the sermon on the mount
has become a classic, and that when
their brightest and most gifted ones
try to improve upon it they stand
baffled, and perhaps for the first time
realize the difference between tie |
workings Of divine and merely human
thought. What would they answer
should the Master come and ask them
how out of the simple definition He
gave of religion, and the simple di-
rections which He gave of how to
manifest that religion to the under
standing of men, they had built up the
'aried structures which they called
creeds?
When the Master was here He de-
clared His code, and selected TO pre-
sent it to a waiting world some simple
unlearned fishermen. There was not
one scholar or orator in the company.
Was not that hint that the mystery
of salvation was not to be found in
the schools; that it was open to the
unlearned as well as to those wise
in worldly wisdoml Was not the
widows mite more acceptable than
the offering of the rich because it
went with a contrite heart? Whose
door would the Master enter were
He to return to earth?