Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1915-05-03
RAPS THEOLOGY
Of EVANGELIST
Rev. Henry R. Rose Says Billy
Sundays Views Are 100
Years Behind.

Rev. Henry X. Rose, pastor Of the
Church of the Redeemer, said, in dis
cussing Billy Sunday in q sermon yes
terday morning, that he would not be
surprised if Sunday later became a
Unitarian or a Universalist, because
the evangelist's theology is one hun
dred years behind the time, while, as
a moralist, he is the greatest revival
ist the country ever knew. The bad
feature of Sundays presence in a
city. the preacher said, is that he is
certain to stir up bigotry and divide
congregations. He said in substance:
Nobody can explain Billy Sunday.
He is two men in one. One man is
slangy, coarse lrreverent, almost
blasphemous. The other man is
choice, refined, reverent and every
thing noble and ennobling. Dean
West keeps him out of Princeton be-
cause OF his gutter language. Presi-
dent Smith brings him to the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania to speak to
the students because there is an
epidemic of suicide among them and
he Is the one man who can reach the
boys and stop it. And there you are!
Knows Better.
Listen to Billy Sunday in some OF
his sermons and you wonder how re-
lined people can sit under him. Hear
him in. others and you wonder how
anybody can possibly keep away. The
fact is, he kn ws better, but chooses
at times to use rough and irreverent
language because he feels that that
is the only way to rouse some people
and get them to fight a given evil,
like the liquor traffic, or change their
own wicked lives.
"Billy Sunday is a hundred years
behind the times in theology. He has
swallowed the old-fashioned religion
hook, bait, sinker, line and rod!
Everything the revivalists of old ever
taught he teaches. He believes the
Bible word for word, breaches orig
inal sin, total depravity, literal hell,
personal devil, the miraculous birth
of Jesus. the trinity, the vicarious
atonement and the second coming of
Christ, at which time Christ's follow
ers, so he declares, will be caught
up bodily into the air to meet Christ
therel He sends preachers who be-
lieve in evolution to hell. He turns
those who venture to say that the
miracles of Christ were in accord
with the laws of nature to the same
hot place! To dance is a sin, to play
cards is a crime, to go to theatres
is wickedness! And yet Billy Sunday
breaches q religious life full of sun
shine and JOY!
His theology does not hitch with
his morality. The two things do not
go together at all. If men were to
believe as he believes they would be
sad from crown to foot and would go
around with white faces, scared to
death. But they don't believe as he
believes in theology They listen to
n nd pn
saying, as | heard two men say as
they walked from the tabernacle in
Paterson: IL like his earnestness, l
like the way he appeals to us to be
men, but / don't take any stock in
his hell-fire talk. 1t isn't in the Bible
either" The fact is, Billy Sunday
uses the words devil and hell so much
that they cease to make any i'm
preston on the ears OF his hearers.
They do not frighten anybody in this
enlightened age. He laughs about
them himself at times and so does
his audience.
Source OF Power.
"Billy Sundays great power comes
from his appeal to men and women
to change their lives in this world
and behave themselves in this world
He is q great moralist; the greatest
revivalist in this respect the land has
ever known He tries to win men tC
purity. temperance honesty, truth
fulness, brotherly love by appealing
to their manhood. He begs them to
accept Christ, acknowledge Christ
obey Christ, mot because Christ will
send them to hell if they do not, but
because Christ's way of living is the
only way, the natural way, the manly
way.
"Billy Sunday in this respect is like
a Unitarian or Universalist. because
they preach ethics, morality, every
day religion, righteousness, and are
more concerned about this world than
the next, knowing that if men behave
themselves here they will be all right
there. 1t will not surprise us at al
if Billy Sunday becomes a Unitarian
or Universalist one of these days, as
did B. Fay Mills, another Presby-
terian-born evangelist who turned
liberal in religion when pressed by
his own belief in the limitless love
of God to believe that God would
save in the next world as well as
this.
1.-THE big danger when Billy Sunday
comes to a city is that he will stir uI
bigotry to such an extent thai
quarrels will arise in even the
orthodox churches between the up-to-
date thinkers and those who stand
for the so-called old-fashioned gospel
That is why Cleveland has refused
TO let him come there. Nevertheless,
he is such a religious asset to any
city that it is not to be wondered al
that he is booked far ahead,