The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-09-01
For September is "PauIs Sorrows
d Comforts. Corinthians,
11.1122
MiIitancy in Religion.

1lS1-Oo.
Militancy in Religion.
Gelatinousness is the commonest
and most dangerous substitute for
Christianity current today. A jelly
fish negativeness, which is as timid as
q muskrat, passes current as good
Eess. In some minds pioUsness and
spinelessness are synonyms. A COM
mon idea of goodness is not to disagree
with anybody. even with the devil
himself. Our grandfathers were called
DfsseEters, but their grandchildren are
OF the creed called Assenters. We
agree with everybody and everything,
from the proposition that God and man
were both originally lin the yolk of
an added egg" to the familiar doc
trine that whatever is. is right" and
that to be popular is the chief end OF
man and woman.
Altho 1t may be sheer bosh, the
newest ism and spasm may get a re-
spectful and sympathetic hearing from
Christian people. After ALL" says the
current notion, at does not matter
what you believe, so long as you try
to be kind" Therefore, the latest
colored fakir from Bombay, if he be at
all clever, can get a large following,
fat living, and much sweet adulation
from Boston women who have "out-
grown" the illiberal creed of their
Puritan forbears. No cult is too silly
to find a vogue. be it the religion of
walking naked thru the grass in the
sunlight, or of breathing by certain
rote, or of entering into the silence of
a supreme Egoism, or the burning of
incense to the sun, or the worship of
nebulouS Mind, or the Hinduism of
transmigration, or-but what is the
Use of trying to catalogue all our
follies?
Any earnest chronicler of the times
must confess that, as a whole, our
or fat1
are not sure what we believe. Boston
and New York are almost as ready to
hear Hindu Yogi as Billy Sunday.
Old religions, new religions; COMPARE
tive religion, no religion-all are
pretty much alike to your modern man
or woman This is true to a degree
that would alarm the average min
lister, if he knew it, of many persons
within the churches, as well as of the
great mass outside. Present-day
Christians, owing perhaps to a lack of
leadership. are willing to let many
They surrender the Christian Sabbath
almost without a protest. So also they
let the Bible go from the public
schools. The proposition that this a
Christian nation is likewise permitted
to go by default. The integrity and
inspiration of the Bible is yielded quite
as easily. Once let anybody,-be he a
soap-box orator, or a Hedging college
professor,-say that 1.-The consensus of
modern scholarship affirms"-and
shoo. the Christians run like chickens
before hawk, without waiting to see
whether the bird that affrights them
may not be only a crow.
When to Stand Up and Fight.
Opportunity, the Sunday schools
or the world are this week called into
the school of study of old Paul of
Tarsus, to learn to stand up and con-
tend for the truth. AS this lesson and
many other New Testament passages
make clear, controversy may be a
Christian duty. The early church ia
Truth was SO precious in their eyes
that they would be alienated from
friends and homes, and even from life
itself, for its sake. There is some
thing majestic about the spectacle of
these great intellectS battling ever
doctrina1 and ecclesiastical points We
have entered into the inheritance they
left, but we have forgotten their mill
fancy. 1 wonder If the reader of these
lines can, on the instant, name a sin
gle great Christian controversalist in
North America today, champion OF
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus? In
the past there have been the men who
have made Christeudom their debtors
Controversy on a high plane, which
will not dodge or Elisstate any facts
is one of the essential methods OF
Christian Progress. There is a sense
IN which every Christian leader and
teacher should, like Paul, be contro-
versalist.
hasten to add, that Christian con-
troversy is as different from church
sQuabbles and UNCONVENTIONAL bicker-
ings and petty quarrels as an eagle is
from a mosquito. There Is no war
rant in Scripture for the miserable lit
| 81 knf1 lit IT,
t;fy the life of a congregation.
The first qualification of a contro-
versalist,-as Paul makes clear in his
second letter to his Corinthian con-
verts-is an unimpeachable persona
record. He must go into court with
clean hands. The self-seeker and the
money-lover cannot contend success
fully for the faith of Christ. That is
why Paul pointed to his own record
in Corinth and elsewhere. He tore
aside the mantle of personal reserve
and showed that he bore in his body
the marks of the Lord Jesus. Pauline
| conduct squared with Pauline doc
trine. All during those arduous tent.
making days, and through perilou:
| prosecutions and personal sufferings
his credentials for the great debate
Thus does the everyday duty, wei
done, prepare us for life's great crises
The Cause of Controversy.
| Like every other pioneer, Pau
knew the bitterness of seeing other
follow along the path he had blazet
in order to wrest his leadership from
him. In addition to garnering tn,
fruit of his labors, they tried to dis
credit him. After he had established
a Christian church at Corinth, thes,
false shepherds came to mislead hi
! flock, for their own advantage.
seems as if always during the church,
periods of activity there have beer
these pretenders and usurpers. will
their special isms and cults, and thei
criticisms of the church. 1t is no nev
plague from which the church suffer
today. Claiming high titles and es
pecial gifts for themselves, thes
false apostles had attempted, appar
emily, to wean the Corinthian Chris