The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-05-18
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HOUR
CHURCH TO COMBAT
FORCES OF EVIL

~ UR English exchanges report
Is Len G. Broughton as having
Nv made diagnosis of the arrest
ed progress of the Monochrome
list churches in Great Britain. His con-
clusion Is that much Of the trouble Is
due to lack of proper emphasis upon
the Importance of the church. He
feels that instead of spending time in
the discovery and criticism of faults
In church organization and life we
should devote ourselves to the
strengthening of organized Christian
ity.
While the denominations in America
nave made larger proportionate
growth than they bave done in Great
Britain during the last few years, con-
ditions here are by no means IDEAL
We are compelled to face the fact of
lessened interest in the church on the
part of Christian people. Only in ex.
ceptional cases is there the loyalty to
the church which marked the religious
life Of so years ago. This decadence
may be explained, in part, by the
growing devotion to pleasure; the mo-
tor-car and the golf links have not
little to do with the decrease in at
tendance upon the services of the
house of God. AS we have increased
in wealth and ability to supply our
selves with various forms Of recrea-
ton, we seem to have decreased in
devotion to the great interests of the
human soul.
Need for Return to Church.
Whatever other reasons there may
be, however, for the decrease in
church attendance, 1t seems clear that
the removal of emphasis from the
church as an essential factor in the
work of the kingdom of God has had
not little to do with the change that
has taken place For some years, now,
most Of us have been busy in max
ing 1t clear that salvation does not
hinge upon ecclesiastical relationship,
and that it is possible to serve the
cause of Christ without using the
church as medium of expression. We
have laid stress upon the immediacy
Of relationship between the believer
and his Lord, something which always
needs emphasis, and have measurably
neglected to set forth the necessity
for cooperative effort for the extern
sion Of the kingdom of God. In our
desire to promote the essential unity
of all the followers of Jesus Christ,
w mir c1u tn
ourselves, conveyed the impression
that the world would get along very
well without Christian organization of
any kind. Those of us who believe
and teach that Jesus did not organize
church may have been understood as
holding that the organization is un-
necessary
Must Be Organized Work.
1t is high time to open campaign
on behalf of the church; to undertake
the task of making 1t clear that life
must organize in some form of express
sion. The first thing to be done is
not so much to convince people of the
importance of any particular form of
church organization, as to put beyond
question the necessity for organiza-
tion. We as Baptists have our con-
victions as to the proper constitution
of the church. At the present time the
question seems to be not so much as
to the specificaform which the church
shall take, but whether or not we shall
have church at all.
In conversation with young man
recently who had just returned from
conference of Christian young men,
he said that he had been impressed
by the indifference, not to say con-
tempt, for organized Christianity man
ifested by many of those whom he
had met. Beyond question. the Chris
tian forces of this country must pre-
sent an unbroken front In the conflict
with the forces of evil. It will be
suicidal, however, for us to injure
all organization and to depend upon
guerrilla warfare Independent and
isolated activity on the part of the In
dividual cannot be depended upon to
produce the results which we desire.
We are weak enough, at the best. and
1t is only in associated effort that we
shall be able to accomplish the tre-
mendous tasks which are before lis. A
new sense of the Importance of the
church and larger and more un-
selfish devotion to its interests are
greatly needed in the religious life of
today--The Standard.