The theocrat. [volume] (Zion City [i.e. Zion], Ill.) 1914-1949, 1919-04-26
An Investigation of the Call
for an Investigation of
Mr.. Voliva and His
Religion
ELDER THOMAS H. NELSON


=, 1t is a fact that, in our larger cities, the
Sunday baseball parks are filled with peo-
pie, and the same evening the most popular
d. D. in the city often will not have hun
dred in his congregation. Yet, it costs
fifty cents to see the baseball game, and
the preacher can be heard for nothing. The
vilest theater can boast that the people by
the thousands pay their money afternoon
and evening for the privilege of attending
its entertainments, in crowds that tax the
seating capacity of the building; but the
church, whose seats are free, complains
that they are empty. A political gathering,
a costly lecture musical entertainment, a
dog and pony show, a Sabbath street pa
rade, ETC., have no reason to complain of
small crowds in our cities; but the preach
ers are forced to make the humiliating con-
fession that the people will not attend the
church.
While this is true of the ungrafted theo-
logical seeding preachers, who are found
fighting Mr. Voliva, his own congregations
run into thousands, whether he breaches
in his own city, or distant states
What has caused this state of affairs !?
Is the gospel a failure? Is so-called ortho-
dox religion a hoax? Are the people de-
generating, or can it be the popular church
is off the track, or like an electric street
car with broken trolley-pole, has she lost
her upper connection and receives neither
light, nor locomotive energy from the
dynamo in the power house of God?
Mr. Voliva is made a criminal for
preaching that the latter is largely true, and
that the reason the churches are losing
their influence over sensible, thinking men
generally, is because they have drifted from
their original principles and put social dis
tinction on too thick, and their religion on
too thin Instead of regencrating the
world, the popular church has been degen-
Grated by it; and instead of converting the
giddy throng to her way of thinking, she
has been converted by them to their way of
living
Surely, more divinity in the pulpit will
put more humanity in the pew; more sense
in the sermon will bring more seekers to
the church more real manhood in the pas
tor will call more men to her communion.
It is time to reverse the subject of general
discussion at ministerial meetings, Of how
to reach and save the masses; and the
masses should present paper on the sub
iect of how to reach and save the preachers
from the effects of their own foolishness
and unbelief.
This is Just what Mr. Voliva is doing,
and here is the real cause of the trouble.
Through the actions of these blind leaders
of the blind, Mr. Voliva declares that the
church has become heretical in her teach
ings and is run on such an unScriptural
and costly plan that intelligence abandons
her membership, and it takes all the money
she can secure to keep herself in existence,
so that she has neither time nor money to
spend on the helpful activities in world re-
demption for which she was called into ex-
istence. Therefore, her existence is no
longer a necessity, and she is being largely
left to die for want of an excuse to live.
Her unscriptural and abnormal mode of
living has long since made rich men a ne
cessity in her membership, even at the ex-
pense of abandoning the necessity of con-
version When these unconverted rich
men, whose money is their only grace are
brought into the church, they must be
given official positions to keep them in good
humor Then when they begin to run the
church on their worldly-wise, selfish and
fashionable principles, certain sections of
the Bible are discredited, God is made al
right to public respect, and the intelligent
people generally drift to secular enjoy
ments, in spite of the complaints of the
preacher Who can blame them, since the
church has really nothing for them? A
plaster fully as broad as the sore must be
applied, if the church ever regains her lost
prestige.
AS a man of broad research, Mr.. Voliva
has no hope of the worlds redemption,
either politically, religiously or econom-
ically through the present acting agencies.
and he has consequently set up a locally
competitive order, whose success thus far
is actually terrifying to the advocates of
the old order He knows that history
gives no account of a corrupt political body
ever purifying itself, SO as to be able to
help the masses with benign political re-
form; nor of a fashionable, formal church
that ever regained its former purity and
power, so as to bless mankind with real
gospel revival.