Norwich bulletin., 1920-03-22
CHRISTIANITY
 WAS NOT IN cHRIsT's MESSAGE

ferent from soft inVeFtebrate Chris tianity that impresses nobody. de- clared Rev. pr. s. H.. Howe Sunday at Park Congregational church in a Lenten sermon upon The l Severity of Christ. The pastor coiin- selled that Lent was a good time to re-examine some of our beliefs, par ticularly as to the amiable, soft spoken Christ. The text was Luke II 3:16, 17-JoIn answered, saying unto them all, indeed baptize you with | water: but there cometh he that is I mightier than I, the latchet of whose [ shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he I, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost [ and with fire; whose fan is in his | hand thoroughly to cleanse his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
 In part he spoke as follows:
 Lent recalls us to some serious | thinking. We cannot live on a set of blooming optimisIns Unrestrained optipism brings us up against some I hard facts of life. which it does not solve. It cannot blanket and cover down everything in hard and tough human experience or in the ominous
 hints of scripture There are some
 broad spaces where fear had better
 walk and ring some warning notes
 we l1dQ DGlltT Ldk6 some ClOSe ElanceS
 at life's grim and ghastly facts; take
 ourselves into interlocutory and find
 out our exact relation to those facts
 We had better at this Lenten season
 re- e-ezamine some of our beliefs and
 deepest convictions, for according to
 our creed we live.
 Is it not a time to re-examine our
 Christological thinking? We have
 been for a half century thinking of a
 coir orad ief to1@1
 easy going, ready to make easy terms
 for all classes, overlooking or palliat-
 ing human weakness and human ob- duracy, loving everybody with indis-
 tinguishable affection, all but blind to ethical distinctions, with the result of
 a soft. invertebrate Christianity that
 inpresses nobody and fails to dredge
 the depths of the soul itself. We have been thinking of a Christ as the ut
 terer of euphemisms, Christ of the softly cadenced voice, an arniable being who walked the fields of daffo- dils and the gardens of lilies of the old Galilee. Is it not time to remind ourselves of the seventies and austeri- 1 ties of this man of Nazareth as one ] mightier than the denunciatory Bap- i tist whose winning fan Is in His hand and who will thoroughly purify His | floor and will separate wheat from | Cildtl dftd pOIll u56ltSSll6SS anu ldlSity in unquenchable fire? Have we not been merging the lion with the lamb and forgetting that He could flame forth in white hot glistening wrath, 1 Literary men, not theologians like | John Morley and Lowell, tell us there 1 is explosive material enough in the l Sermon on the Mount to '-blow so- ciety to pieces" Gilbert Chesterton 1 tells there is fire enough in Christ's l teachings to "burn society to rags He I tells us again that he has been going
 to the four gospels for facts and that | he finds no soft speeched Teacher but
 "an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, fliuging down tables, casting out dew ills, raising the dead. acting like an angry God, but always like a god, ,' calling Himself sword of slaughter and a leaping fire, demanding of His
 followers that they sell their coat and
 buy a sword for long and desnerate
 campaign. What He thinks of our easy going, -pedalling lives. inno- cent of sacrifice and guiltless of cross es, would be interesting to know No:
 l Jesus Christ is not an amiable person at all. for amiahleness is weakness . Had He been amiable He would have |, offended nobody. would never hay,
 been lied about or cruci6ed.
 Now it was this sort of Christ whC , told us all the severe things about life who laid down hard conditions of dis , cipleship and told us that He had nt
 manner of use for any but heroes ant 7 overcomers. He said we must cruejf, 1 ! our selfishness and seek His affair : first and foremost, live, but live fo sl Him, make a fortune, but make 1t fo . Him, make sacrifices for Him, eve d unto laying down our lives.
 h It was He that told us that sin wa
 dangerous business, both in this worl . and the world to come. All the Sc if verities of the Bible are His severitie - all the Biblical teaching about tn l. separation of classes and about th II night to which sinful men are heade, n true or false. are His teaching, so ths .e we had better turn our sneerss ava . from theologians. We had better thin o of some of these 'bedridden truths" " which Coleridge speaks, and Lent is ,r good time. Our long conspiracy d silence had better be broken up. TT # subject is reappearing. A company = B'hie students lately, when asked n, choose their subject, chose this on, ,r Jesus was necessarily speaking of s = and guilt and the peril of it all. W m have been busy puRging the recol +b Land washing the slate and writing ol ,s Everdict of human life and denyir sa with endless reiteration that there n any such thing as the defeat of Divil - love.
 nt Without appeal to medieval exa a- geration or the more lurid and plai m spoken parables and dogmatic teac to ing of the gospels, we might To, ', about us as simple observers of hum; ,y, life and then ask are the facts of Ii - in harmony with those dogmat
 1 teachings of Jesl,s2
 1. We need only observe the wor
 ing of sinful life. The spoliation of IA the tender and beautiful things c. character. The deep furrews 1t plo' ed in human faces and human caree IT, The fading of vision, the hardening A hearts, the petrifaction of feeling. | ed hiding of truth, the blind -staggeri ife of the intellect, the eclipse of | c- spiritual world which once brood be over men.
 b- Or we might appeal to experien ITS The hunting. haunting pursuit of { as transgression. The coming back mi old ghostly apparitions. The upsul .s- ing of that unconscious world i ua sublininal self in dreams and in sha II owed hours, revealing world of pt nj sib1e evil which is the most fright S rS thing in life which may well drive ad to the Fountain of Blood and of u ,r. from whence the cleansing alone ( a,s come.
 s en 2. Then there is the ominous tes he mony of science. Science Is a ell
 .o observer of the facts of life, bl VI 9afhqrirQ rfanfc and dadunfpo Jo