The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-06-24
"HONESTY IN
THE PULPIT"

On recent Sunday, DR.. Harry
Emerson Fosdick, special preacher
at the First Presbyterian church,
New York city, delivered a stirring
message on Honesty in the Pulpit"
In the course of his sermon, the min
lister declared that there were great
numbers of Christian ministers who
did not dare preach what they be-
lieved chiefly because bread and but
ter for their families might be cut
off If they did. The large congre-
cation that heard DR.. Fosdick taxed
the auditorium of the church and
hundreds were turned away fer lack
of even standing room. DR.. Eos
dick said: II do not see how any
man can stand in a Christian pulpit
and face tho inquiring, eager, often
perpiexed minds of this generation
without hearing the challenge of
truth ringing in their ears. The
problem of the ministry in the mat
ter of honesty is very difficult. For
one thing. tho minister Is public
thing to be. The whole possibility
of glowing and effective public
speaking depends upon the sympa-
thetic response of the audience. In
the pressure is con-
stantly on the minister to give the
people what they want, In theo-
logy, in social and Industrial ques-
lions. in international affairs, he is
tempted not to speak what he really
thinks, but to give the people what
they want. If you could only see
the letters that come to me in large
numbers from ministers who con-
fess this is their position. My SYM
pathy goes cut particularly to the
ministers OF Jesus Christ who are
thus placed. --..- ~ s-,
1.-The struggles to be honest in the
is one OF the most heroic
struggles going on now. And in many
a manse there is a midnight wrest-
ling going on of the minister with
his own soul as to whether he dare
preach what he believes. Imagine
ycurself trying to be- a prophet of
God on a salary that no bricklayer
would look at for a single moment.
with a wife you adore and children
for whose education you would will
lingly spend your blood. and then
facing the responsibility of saying
something next Sunday in the in
terest of truth that Is going to
ALLEVIATE the most powerful elements
in your congregation. Never sup
pose that the ministry in America
does not know what the struggle to
be honest means.
II think of the scores OF young
men with whom each year ] talk
who come up to the very threshold of
the church's work. They want to be
ministers. They adore Jesus Christ
and His truth. They feel tho bitter
need of this erring world for the
divine lesson Of the gospel. Yet often
they do not go into the ministry.
This Is not because they have lost
faith, nor because they are afraid
of niggardly salaries. The difficulty
is that they are afraid that they will
not be allowed to think. They do
not want to run their minds into a
mold. They are passionately de-
termined to obey an Injunction which
they cannot avoid: How many times
shall l adjure thee that thou tell me
nothing but that which Is true in
the name of the LordT Whenever
you find a minister trying to think
through the truth OF Christianity in
terms that can be apprehended by
modern minds and lived In modern
circumstances. you would better back
him up, for he Is doing constructive
work."