The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1926-12-13
THE COMPLAINT OF THE
CHURCHES
BY N. d. Cochran

Incidents multiply to indicate that some clergy
men are worrying about why many people have
fallen away from the churches. There appears to be
a general complaint the part of Protestant
churches. Let's take days sermons in New
York City.
The pastor of Calvary Episcopal Church said in
his ''For religion has lost hold
upon thousands of people in generation who need
religion and cannot live without 1t. Somehow they
have been driven away from churches-whether by
stupid SERVICES unfriendly reception, timid ut
terance Christians whose lives do not ring true 1t
is not all the fault of those who are on the outside;
much of the fault lies with within the church We
been too formal too cold, too unreal. And 1t is
time us make special and heroic effort to win
them back agan-not to u.s. not to formal and stupid
and complacent religion, but to the living Christ"
Rev. Father O'Connor, at ST. Patricks Cathedral
said: MANY people today don't want Christ in their
lives, and fear that the government under which
we live Is not wholly Christian. We pass laws and
ordinances against the laws Of Christ If Christ
lived in New York today He would be arrested and
placed in Jail, while Herod, living with his brothers
wife, would be received everywhere in the best So
ciety."
At the First Presbyterian Church. the pastor said
LAS long ministers Of Christ caricatured in
motion pictures and hated by of evil Intentions
their profession requires enough vitality, heroism
and personal forcefuness to make 1t attractive TO
young who hear the call of God to undertake
that work"
Bishop Luther B. Wilson, at St. Marks Methodist
Church. said that youth belongs to the church and
can be saved and added, 1.-The moro youth comes to
l
church and then it will church better,
will come to be like Jesus Christ"
The preacher who said thousands of people have
been driven away" from the church told the story
He didn't say they had been lured tempted
dragged away from the church by sports, the movies
other outside influences. If they driven
away" it by something inside the church. 1t
can't be Christianity, for that is just good it
when Christ preached the gospel of love. So 1t
must be they driven away by bogus Christianity
by stupid and embarrassing preachers who don't
1ynn ouf dOT1pf liHro and T1hria
tanity of Christ.
The standard of learning, intelligence and UNI
derstanding is always moving upward among civil
lized people The young Of this generation
wiser than the youth of any past generation That
doesn't that their yearning for real religion is
less than that Of their parents grandparents, but
it does that they don't get any thrill out of
bedtime stories for Undergraduates.
And grownupf who able to their own
thinking don't need to to church to get political
from uniformed preachers who know little
about religion and less about politics.
A preacher who really knows and believes in the
Christianity Of Christ doesn't have to hurl hells-re
and damnation at his congregation. He doesn't have
to bother his head about whether Jonah swallowed
the whale the stood still for Joshua. He
doesn't need to discuss the biology astronomy or
physics Of Genesis. There is enough of the lfe
philosophy and the teaching of Jesus in the New
Testament furnish material for up-todate sermons
as long as he lives to occupy pulpit. And there a
2,000year-old message that the present generation
would find interesting, instructive and inspiring If
the message were delivered In church
II preachers who worry about what is driving
thousands of people away from the churches really
want to find out WHY, they easily do by get
ting the average intelligent man or woman to tell
them the truth. Among other things they will dis
that when people ask for bread they don't want
stone; that they expect spiritual inspiration in
church instead OF meddling interference with their
physical appetite
think real trial of Christianity in Christian
church would be interesting experiment,