Evening star., 1928-10-10

favor which the church should ask
of the cotemporary world Is freedom to
lift up Christ before men. Without
that freedom 1t would perish. The
church may well say Give me liberty
or give me DEATH
"Unhappily, the priceless possession
Of religious liberty. which has been
won at great cost, is being threatened
in our day. It is threatened by a con-
ception of nationalism which takes the
form of an intellectual imperialism,
claiming not only omnipotence but
omniscience, penetrating the recesses
of the mind and branding constructive
criticism as reasonable. 1t is threat
ened by dominating Secularism which
takes offense at being told that the
and the things which are unseen are
eternal It is being threatened by
commercial and political interests which
would use the church for their own
ends but otherwise abuse 1t. Is there
to be a renaissance of religious il1toler-
ance in this land to which men came
for freedom? Is Erastianism to be re-
born In America, where the separation
of church and state Is fundamental?
Are men to be compelled by law to
teach their children a special brand OF
religion and to set them against the
general trend of science, especially IN
these days, when the reconciliation OF
science and religion Is getting under
way? Are ministers of the Gospel to
be put under pressure to idolize the
present social order. which brought
about the greatest catastrophe in his
tory as if the Gospel of Christ had no
further light to shed on human rela-
tionshipS? Are blackliSts to be made
of many of our pioneers because they
are ahead of their times? God forbid!
| 'Ye shall know the truth and the truth
shall make you free. If the Son shall
make you free, We shall be free indeed
st plead for a free and courageous
pulpit, not a pulpit that invades terri
tories which do not belong to 1t or
that exploits personal opinions and
prejudiceS under the aegiS of the sane
tuary, but pulpit of brave and stall
| Wart ambassadors of Christ, who Will
not shun to declare the whole counsel
of God nor cease to teach and preach
Jesus Christ in those many spheres OF
| life where He Is still q stranger.
Important Matters Pending.
"This convention would not fulfill its
purpose if in its general tone and char
acter it failed to magnify the Lord
above all things. Many important
matters will come before us. Not all OF
them, however, are of firSt-rate impor-
tance Will your permit your preacher
| to say that our main task Is not to
| provide so many million dollars for the
budget (Which would be an easy thing
| to do If our people had the love OF God
in their hearts,, but to awaken in the
church fresh zeal for the conversion
of souls. Our chief task is not to per-
| petuate the controversies and logo
machies of the sixteenth century, but
to meet some of the pressing problems
of the twentieth century. Our great
burden Is not to find the choicest Ian
guage in which to phrase our worship,
but somehow to learn how to persuade
the wanderers outside the fold and the
detached adherentS within the fold to
worship God in any language. Our
duty is not to define Sacraments over
again or to haggle about their number.
Better would 1t be for the church If
our people were taught to elevate every
f, means of grace into sacramentS than to
! give such scant recognition to the sig
nif1cance of the two greater sacraments.
| Our duty Is not to restrict peoples de-
votion at the altar, but to labor to
bring 1t about that the Christ who Is
| worshiped at the altar is not crucified
afresh in parlors and slums and con-
ditionS that permanently depreciate the
human stock. Our work Is not to settle
the controversy between fundamental
ism and modernism, which exhibits
more fear than faith on both sides, but
to engender such personal devotion to
Jesus Christ as would force this con-
troversy into the background. 1t Is not
our duty to find an irreducible minimum
Of belief and practice which will barely
save mans skin, but to aim at maxi
mum faith and service without being
too meticulous as to rigid conformity
to some narrow customs.
THE problems which confront the
church today can all be gathered up
into one problem. 1t is the problem
of seculariZation-the seculariZation OF
the home as though the family were
the creature of the state and Chris
tian marriage only a civil contract, and
as though Christianity could survive in
a church of secularized homes; the
SeculariZation of business as though
the chief end of man was to make
money rather than to glorify God and
enjoy Him forever: the secularization
of politics as though the powers that
b were net The EaspORsjsls ministers