The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1938-08-30
cHRIsrIANlrY's CRITICAL CHALLENGE


Immediately ahead.
They have abundant for such prediction
and possibility.
1t is aside the point to try to take hardand-fast
facts and present-day conditions and fitting them
into the symbols of prophecy to prove the point.
Nor need one measure such possibilities on the
basis of the worldwide wreck that has occurred
in the moral standards of the human race nor in
the pestiences of passion which everywhere rage
on every front nor in any of the visible and spec
tacuar departures of society from proper religious
attitudes and conduct
These are distressing and terrifying. One who
studously looks out upon human society today has
reason for burrows of fear his face and deep
anxeties in his heart
It's mirror that makes for melancholy, I'M
ending panorama of the lusts and lecheries of men,
of governments snarling and growing and gnash-
ing their teeth in the faces of another, of fierce
international angers and hates, of appalling crime
and degeneracy-a world of social muck and de-
Element and pollution and extravaganzas of all
manner of evil.
1t may be for all We know or can learn from
the written epics of all the ages of all the evils OF
men that Sin has never been more spectacular nor
Gomorrah or Tyre and Sidon than at this hour.
But it is not for this as horrible and challenging
as this may be and ought to be, that the hosts of
Christian righteousness and truth have reason for
new fears.
After all, for whatever comfort it may be- there
are no new immoralities Neither before nor since
the corrupt King of England offered the half of
his kingdom to whosoever would invent for him a
sin has new heen discovered.
Evil today is the evil with which man first was
born only it has more speed, more aluring blan-
dishments, more defiance, etfrontery and
more theatres.
ChrStiantys threat today arises not so much
from immoral conduct as from immoral concepts.
It's the whole philosophy of life which The Cali
lean came to propose and to expound which is
coming under the deadly fire of conceptions
and PHILOSOPHERS.
There is spiritual poison in the political potions
that are being poured down the threats of the free
peoples of the earth today, of our own people
if so it be that they are drinking of this cup.
Men of Christ dare not stand mute and immo-
bile when they see democracy on the run.
For may we not agree that insofar as the human
content is concerned democracy and Christianity
are interchangeable terms Democracy is nothing
but the political for the ideals in social rela-
tiOnshps which Christianity brought into the world
as religion
At any rate, We certainly can untedly assent
that the birth of democracy is concident to the
birth of Christianity and that many of the more
important moral and religious principles of Chris
tianity flower out in democracy.
So it must be that any social political concept
that collides with the concept of democracy colides
also with the concept of Christianity and, if left
unchecked and unresisted will leave human society
not only without its common liberties but without
its Christian faith.
That explains why Russia when it enthroned
the State dethroned Christianity and held a mock
funeral of God in professional through the streets
of Moscow Russia could not keep God as sovereign
when it made government its god
That explains, ALSO why Germany silenced the
voice of its Christian evangelists closed the doors
of their Christian churches, shackled their feet and
silenced their tongues. The religion of Christ has
always been compelled to decrease in proportion as
the religion of the State has increased
Look where you will in ancient history of this
mornings newspaper and you will find that in every
ease in which the State is deihed, the deity OF
Christ is denatured and denied
Churchmen of the Christian order of society and
of an ancient faith should be alive to this subtle
and sinister device that is moving out today from
the pagan minds Of social reformers and lustful
politicians
Against their misunderstanding philosophy, the
the cause of Christ has barred its breast since the
day that Jesus himself dared imperial Rome to
battle for the allegiance of the world.
Against his challenge Savonarola Numbered
from the pulpit in Florence and Calvin at Geneva
and Luther mailing his immortal theses to the ca
thedral door at Wittenburg.
We marvel that the American pulpit has been so
soft spoken in the pressure of this monster that
clearly seems to be threatening an invasion of our
liberties and of our faith call it by whatsoever
name you please. ~ .sar.. .' g.. - I'd
| Equally we marvel that citizens. of the State
who profess first Royalties to their Christian citizen
ship are unterrifed, often unimpressed, by
! the obvious evidences of this onrushing menace
and challenge to the heritages of their religion.
the MORE ABUNDANT LIFE
| Is this the more abundant life? Wheat No. l,