The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1940-11-29
Good Neighbors
BY S. I. McCants
Religion In Our Daily Life

Recognition of and Obedience to a
Supreme Being. We shall try to ex-
plain some of the most important
points In what religion should
mean to us in our daily life. We
begin by saying that no greater
disaster can befall religion than to
become separated from real life.
The Church becomes complicated
with rights and ceremonies end
lessly multiplied. We who are adj
vanc d representatives of the
Church and are familiar with its
religious customs should seriously
be concerned about the major per-
lis now facing Christianity in the
world today. Christ said ne came
not to destroy, but to fulfill the
scriptures. The fact that the
church is technical and has con-
cerned itself with sophisticated
theologies, and complicated rituals
also sacred vestments, and Gus
toms, together with special Jargon,
until it has pushed itself off into
a pigeon hole and made it possible
for multitudes of intelligent and
on the whole right-minded people
to treat it as an irrevelancy, or in
other words, like Abraham Lin
coin decided that they can't make
heads or tails out of it.
What Is True Religion?
Amos said of the Church and in
his day. II hate, despise your
feasts and 1 will take no delight in
your assemblies"
/ Micah said in his day, what
doth the Lord require of thee but
to do Justly and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with thy God"
Then Christ came and exclaimed
in no uncertain words that human
life was the most sacred thing on
earth. He rebuked scribes and pha-
risees for their haste to the temple
to perform their religious cere-
monies, and leaving a victim of the
robbers by the roadside to die.
you are wrong" said the Savior,
"the life of the robbers victim is
more sacred than all your temples
and their routine of service"
He then laid aside all of their old
traditional laws and gave them
the truth concerning religion. He
simplified the more than a thou
sand routines and laws, practiced
by the scribes and pharisees, into
these few words Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy strength
and thy neighbor as thyself. So
aside from all our thousands of
different denominations with hun
dreds of thousands of routines and
rituals, all there is to much dis
cussed and much mistaken religion
of Jesus Christ, is to love God and
your neighbor as yourself.
The saving of one soul is more
precious in Gods sight than all
the traditional or even so-called
holy thing in Israel of the sanctu-
aries of today, lest we forget.
Will you not agree with me that
we need more love for human life
in our each and every heart? Yes,
we return to paganism when we
allow true religion to be separated
from real life. We will not ask
anyone to be conventionally reli-
gious, but I wish some of you who
have not "seen it this way before,
would see that Jesus himself des-
pissed conventional religion. 1t was
in his teachings about ethics, and
about God telling us what is ever
lastingly so about our lives. Our
conventional church programs of
today, have cut the real services
to God to less than half of the time
we spend in gathering finance and
praising the great financial gains
in building great edifices to God
who seldom if ever enters them.
We need to simplify our religion
just as Christ the head of the
Christian Church has commanded
us to.
Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself
Obedience to these few words on
the part of the people of the earth
will end all wars and destruction
everywhere, and peace, the most
precious thing on earth today will
fill every heart.
When do we start? We can't
begin earlier than now to love God
and all mankind.
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