Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-05-31
Failures All?

Your soul-searching editorial
on President Eisenhower's
Baylor University talk won-
ders at the fairness of critics
who single out for attack the
Presidents statement that
communism is, in it's deepest
sense, a gigantic failure" You
do not believe the President
was trying to lull us into any
false sense of security. Neither
was he implying that Commu-
mist criminal aggresSiveness,
that has enslaved millions,
was not a clear and present
danger to our own survival.
Rather you felt his cynical
partisan critics should take
warning that their irreSpon-
Sible slashing of foreign aid
was a victory for communism.
In doing it, we repudiated the
real keynote of the Presidents
talk: THE difficulties and mis-
fortunes of the weak are met
by help from the stronger.
If this is the key truth of
the Presidents Baylor Univer-
Sity address, does it not point
the accusing finger of moral
indictment in our direction?
In Gods sight. are we not
also a gigantic failure?
AS always, we derive much
comfort from scorning the
sins of others. Communism is
guilty of sins and crimes so
depraved that the human mind
fails to find words of loathing
and contempt to describe their
flendish horror. But what
about our own moral default
and failure?
We have failed because we
have reduced the teachings of
Jesus to a controversial sys-
tenn of theology instead of ac-
cepting them as a way of life.
The Communists have ex-
plotted the difference. AS a
system of theology, Christian
ity has been divisive and de-
structive in the hands of those
who pretend to practice it.
Historically its precepts of the
fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man have been
deSecrated by fratricidal wars
and prosecutions. We have
honored the teachings of Jesus
by MARRYING, mutilating.
slaughtering and enslavement
OF tens of millions of those in
the Christian communion. In
raining total hell on our
enemies, we also destroyed the
helpless and the innocent.
Surely this is no teaching of
Jesus. Even now, Protestants
and Catholics of our North and
South have no spiritual one
ness with God and truth about
the inalienable rights of hui
man dignity. The relics of
slavery still persist in sectional
mores and prejudices and
mates. Once world peace was
simple ma ter of beating
swords into plowshares. Now
1t is the seemingly impossible
task of freezing the thermo-
nuclear mushrooms of suicidal
hell. The alternative is Chris
tianity as a way Of life.
What is Christianity as a
way Of life? 1t is something so
simple a child can understand
it. Unlike Christianity, the
controversial system of the
ology. its understanding does
not require profound scholar
ship that destroys heretics
and persecutes unbelievers. In
his parable of the last judg-
ment, Jesus reveals the simple
method of testing those who
follow and those who reject the
fatherhood Of God and the
brotherhood Of man: For I
was an hungered and We gave
me meat. I was thirsty, and We
gave me drink. / was a
stranger and We took me in.
Naked and We clothed me. l
was in prison and We came
unto me-"
Communism is not the only
gigantic failure. Until our do
nestle and foreign policy con-
forms with Christianity as a
way of life, instead of Chris
tlanity as a divisive. selfish
and unrepentant theology, we.
too, are gigantic failure.