The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1960-02-12
Our Fight
Lesson for February IA, 1860

! 1HE OF1RlO11AN CNuTCN Is a
fighting church. Long, long ago,
when everybody spoke Latin,
somebody nicknamed the church
on earth "Ecclesia Militans," the
church at War. Only the church
in heaven is called the Church
Triumphant. If the church wins
victories on earth, it cannot sup
pose the war is over. 1t only
breaks out in new place.
What does the church fight?
Sin, of course, for one thing. But
sin is not the only form of evil.
There is also suffering, and the
church wages war against that,
as every church hospital testi-
fieS. There is ignorance too, and
so the number Of church schools
and colleges grows year by year.
(UglineSS is another form of evil,
but the church has been very
slow to recognize this, and in
deed many churches have actu-
ally added to the sum of ugliness
in the world. But that is another
story
When Evil Is Organized
A great part Of the evil in the
world is spontaneous. Nobody
seems to push it, it just starts
by itself. 1t is occasional not
regular. unpredictable not GER
tain, individual not organized.
But another great part of the
worlds evil is regular, certain
and far from spontaneous. 1t is
organized. 1t knows the church
is its enemy and it takes steps,
often all too effective, to muzzle
the church or by any means to
beat down its opposition.
In the story Of Saint Paul at
Ephesus, there is a typical case
of organized evil. The silver
smiths there did a big business
making little shrines of the local
goddess and selling these. When
Christianity came to Ephesus in
the persons of Paul and others.
t h e S e Silversmiths we're not
heard from. for some time. But
as more and more persons were
converted, fewer and fewer be-
lieved in the local goddess or
bought her little shrines any
more. So then the silversmiths
got together, worked UP a mass
meeting, raised so much trouble
in fact that for a bad few min
utes it looked as if Paul might
not get out of the mob's clutches
alive.
AS with that incident. so it is
always: The motive for organ
lied evil, determined. planned
opposition to the church and
what it is doing-t the motive is
nearly always money. Whenever
it becomes clear that if the
churchs convictions about bet
ter world actually come true, the
income of large number Of
people will be cut down or cut
off, then you see evil getting or
ganized fast.
Big Business
In commercial civilization
like ours. when evils of any sort
are organized that is, when they
represent investments of money
on wide scale, when their
stocks are sold in the market
like other stocks, such evils be
come more deadly than ever, for
then otherwise good and intelli-
gent people viii. support such
evils on the ground that to inter-
fere with them interferes with
the right of private property. the
right Of investors, the profit
motive. Take the liquor business
as an outstanding example. 1t is
enormously profitable to it's oper-
ators Liquor is made available
to American troops abroad, in
some areas, at cost; this reduces
the "stateside" price by as much
as three-fourths. In other words,
fourths of what a man pays
at a local store for a fifth" Of
Whiskey is somebody's profit-a
good many Somcbodies.
Human or Property Values?
When efforts have been made
in Congress for example, to for
bid liquor advertising in maya
zines or otherwise, these at
tempts have generally failed.
The " lobby" never fails to point
out that to curtail the right of
any business to advertise is to
interfere with the system of free
enterprise, and to attack the
profit motive. It never occurs to
them that the very same argu-
ment would permit the advertis-
ing Of drugs like heroin and CO.
caine. People make money from
the sale of such things. why not
encourage them? The Christian
question ought TO be. not docs
this make money!" but What
does this thing do to the people S
lives and the happiness of the
community"
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