A Great American Church by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 3, 1913

A Great American Church

By F. M. W.

WILL such an institution as a great American church ever be instituted?— We believe it will. At least we believe there will be formed such a union or federation of churches in America as will constitute but one church so far as the carrying out of certain agreed plans and policies are concerned. And we believe this for two reasons. In the first place, the Scriptures of Truth plainly indicate that such a federation will be formed.

In the thirteenth chapter of the book of Revelation we have a striking prophecy of the work which the people of the United States, represented by the symbol of the two-horned beast, will do in the closing days of earth’s history. There shall be formed an image to the papal beast, a union of church and state. The church will carry on its work and enforce its dogmas and doctrines through the power and support which the state affords. This will never be accomplished by a union of the Methodist Church with the state, or of the Baptist Church with the state, or with any one of the American churches alone uniting with the United States government, but it will be accomplished by a federation — by the formation of what we might call a great American church.

This federation will bring such influences to bear upon the government that the government will be led to afford it legal support. We say that the prophecy indicates that this federation will be effected, and this prophecy will be fulfilled.

We believe further that such a federation will take place because we see on every hand elements working to bring it about. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America is in line with this movement. We see arguments in favor of the union advocated by leaders of Christian thought on every side. One of the recent utterances of this kind is by Benjamin W. Bacon, D. D., LL. D., who holds the chair of New Testament exegesis and criticism in Yale University. In an article contributed to the Independent of April 24, he says:—

The time is not far distant when the faith and loyalty and devotion fixed upon this commonwealth of Christ that is to be shall find organic expression. Those who serve and love and hold to this Holy Catholic Church, the communion of all true saints, will find a way to combine freedom and catholicity, leaving the dead past of the Old World and its ecclesiastical quarrels to bury its own dead, and organizing the Church of God in America, free and catholic, a church “having many members but one body.” The promise of it is seen even now in the many combinations for Christian service, the multiplying federations of churches, the leagues and unions for cooperation.

It is proper indeed that the various members of the Christian church should unite for the purpose of promoting moral reform. It is proper that they should throw themselves as one solid phalanx against the strongholds of vice and sin, but the danger comes in the means by which the church will seek to gain power and influence to accomplish its ends. So long as it seeks to uphold Christ and to preach the gospel of his free grace; so long as the church seeks to point out sin and the terrible results that will follow in the wake of evil-doing, and endeavors as did the apostles to persuade men, through the terror of coming judgment and the power of Christ’s love, to turn their feet into right paths, it can expect the blessing of God. But when, no longer content with these heaven-ordained means, it seeks to compel submission to its creed, to require through legal enactment conformity to moral precepts, then it is that it turns aside into the path of the church-and-state combinations of the past, and the end can be only the loss of spiritual power, and separation from God in the day of final reckoning.

O, that the churches of Christ in America today might realize the tendency of the times, the drift of the combinations they are forming, and read in the prophetic word the warning which God is sounding against the course they are pursuing! Upon us to whom a forewarning of the danger has been given rests the responsibility of sounding the warning cry. F. M. W.