The Church Facing a Crisis

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

The Church Facing a Crisis

That the Christian church to-day faces a crisis in its experience is the note being sounded from many quarters. Fred B. Smith, a representative of the Men and Religion Forward Movement, speaking to the Northern Minnesota Methodist Conference, according to the Minneapolis Tribune, emphasized this situation:—

We are in the midst of a crisis in the church. The Methodist Episcopal Church grew until six years ago; then it struck a dead level. If you go on as you are going, you will soon be a dead church. The Presbyterians are facing the same trouble, as are most of the Christian churches. Protestantism for three years has been losing ground.

Of the relation of the church to the masses, Mr. Smith says:—

College men are forsaking the church. We have lost our hold on the masses. What has caused it? Is it because we hold on to a few and let the masses go? Then perish the churches. We have cut out the authority of the Bible. We have rung out all reverence for thought and action. We are breeding a generation of people on ten-cent shows that has no desire to read a book or think a thought. We have cheapened the definition of sin. Hell has no terrors for men. Then we have resorted to all kinds of fantasies to produce conviction of sin, and have utterly failed. The church must drive the grafters out. Then more preachers will lose their jobs.

He charges that in too many instances the preachers are a joke. They feel that the world can be helped by quotations from Browning instead of from the Bible. They seek to become strong social factors rather than preachers of the word. He quotes one man as saying, “Our pastor can tell the bulliest story a man ever heard.” He then inquires, “Is that your preaching?”