Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1913

Editorial

By Editor

Are We Losing Our Christian Simplicity?

It is well for us occasionally to put to ourselves this question. Around us in the world evil is rampant. Even in the great Christian church we see a wide departure from the standards and ideals of the past. The line of demarcation between the average church-member and the worldling is well-nigh obliterated. While the church for the most part does not ape the grosser evils of worldliness, yet there are very many who seem to go just as far as it is possible and still avoid the final plunge into the vortex of worldly dissipation.

It must be confessed that this loss of simplicity is apparent among members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. To some among our people the spirit of worldly pleasure is making a strong appeal. We find some of our boys and girls, some of our young men and young women, some of our mature brethren and sisters in the church, yielding to this spirit. Some of the great national sports, moving-picture shows, and resorts of this character find among their devotees members of this church. We do not say that a large number attend, but it is to be sadly regretted that any of those who are looking for the coming of the Lord should find pleasure in ways of this kind. The plainness of dress that once characterized Seventh-day Adventists is not so clearly evident as it was some years ago. Much money is spent for show and ostentation. In some of our churches there is a display of more or less jewelry, rings, and valuable pins.

Perhaps, after all, it does not do so much good to continually preach against these abuses. The work should go deeper than this. Seventh-day Adventists who find their pleasure in worldly sports, in following the fashions of the world, need one of two things — either instruction or conversion. Some we are inclined to believe have been received into the church without proper instruction. Others who have once recognized right principles have grown careless. It is not a condition calling for harsh measures or even unkind criticism, but one for prayerful, kindly labor.

We are surrounded on every side by these disintegrating, antichristian influences. Association with evil makes it become common in our eyes. Its entrance into the church is insidious. Sometimes we come into conditions unconsciously, and before we are aware of the drift of the current, we are being carried down the stream. Hence it is the church itself that needs to awake to a realizing sense of the great temptations that beset our people, and especially our young people, on every side.

We need, even more than exhortation from the desk, to exalt the standard, and in our lives and by our example day by day to place before the younger members of the Lord’s family a proper and consistent example. It will hardly do for one to raise his voice against the wearing of rings when at the same time he displays an unnecessary pin; to speak against the unnecessary ornamentation of the hats of his sisters when by the display of useless ornaments in his own dress he acts quite as inconsistently; nor to protest against theatergoing when at the same time he is carried away by the spirit of the great national games of baseball and football; nor to protest against our boys and girls attending the circus when he is a frequent visitor at the moving-picture shows. There is a consistency in Christian example. We need to preach the truth of God to-day fearlessly and plainly, and at the same time kindly and sympathetically. But above this we need to place before our friends an example in our own lives of the power of Christian living. Our example will preach more powerfully than our words. We may well bemoan the loss of simplicity which we see in some of our friends, but in seeking to stem the current and set ourselves against the rising tide of worldliness, let us see to it that we ourselves, in our own deportment, are the exponents of a consistent Christian standard. F. M. W.