Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · December 8, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 48

A Hindrance to Religion.

THE Christian says: “It is surely no favorable symptom that a bull-ring of colossal dimensions and capable of accommodating 12,000 spectators has been opened at Lisbon. What good influence can the national religion exert when the Sunday is devoted to such a debasing, brutal pursuit?”

Indeed it is not a favorable symptom. There is nothing good about it. But what about the question that is asked,—“What good influence can the national religion exert when the Sunday is devoted to such debasing, brutal sports?” The answer must be, None. The national religion can do no good for various reasons, one of which is that the national religion is favorable to such things, and another is that national religion never did and never can do any good. Individual religion would put a stop to such practices, if the religion were of the right kind, and if there were enough individuals who possessed it. But national religion means religion by law, and law never made anybody good.

National religion fosters such things, because national religion is necessarily at the expense of individual religion of the vital sort. When there is a national religion, people naturally come to think that nothing is required except what the law of the land demands, which is necessarily nothing but form and ceremony, and so they do not realize the necessity of a change of heart. But when the heart is unchanged, the evil that is in it will find vent in some way.

But leaving the question of national religion aside, think of the question again. It shows a growing tendency of the age. The idea is growing among the churches that much of the work of evangelizing the world must be done by the secular authority; in other words, that the world must evangelize itself. The State is required to prohibit Sunday amusements, in order that religion may make more headway. Fancy the apostles lodging a complaint that they could do nothing, because the Roman Government provided so many amusements to keep the people away from church! No; they went ahead and preached the gospel, and its power turned the people away from those vanities. A gospel that can not do that is not a gospel at all, and ought not to be preached. It was only when men lost the power of the gospel, that they besought aid from the civil power.

The indifference of government is not the hindrance to the progress of religion. The early Christians, as well as the missionaries to India and China, have demonstrated that. The only thing that can hinder the progress of true religion is the lack of it in the hearts of those who profess it and whose duty it is to proclaim it.—Present Truth, London.