p. 186 | Untitled article by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York City · June 11, 1896

METHODISTS AND THE “CHRISTIAN AMENDMENT.”

By S.

A COMMITTEE of the Methodist Episcopal General Conference have been wrestling with the question of giving the indorsement of the M. E. Church to the proposed “Christian amendment” to the National Constitution; but, according to the Christian Statesman, of May 23, the latest news from the conference regarding the matter was “a good deal of a disappointment.” It seems that the cause of the amendment has not had very smooth sailing within the sphere of action of this highest of Methodist representative bodies, but its friends console themselves—not without reason, we fear—with the hope of better success at an early day.

The Statesman records that when the matter of indorsing the amendment came up for consideration, one “member of the conference attributed the origin and pushing of the amendment to the Christian Endeavor societies as one of their ‘idiotic movements.’ A delegate from the Wilmington, Del., Conference, proposed as a substitute, an amendment containing simply an acknowledgment of God, declaring that the Christian amendment would establish a theocracy in America and unite Church and State. The entire matter

was referred to the committee on the state of the Church. This committee laid the matter on the table. But on the earnest presentation of the cause by Mr. R. M. Downie, of Beaver Falls, Pa., it was taken up again and discussed at considerable length. Once more it was proposed to substitute the acknowledgment of Almighty God without any reference to Christ. But many of the committee insisted that the amendment should be Christian in its character. And as there was such determined opposition in the committee to the acknowledgment of Christ, the whole matter was laid on the table.”

Strongly attached as the Methodists are to Sunday observance, and to the doctrine that Sunday is the Lord’s day, it is yet evident that a large element in the denomination recoil from such a step in the process of securing Sunday enforcement as the proposed amendment embodies. It is evident that many are not yet blind to the fact that its success would mean a union of Church and State.

The Statesman takes this action as representing an attitude of indifference, if not of hostility, to the “reform” scheme on the part of the entire Methodist body, and says: “It is a deep grief to multitudes of the most patriotic members of this great church, in which the spirit of Christian reform is strong, that this committee has, by its official action, put itself and the General Conference which it represents and thus the entire church as a unit, on record against the nation’s acknowledgment in its fundamental law and in its most public confession of national character before the world, of the kingly character and claims of our Lord Jesus Christ. But,” the Statesman adds, “this record will not stand.”

We fear it will not. Already the Prohibition Party in Iowa and Pennsylvania have signified allegiance to the cause, and it is not to be expected that the churches will fall behind political bodies in giving the amendment support. We are persuaded, however, that large numbers in all the leading churches will refuse to sanction a scheme so contrary to the spirit of Christianity and the demands of justice, whether sanctioned by the representative church bodies or not.