Christians and the World

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 14, 1907

Christians and the World

A SUBSCRIBER asks if it would be right for a Seventh-day Adventist to join the farmers' union or any other union, or to take shares in a worldly factory.

1. He who joins a union agrees to submit to the rules which govern the union. He agrees to its principles, and they become his rule of action. The union becomes his master. Now, no man can have two masters. The Christian has but one rule of conduct—the principles enunciated in the Word of God. He has one Master, even Jesus Christ. When he accepts another, he by that act turns his back upon Jesus Christ. The principles that govern the struggles of the labor unions are not the principles of the Man of Calvary. They are not the principles of the golden rule. The unions are “fighting for their rights.” But Christ told his followers that if a man demanded their cloak, they should give him their coat also. There was no “standing up for rights” in his teaching, no demanding of things not freely granted, no combinations to boycott those who did not grant demands. But the unions do those things; therefore they who join the unions, adhering to the principles they are governed by, are necessarily abandoning the principles laid down by our Lord; and when they abandon his principles, they abandon him as their Master. If it is our chief purpose as laboring men to protect our rights against any and all, we shall probably think it expedient to join the unions. But if it is our chief purpose to exemplify Jesus Christ in our life and teaching, we can not join any such organizations. The two things are opposed to each other; they are founded on different rocks. The one is the rock of self-service, self-seeking, selfishness; the other is the rock of self-effacement, self-sacrifice.

2. The Christian is God's steward, entrusted with funds sacred to the cause of Christ. When he puts those funds into worldly enterprises to make money for himself, he turns them out of their proper channel; he opposes the purpose God had in putting them into his hands. So far as increase for the cause of God is concerned, he buries his talent in a napkin; and he is never sure in thus burying it that he will be able to find it again. The chances are largely against his ever doing so.