Church Federation by H. A. WEAVER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 30, 1915

Church Federation

By H. A. WEAVER

The National Conference on Church and Country Life, held at Columbus, Ohio, December 8-10, under the direction of the Federal Council of the Churches, is presided over by Hon. Gifford Pinchot, participated in by delegates from nearly all Protestant denominations and from every State in the Union, and favored by addresses from Governor Willis of Ohio and President Wilson, may fairly be said to be another long step by modern Christianity in the direction of the latter-day apostasy, foretold by the prophets of the Bible.

Among the leading delegated speakers were Dean Shailer Mathews, of Chicago, president of the Federal Council of the Churches; Bishop W. F. Anderson, of Cincinnati; Prof. W. O. Thompson, president of Ohio State University; Mr. Fred B. Smith, noted as the originator of the Men's Religion and Forward Movement; Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield, president Massachusetts Agricultural College; Bishop Joseph F. Berry, Philadelphia; Bishop John M. Moore, Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. E. Tallmadge Root, Boston, Mass.; Rev. Henry Wallace, Des Moines, Iowa; Dr. Washington Gladden, Columbus, Ohio; and nearly five hundred others prominent in the movement throughout the country.

The conference concerned itself with the best methods to be employed by the Christian forces in the United States to socialize Christianity, or, in the words of President Butterfield of Massachusetts Agricultural College, to better promote through church influence “good roads, public health, and sanitation, consolidation of schools where possible, social and recreation centers, community beautification, celebration of religious and patriotic holidays, boys’ and girls’ agricultural contests,” etc.

Specifically the result of the conference was to create machinery for the carrying out of these principles by federating the rural churches throughout the land; and to accomplish this, Bishop W. F. Anderson said, “the community church which has the acknowledged leadership should have right of way, while the church or churches which are struggling for existence [meaning the churches of small membership] should step aside.”

Significant Utterances

Some noteworthy statements which unquestionably indicate a swinging away from the Bible plan of saving individual souls, are herewith given:—

Said Rev. Harry F. Ward, of Boston, Mass.: “We have discovered that our program demands that we must establish social justice, which means social righteousness, not alone between individuals, but between groups. Social justice is the demand made of religion. . . . Social justice means justice between groups.”

Section 2 of the report of the committee on federation and cooperation, presided over by Rev. E. Tallmadge Root, Boston, which was unanimously adopted

by the conference, says: “There is a gratifying recognition, on the part of betterment movements, of the fact that all social problems are, in ultimate analysis, moral, and therefore insoluble without the aid of institutions of religion, which alone can bring adequate motives. This gives the church today an opportunity unsurpassed in history. With the proper attitude, as R. Fulton Cutting has shown in his ‘Church and Society,’ they may even cooperate with, and use, ‘the institutions of the democratic state.’”

Gov. Frank B. Willis of Ohio said in his address: “The day of two or three or four small churches in a community of two or three hundred people is past. The times forbid the continuation of sectarian differences that have agitated and at times disrupted the churches of former days. Neighboring churches of all denominations must work together for the solution of their problems. Social conditions must be given consideration.”

Religion by Wholesale

Dean Shailer Mathews said, “Religion is no longer a matter of the closet, but it is a matter of public welfare.” He went on to say that the old idea that Protestantism is broken into fragments is no longer true since the day of federation has dawned. The federation idea “is not endeavoring to correct doctrinal mistakes, but to work out, through the unified life of the church, a sort of social democracy.” “Christianity has not yet been tried in international life,” he continued, “but it is soon to be not only tried, but successfully demonstrated in the working out of international problems.”

The same idea was set forth by Mr. Fred B. Smith, of New York City:—

“Divided Christianity is responsible for the present European war. I believe there was Christian power enough in the world to have stopped the war, if Christianity had spoken with one voice; and, mark you, it will occur again, with a segregated Christianity. We are indulging an idle fancy if we contemplate a permanent peace with a segregated sectarianism.”

After speaking in commendable terms of Huss, Luther, and other reformers down to D. L. Moody, and affirming that these were as truly prophets of God as were any of the Bible characters, he suggested that such persons as Washington Gladden, Jane Addams, Professor Rauschenbusch, and other social workers of the present day are to have an honored place with these among all of God’s prophets. Continuing, he said:—

“The new school of prophets who will lead the church for the next twenty-five years are those who are big enough to say to the church, ‘We must have unified Christianity.’ Either the church must accept the scrap heap or prepare to accept unified action.”

Then, unconsciously including himself among this same company of present-day prophets, he ventured to predict that “in five years the essentials of religion will be taught in every high school and college in the land; in ten years every man will have equal opportunity for the economic advantages of life.”

Thus the representatives of church and state are today building up a tower of Babel with the bricks and mortar of their own reasoning. Thus it was that

the trend of Scripture teaching was conferenced and conventioned away by the church-and-state philosophers of the apostasy period of the early centuries of the Christian era. That early apostasy was plainly foretold by the apostle Paul and other inspired writers, and this latter-day falling away is as plainly foretold by the same godly seers.

God’s Word says concerning this time, “Say ye not, A confederacy”—a unified course of action based on men’s teaching. Then to his people who will be alive to behold this situation, he says, “Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread;” then to his messengers, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” After that he points to the secret of the individual Christian’s stability when these things come to pass: “And I will look for him.” Isa. 8:13-17. H. A. WEAVER.