Common Honesty in Church Relationship
By W. A. S.
THE Washington Post speaks a sensible word about common honesty in church relationship, rebuking the common newspaper practise of making a hero of the man who throws over the doctrinal standards of his church, while still holding to his place in it. Referring to a recent specific case, and to comments by a leading journal, the Post says:— It is certainly not tyranny or persecution for the authorities of a religious body to require common honesty in the conduct of its ministers. No secular organization permits its agents to violate its rules and impair its strength. A railroad corporation, an insurance company, or even the peanut combine, would forthwith put out of its service any agent or employee whose conduct was comparable to that which is charged against the Rev. Dr. Carter. No minister has a moral right to use the influence of his position in spreading dissension in the denomination whose commission he bears, and to whose creed he pledged fidelity as a condition precedent to his ordination. The world is wide. It has room enough for all creeds and all beliefs and their advocates. No man is compelled to belong to any church or to preach any doctrine. But an honest man, having been ordained to preach any particular doctrine, and having promised to be faithful to a particular creed, will step down and out, on his own motion, when he becomes convinced that the doctrine or creed is not true. This standard of morality does not obtain to any great extent in the modern crusade of unbelief. There is apparently a studied purpose to sow the seeds of doubt and undermine the faith from the point of vantage within. Thus the churches are leavened, and the voice of protest smothered. It is startling to watch the sweeping progress of the new-thought ideas through the denominations. Within the last two or three years the change has amounted to a revolution. False philosophy is spreading like a plague. W. A. S.