Misrepresenting Christ by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1909

Misrepresenting Christ

By C. M. S.

If Satan transforms himself into an angel of light to advance the cause of his own kingdom through that transformation, we know that he will also misrepresent the true messengers of light, that through that misrepresentation he may counterwork the purposes of the Almighty.

It is the outworking of such a design that has brought about the mischievous misrepresentation of the gospel of Jesus as seen in the prevalent idea that the kingdom of Christ can be advanced by any kind of political arrangement or human legislation, which we might fittingly denominate the “gospel of force.” In the gospel of Jesus Christ there is freedom and the equality and brotherhood of man. It is not so with that misrepresentation of the gospel. Each is the antipode of the other, in purpose, in the process by which it accomplishes its object, and in the object itself, when the program has been worked out.

Jesus refused to sit in judgment or condemnation upon those who, having heard his words, still did not believe. But the “gospel of force” judges, condemns, and executes. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches, invites, convinces, and wins men, in order that eternal life may be bestowed upon them. The “gospel of force” beats down, compels, drives, browbeats, and even kills some, in order that its eminence may be recognized by those who remain, its greatness be acknowledged by men, even at the expense of the lives of some of the men. And that has been done even in our own day. It will be done in the future more than it is to-day; for the “gospel of force,” and government without “the consent of the governed” (that is, government by force), are the chief supporters of that phase of

progress which dominates the so-called Christian nations of to-day.

In the imperial nations which call themselves Christian this dogma of force is the chief tenet in the creed of national progress; and in the republics which also call themselves Christian there is a continued and growing aping of that imperial program. It is not confined to one empire nor to one republic; and the principle is the same wherever found. Even men recognized in the church of Christ as Christian leaders have approved of war upon heathen countries by “Christian” countries as a precursor of missionary work among the people of the conquered country. The cruel and unchristian injustice of such a program seems never to have arrested the attention of such teachers. Christ has never authorized the use of the sword in opening a way to the hearts of the people. The idea of going to a heathen people with “the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other” is a pagan idea, even though proposed by one calling himself Christian. In the pagan mind religion and the sword are closely associated, and it has not been an uncommon thing for one heathen nation to conquer another, and then force the conquered nation to worship the gods of the conquerors. The “gospel of force,” the “gospel of powder and ball,” the gospel of “the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other,” is based upon the same idea. The principle of the Christian religion is, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” It is a matter of free choice. The principle underlying that false system, that system of force in religious things, is, Choose the religion we bring, or feel the fury of the sword.

Between that latter principle and the underlying principle of the gospel of Christ there is a great gulf fixed which no man can bridge. On the one side of that gulf is the throne of everlasting love; on the other side is the throne of the arbitrary despot, on which sits Lucifer, the fallen light-bearer. His church is the church of force; his ministers, the warriors who carry “the Bible in one hand” and the implements of death and destruction in the other. But God, who has warned men against an unequal yoking with unbelief, has never yoked himself with the proponents of any such cruel and ghastly policy. He who said, “I am come that they might have life,” never spoke of the human slaughter-weapon of oppression but to condemn its use as an instrument for the advancement of his kingdom.

We have entered upon a time, however, when armies of subjugation go out with the benediction of religious leaders upon them, exponents of the “gospel of force.” A “Christian” emperor, in sending forth his general to a heathen land, commanded him to “smite with the mailed fist.” That is the fist that mangles and bruises. But in the gospel of Christ the fist becomes an open hand, not smiting, but dispensing benefits; not bruising, but binding up whatever bruising has been done; not wielding the sword, but healing the wound the sword has made. That is the business of the true Christian. He has no fist—his hand is always open to relieve the needs and assuage the sorrows of others.

The “gospel of force” not only carries sorrow, misery, and death with it, but is a continual misrepresentation of the cause of Christ in the earth. He who, under the name of Christian, conducts such a campaign or takes part therein, holds the name of Christ and the gospel of Christ up to the derision and hatred of the heathen world, and compels Christ and his cause to bear cruel and unjust reproach. There is no greater enemy of Christ and his cause than he who, professing to be Christ’s representative, pursues a policy of injustice, cruelty, force, and oppression toward those who have not known him. Force and Christianity are as far apart as the east is from the west, as midnight and noonday, as death and life. Church and state united have given us imperial Christianity. We have found it in Russia, Germany, Austria, Norway and Sweden, England, France, Turkey, and Abyssinia. We found it in the conquests of the Moors; we found it in the Dark Ages; and we are finding it in America to-day, creeping in insidiously in the imitation of the ways of other nations.

There is a better way; there is a purer, kinder gospel; there is a King who never does nor will oppress. That way is the way he trod with bleeding feet; that gospel is the gospel of love and brotherhood; and that King is the maker of the heavens and the earth, the Prince of Peace, the everlasting Father, whose home is the habitation of love, whose throne is set in the hearts of those who are his. Into his service oppression never comes, and out of his hand go none of the cruel arrows that wound the hearts of men. Let us enlist in that service of love; let us preach that gospel of peace. Then shall we triumph in that victory that uproots all things that bruise and oppress, and misrepresent the work and purpose of God. C. M. S.