p. 13 | Danger Ahead by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 2, 1911

Danger Ahead

By C. M. S.

The Warning Against Religious Persecution Is No False Alarm

There are rapidly developing in this country two parties—not specifically political nor affiliated with any existing political parties; and yet the work of each is certain to affect political conditions.

Both these parties are religious, and claim to be basing their actions upon conscientious Christian motives and convictions. Both are purposeful and unyielding, and each is as much opposed to the purpose and work of the other as it is possible to conceive.

The one party, which is far the stronger numerically, is seeking an entire transformation of the fundamental law of the nation, so that it shall deny to its citizens what it now guarantees them, and require of them what it now denies its right to require.

That party stands opposed also to the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence concerning the equality of all men before the law and their indefeasible rights as men. The alteration which it proposes in our Constitution goes to the very root of the American principle of government. It opposes the government's attitude toward both civil and religious affairs, and in that opposition puts itself where stood the Tories of colonial days, and the religious element which struggled so hard to perpetuate in our national government a union of church and state.

This party, which began to work to a definite end under a perfected organization in the year 1863, has now succeeded in rallying to its support a federation of religious organizations which covers the entire country, and claims to include more than eighteen million of the population of the United States, and to have under its influence not less than thirty-five million. This mighty combination claims also that in at least two of its objects the entire organization of the Roman Catholic Church will stand with it. If that claim be a valid one, there is represented in this movement not less than one half of the population of the United States.

A Most Dangerous Project

Such a marshaling of forces for a definite object, when that object is in such vital opposition to the very foundation of our government, ought to claim the most serious attention of every true American. It is not an obscure party, an obscure sect, nor a handful of ranting bigots, that is carrying this movement forward and comprising its constituency. The influence of its constituency and the strength of its numbers make its purpose more dangerous to our present frame of government than any movement that has ever arisen

within the nation. The attack of the Confederacy was not an attack upon the fundamental principles of our government, but rather upon the extent of our government's jurisdiction. This movement attacks the most vital principles of the national life; it seeks to shatter the foundation-stones upon which the frame of government is erected, that upon the débris it may build a government founded upon different principles, carrying out, not the will of the people, but the purpose of a clerical confederation. In its purpose, religion and the state will be joined as were church and state in colonial days (and are at present in other lands), and the state will apply civil penalties to infractions of church discipline. The rulers will be churchmen, and the state will become the evangelizer of the people as in days of old, and by those oppressive means which were considered expedient then.

The other party holds for the maintenance of the fundamental ideas of the government as incorporated into the Declaration of Independence and the national Constitution; that is to say, for the equality of men before the law, the right of majority rule in civil affairs, and the separation of the church from the functions of government. It holds that the maintenance of these principles is absolutely essential to the liberty of the individual, both civil and religious.

Turning the Nation Backward

It is a matter of no mean importance, this turning back of a nation upon its own track, especially when the bulk of its population has so long considered that the freedom and prosperity of its citizens have been the fruit of the seeds our forefathers planted in the eighteenth century.

We have held forth to the world what Roger Williams called “a livelie experiment,” and under that experiment has grown up a giant youth among the nations. The experiment has succeeded; but upon the very heels of its success comes this move to undo all that has been done, to forsake the watchword of our most earnest endeavor, to extinguish the beacon our fathers lighted, and drive our ship of state back again into that fog-bank of despair from which we began to emerge in 1776.

The germ of this movement, which began to manifest itself as a living entity in 1863, was and still is known as the National Reform Association, with headquarters at Pittsburg, Pa. From the time of its origin until the present it has demanded an amendment to the preamble of the Constitution, which would completely metamorphose that memorable instrument, and a bill is now before Congress to bring that about. It has demanded that all the Christian laws, rules, and usages of the government

be put upon an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land. It has demanded that the government define the religion that may be practised here, and “lay its hand on any religion” that does not conform to the specifications of the government. It has demanded that the government be taken out of the hands of the people, and be put into the hands of what would be a clerical oligarchy, which will give to the people not what the people wish, but what they wish the people to have. It has demanded that the money of the people, raised by general taxation, shall be used for a purpose which only a portion of the people approve of, the support of the teachers of religion,—a proposition which was earnestly pressed upon the founders of this nation, but was rejected by them with well-deserved emphasis.

Not a Government by Majorities

When the régime proposed by this rapidly growing party shall have been adopted, we shall not then have a government of, by, and for the people, but a government of some of the people, by some of the people, for the rest of the people. Said the general superintendent of the National Reform Association at the public institute held at Winona Lake, Ind., in August, 1910:—

This association proposes that there shall be a recognition made in our nation's fundamental law that the law of God, as revealed by Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land.

That strikes a wicked blow at that which is most fundamental in our frame of government. In that purpose, this is no longer to be a republic, but an ecclesiastical oligarchy, or a theocratic form in which the preachers are to be the successors of the prophets, directing governors and presidents as the prophets of old directed the kings of Israel.

The leaders of that organization have anticipated that result, as is indicated by the following, and are ready to have the mantle of prophecy placed upon their shoulders:—

The fact that civil government controls the education of our children, the vital question of marriage and divorce, and even the lives of the citizens, demands that it be placed under divine law, and that God's spokesmen shall utter his will. The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and kings were compelled to consult them.—Rev. J. M. Wylie, Vice-president of the National Reform Association.

What is this but the advocacy of a return to the ancient theocratic system of government, or to the conditions that obtained under the régime of the Papacy during the Dark Ages, and of the Puritan theocracy in colonial days, and

to the methods which both employed? The priests of medievalism and the preachers of colonial days told the state what was “the will of God,” and the subservient state enforced their interpretation of that divine will. It mattered not what cruelty it entailed, it was “God's will,” and they were his (?) agents; and they made him responsible for all they did. They, too, held that the state must “be placed under divine law,” and they attempted to place it there; and through their attempt to do that, there was created not a paradise but a purgatory. Those ancient clerical pilots of the ship of state also declared that “God's spokesmen shall utter his will.” They were his spokesmen; they uttered his will (or professed to); and then they placed themselves on the throne of vengeance to execute God's wrath upon all whom they judged to be disobedient to him or under the frown of his displeasure. “God's spokesmen shall utter his will,” say the National Reformers, and they who are federating together to compel from legislatures the legislation they desire are standing upon the same platform. Will they “utter his will” without attempting to put it into execution?

Censors of Religion

“It is up to us,” declared the superintendent of the National Reform Association (Dr. J. S. Martin), “to say what the religion of this country shall be.” How can that proposition be carried out, except by the nation establishing some form of religion and proscribing all others? And what is that but the Papacy over again, under a different management? And if they can say what religion shall be the religion of the nation, they can also say what branch of that religion shall be established as the religion of the nation. Said the same speaker: “If the state accepts the religion of Jesus Christ as its religion, and seeks to be governed by the will of God, you can safely trust that state [not to persecute]. . . . I am not afraid of persecution or infringement upon the rights of individual citizens under a Christian administration.” He admitted, however, that “the state would have to be the interpreter of the law of God as it applies to men, and it might make mistakes.”

That admission is fatal. It shows conclusively that their program contemplates in reality a union of church and state; for only when church and state are united does the church ever set itself up as the interpreter of the law of God as it applies to men. There is no evading the conclusion that with the state interpreting the law of God as it applies to men, there is a union of church and state. And that such a theocracy “might make mistakes”

brands it at once as a false theocracy; because God does not make mistakes.

The doctor declared that such a state would be “most considerate of the rights of the individual.” But no state with an established church has ever shown a clean record in the matter of consideration for the religious rights of men. Find a state that is legally joined to religion, and you find a state that is utterly unable to look with impartial eyes upon all its subjects in matters of conscience. This unfair treatment of men has been characteristic of every nation of the world that has made an alliance with any religion in the world; and the better the religion, the more that mésalliance has crushed the consciences and seared the souls of men; for the nearer true the religion which the state attempts to make a part of its political machinery, the stronger the hold which it obtains upon the consciences of individuals, and the more cruel becomes the work of the state in enforcing its religious requirements.

No religion in the world, when united with any governing power in the world, is a safe custodian for the consciences of men. In so far as religion and political power are united, religion becomes to that extent drunken with a power not of heaven, and politics parades in a garb of hypocrisy. Each trespasses upon the rights of the other, and both trespass upon the rights of the individual. This is the invariable teaching and the inerasable record of history. C. M. S.