p. 5 | Doubting Pulpit and Empty Pew by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 3, 1907

Doubting Pulpit and Empty Pew

By C. M. S.

For years the religious press has been discussing the empty pew, its cause and remedy, and the discussion still goes on, with all causes named but the right one, and all remedies suggested save the one remedy that will alter the condition. Ministers have thought they must preach sermons deeper in philosophical research in order to hold the attention of their male membership. They have done so, and the condition has been aggravated. They have expounded the Higher Criticism, and still the flock continued to stray. They have delved in mythology, and the pews refused to fill. They have brought Darwin and Spencer and Huxley to their rescue, and are still unrescued from their plight.

In view of this condition, the question naturally arises, Are men growing tired of religion? or is it the manner of its presentation that has left so many openings in the ranks? That men do not attend church as in former days does not indicate that their heart hunger has been satisfied. It would rather indicate that they are not finding in the church what God designed they should find there. It not infrequently happens that when the congregation has come together to be fed, the article of food placed before them is the husks of pantheism and “science falsely so called.” From what should have been the citadel of truth the shafts of the adversary are flying out into the mass of the people. In many cases these fiery darts impinge upon the armor of a true Christian, and then they fall harmless to the ground. But all do not carry the true shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, and the helmet of salvation. Such ones are vulnerable at every point of attack, and by every agency of the adversary.

Many a clergyman who has mourned the emptiness of the pews to which he preached could have found the cause in the fact that he had spurned the pebble and the sling backed by the prayer of faith, and had gone forth to meet the adversary clad in the unwieldy armor of a faithless Saul. Ages on ages the battering-rams of error have swung their brazen heads against the Christian's battlement, the Word of God. Many a faint-hearted Christian has lost hope because the cries of the would-be victors have made him believe that they were actually battering down the wall; and many a preacher has thought he could save the situation by admitting the vulnerability of the wall, and teaching men they could be saved without its defense. So salvation without Christ, and Christianity without the Bible, have come about through this yielding of truth at the clamors of its enemies. Faithless preachers boring from within and avowed enemies boring from without have caused many a layman to doubt the Word. Then, when they had learned to doubt the Word, it was the most natural thing in the world to question why they should attend the meetings of the church, which was founded upon that Word—which never would have existed but for that Word. The only logical conclusion is that if they have no use for the one, they should drop the other also. And thus the vacant pew. The only cause for astonishment is that they who have brought this about should wonder at the result of their labor. They have planted thorn shoots, and have been pricked by the briers when they looked for figs among the branches. They have scattered alkali upon the soil, and because the wheat could not grow, they bewail the empty fields. They have called God's Word a myth, and then wonder that souls are not converted and churches filled under their preaching.

But even thus have we been forewarned that it would be. Scoffers were never so prevalent as now. They are even paid high salaries while preaching their doubts from the very pulpits dedicated to the service of God. These are they who, “having a form of godliness,” are “denying the power thereof.” These are they whom the Saviour saw in the end of the age when he asked the question, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” The greatest business under the direction of Satan to-day is that of destroying faith in the Word of God. It is an indication that we are reaching the fulness of time, and that the culmination of the controversy is near at hand.

C. M. S.