The Consolidation of Churches
By L. A. S.
THE well-known Brooklyn clergyman, Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, is urging a “consolidation of churches,” as the next great step in religious progress. In an article contributed to Everybody’s Magazine Mr. Hillis says that “the epoch of church unity has fully come.” It is to be brought about by “the men who have simplified business, reorganized the banks under one management, reorganized the factory, and the store, and the shops.” They are to apply the same principle of reorganization and elimination in religious affairs, and secure “church unity,” or in other words, a religious trust. At the present time there is in Dr. Hillis’ view a great deal of needless church competition, resulting in a decline in religious interest and in church attendance. He believes that “either the Christian forces of the ten thousand small towns and villages of the country, must unite, or the churches will perish, and one half of the ministers die or resign, with broken hearts.” His idea of what the proposed church trust should accomplish is stated thus:— The ideal church would be one noble building centrally situated, crowded from Sunday morning until the next Saturday night, a church that would be the center of the social, the musical, the literary, the ethical life of the community; the home of light and joy; the pride of all the people. With numbers come enthusiasm, economy, emulation, efficiency. When all the musical talent of the community is organized and unified, music, the highest of the fine arts, will become a great moral force. When all the teaching forces—and the art of teaching is a great gift, and there are only a few teachers out of two thousand that know how to impart wisdom—are united, the Sunday-school will again become popular. Instead of ten preachers there ought to be three. There would be left, after the consummation of this great church “merger,” Dr. Hillis says, “perhaps one great Protestant church, one Roman Catholic church, and one church named the Quaker, that would not believe in any form.” The small church which might refuse to come into the trust, or which the trust might refuse to accept, would, we may infer, go the way of the smaller business concerns which attempt to do business independently of the controlling trust in their line of industry. It is a scheme that promises well from a human standpoint, but does not take into account the means of Christian unity ordained by God. L. A. S.