Church Unity

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 1, 1913

ONE of the most remarkable and most vigorous developments of our time is the movement for the union of Christendom under one directorship or control. That the real aim of the one who is the prime mover in that development is not truly Christian is plain from the present character of that movement itself. It is not a movement toward the Word of God, except in the way of assault upon that Word. It is not a move for the greater demonstration of Christlikeness in individual hearts. It is not a movement for the conversion of individuals from lives of sin and the creation of clean hearts within them through the operation of the Holy Spirit upon their consciences. It is a movement to develop physical force for the purpose of accomplishing political and sociological ends; to force lawmakers into line with the demands of a united ecclesiastical combination. It forsakes the teachings of the divine Word in reference to the great facts of creation, the prophecies, and the miracles of the Bible, and pins its faith to evolution and geology as the only solution of the problem of creation and life. In fact, what the leaders of this movement expect to accomplish is regarded by them as but another step in the process of evolution. Occasionally there is a clergyman loyal enough to God's Word to protest against the whole program, but there are not many of these. The pastor of the Old South Church, Boston, is one such. In a series of sermons recently preached upon the theme of church unity, this pastor, Dr. George A. Gordon, took direct issue with the program of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. He declared that such a union was in no sense desirable; that diversity of belief was not the cause of the lack of power manifest in the church of to-day. In reference to a united Christendom Dr. Gordon said: “The church was united once, the holy Catholic Church throughout the world, and what was it?—An ineffable tyrant, denying freedom over its whole broad domain, and crushing the intellect and the spirit into a dead uniformity. . . . Your one holy Catholic Protestant American Church would give me much uneasiness if it should come into existence to-morrow.” But the way the churches are moving toward such a combination ought to give every liberty-loving Christian uneasiness now. When that combination is effected toward which the churches are now working, the tyrannous conditions of the days of old will come again.