Religious Liberty Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 27, 1910

Religious Liberty Notes

HON. OSCAR STRAUS, the United States ambassador to Turkey, has rendered a service not only to the Jewish section of his countrymen, but also to the whole body of them, and to his country as well, by refusing to accept permission to enter Russia, that was offered to him as a personal favor. To enter Russian territory, to travel and do business there as freely as any Russian subject, was secured to the citizens of the United States by a treaty made eighty years ago. In this treaty there is no mention of religion made, nor is there in any other. There was and is no stipulation, clause, nor phrase in it that empowers Russia to construe it so that the rights it conveys are to be enjoyed by Christian Americans, and not by Jewish Americans. For nearly a century after the establishment of our republic, no national administration was ever cowardly or venal enough to allow a foreign government to classify our citizens by their religious beliefs.—Chicago Israelite.

OUR readers are aware that the National Reform Association is planning a world's Christian citizenship conference in Philadelphia for November. This fact is interesting not only to us, but to the great religious bodies of the country, as is evidenced by those that are sending delegates. These are: The Woman's National Sabbath Alliance, the Federal Council of Churches in America, the Reformed Church of America, the National Baptist Convention, the Free Methodist Church of North America, and the Methodist Episcopal Church. This is not a very late report, and we shall probably see finally that all the larger denominations will be represented.

ENGLAND has a National Sunday League, and in London this body furnishes popular amusement of a high order on Sunday. To all this the Sunday-law forces object; and, strangely, the theatrical people join them in their efforts to suppress the league. The reason for this would not at first appear, but is readily understood when we are reminded that the Sunday-evening entertainments of the league are so popular, and so reasonable in price, that theatrical receipts are thereby much lessened. Just now, however, the Sunday people have the better of the league, since they have induced the proprietors of Queen's Hall to refuse them the lease-renewal this year,—a setback the league feels keenly.

THE following is from an editorial in the Western Watchman (Catholic) of October 6: “The [Catholic] church's teachings regarding the limitations of temporal power are what they were from the beginning, and what they will continue to be till the end of time,—‘It is better to obey God than man.’ These were the words of the teaching church before she left Jerusalem; the church in Rome has spoken no other. . . . The Catholic religion permits every Catholic to exercise tolerance toward people of other faiths. It is false to say that ‘Catholics are opposed to toleration.’” Is the editor of the Western Watchman ignorant of the encyclicals of recent Popes? and has he forgotten that his church definitely and openly teaches that truth can not be tolerant?

THE following is from the Christian Register (Unitarian): “Law and order are vastly more important than the prosperity of any class of men, rich or poor. When bad laws are made (that is, laws that are immoral or injurious and inhuman), it is sometimes difficult to obey them. . . . There are laws on the statute-books to-day which may cause some partial injustice and much inconvenience, or which are not in accordance with the real sentiments of the people for whom they are framed; but obedience to such laws, and suffering on account of them, are so much better than disorder and resistance to law that every good citizen ought to stand up against the disobedient and the lawless.” Let us compare this with a recommendation of the English Unitarians in the matter of the king's oath. Here is the oath suggested by the executive committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association: “I do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God declare that I will not recognize nor obey any authority, civil or ecclesiastical, other than the laws of my realm; that in my religious beliefs I will refuse obedience to any authority whatsoever over my conscience; and that I will do my utmost to secure for all my subjects the full and free exercise of religious liberty.” How can the king “refuse obedience to any authority whatsoever over his conscience” without setting the example to all his subjects in the same thing? How would it fare, then, with the English Sunday law as it relates to true Sabbath-keepers? The English Unitarians tell them to disobey it, but American Unitarians advise obeying and suffering.