Shrinkage Because of Communication
At a convention held at the Panama Pacific Exposition a few days ago, John R. Mott, of New York, said, “We are living now in the most dangerous age of the world, due to its shrinkage because of the greatly improved means of communication.” Dr. Mott also stated that “the world situation is rendered more complex than ever before in history because of the rising tides of racialism and nationalism that are manifesting themselves in all countries.” He contended that “the only thing that can make the world a safe place to live in is the spread of Christianity in its purest form.” Few men seem to realize that the world is facing entirely new conditions. As Dr. Mott suggests, means of communication have made a great “shrinkage” in the world. It is now as though it were one neighborhood, and every part of our globe is touched and affected by every other part of it; and while this opens the way for good things to travel very rapidly, it also makes it possible for all evil contagions of mind and heart to spread everywhere as quickly as fast trains and steamboats and the time-annihilating telegraph can carry them. The evils against which the world is contending in this time are very similar to the evils against which good men have combated in all the ages of the past, but we have them under these new conditions. All good men will join Dr. Mott in saying that “the only thing that can make the world a safe place to live in is the spread of Christianity in its purest form.” But we must recognize that right here also lies one of the greatest dangers of the world. If you have in reality “Christianity in its purest form,” it will always uplift and help. But perverted Christianity, debased into a state religion, and enforced by civil law, becomes in itself one of the most degenerating forces. And a church and state program that will give us the worst religious despotism the world has ever seen is the thing that is now confronting us. There are many evidences in the world to show this, but the strongest evidence is the prophecy of the Bible which tells us what is coming. The “improved means of communication” in the world have opened the way for a universal religious tyranny, and movements in this time gather strength and go with an intensity that is often furious in its rapidity. In order to combat the barbarous spirit of war in the world — to mention only one of its crying evils — the temptation is becoming stronger and stronger to revert to a church and state policy as the only means of meeting the issues before us. But instead of helping the world, this step will mark the very last development in the chains of prophecy that bring us to the grand and glorious climax of the second coming of Christ. These are days in which men should think, and follow principle and the divine guidance of the sacred Book, and not allow themselves to be carried along by the enthusiasm of popular sentiment.