Not a Reformer, but a Regenerator
In an address at the recent council of the “Federation of the Churches of Christ in America,” at Chicago, Vice-president-elect Gov. Thomas R. Marshall, of Indiana, delivered an address on “Young People’s Organizations and Christian Unity.” He gave utterance to some mighty, vitally important truths which run directly counter to one of the purposes of the federation,—reform through politics. Here is one of the good things: “There is, I sometimes think, a weakening to a greater or less degree in the spiritual power of the church, together with a lessening of the faith and hopes of men. I think I know what has produced it. From my view-point, Jesus Christ was not a reformer in the usual and ordinary acceptation of that term. He lived when the greatest despotism that the world has ever known ruled the habitable globe. Yet, the only recorded statement of anything He said with reference to the Roman Empire was, ‘Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’ Slavery had reached the very depths of degradation, and yet His apostle advised a runaway slave to return to his master. The Christ was not engaged in repealing bad laws, nor in providing criminal punishments for the violators of good ones. “Jesus Christ was more than a reformer. He was a regenerator. The church is to stand as the representative of the kingdom of God on earth, and ‘except ye be born again, ye can not enter into the kingdom.’ He brooded over Jerusalem as a hen broods over her chickens, and yet, He never strove to make bad Jerusalem appear to be good Jerusalem.” We shall print more from this excellent and timely address later.