UNWISE COUNSEL by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 16, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 42.

UNWISE COUNSEL

By S.

THE New York Times suggests that the proper thing for the Philippines is a modified Roman Catholicism under government control. The originator of such a suggestion has learned little in the school of religious liberty. In the first place, religion under government control is in no true sense religion. It may be worship; but it is the worship of government, not of God. He who directs or controls in the matter is the authority ultimate; and if that is the government, it must be above God, sitting in the place of God, and homage to that is idolatry. Thus a misguided government, by seeking to direct and control religious teaching and religious work, relegates to itself (or attempts to) the obedience and homage which belong to God, and so becomes the propagator of idolatry. The power that attempts to come in between God and the people is always and everywhere a usurping power, taking to itself that which belongs to God.

Our government can not be consistent with itself and take upon itself the work of directing or controlling in religious matters. The government has a perfect right to interfere with the uncivil actions of any man, or set of men, who may be robbing a people of their property or rights while professing to be the spokesmen and ambassadors of God; just as it would interfere if they were men who made no such profession. The government has a legitimate work, a legitimate place; but it is not in the line of directing or controlling in religious affairs.

If it is necessary that Catholicism in the Philippines should be a “modified” form, as the Times suggests, that is a matter with which the Catholics themselves must deal. It is no proper matter of legislation or governmental direction. To say that any religion must be under government control is to say that the ones now controlling it are less fitted to do it than are the appointees of the government; and when that is admitted in the case of any sect or religion, it must be admitted in the case of all sects and all religions; and thus would we have repeated in this age that dark folly of the past,—a union of Church and State.

All this is in the suggestion of the Times; and in spite of all the teaching the world has received along the line of religious liberty, there is a decided drift away from our moorings in the direction of that very proposition.