BENIGHTED CHRISTENDOM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 15, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 20.

BENIGHTED CHRISTENDOM.

Sometime ago the Century Magazine gave a description (by the editor) of the scenes of Easter time in Jerusalem, when the rivalries of the various sects wax the bitterest. There is so general a confounding of the religion of Greek, Latin, and Armenian Catholics with Christianity in the minds of most people that it is needful to point out that it is not Christianity at all. The confusion arises from the fact that popular notions of Christianity leave out the religion of Christ almost altogether, and substitute man-made religion for divine life.

Describing the state of mind of the partisans of “Christianity” in Jerusalem, the writer says that “doubt, suspicion, and murder in religion’s name are in the air now as they were of old.”

“Any of the sacred places themselves may be scenes of violence at any moment. Not long ago the Dalmatian Cavass in charge of some Russian tourists, who were visiting in the Grotto at Bethlehem, resented the interference of the sacristan monk who was clearing the way before the Latin procession, drew his revolver and shot him dead on the spot; after that, firing four shots wildly at the procession, he wounded a priest in the arm and rib.”

It is like the story of many an unprovoked murder, but the point is that had this man been treated as a murderer by the Moslem authorities, doubtless Russia, who is the protector of the Greek religion in the Ottoman Empire, would have come to the rescue. It is this kind of religion that the great churches of Christendom have exhibited to Mohammedans; and now Christendom rings with denunciation of the Turk, and multitudes of pulpits demand his extinction in the name of Christianity. The only conclusion possible is that the pulpits so doing know no more of the Gospel than their “fellow-religionists” of the East.

The “Holy Fire.”

“Now,” says the writer, “the time of miracle approaches.” For hours the crowd in the church has been fighting and yelling. “As a preliminary to this sacred manifestation there is a new, wild outburst of cries and screams.” Jerusalem worshipers beat with their fists the men from Jaffa to get their places. “The noise is frightful.” “Men standing on the shoulders of the crowd screech words of religious greeting,— This is the tomb of Christ, darting a finger at the tomb itself with every repetition.” Then when the patriarch within the tomb strikes a fire—which the ignorant believe comes down from heaven—and passes it out, the crowd, armed with candles, catch it and run. “On and on sounds the clangor and the shouting; men, women, and children are mad.” A kindly patriarch said the intelligent Greeks understood that the fire is produced by the patriarch, but that any one who should tell the frenzied rabble so “would be torn to pieces.”

“At the height of the frenzy, as the flame leaped thru the rotunda and lighted the encircling chapels, making more rich and glittering the altars, the gorgeous vestments, the whole ecclesiastical paraphernalia, the arms and uniforms of the troops, and the many-colored costumes of the mad and motley crowd, the thought flashed upon me. Was there ever anything in all Christendom so beautiful and so blasphemous?”

And when such blasphemy is made religion, and when religion itself, instead of inspiring kindliness and love, is the inspirer of every hateful feeling, and the cloak of violence and lawlessness, what must the end be? And now the same spirit is spreading in the West, and multitudes, whose profession of advanced Christianity should lead them to a desire to carry the Gospel to these benighted peoples, and to show to Mohammedans as well what the Christ-life actually is, are blindly encouraging war against Mohammedans in the sacred name of Jesus, and are persuaded that they have embarked in a righteous cause.—The Present Truth.