THE LOGIC OF IT by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 8, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 49.

THE LOGIC OF IT.

By W. N. G.

The churches are going into politics in order to get politicians into the church, and they are succeeding. The excuse of the churches for becoming political is that political circles have become so corrupt that the church must also enter, in order to purify them. But it should be remembered that no man, however clean he may be, can cleanse a filthy pool by simply going into it and wading around in the slimy water. On the contrary, he partakes of the corruption. The pure pond-lily will grow out of the stagnant water; but the substances that form the lily have to come out of and above the water in order to become a pure white flower. And in order to remain a clean white flower it must remain out of the stagnant water. Should it turn its head downward and again grow into the filthy composition from which it had emerged, it would not long continue to be clean and white.

There is one other thing in this connection that should not be forgotten: While the political ministers are complaining of corruption in political parties, and are making this an excuse for entering the same field, it is a fact that most of the leading officials are now either members or prominent supporters of the churches. And those officials at whose doors are laid the worst criminal and immoral charges, are the advocates of such religious legislation as is being demanded by religious men and societies as the essential agency for purifying the State.

Church politics is always pharisaical and tyrannical; a political church never is a spiritual church. It can not have the power of God with it while it persistently seeks power from the world. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Why turn away from the law of Him who has all power “in heaven and in earth,” and seek such inefficient law as puny man can give through a corrupt political agency? W. N. G.