p. 5 | A NEW SOCIETY WANTED

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 37.

A NEW SOCIETY WANTED.

“WANTED: A SOCIETY,” is the title of a striking article in the Sunday School Times, not long since, by President Robert Ellis Thompson, S.T.D. After noting that the reformers were opposed to intra-church organizations, holding that the family, the nation, and the church were fully sufficient for the development of man’s social nature, and the achievement of spiritual ends, he raises the question whether the modern multiplication of these organizations is the better way. He notes the fact that Christ never joined one of these parties or sects. The following is from the concluding words:—

He [Christ] lived on, to rally His handful of disciples, and start them on their career as a world-wide church, which should deal with all evils, not in the negative and isolated way of fighting each singly for its suppression, but by drawing from His person a higher vitality, in whose light they should disappear.

Has the church of Jesus Christ become obsolete? Have we outgrown His methods? On every side we find associations formed to do the church’s work, and relieve it from its responsibilities. And these are formed by Christian people mostly, and in His name. They are formed with no consciousness of being criticisms of His method, and they are held to justify themselves by the extent to which they have promoted His objects; yet they exist mainly by deducting strength and energy from His church, and retiring it, in great measure, to the class of obsolete and effete organizations. And they have done much to retard the cause which is dearest to their members, namely, the Christianization of human society, by pushing single objects out of proportion to their real importance in the kingdom of God. Indeed, of late this mania for new associations has reached the point of laying hold of any half-truth which strikes individual fancy or (at best) meets individual needs, and giving it a central position.

Luther regarded the extinction of artificial brotherhoods, and the elevation of the brotherhood of the church into its rightful honor of activity, as a large part of his work as a reformer. Do we not need another Luther to repeat his work? While we are waiting for him, we might find use for yet another association: The Society for the Suppression of Useless Societies.

But that will be when the re-born church of Jesus Christ will do the work He gave her to do, depending only upon Him for help.