Not Christian or Christianity

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1896

Not Christian or Christianity.

—The Christian Advocate says:—

“To-day Massachusetts is pouring liquor so fast into Africa as to cause the missionaries to feel as though their greatest foe is not the ignorant, besotted, fanatical heathen, but the covetous and unscrupulous Christian. The Mohammedans there, as elsewhere, with much prima-facie evidence, are charging up the evils of rum to Christianity.”

This is true with one exception: the men who do it are not “Christian,” nor are the evils due to “Christianity.” Christianity does not exist in name or in profession, but in a life principle which transforms men; and a Christian is one who has received this life by faith. Those who thus despoil or ruin the heathen are themselves the worshipers of self, covetous, idolaters. Col. 3:5.