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Christian Citizenship

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 12, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 36.

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Christian Citizenship

The “Christian Citizenship” movement, the “applied Christianity,” taught by Professor Herron and others, is afflicted as was Saul of Tarsus. It thinks with itself, with man. Its schemes are human, man invented, man made. It does not know Christ and his Gospel. If the promoters of “Christian Citizenship” or “applied Christianity” only knew Christ, they would know that Christ’s “kingdom is not of this world;” that his disciples are nowhere authorized to use the civil power, the civil arm, the temporal sword, for the promotion or support of his teachings; that Christianity can only be applied through the word of God, by the Spirit of God, upon the heart of the individual; that the individual must receive its power by faith; that the Christian’s “citizenship is in heaven,” and that here he is but the ambassador of peace from God to a rebellious world; and that every attempt to accomplish this by human means will result in total failure. It will do more than this: it will make hypocrites of those who have not the courage to suffer, and will persecute those who are courageous enough to stand to their own convictions of duty and right and to exercise a conscience void of offense toward God. Such may be wrong, but the arbitrament of their cases rests with no human tribunal. It is because of this that we lift warning voice against these seemingly “good” schemes, but which have in them the very essence of papal assumption and rebellion against God. We appeal to Christian Endeavorers not to be led away from the simplicity, the purity, the peace, the power of the Gospel of Christ. Do not think with yourselves or with ambitious men; think with God. Take his thoughts as revealed in Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Labor for men, beseech men, persuade men, teach men, lift them up by lifting Christ up, in the love of Christ. More than this is not of the Gospel, it is of the mystery of iniquity.