Misdirected Charity

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 14, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 19.

Misdirected Charity.

WHEN the question is raised respecting the propriety of the Salvation Army as a mode of Christian organization, or of the fitness of its tactics as an evangelizing method, some one rises to remark that he has heard genuine gospel preaching and very moving exhortations at their meetings, and seen indications of good accomplished, in which we ought to rejoice. We do rejoice in it, and we rejoice that Christ is preached. Their preaching is not what we object to, but features of their campaign which have no necessary, or, as we think, legitimate, connection with gospel preaching.

When we are asked to have charity for them, we say that we humbly trust we exercise that grace towards all Christians, but that we are not bound in the name of Christian love to give countenance and approval to what we deem unchristian, or at least extra-Scriptural, methods of organization and action. The gospel is preached in many Episcopalian pulpits, but our grateful acknowledgment of this fact does not bar us from saying—on proper occasion—what we think of prelacy as a feature of church polity, or of the doctrines of certain “schools” of thought in the Church of England.

Charity, love, has regard to persons. We are to love God and our neighbor; the brotherhood; all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity; all mankind. But we do not love our neighbor's conduct when we think it wrong; nor his opinions when we think them erroneous; nor his business if he is a rum-seller, or pursues any other injurious means of money-making.

We love Christians of all denominations; but we are not called upon to love, or sanction, or even to withhold sincere protest against, personal or denominational peculiarities that seem to us unwarranted by the word of God. These are so simple and elementary principles that we almost feel as if we needed to apologize for formally stating them. Yet we every week encounter those who admonish us to be charitable in our judgment of opinions, and principles, and organized methods of working, and such like abstractions, which call for nothing but candor and clear-eyed intelligence in estimating them.—The Watchman.