Church Federation

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 8, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 31.

Church Federation

By Our Own Correspondent

ORGANIC union of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Spiritualism in one vast denomination, which has been predicted by the proprietors of this journal for more than thirty years, is nearer a reality to-day than ever before. Speeches made from the pulpits of the White Temple and First Presbyterian Church in Portland on the night of July 9, near the close of the international missionary convention of the Christian Church, founded by Alexander Campbell, show that this denomination, at least, is ready for the union of Protestantism and Catholicism. No mention, however, was made of Spiritualism; and it is probable that many church-members would now shrink from the thought of uniting with the demoralizing practise of necromancy.

But right here let us sound a warning. The almost universal yet unscriptural belief that the soul is immortal and goes to heaven immediately at death, is preparing the way for the reception, by many, of other unscriptural doctrines propounded by wicked spirits who will mask themselves in the form and features of departed loved ones. In order to be prepared for these almost overmastering delusions, all ought to have a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures for themselves, that they may "be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one."

What Hinders Christian Union

The Rev. William Bayard Craig, of New York City, spoke at the First Presbyterian Church on "What Hinders Christian Union." The sermon was one of four delivered on the night of July 9, the Rev. John H. Boyd, pastor of the church, Finis Idleman, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the Rev. Peter Ainslie, president of the Christian Union Commission of the Christian Church, being the other speakers.

A part of Mr. Craig's speech was in substance as follows:

I feel that the conversion of the world to God and righteousness is halted by the divisions of Christendom. Intemperance is flaunting itself in our faces because the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are divided in effort and in faith. Christian people hold the balance of power in this land; but we don't exercise it, because we are divided. It does seem as if all occasion for division among the Protestant bodies is past. Things are occurring now in Constantinople, among the old churches there, of which I am not now at liberty to speak, but which show progress toward unity, and will be known in due time. These could not have happened three years ago.

Glad for Even Roman Catholic Influence

The Catholic's hope of salvation for himself and his loved ones depends on the church. With what wonderful fidelity he clings to it as the most precious thing on earth! If you lived in New York City, in the midst of a people almost wholly given to idolatry, you would be glad for any influence which would help to stay it, even Roman Catholic influence. I went into a church in New York City, where every man was holding a lighted candle in his hand. I asked a priest what they were doing. He said they were renewing their baptismal vows. I went away thanking God that these men could be gathered together in that wicked city, to renew their vows to God in the way in which they had been trained. But while I thank God, I am not prevented from going away and preaching a religion free from forms and ceremonies.

Mr. Craig went on to say that a "provincial spirit hinders Christian union;" and regarding the conscience, he said that "an ignorant, ill-informed conscience is the most tyrannical thing in the world." He spoke of Paul, before his conversion, conscientiously murdering the Christians, said the Roman Catholic conscience needs to be set free, and in the same vein referred to the librarian of the British Museum, who, said Mr. Craig, declined to open a letter from his wife "on his Sabbath."

Has Mr. Craig forgotten, when he speaks of the Catholic religion as salutary, the St. Bartholomew massacre, or the horrible cruelties of the Inquisition? Has he forgotten the heretics burned at the stake? Has he overlooked the prophecy of Revelation 13, which says the image of the papal organization "exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed"? The beasts, of course, represent governments, as they do also where used figuratively in the book of Daniel. The "deadly wound" spoken of was received by the Papacy in 1798, when the French general Berthier took the Pope prisoner, and diminished his power over the kings of the earth.

"Coquetting with Other Congregations"

The Rev. Mr. Boyd, who has recently taken the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church, expressed himself as heartily in favor of union. He said:

I venture the assertion to-night, we have done more coquetting with other congregations than any other single church in the land. Why, the young Presbyterian miss used to sit up with the Episcopalian young man till after midnight, talking over the matter of union. We have kept a committee on union, and the flag of union has been floating at the masthead of the Presbyterian Church for the last twenty-five years. During the past few years we have received into our bosom the great Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In fact, you are standing to-night on a broad platform, gentlemen. The pulpit of this church represents a breadth that is inclusive of all the Christian church you represent.

We recognize you as the children of God. If any of these ministers want to come into the Presbyterian Church, they can come with their ordination papers, and we will not question them. I welcome you, and pray God's blessing on the great movement in which this meeting is to have a place.

The Rev. Mr. Ainslie said, in part:

Ever since the church's establishment, there have been in every generation sincere voices lifted up in appeals for the union of the church of Christ, and especially since the great division attending the sixteenth century Reformation. In the very beginning of that period, conferences were held between Roman Catholics and Reformers and between the various bodies of Reformers. John Calvin in 1553 wrote Archbishop Cranmer that if necessary he would cross ten seas to bring the separated churches of Christ into one body.

Forces That Have Worked for Federation

Proposals have been made from the time of George Calixtus, who advocated going back to the creeds of the first five centuries as the doctrinal basis, down to Alexander Campbell, who advocated the abolition of all human creeds as tests of fellowship and the return to Christ in name, in ordinances, and in life. World conferences have been called from the time of the Reformers in Scotland in 1560 down to the Episcopalians and the Disciples in America in 1910. Books and tracts have been sent forth, pleading for a united church, from Richard Baxter's "True and Only Way of Concord of All Christian Churches" down to numerous volumes of this year's publication. Organizations among Protestants have been started looking toward a closer fellowship, from the Evangelical Alliance of England in 1846 down to the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America in 1908. Individual efforts have been numerous, reaching back to the brilliant correspondence between the Protestant philosopher Leibnitz and the Roman Catholic orator Bossuet down to this day.

The international Sunday-school lessons, the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Student Volunteers, the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and the Men and Religion Campaign among Protestants, and temperance organizations among Protestants and Roman Catholics, are unconsciously making great contributions to the solution of this problem. Union prayer services are joining into brotherhood the souls of those who pray together; and sometime in the calendar, and somewhere on the road, I know not when or where, the scarred, divided, imperfect church will find the way to the united fellowship of all believers; for these and other influences are sweeping away the barriers.

Union Should Not Be in Name Merely

True, Christ's followers will be united in one common belief in the great principles enunciated by the Son of God. And Christ says, "He that is not with Me is against Me." There may be union in name; but unless the lives are in accord with Christ's Spirit, unless His professing followers obey His commandments, they are none of His. "What concord," asks Paul, "hath Christ with Belial?"

Christ said He came to fulfil the law, and the prophecies concerning Him. That holy law is as binding now as it ever was; and when men substitute for it a human system of pardon, or the worship of images, which it condemns, or Sunday, the first day of the week, as a rest day in the place of the Sabbath, the seventh day, they are none of His. How then can He unite them to Himself, if they do not obey His commandments? The Gospel is the "power of God unto salvation" from the transgression of the law, and it is the duty of Christ's followers to preach it to every creature in the world. True unity can only be found in Christ.

Many things aside from church union occupied the attention of the big convention. The American Christian Missionary Society, the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, the Christian Women's Board of Missions, and the Brotherhood of Disciples of Christ, met in annual session during the convention week, beginning July 4. A great banquet, at which four hundred were seated at the long tables in Woodmen of the World Hall, was one of the features of the convention. After the banquet the men marched in a body to Grace Methodist Church, and listened to addresses.

The needs of the Orient were emphasized. One speaker said that Peking is now the student center of the world.

The women's mission board decided to erect a hospital and rooming house for Chinese and Japanese in San Francisco, and a mission house in Portland for the same class, as soon as it can secure the funds.

America and Religious Liberty

The Rev. John L. Brandt, of St. Louis, spoke of the religious liberty enjoyed by Americans, and said that "since the United States Constitution was drafted, 200,000,000 persons in Europe have arisen from a state of barbaric cruelty to constitutional liberty."

The convention sounded a ringing note against the liquor traffic, war, and divorce, passing a resolution against these. The fact that public school-teachers in the Philippines have been compelled, as stated by one of the convention speakers, to desist from teaching in the Sunday-school, called forth a resolution to memorialize President Taft, the Chairman of the United States Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress, requesting that they use their influence against this.

The Rev. R. A. Abbott, of St. Louis, in the White Temple, on the night of July 4, spoke from Matt. 28:19, 20, the commission of Christ to His disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel of the kingdom to every creature.

Personal Adornment and Christianity

Mr. Abbott said some very good things about the way in which outward adornment may detract from the worship of the Master. On this subject he said: "I sometimes think we lose the consciousness of Christ in the very apparel, the flowers, ornaments, and monuments; in the seeming glory with which we worship Him. Jesus refrained from the dress of the rabbis, wearing the humble clothing of the peasant, perhaps on purpose that He might reach the people."

There is no doubt that Christ wore the dress of the common people that He might reach the common people, the very ones who needed Him; and we read that these same common people "heard Him gladly." Mark 12:37.

There were other statements made by Mr. Abbott which are not as fully in harmony with Scripture as that regarding outward adornment and the "putting on of apparel." We regret that Mr. Abbott did not see whither his statements would lead, if followed to their logical conclusion. What he said, briefly stated, was this:

Matthew Arnold said religion is morality touched by emotion. But if it were only that, long ago there would have been no religion in the world. Nor is religion the soul's answer to a categoric imperative.

Religion in its higher ranges is not the soul's bowing in a broken obedience to the fiat of a law. True religion is not a life shaped by a line upon line, precept upon precept. Religion is not living by an ideal. That has made more people vituperate truth than anything else.

Emerson said to hitch your wagon to a star. I have a great quarrel with him, for there is no wagon, no star, and no hitching. When we live simply by ideals there is no heart and force in our religion.

By Principle or Not

I don't believe religion to be living according to principle. How we hang on that—let's build our lives by principle! Nobody ever did, can, or will live by principles.

This is religion: not to live by precept, not to live by an ideal, not to live by a principle, however true, but to live every day by the personal consciousness of the guidance and leading of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not live by a cold truth held out to us, but by a personality, not far from us, but standing by us, molding our very thoughts, master of our lives, controlling our souls, keeping us with a passion that burns out the evil, causing us to undertake the tasks that look to the prudent outside world as if they were the very madness of men, making us heroes, who die not for a cause but for a Christ. This is religion: "Lo, I am with you."

It is the church's duty to know Christ as real, and to lean upon Him. He is not the Christ of the theologians, but the Christ of the people; not the Christ of the great painter, but of the toiler, who carries the burdens of the world. He is the Christ of the man who plows in the furrow and who goes to the mass.

In the din of strife, the atmosphere of contention, in the hour when we lay stress on ecclesiastical ideas, we lose Jesus Christ. Men look to this church or the other church, and forget that the great thing is not the church at all, but Christ. If we go out and say, "Believe on the church," men will miss Jesus Christ, and forget He came to the world as a personal Saviour.

Christ Taught Principles

It is true that Christ came into the world as a personal Saviour of men; for He said, "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world;" and in another place, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." To repent is to turn about, to forsake sin. And "sin is the transgression of the law." Jesus said, "On these two commandments," love to God, and love to man, "hang all the law and the prophets." Religion, then, if it be the religion of Jesus Christ, consists in obeying God's law given to Moses by Christ Himself on Mount Sinai.

It is true that "the great thing is not the church, but Christ," who said: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." "As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me." It is also true He is the Christ of the people, and not alone of the theologians; for the invitation is, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Rev. 22:17.

But to say that the religion of Christ is not living according to principle, that it is not obeying "the fiat of a law," and not living by an ideal, is not true in the light of the teaching of Christ Himself and of the Bible. In the very text which Mr. Abbott used as a basis for his sermon, Christ commissioned His disciples to teach all nations to observe whatsoever He had commanded the disciples, and promised His presence with His servants always, "even unto the end of the world." Christ's commands are the law of God; for He says of His disciples, in His prayer to His Father, "I have given them Thy Word." All Christ's commands, then, are in perfect harmony with the Ten Commandments, which Moses received not only as a rule of life for the Jews, but for all the world. These commandments are as binding upon mankind to-day as they were the day they were thundered from Sinai's summit.

Mr. Abbott is right when he says, "Nobody ever did, can, or will live by principles" alone; for the carnal heart "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." But the principle embodied in the law serves to bring us to Christ, to show us the need of a Saviour. Paul said, "I had not known sin, but by the law;" sin being "the transgression of the law." Paul saw where his life was faulty; but he found himself unable to live in accordance

with the law, and he cried out in his despair, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Adam bequeathed his sinful nature to all his posterity; "and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Paul said, "The strength of sin is the law." Why? — Because when the life is compared with the law, the sin is revealed.

Paul said he found in Christ deliverance from his sinful nature, "the law of sin and death" in his body, which was bequeathed to him by Adam; and David said, in his prayer to Jehovah, "Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee." God's Word is His law. It was failure on Adam's part to bow in obedience to the divine will, that plunged humanity and the world into death, and, except for the atoning blood of Christ, into despair. Christ said, "I came . . . to save the world;" and, "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."

The Rev. D. Y. Donaldson, of Kansas City, Missouri, speaking on behalf of the delegates in response to an address of welcome by the Rev. W. B. Hinson, pastor of the White Temple, expressed himself as strongly in favor of church union. Upon this point he said:

We realize more than ever before that the religion of Jesus Christ can not be reduced to mere form and ceremony. The Christian religion must be kept in the spirit of the Master, it must be gentle as well as strong. Our religion must make itself manifest in the consecration of the life of the Christian. This sort of Christianity finds its greatest joy in fulfilling that command of the Master who said to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Such a religion will find delight in song, prayer, and sacrament, but will find its greatest delight in the sacrifice of service, in carrying the Gospel to the end of the world.

The World Waiting for United Christendom

We believe the world is waiting to hear the message of a united Christendom. Too long has Christ been denied because of the strife and division within the church. We have been called to the kingdom to plead for the restoration of a united church. How great should be our joy to know that this appeal is being made not only by the Brotherhood of the Disciples of Christ, but from this pulpit and from every other pulpit in the land where Christ is glorified, that the same appeal is going forth, and that the appeal is finding an echo in the hearts of all who love the Lord. . . .

We need to look deeper into these great problems of the kingdom, to search for the fuller truth, that we may walk in its unerring light.

Five notable issues are before the church: "An inspired Bible or no Scripture; a divine Christ or no Saviour; a Scriptural baptism or no baptism; a united church or no world conquest; a religion of service or no religion." If our coming together shall deepen the emphasis of these fundamental truths, and contribute to bringing to the service of Christ in their fulness our powers,—shall result in fuller coöperation among our brethren, and hasten the universal reign of Christ on earth,—then we shall be worthy of the hearty welcome given us.

It ought not to be difficult to bring about harmony among Christ's servants; for His commands are plain. But if these commandments must be sacrificed to gain harmony, then let there be no joining of hands; for "what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?"

Let us not sacrifice the truths of the Gospel for the sake of temporary unity, which in the end will mean disruption; for "if a house be divided against itself, that house can not stand."

FRANK A. COFFIN.