CHRISTIANITY VERSUS "NATIONAL CHRISTIANITY."
By G.
THE only cure for the diseases which threaten the life of a nation is to be found in a pure, avowed and consistent national Christianity.—Christian Statesman. The National Reformers are always holding up "national Christianity" as a cure-all for national "diseases." But despite the efforts of the apostles of that particular feature of so-called Christianity—through its conventions, and Bureau of Reforms at the capital—the "diseases" do not show any signs of healing. To sustain this conclusion we have only to cite the testimony of the organ of the Reformers themselves. From a number of specifications in a general charge published in the Statesman, we select three, which are sufficient to state the case quite comprehensively:— (1) Government has fallen too largely into the hands of evil men. Especially in our great cities, public offices are the prey of spoilsmen, who plunder our treasuries, grant protection to lawbreakers for a price, and levy blackmail on honest men. (2) The liquor traffic flourishes under sanction of law, corrupting morals, destroying life, spreading sorrow and desolation like a pestilence, defying all attempts to curb or suppress it, and able often to dictate the policy of the government. (3) Through our whole history whenever we have come in contact with men of a weaker race, they have suffered injustice and wrong at our hands. The negro, the Indian, and the Chinaman have all had, and still have, cause to complain against us. This, too, in the face of a "national Christianity" which the Reformers deem of sufficient importance to be worthy of a special exhibit at the coming St. Louis Exposition next year. Well, the more we hear about it, the more mysterious seems the character of this thing called "national Christianity." The Christianity of Christ is clear; it is light itself. It challenges the scrutiny of the world on the testimony of its fruits. Its "only cure" for the "diseases" which threaten life is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past." Rom. 3:25. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 3:36. It is the righteousness of Christ that heals. The righteousness of Christ consisted in His obedience (Rom. 5:19; Phil. 2:8, 9), and salvation, or healing of the disease of sin, comes to the obedient (John 19:17; Rom. 16:25; Heb. 5:8, 9). The rule of life laid down by the Christianity of Jesus Christ is, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." How would such a rule work in national affairs in a sinful, grasping world? Where the majority of the people are selfish, and seeking every advantage to make personal gain, how can the nation work out the Golden Rule? Like people, like nation. But suppose the United States Government should adopt the Golden Rule to-day, and actually begin work on that principle. Would it not first have to confess and forsake all it has done that has not been done on that principle? Would it not have to restore all it has gained by conquest? Would it not have to repeal its tariff laws, and discard its Monroe doctrine? How about its army and navy, when Christianity says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (2 Cor. 10:4)? Of course the other nations would take advantage of the situation, but there are the words of the Leader of Christianity: "I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." How long would the United States Government stand on such a proposition while sin is in the world? The logic of "national Christianity" is just the reverse of the Christianity of Christ. National Christianity is based on profession—on Congressional utterance and Supreme Court decision. It relies on compulsory observance of human decrees. It depends upon eradicating sin from the world through the agency of civil government. One of its leading champions says that the National Reform remedy for evil is, "to have the government simply set up the moral law and recognize God's authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it." Now everybody who reads history at all knows what is meant by a government's laying its hand on dissenters from the State religion. All this is very different from the Christianity of Christ. No such government ever could be a Christian government. When Christ was on earth He said, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." John 12:47. But He was not proposing to save the world by civil government; for He instituted the Christian church as the organized medium of Gospel work, and sent His Holy Spirit as the guiding influence. His kingdom for the furtherance of the work of salvation is a spiritual kingdom, and "is not of this world." Ch. 18:36. He is to have a kingdom for the government of the earth (Luke 1:32, 33), and it will extend over all the earth (Dan. 2:31-45); but it will be in the "new earth" (2 Peter 3:9-13), after the Gospel and the judgment shall have accomplished their work (Ps. 2:7-9; Rev. 21:1-8). Thus is shown a great contrast: The so-called "national Christianity" would set up a human government, label it "a Christian nation," and start it out to purify the earth. But the Christianity of Christ would first gather out from the kingdoms of earth those who will receive the law of God in their hearts, then destroy all the fruits of evil by purifying the earth by fire, and establish the truly Christian nation on the earth made new. No man or association of men ever can do the work of the Gospel by laboring in a contrary direction to the plan laid down by the Lord Himself. True Gospel workers are "laborers together with God." This is the only means of curing "the diseases which threaten the life" not only of the nation but of the world.