CONFORMED OR TRANSFORMED.
By S.
THE success of worldly enterprises has often led the professed followers of Christ to pattern some part of their work after the methods which made that worldly work a success. We have seen it in the introduction of modified theatricals in the church. Pastors who have compared the size of their audiences with the throngs which patronize the theater have introduced "attractions" to increase their attendance. The theater has its "attractions," and they draw the masses. The worried pastor reasons that they will do the same for the church. They have been added to the church service, and the pews have had more occupants. But the additional occupants came to see the curious and spectacular. They get what they came for, and probably depart satisfied. But they who come to hear the voice of God through one set to utter it, what do they get? —A theatrical performance. Refusing to go to the theater, their pastor permitted the theater to come to them in the house of God—into the sacred edifice where they had met God, and expected to meet Him again and again. The theater came into their sanctuary, displacing the Word, disorganizing the service, and lowering the respect of both saint and sinner for the house, the pastor, and the pastor's influence. Thus what is gained in numbers is lost in real heart work, in real, positive influence for good. The church which resorts to such means will soon find—and too many have found already—that it must add new attractions, as the theater does, or see its audiences dwindling away. Such a course is in direct opposition to the counsel of the Spirit: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Rom. 12: 2. Conformity to the world will never win the world; will never bring men and women out of the world and into the fellowship of Christ—and it never has. Conformity to the world is a yielding to the ways of the world, forming our ways and words and actions in harmony with the words and ways and actions of the world. It is not our winning the world, but rather our yielding to the world, our conversion to the world. They who come to a church in response to its attractions, come for the attractions, not for salvation, not to hear the Word,—come because they recognize themselves in that church, not because they recognize God in its members or its pastor. They go to the theater to be pleased, amused; they will go to such a church for the same purpose. When the theater pleases and amuses people, it makes them satisfied with themselves. But it is the business of the church to make men and women dissatisfied with their condition when that condition is out of harmony with the ways of God. It must teach truth, no matter how straight it may cut, for only the truth can save. When men are entirely dissatisfied with their unsaved and unrighteous condition, then it is that they can find the true satisfaction that there is in Christ and in sins forgiven. It is the business of the church to do God's work; and that is not, and never has been, seeking the pleasures of this world. Here, then, are two institutions, each doing a different work. The theater can not accomplish its work by teaching the Word of God and by influencing its patrons to lead lives of unselfishness; for that never has been pleasing to human nature. It accomplishes its end, however, and that by its own means. It is not reasonable to suppose that those same means can be used to accomplish an object entirely different, even if employed in an edifice hitherto sacred. The church can not accomplish its object in the world by using means designed especially for the purpose of thwarting that work, means which are antagonistic to that work, and promote only the service of self. Conformity with that which is evil is, in the end, conformity with the evil itself; and that is what is bound to be when we use the instruments of the world in attempting to do the Lord's work. "Be not conformed to this world;" that would mean ruin of soul and body. "But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." That means a transformation out of self and into Christ. It is accomplished through the renewing of the mind, not by conformity with the world. There is salvation in heeding this admonition, or command, of the Lord. There is death, everlasting death, in refusing to do it. While the great drift of the tide to-day is toward conformity with the world, the Christian must set his face against it resolutely, and seek for that transformation which will lift him out of self and into the service and life of Christ. S.