Secularizing the Church

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 22, 1914

Secularizing the Church

UNDER the heading "The Signs of Protestant Decay," a writer in the Lutheran of Dec. 18, 1913, speaks of the strong secularizing influences which are now in operation in the professed Christian church. Of the cause of the weakness of the church he says:—

The cause of the impotency of the church is to be found within its ranks. The outside forces may retard its progress, but that which is destroying the church's influence and makes its efforts in part or altogether ineffective, is the present-day tendency to secularize it from within. This is often done to gain the patronage the commercial spirit of the age demands.

He points out some of the ways in which this secular spirit is gripping the church. The church is catering to the world. It employs methods of advertising and admits into the church entertainments of a purely worldly character.

The large majority of churches in each of seven different Protestant denominations in a representative city of 60,000 inhabitants in the State of New York is in most part supported by fairs, plays, suppers, and special sales, and with few exceptions the local church buildings are used as the salesroom or showroom. In one instance a very large church's main auditorium has been utilized as a forum, where, by well-advertised speakers, civic topics and others have been discussed to the fancy of the business and professional man who disclaims any wish to adhere more closely to the gospel of the Bible.

Notwithstanding these efforts of the church to cater to the tastes of the general public, there is a continually lowering attendance at religious worship. Concluding, this writer declares that— the church has only herself to blame. She may condemn the principle, but she retains the practice, and just so long her work will be hindered, her influence ineffective, and her very life destroyed.