An Appalling Confession by Charles Thompson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 1, 1914

An Appalling Confession

By Charles Thompson

CHARLES THOMPSON

"WHAT'S Wrong With the Church?" This was the subject of a discourse in the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Dec. 14, 1913, by the pastor, Rev. Dr. Andrew Gillies, reported in the Minneapolis Journal, December 15. Among the many things mentioned, some appalling statements were made. No effort was made by him to hide the fact that something was wrong. He said:—

"The first is that for twenty years the religious knowledge of Christian people has been growing beautifully less and the terms of their faith increasingly vague. More Bibles are being sold, and fewer Bibles being read. Instead of its being a new book to many, it is no book at all. We boast of this as the age when every man thinks for himself. It is an age when few think at all, and when the majority of people called Christians feed their minds on all kinds of literature except on that mighty Book which is the core of literature and of life.

"A while ago the assistant professor in English at one of our great universities put to a class of seventy-eight, seventeen questions about the Bible. Those questions were perfectly simple, and ample time was allowed for answer. But not one attempted to answer all, and most of the answers were beyond belief. One said that the Jordan was the name of the man who took Moses' place as head of the Israelites. Another said the isle of Patmos was 'the place where the children of Israel were fed in the wilderness.' Another associated the armor of Saul with 'Saul's fight with the Ephesians.'

"Now you smile at those sayings, but I cannot. That same thing could be duplicated in every college in the land. Then the test could be taken out into school and church; and then other and greater questions could be added to these, and the result would be hideous in its pathos. Library tables are covered with modern novels, while the Book of books is dust-covered on the shelf. Our children start the Lord's Day with a bath in the mire of the comic supplements. Pews are filled with church members who don't know free grace from foreordination, and couldn't tell just what they believe, though they were beheaded for the failure."

Lacks Vision

Again he said the church lacks vision:—

"The other result of this age of transition is that for twenty years the Christian pulpit has had no definite message. I speak now of the ministry as a whole, and not of any man or church in particular. Over among the pages of that old Book I find the statement: 'Where there is no vision, the people perish.'

"Brethren, I wonder if the Old Testament seer has not led us to

the hole in the dike. For a quarter of a century the centrifugal forces have been tugging at the souls of men. The marvels of science and invention have exalted the material. The progress of science and philosophy has exalted pure reason. The strenuous pressure of an industrial age has driven the storm to the doors of the soul. Every element in the storm of being has beaten upon the foundations of faith. And all this time many of those who should lead have been negligent or inefficient. As Fred Smith says, preachers have tried to stop this tide with quotations from Browning. Essays on social science have been given the name of sermons. Highly spiced subjects have been flung out as bait, and vaudeville methods outdone. Men who had no chart nor compass have tried to steer storm-beset souls into port. Bread has been asked with white lips, and stones have been given instead. 'Be good and be generous' has been substituted for the call to repent. Those called to be fishers of men have been mere exhibitors of fishing tackle, and if the truth be known, it has often been poor tackle at that."

Think of a church existing for twenty years without a message for the people. Terrible condition, isn't it? But he does not confess this alone for the church he represents, but for the churches in general. During the time in the history of the world when the prophecies of the Scripture were being reduced with great rapidity to history precursory to the coming of the Son of man, the church of God comes forth and acknowledges that instead of gathering from such conditions renewed power to present a message, it has lost what it had. Surely the blind is leading the blind.

Spirituality Wanting

The real cause of this general spiritual declension is the spiritual poverty of the church. The church cannot give to others what it does not possess itself.

"O, yes, there is ample justification for the accusation of indifference. And I was going to make that my final point; but this morning Somebody came into yonder room,—Somebody whom I could not see, but whose presence I could feel,—and he said to me in words so plain that I could not help but understand:—

" 'My son, the trouble is not spiritual indifference, but spiritual poverty. My church cannot give to the world what it does not possess. He who would distribute to the multitude must first get bread from my hands. Only he can have the passion who has come close in consecration. Only he can transmit power who has tarried in the upper room. Go and tell my people not to rise to their feet or to go out into the highways, but first of all, to fall on their knees in repentance, contrition, and real agony of soul.' "

We believe that Dr. Gillies has given a true and honest picture of the tendency of the times, and one that is the vision of other leading clergymen. The Rev. Dr. Riley, pastor of the First Baptist Church in the city of Minneapolis, during a series of noonday meetings held in the Unique Theater, said, in substance: "When I look over the work of the Protestant churches in general, the outlook is not at all optimistic." This condition is surely the fulfilment of the prophecy of the seer of Patmos when he said, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen."

How glad we should be that God has not left himself without a witness, the church without a message, nor the world without a light. Right in the midst of this moral darkness, God is sending to the world a warning message, "the everlasting gospel." The cry is sounding: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. . . . Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

As a result of it all, the prophet saw a company "that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." While we rejoice in this fact and move forward in this faith, we should be admonished by the situation set forth by this pastor.

With so much of higher criticism, of failure to read the Bible, of spiritual poverty, of lack of consecration, of lost vision, is it any wonder that the church has no message? Failure to walk in the light is the trouble. May God keep us from such a condition, and inspire us to go forward rejoicing in that blessed hope triumphantly to the end.

Minneapolis, Minn.