organizations. Some years ago a young man presented himself to a Presbytery for ordination. As he was known to believe that the boards and agencies of that church were infiltrated with modernism, he was asked whether he would support the boards and agencies. He replied that he would support them insofar as they were true to the Bible. This answer did not please Presbytery, and he was asked if he would support the boards regardless of what they did. When the young man declined to make any such blind promise, the Presbytery refused to ordain him.
One of his friends remarked that the difference between modernism and Christianity might be stated thus: in modernism you believe as you please but do what the officials tell you; in true Presbyterianism you do as you please so long as you believe what the Confession says.
As the twentieth century has seen a great increase in the control that national governments exercise over their citizens, so too with ecclesiastical organizations there is a trend toward centralization, bureaucracy, and an indifference toward inalienable rights. Well publicized gatherings of Protestant prelates parade in robes, and the press reports the colorful pageantry. Impressive imitation of popery! And the same eventual results are to be expected.
"God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith and worship" (sec. ii).
The changing majorities of a Council or General Assembly which pushes a conjectural translation of the Bible one year and another year issues Sunday School lessons whose conjectures are still worse, may boast that their theology is not static but dynamic. A different doctrine every decade—while the orthodox fuddy-duddies keep on believing the same thing all the time!
But what moral chaos there is, when the law of God is abandoned for the latest style of unbelief. It used to be Ritschl's value-judgments; now it is paradox; next it will be—who can guess?
The law of God is stable because God is unchangeable. Those who believe God do not need to change their moral principles with the passing years. Nor will they change their worship, push the Bible to one side, put an altar in the center, pray to the saints and the Virgin, nor, as the last article recounted, engage a troupe of ballet dancers to fill an empty pulpit.
LETTERS
Louisville, Ky. January 31, 1955
To the Editor:
The January 26th issue of The Southern Journal has just come to me. I admire you in your convictions, in that you do stand up and are counted for what you believe. But, I do wish that you would be honest in your reporting. In your editorial you state that the "minority" of the church and most of them ministers are the ones who favor Union. How can you make such a statement when only, as your paper went to press, 41 Presbyteries, less than half, had voted. One does not attempt to count any other elections in such a manner. We do not say who won a Presidential election when less than half of the votes are counted. If you jump at inconclusive evidence and upon it base your conclusions, of what value are they? I do not know, and neither do you, what the final results of the voting will be. If, it should be that in the final count those who favor union, according to the number of Presbyteries voting for it and the number in all the Presbyteries, what then are you going to say concerning "the minority."
In whatever you believe and in the manner in which you believe it, PLEASE remember that most men have minds and can count. PLEASE think once, twice and three times before you insult the intelligence of the Presbyterians of the US Church. I hope you see what I mean.
Most sincerely, J. Brent Wood Strathmoor Presbyterian Church This Journal has insisted from the beginning of the unhappy controversy over church union that the majority in our church oppose union. This is based on the total membership of the church, ministers and lay people. The Presbytery vote is not the basis of such opinion for there the ministers have nearly fifty per-cent of the vote.
In many scores of places, after hearing both sides of the issue, congregations voted their opinions and in all but three that we heard of they voted against union.
There was no desire to "insult the intelligence of the Presbyterians in the U. S. Church" in the editorial entitled: "Look Forward". It was a plea to forget our differences and look forward to the real work of the church. It just happens that the reporting was factual and that its judgment is being confirmed by unfolding events.
Ed.
