Taylor University Pillars at Taylor University TUFW Alumni Publications Publications for TUFW and Predecessors 2-1-1942 The iB ble Vision Fort Wayne Bible Institute Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/tufw-alumni-publications Part of the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation Fort Wayne Bible Institute, "The iB ble Vision" (1942). TUFW Alumni Publications. 178. https://pillars.taylor.edu/tufw-alumni-publications/178 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications for TUFW and Predecessors at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in TUFW Alumni Publications by an authorized administrator of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. mm ^Mwn FEBRUARY 19 4 2 The Abuse of Religious Liberty A Symposium: The Church and War Our Attitude as Non-Resistant Christians A Christian's Duty in National Crisis A Statement of Conviction and Duty War's Challenge to the Church Chapel Quotes How To Live in Apostate Christendom A Sound Mind Herbert Sumner Miller In the World Today Published at Berne, Ind. By The Fort Wayne Bible Institute, Fort Way: THE BIBLE VISION A Bimonthly Journal Reflecting the Light i of the Bible on Us and Our Times Volume VI February, 1942 Number 3 Published bimonthly at Berne, Ind., by THE FORT WAYNE BIBLE INSTITUTE S. A. WiTMER, Editor B. F. Leightner, Ass't Editor Bertha Leitner, Ass't. Editor Melvena Basinger, Editor of Fellowship Circle A. W. TozER, Contributing Editor Luella Miller, Circulation Manager Economy Printing Concern, Berne, Indiana, Publisher Yearly Subscription, 50 Cents; Single Copy for Ten Cents. Address all correspondence regarding subscriptions or subject-mat- ter to The Bible Vision, Berne, Ind., or to the Fort Wayne Bible Insti- tute, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Entered as second class mail matter at the post office at Berne, Indiana, under the Act of March 3, 1879. "GO ON" J. E. Ramseyer To pray to God no breath is lost: Pray on;—and breath shall last much longer. To walk with God no strength is lost: Walk on;—and you shall walk much farther. To wait on God no time is lost: Wait on;—and you shall grow much stronger. (Isaiah 40:31.) 4 EDITORIALS 4^ ^The Hypodermic Of Hate "And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holv Ghost, who is given unto us" (Rom. 5:5). How great is the love of God? Great enough to give "His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish." In the world today, many apparently hope who ought to be made ashamed, for it is their very passion that people perish. Those of us, at least, who find ourselves inadvertently in the conflict can guard our hearts against the hypodermic of hatred that the devil injects with the needle of war. Having on the whole armour of God, we can divert the darts of Satan, while we are loyal to our country and yet love our enemies with faith from Gcd the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.—B. L. Remember Pearl Harbor All over the country this slogan has been taken up as a rallying f cry for a war of vengeance. But the longer it is blazoned from mastheads, the more of a boomerang it proves to be. As the awful truth sinks in, we recall not so much the treachery of the Japs as the unbelievable state of affairs on the Sunday morning following the usual Saturday night of "wine, women, and song." The memory of unpreparedness in Pearl Harbor will long be remembered. We are reminded of another surprise attack of long ago, when TEKEL was written across the wall of a bancjuet hall while enemies were entering an impregnable city: THOU ART WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES, AND FOUND WANTING, In the scale cf morality, nobility, high idealism, reverence, our nation today is weighed in the balances of divine judgment and found wanting. But before we blame the nation, let us as evangelical Christians take our full measure of responsibility. And before we blame the church as a whole, let us as ministers of the Gospel examine our- selves, for "like priests, like people." High-ranking army and navy officers have been cited for dereliction of duty; if a similar inquiry I 'were made of the moral breakdov/n in our tragic land, we wonder how many men in offices of the church might similarly be cited for dereliction of duty. In this connection readers are referred to a penetrating article in this number of the Bihle Vision by Rev. A. W. Tozer on "The Abuse of Religious Liberty." It will be followed in the next issue by a complementary article on "God-Anoi7ited Men.'' THE BIBLE VISION The Abuse of Religious Liberty By Rev. A. W. Tozer Pastor, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Chicago, III. There is scarcely a blessing in the vernacular. The farmer but may be turned into a curse. and the shopkeeper became the- The kindest gift of God may ologians in their own right, and be abused or perverted until it the freedom of the humblest be- reacts with deadly effect upon liever was established. its possessor. Three centuries ago our fa- Nowhere is this more clearly thers sought the wide shores of demonstrated than in the modern North America and planted a na- abuse of religious liberty. tion where they might exercise Four hundred years ago the this sacred right of religious Reformers appealed from the liberty and "worship God after tyranny of the Roman Church, the dictates of their own con- and asserted the right of the in- science." Happy were they to dividual to read and interpret have been spared the painful the Bible for himself. The priests sight of their descendants turn- of Rome had done what the ing their hard-won liberty into priests of Jerusalem had done license and abusing the freedom before them; they had "taken they had suffered to secure. away the key of knowledge," and Could they have foreseen the had stood in the way of those poor use we have made of the who were trying to enter the heritage they left us, they might kingdom. Not content with rob- have hesitated to preach the bing them of their spiritual her- right of the individual with such itage, they fleeced them of their fervor and abandon. temporal goods and usurped au- Today American Protestantism thority over their souls and presents a sorry spectacle. We bodies. have carried our independence Against this unwarranted to the last ridiculous extreme. usurpation the Reformers re- Fearful of losing our liberty we volted. Luther nailed his decla- have magnified the right of the ration of independence to the individual far and away beyond door of the church at Witten- any right ever granted him in, berg, and the sound of his ham- the New Testament. We have mer blows was heard in all held the strong wine of freedom Christendom. The Bible became to the lips of our people till their the possession of the common heads have grown dizzy. They people and was studied by them flout obedience, scorn authority THE BIBLE VISION and laugh at the old-fashioned him out, or failing that, they |word "loyalty." Our condition starve him out or boycott his closely parallels that of Israel services. The fear of this has in the times of the Judges when broken the spirit of many a it was said, "every man did that preacher and turned him into a which was right in his own smiling, ingratiating time server. e3^es." Thousands who would This has made him the least stare with big-eyed horror at respected, the most pitied, and political anarchy openly advo- the most pitiable person at cate spiritual anarchy, practice present extant. Before his hu- its unholy principles in their miliation was complete the liter- lives and think nothing of it. ary satirists used to pick him as The poet Wordsworth has a target for their lampoons, but spoken of "the weight of too the sight of his obsequious fawn- much liberty." This weight is ing in the face of public opin- crushing the life out of the ion has become so touching that Church in our day. Where there it has softened the sharp pen of is no authority there can be no even those heartless gentlemen. order or discipline, and where Consciously inferior, holding these are lacking there can be his precarious position through no such thing as stability. The the sufferance of the religious disgraceful spectacle of a body public, his situation is much the of Christians shattered into six same as that of an effete king in hundred broken fragments, as is a country run by a dictator. It the case with Protestantism, re- is said that the king of Italy, sults directly from the abuse of some time ago, accidentally^ drop- religious liberty. ped his handerkerchief. He in- This contempt for authority on stantly dived to recover it. "I've the part of the individual Chris- got to keep that," he said, with tian has brought about the dis- a smile. "It's the only thing in franchisement of the Protestant Italy I dare put my nose in any- pastor. He has been robbed of more." If there is anything in his prophetic character and re- the Church the Protestant pas- duced to the status of an ec- tor dare touch with real author- clesiastical mascot. He has his ity we do not know what it is.