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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL MONDAY, Jan. 12, 1981
A Voice Cries Out:
What’s Wrong
with
Religion?
Has it, after all, contributed to
A better modern world, or--?
KEEP CONSTANTLY in mind—for the first time in history, weapons of mass destruction threaten to erase human life from the earth!
Our world today is filled with evils humans seem unable to solve or eradicate!
WHY?
In such a world, we now ask what has religion contributed. Of the six major facets of today’s civilization, we have examined, in these pages, the contributions of government, of education, of science and technology, of business and industry and of organized labor. But what about RELIGION?
Surely we should expect to find here, at long last, the knowledge of and leadership in the way to peace, the true values and the purpose of life, leading to a better world!
Here, at least, we must surely find a stabilizing and uplifting influence for a better, happier, more abundant life!
Yet, shockingly, if we focus the searchlight on the facts, and view them realistically with open mind, we find here the most sad disillusionment of all!
First, look over beyond our own Western world. What have the religions of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Hinduism and Islam done for their part of the world? There we find even the greatest prevalence of illiteracy, poverty, retrogression.
But what about Christianity? Reluctant though we be to recognize it, we find those proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ preaching about His Person, yet many teaching diametrically opposite to His teaching, disapproving the customs He practiced, following instead the pagan customs His Word condemns.
The Christian-professing churches are divided and in confusion. They have not “saved,” reformed nor changed the ways of the Christian world into peace, happiness, joy, abundant well-being. Yet Jesus said He had come “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Bishop Hazen G. Werner once said: “We have been dried out by the hot winds of secularism. We who are to overcome the world have been overcome by the world.”
Harvard Divinity School’s Dean Miller was quoted saying: “The Church simply does not have a cutting edge [i.e., it has thrown away the “two-edged sword,” the Bible]. It has taken the culture of our time and absorbed it.”
To this, Yale’s former Chaplain William Sloane Coffin adds, “We churchmen are gifted at changing wine into water—watering down religion.”
The Western world’s Christianity has taken the name of Christ—has proclaimed to the world that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ—while rejecting His Gospel—the Message God sent to mankind by Him. That message He proclaimed was His Gospel.
And what was and is that Gospel? I quote: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God….Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God” (Mark 1:1,14). The Christian Bible says many times that Jesus was born to be a King. It says that He will return in supreme, almighty power and glory to establish that Kingdom, and to compel all humanity to enjoy peace, happiness and abundance!
It’s all a matter of how we live! The world for 6000 years has lived by the self-centered way of “GET.” That way of life has CAUSED all this world’s troubles and evils and sufferings!
When the worldwide Government that the real Jesus proclaimed is ruling mankind we shall turn to the way of “GIVE”—outflowing LOVE toward God and toward man. Every government is based on a foundational law or constitution. The Government of God is predicated on the way of outflowing LOVE.
As humanity now lives, by the “GET” incentive, we can super-successfully deal with things, but we cannot deal with one another!
“GIVE” and “GET” are basic spiritual terms, in the most practical possible sense!
All six major facets of modern man-made civilization have come short in this BASIC UNDERSTANDING!
In such a religious confusion this voice cries out that true Message. The unseen “Strong Hand from Someplace” soon will intervene in man’s civilization now about to destroy him. And before it does, that Christ-proclaimed Kingdom of God shall compel a now self-centered humanity to find peace, joy, universal abundance. Whether one agrees doesn’t matter. It’s as certain as the rising of tomorrow’s sun!
Herbert W. Armstrong
(1892-1986)
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