AGAINST THE CHURCH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 27 October 1928, Page 7

AGAINST THE CHURCH

T-HE EVIL INFLUENCE OF PROHIBITION (By the -Rev. Frederick J. Melville.) The Rev. Mr Melville is the Pastor of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church of White Plains, New York. He wrote an article for the magazine “Plain Talk” entitled “Prohibition v. The Church,” in which he expresses the belief that if the Churches continue to sustain prohibition their doors are in grave danger of being banged shut. In the course of the article, which appeared in the May issue of the magazine named, ho asks, “Why are thousands of Church pews empty? If the Church wants to make an honest confession it will have to admit that among various causes for decreased church attendance and luke-warm interest in church, affairs, the preaching of prohibition iff the pulpits,of. the Fchurclics takes the lead as the'outstanding cause for (he condition. It is not only that thousands of chinch members have been deprived of wliafc'they consider to be an honourable means of livelihood, nor is it that they resent any sermons that are delivered against the Demon Rum, but that they, like the majority of our Amorioan people, are enemies of what is the outstanding sin, in our. country to-day—-hypocrisy,. They are not easily fooled. They have seen Elmer Gantry, in the pulpit and his deacons in the pews. They have heard prohibition espoused by ranting mountebanks in the pulpits. Honesty and: self-respect keep them out of the church where it is preached that drinking is sinful. Having been forced out of the church of their fathers, they hesitate to join another, thinking that all churches are alike and all ministers and deacons are. hypocrites.

PROHIBITION IS SACRILEGE TO THE NATION It is injurious to the well-being of tlie individual and of the nation. It is abnormal, in. concept as well as in practice. It is the most unintelligent, un-American, un-Christian, unreasonable thing that, has ever been injected into the life of this nation. The church—that is, the sections of the church that have laboured so long and fanatically to make this country liquorless—still seems unwilling to admit that it has brought about a condition which is worse than any that existed ini. pre-Rrohibition days. Furthermore, it realises that the cause is not a popular one any more. Can it ever he said that the adherents of prohibition are still enthusiastic about it? If anything. they are gloomy, disappointed and afraid. Yet they hold on. They plead for support. They condemn, in language unbecoming followers of .Testis Christ, men and women who give expression to their honest opinions concarning prohibition. THE MISTAKES OF THE CHURCH The Christian, church, has made many mistakes, as history so clearly tells us. Many of its doctrines have been formulated by the over-throwing of false doctrines. It is possible that some of the fundamental doctrines adhered to by the Christian church in our times will meet with the same fate. Thousands of our Christian ministers who have given thought to the prohibition question are convinced of the mistake that the church has made in allying itself, as grept sections of it. have done, with tiro political prohibition proponents. But tho greatest mistake that the church has made is the fact that prohibition has been allowed to usurp, the place of 'the Christian gospel of peage and goodwill toward men. And right here is the answer, to the question why the church has lost ground during the past decade. That it certainly lias, every honest minister and church-goer will admit.”'*' I