Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Although there is a large amount of real virtue and piety that is not within the pale of any sectarian organization, yet the vast majority of conscientious persons are either enrolled in the Church, or intimately connected with it in principle and feeling. All this intellectual and moral power is organized into various denominations, each controlled and led by a number of highly-educated, conscientious, and religious men.

With these denominations are connected high positions in the pulpit, with great influence and liberal salaries; literary institutions, with posts of honor and competency; and theological seminaries that are the central ecclesiastical mainsprings of influence.

Then there are connected with each denomination large voluntary associations for benevolent purposes, with officers who control large pecuniary means. Finally, each sect has its quarterlies, monthlies, and its religious newspapers, whose editors are speaking every day to the minds of thousands and hundreds of thousands.

Now it is a fact that this vast array of wealth, position, influence, and ecclesiastical power is actually combined to sustain these theological theories. So much is this the case, that a minister, theological professor, president of a college, secretary of a benevolent society, or editor of a periodical or newspaper, could not openly deny this Augustinian tenet but under penalty of the loss of reputation, position, influence, and the income that sustains himself and family. Our largest and best theological seminaries demand an avowal of belief in this dogma as a condition of holding any professorship, and in some of them it must be renewed by all the professors every few years.

At the same time, this dogma of a depraved mental constitution transmitted from Adam is inwrought into all the standard works of theology, the sermons, the prayers, the sacred poetry, the popular literature, and even the Sunday-school and family literature of childhood.

The power of such influences is intensified by the present stringency of sectarian organization. By those who have marked the tendencies of the religious world, it will be remembered that, at the time the associations for religious benevolence began their great work, all sects seemed to be harmonizing and uniting in the efforts to send Bibles, tracts, and missionaries to the destitute. At this period, the questions that separated Christians in reference to modes of ordination, baptism, and church officers, seemed to disappear as matters of small moment among all whose great aim was to save the lost of every name and nation.

But, while this served to liberalize the feelings and opinions of good men in all sects, it soon became apparent to the leaders that, if these tendencies were not counteracted, the sects would all come together.

If this should happen, where would be all the great machinery that was supported by these several denominations for their distinctive aims?

Soon the tide turned, and, though now there is less sectarian bitterness, and most sects can allow each other to be Christians with different names and badges, yet each is active for its own separate interests more decidedly than ever. And now the leading concern of each denomination seems to be, to increase its own separate churches, schools, colleges, theological seminaries, religious periodicals, and benevolent associations, not because the salvation of the lost depends on these distinctive matters, but chiefly as modes of increasing the extent, respectability, and influence of their sect. In order to do this, the importance of the points which divide each from the other must be magnified; for if there is but a trifling difference between an Old School and New School Church, or a Baptist, Congregational, or a Presbyterian, then, in small places, and especially in our new settlements, all these would unite in one large, harmonious church, that could properly support all its own ordinances, and send of its surplus to supply the destitute. On the contrary, if these differences are magnified, there will be two, three, or four small churches, all contending with each other, poorly supporting their own ordinances, and, instead of helping the destitute, sending to other churches of their own sect for help.

Thus it is that we see vast sums raised every year to multiply these needless, weak, and militant churches all over the land. There are facts on this subject that should be deeply pondered.[5]