Arrived in New York where Church and State are separate, a long time may pass before any one cares for the soul of the immigrant. Our pastors are busy with their routine work and seldom look after the new comers, unless the new comers look after them. The latter soon become reconciled to a situation which accords with the inclinations of the natural man. Ignorance of American church conditions accounts for the slipping away of many of our foreign brethren from the fellowship of the church.
2. Indifference. Many foreigners who come here are merely indifferent to the claims of religion. Others are distinctly hostile toward the church. Most of the Socialistic movements of continental Europe, because of the close association of Church and State, fail to discriminate between their respective ideas. Thy condemn the former for the sins of the latter.
3. Infidelity. A materialistic philosophy has undermined the Christian conception of life and the world, and multitudes of those who were nominally connected with the church have long since repudiated the teachings of Christianity.
It is a tremendous problem that confronts us, the evangelization of four hundred thousand Lutherans. If for no other reason, because of its magnitude and because of its appeal to our denominational responsibility, it is a problem worth solving. But it is a challenge to our Christianity and it should stimulate us to an intense study of its possible solution.
Ministers can contribute much toward its solution. It is true our hands are full and more than full with the ordinary care of our flocks. But our office constantly brings us into association with this large outer fringe of our congregations at times when their hearts are responsive to anything that we may have to say. We meet them at weddings and at funerals. We baptize their children and we bury their dead. Once in a while some of them even come to church. In spite of all their wanderings and intellectual idiosyncrasies they still claim to be Christians. And whatever their own attitude toward Christianity may be, there are few who do not desire to have their children brought up in the Christian faith. We have before us an open door.
The churches can do more than they are doing now to win these lapsed Lutherans. Some people are kept out of church through no fault of their own. For example, the rented pew system, still in vogue in some congregations, is an effective means of barring out visitors. Few care to force themselves into the precincts of a private club even if it bears the name of a church.
A pecuniary method of effecting friendly relations is not without its merits. In this city of frequent removals there are many families who have lost all connection with the congregation to which they claim to belong. An opportunity to contribute to the church of their new neighborhood might be for them a secondary means of grace. They become as it were proselytes of the gate. Having taken the first step, many may again enter into full communion with the church.
A Lutheran church, however, does not forget the warning of the prophet: "They have healed the hurt of my daughter slightly." The evangelization of this great army of lapsed Lutherans is not to be accomplished by such a simple expedient as taking up a collection. What most of them need is a return to the faith. Somebody must guide them.
For this no societies or new ecclesiastical machinery will be required. The force to do this work is already enlisted in the communicant membership of our one hundred and fifty organized congregations. We have approximately 60,000 communicants. These are our under-shepherds whose business it is to aid the pastor in searching for "the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Shall we not have a concerted effort on the part of all the churches?
We may certainly win back again into our communion many of whom the Good Shepherd was speaking when He said: "them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd."