3. One of the best results of the Protestant reformation is the diffusion of God’s word among the people. Through the reformation the Bible ceased to be tongue-tied. Its history, poetry of war and love, its tragedy, its simple gospel stories of the Christ comprise a literature that is unsurpassed, and a revelation of God that is unique. But the Bible can only be intelligently understood by the people when the mind of the people is prepared to receive it. One of the worst results growing indirectly out of the Protestant reformation, is the creation of an ignorant priesthood and the reducing of the Bible to a fetich. It follows as a matter of course that where the ministry is uncultured, the interpretation of the word of God suffers. The spirit of God can not do what man is intended to do. He can only illumine where the mind is prepared to pass through the process. Revelation requires a medium, otherwise it is powerless. To understand the mind of God in the Bible presupposes a mind to comprehend His mind. With the Negro’s deficient ministry, religion becomes irreligion. He believes too much in the non-essentials of religion, his heaven and hell are too much in the distant future, he prays that after death he may go to heaven but sees no heaven on earth. The new heaven and the new earth which John saw and the new Jerusalem coming down from God to man are antipodal to his conceptions. His God is seen going up to some cloudless region instead of coming down to tabernacle with men. His sermons feed the feelings but neglect the intellect and will, they tickle the ear and subordinate truth to eloquence. The greater emphasis he puts on churchianity is a loss to Christianity. The contribution which modern thought is making to Biblical interpretation is sealed to him. He pursues his beaten path along the old ruts of ecclesiasticism. He believes in a revelation which is non-progressive and whose distinctive feature is sameness for all times. He is painfully liberal in the construction of the Bible. He thinks he is a curse himself according to the prophet Noah, for he has not yet discovered the distinctive and conditional element in prophecy. His theology is in the main denominational and is like the laws of the Medes and Persians which admit of no change. His mind does not discriminate between the ipse dixit of the Almighty and external authority in matters relating to dogma. In the pulpit he lacks decorum, deep spirituality, and contemplation. His oratory is thunderous, too physical, and lacks grace and beauty.
Much praise is due to those denominations whose forethought has led them to spend considerable time and pains to prepare men for the gospel ministry. In quality of preaching and teaching, and in results already achieved, the race owes much to this as yet small band of workers. Like the leaven hidden in the meal its influence is being felt in the church, in the farm, and in the firesides of the people, and is destined to overthrow ignorance, immorality, and superstition. With the continued aid of well-equipped mission schools which must be the base of supply for our churches, and the training of a new type of men such as the modern church demands, the moral change so much hoped for will be hastened.
4. The world-spirit is in the churches and has taken hold of our ministry. A large part of church duties which should be performed by laymen is shirked and placed upon the minister’s shoulders. The result is that the minister is often overburdened with secular matters, is forced to leave the word and serve tables and loses much spirituality. When a minister’s success depends largely and primarily upon amount of dollars raised by him his spiritual decline is rapid. Worldliness follows when desire for position or recognition in the church overcomes the desire to save men, and when the ordinary tricks of politics are resorted to in order to gain church distinctions. It is a reversal of Christ’s order, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” These other things are eagerly desired in place of the “first” things. The more elaborate the organization of a church is, the larger is the number of preferments to offices, and greater the opportunity given to office seekers to make these the first things. The best men in any church are not always those who hold its highest offices. Too much organization in the church leads to too much officialism and worldliness, for “where the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together.”
IV. THE LAITY.
The laity lack much consecration. The things of this world and the desire for them press more heavily upon their minds than the extension of God’s cause. Their Christian consciousness is not trained, hence their sense of duty is not high. They depend too much on spasms of effort and frequent appeals to the emotions in the performance of duty. Their idea of the gospel is too confined to hearing sermons on Sunday. Their gospel does not touch the many interests of life. Their virtues are not concrete. Holiness, purity, love, truth, beauty, justice, goodness are metaphysical abstractions. Too much self-centred and self-seeking, they make little or no sacrifice for others. Many self-supporting churches do not shelter weaker ones and have no thought for the heathen. There are churches that are fortunate in having in their official boards men of culture, piety, and business experience, but these are virtues very rarely found in the same men. Business methods are often low in churches because of the difficulty of finding strictly business men among the laity. In the erection of churches the spirit of ostentation rather than worship is dominant. The immorality of debt not being known, churches are very often built without regard to the financial inability of the people, and deceive by suggesting rich parishioners when the people are very poor and live from hand to mouth. Many disruptions between pastors and churches could have been avoided were church finances not kept in a confused state. Pastor’s salaries and other church obligations are not raised and met in a systematic way, but are left to appeals to the feelings of the people whose ethical sense has not been cultivated. We have thus enumerated among the defects of the laity, worldliness, untrained Christian consciousness, restricted meaning of the gospel, the non-concreteness of the Christian virtues, and the lack of a missionary spirit and of business methods.
V. EXCESSIVE EMOTIONALISM IN WORSHIP.
Paradoxical as it may seem, in religion the Negro’s emotions constitute his strongest as well as his weakest point. The fact that he is largely developed in the emotional side of his nature would, other things being equal, give him a vantage ground in matters of religion. His defect is not that he is emotional, but that he is excessively so. Like other races in their childhood, he is a bundle of feelings. He does not think after God, he does not will after God, but he feels after God. He is not driven to action because he is impelled by a moral imperative, the law of duty, but he is controlled by his nerves which are his thermometer. With the nerves as his guide it is impossible to tell where he stands on many moral questions. Neurotic environments appeal quickly to him, and are fostered by the church in sermons which appeal largely to the imagination, in weird pictures of the unseen, in apocalyptic sermons, and by mystic preachers known as mourners, shouters and visioners. As a subject of experimentation in physco-physics, the most fitting time is in seasons of revival in religion when his emotion is keyed to the highest point.
The following stages may be noticed:
(1) Violent physical commotion followed by physical exhaustion.