This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Nov. 16, 1940.
When Hitler made the boast that after he had conquered Europe he would not need to use arms against the United States, for he would have enough people in the United States to colonize it, many of us dismissed this as another one of his foolish boasts.
But as time rolls on and we see and read what is coming over to us from some of the internationally known writers of the United States, we begin to see that the German dictator had some grounds for hope.
We all know that Hitler eradicated two factors from German life early in his rule, the influence of women and the church in all its forms. For these he had a fiery hatred which can easily be understood — he wanted no softness in his people, no mercy, no charity, no brotherly love, no conscience. So he dismissed women from public offices, drove them to working in the fields or in the homes, insisted on an increased birthrate, and as far as he was able, closed the churches and imprisoned or shot the priests and pastors who dared to resist him.
Now we find that Hitler has his disciples on this side of the Atlantic, and naturally we are worried over this. Not only should women be worried, but all thinking people.
Channing Pollock, well-known literary critic and dramatist, writes in the October Readers’ Digest, an article entitled Why I Do Not Go To Church, as bitter and unfair an attack as only a clever man could devise. He assails the church from many angles.
The ministers, he says, “dwelling in ivory towers, know nothing of life. They have nothing to say, and must say it twice on Sunday.” He says their sermons, “as reported in the newspapers” show superficial thinking, limited experience and pious platitudes.
He says the cost of the ornate church structures might better have been used to feed thousands of starved minds, which certainly has a familiar sound. (“Should not this have been sold and given to the poor?”)
Now it is not my intention to fill this column with a defence of the church, though I could do this with a good heart. I have listened many times to long-distance selfish critics, who never go near a church, or give a dollar to its support, who base their observations on “newspaper reports,” which naturally are brief and sketchy, and yet feel competent to attack the self-sacrificing ministers and people who carry on day by day, teaching in Sunday schools, welcoming strangers, guiding young people, and giving a Gospel message here and in other lands.
I think of the boys’ and girls’ camps, the fresh-air camps, where tired women and sick children are given a holiday; the free libraries, reading rooms, gymnasiums.
But greater than all these is the teaching of the church. That is the mission of the church — to be a light in the darkness. And it is just that. Boys and girls are taught in the church to know right from wrong, to have a sense of God’s nearness, and recognize temptation and know how to meet it. This is more than feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.
The lesson of this tragic hour is plain. The last stand of democracy is the fortified hearts of its people, and the human heart is fortified against fear, and death, when it trusts in God. Christ came to earth to bring that message. He died for it, so sure He was that His message would redeem the world, and so it will.
His disciples were ordinary men, full of fear and self-seeking, but when they saw His resurrection, they became strong and fearless. They knew that nothing mattered but the truth.
That is the teaching of the Church of Christ, and we must be faithful to it. It is the hope of the world.
The church does make demands on its people, which lazy and indifferent people are loath to meet. So they make excuses for themselves. They do not honestly say: “I’m too lazy to go to church — I want to amuse myself on Sundays. I don’t care what happens to the young people — let them run amuck — they’ll learn by experience. It’s not my responsibility, anyway.”
People of this cast of thought will be delighted with Channing Pollock’s reasons for not going to church. Here is comfort and exoneration. Let me quote again from Pollock:
“We find the kind of religion offered in churches to be the preservation of symbols, doctrines and a philosophy largely without meaning in our modern world … underpaid and underprivileged persons, given a circumscribed education, turned loose without taste or opportunity for further development … Such men cannot command the respect of their communities … Why should you or I waste an hour on half-baked social theories that might be spent with Herbert Spenser or Ortega y Gasset?”
Is this what Hitler meant when he spoke of colonization?
The “colonization” goes on in another direction, too, equally subtle and mischievous.
As good a magazine as Harper’s carried an article last month blaming women’s influence in America for the country’s unpreparedness. That’s a good one. The writer says that somewhere between 1914 and 1940, both Britain and France became ladylike. It is no disgrace to be “ladylike,” though the word here is intended to convey a picture of a timid old lady who wears frilled petticoats and who screams when she sees a mouse.
Well, maybe she did in peacetime, but now that same old lady in England or Scotland has probably extinguished incendiary bombs that fell in her room, and torn up her petticoats to staunch the blood of her countrymen. I do not think that much criticism can be directed against the women of Britain at this moment, on any count. Of course, I know it’s wonderful to have someone to blame.
There are two ways of taking unfair criticism. One is to mull over it, get hot about it, rehearse imaginary conversations with the critics, and otherwise waste the energy needed in our work.
The other way is to search for any word of truth which may be buried in the trash. We are the church. If it is impotent, it is because we are indifferent. The church has workers and well-wishers. More well-wishers than workers.
Its efficiency could be doubled now if the well-wishers would suddenly awaken to its importance. It is not just another Good Cause, to which $5 is given when the collectors call. The church is a great service station on life’s hard road. It is a lighthouse on a stormy sea. The enemies of humanity consider it a military objective.
