Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1919 — Civilization’s Most Powerful Machine Now Is Unified Religious Bodies [ARTICLE]

Civilization’s Most Powerful Machine Now Is Unified Religious Bodies

By F. B. SMITH

Interchurch World Movement

Political parties of the United States can be backed into the ocean tomorrow by churches united on any moral issue. No league or society of nations formed politically can stand unless supported by a league of churches and a unity of moral ideals. Civilizatiomdias at hand in unified religious bodies the most powerful machine for moral and social advancement conceived in any age. Bringing the inter-church movement down to plain facts and figures, it corresponds in the moral and religious field to the co-ordination of commercial effort and achievement accomplished by the National Association of Commerce. We do not base our efforts on doctrinal or organic unity but on co-ordinate Christian effort. The movement leaves every man free to follow the doctrines and spiritual ambitions of his own creed or church. * Any society of nations, the proposed league of nations, must crumble unless the world is leavened with a unity of moral ideas. These moral and social ideals can’t be put over by unrelated denominations. We desire unity in the matter of economic justice and on all moral issues and do not concern ourselves with the splitting of hairs or theological discussion. Tomorrow 174,000 preachers will go to work, all driving at the same thing—the advancement of the world’s moral welfare. If this army of spiritual leaders were united in a battle for some great issue, nothing in the world could stand against the drive.