1926

A letter from Hyde brings the sad news that C—— has lost his pastorate. I am not surprised. He is courageous but tactless. Undoubtedly he will regard himself as one of the Lord’s martyrs. Perhaps he is. Perhaps loyalty to principle will always appear as tactlessness from the perspective of those who don’t agree with you. But I agree with C—— and still think him wanting in common sense. At least he is pedagogically very awkward.

You can’t rush into a congregation which has been fed from its very infancy on the individualistic ethic of Protestantism and which is immersed in a civilization where ethical individualism runs riot, and expect to develop a social conscience among the people in two weeks. Nor have you a right to insinuate that they are all hypocrites just because they don’t see what you see.

Of course it is not easy to speak the truth in love without losing a part of the truth, and therefore one ought not be too critical of those who put their emphasis on the truth rather than on love. But if a man is not willing to try, at least, to be pedagogical, and if in addition he suffers from a martyr complex, he has no place in the ministry. Undoubtedly there are more ministers who violate their conscience than such as suffer for conscience sake. But that is no reason why those who have a robust conscience should not try to master the pedagogical art. Perhaps if they would learn nothing else but to be less emotional and challenging in the pulpit and more informative and educational not only in the pulpit but in their work with smaller groups, they could really begin to change the viewpoints and perspectives of their people.