1927

At the Lenten service today the dynamic speaker dilated upon the heroic character of the Christian faith. “Someone said to me recently,” he reported, “‘Do you realize that it is dangerous to be a Christian?’ ‘Certainly,’ I answered, ‘It always has been and always will be.’”

Isn’t it strange how we preachers insist on emphasizing the heroic aspect of the Christian faith? That pose today was exactly like the one struck by the minister in —— who loved to say dramatically, “The church needs a new casualty list,” while it was generally known that he carefully evaded every issue which might create dissension or contention.

I think we ministers strike these heroic poses because we are dimly aware of the fact that the gospel commits us to positions which require heroic devotion before they will ever be realized in life. But we are astute rather than heroic and cautious rather than courageous. Thus we are in the dangerous position of being committed to the cross in principle but escaping it in practice. We are honest enough to be uneasy about that fact, but insincere enough to quiet our uneasiness by heroic poses.

Let any group of ministers gather and you will find someone declaring fervently, “No one ever tells me what to say. My congregation gives me perfect liberty.” That is just another way of quieting an uneasy conscience; for we all know that if we explore the full meaning of a gospel of love its principles will be found to run counter to cherished prejudices. It is of course not impossible to retain freedom of the pulpit, but if anyone is doing so without the peril of defections from his ranks and opposition to his message, he is deceiving himself about the quality of his message. Either his message is too innocuous to deserve opposition or too conventional to arouse it.

An astute pedagogy and a desire to speak the truth in love may greatly decrease opposition to a minister’s message and persuade a difficult minority to entertain at least, and perhaps to profit by, his message; but if a gospel is preached without opposition it is simply not the gospel which resulted in the cross. It is not, in short, the gospel of love.