| News and Views | April 1944 |
Set for the Struggle
“For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.”—Luke 12:2
HOW fraught with meaning was President Roosevelt’s statement, made earlier in the present global conflict, that it is given to this generation to hold a rendezvous with destiny! Students of the Bible recognize this, and even more. In the shifting scenes of nations, politics and religion, they see a divine destiny working out the pattern of a new order which will be the fulfillment of the promises of God, the establishment of the much-prayed-for Kingdom of Christ.
Under the impact of the foretold increase of knowledge, the people have been aroused to a realization of rights long denied them, and in their struggle for liberty and an equal share in the bounties of earth, no barrier which challenges victory is permitted to stand in the way. Whether these barriers be political, national or ecclesiastical, and irrespective of their traditional value or sacredness, they must give place to the forces which are dedicated to the revolutionizing of a world.
This does not mean that any new order visualized by selfish men will necessarily be better than the old one. The prophetic increase of knowledge is revealing to mankind the evils of the past, and stimulating human hearts with a determination to destroy those evils, but only divine power and wisdom, operating through the Messianic Kingdom arrangements, will be able to give to the people the ideal conditions they are now being taught to expect.
Meanwhile, the contending forces of earth are struggling for positions of power and influence, from which they can control the policies of the nations beyond the war. The lineup of these contending forces is most interesting. It involves much more than a contest in which the United Nations are on one side, and the Axis powers on the other. Within this outer ring of contestants there is raging a much more far-reaching and sinister struggle in which, as the battle-line becomes more clearly defined, is seen a contest of the old against the new.
Old forms of government, old political setups, old ideologies, and old religious systems are struggling for existence against the pitiless offensive of the new. Taking part in the conflict are not only nations and armies and civilian populations, but also the forces of intrigue, secret polities, opposing ideologies and contradicting religions.
On the battle-fronts of armies there is an unbelievable spilling of blood, and where contending ideologies and religions are struggling for survival, a merciless word-battle, in which no quarter is given to the enemy. Secret diplomacies, unholy alliances, and subtle intrigues, characteristic particularly of European nations and religions, are no longer able to carry on their fight under the smoke screen of fabrication and deceit. If there was ever a time when the hidden things of darkness are being revealed, as prophesied by Jesus, surely it is now.
In our opinion, the outstanding news of 1944, thus far has been Russia’s attack on the Vatican. It is outstanding because it was at the behest of the non-religious rulers of Russia, and not necessarily because it was an attack on the Vatican. After all, the Vatican and its policies have been subject to the criticism and attack of anti-Catholic groups and organizations since the days of the Reformation. With rare exceptions, however, former attacks on the Holy See have received little public attention, especially since the dramatic days when the Reformation movement was at its height.
But this was different. Russia is one of the powerful allies in a group of nations which has set out to free the world from oppression. Her military successes thus far have given her wonderful prestige among her allies, and have earned for her the right to have a great deal to say at the peace table concerning what must and must not be in Europe after the war. Russia’s attack on the Vatican, therefore, is being interpreted as revealing to the world what her attitude in that direction is to be.
According to an item appearing in The United States News, published in Washington, D.C., diplomats are expressing privately their opinion that this Russian attack upon the Catholic Church represents the opening gun in what is destined to be a duel between the Kremlin and the Vatican for the purpose of influencing future peace settlements as they will affect many of the countries of Europe. These diplomats claim that the Russian move is an effort to tie the Church to discredited and, they hope, soon-to-be defeated Fascist regimes.
But this is not the whole story, merely one side of it. The same news journal, in a further summary of the situation, points out that it is the policy of the United States and Great Britain to work closely with the Vatican, especially in European affairs. Who will win out, and what the victory will mean, as between these opposing forces, are things that every student of the prophecies will watch with keen interest.
What this word-battle has already meant is almost unbelievable. Newspapers and periodicals in America are taking sides in the issue and discussing the policies of the Holy See frankly and freely, irrespective of whether their comments be for or against, and whether they be complimentary or derogatory. Yes, secret things have come to light in a way that would have been difficult to imagine before they occurred. Commenting on this Russian exposure of the Vatican’s secret diplomacy, the March issue of The Protestant magazine says:
“She [Russia] dares at last to point out the identity of one of the central figures in the march of world Fascism; the Vatican. Bluntly the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia calls the Vatican pro-Fascist. Of course it was not necessary to call the attention of the European people to this long obvious fact. The American people, however, have had no inkling of it. The press of the United States has kept the lid on this Pandora’s box. Even the most liberal section of that press has walked on tip-toe around the subject of the Vatican’s role in the present world crisis.”
Also significant is the following quotation from the same magazine, The Protestant:
“Fascism wrought a change in the status of the Church, a change so great that it amounted to the beginning of a world revolution. It launched upon the world a new, powerful and sinister influence. It made the Church a temporal power, a sovereign nation. By doing this Fascism subverted the principle of the separation between church and state which had obtained in Italy since 1870. It threw in the face of the world a revived Papal Power, a political at one stroke the first step in what Monsignor Sheen correctly calls the world Counter Revolution. And the whole thing practically passed without notice. The fruits of this revolution have been all the bitter fruits of World War II.”
Speaking of Monsignor Sheen, The Tablet, a Catholic weekly paper published in Brooklyn, N.Y., quotes him as saying:
“When the world attacks the Church there will be a temptation to sneak out from under it, to escape the woe: A tendency to compromise, apologies, or even ‘sell out.’ But the attack may and will continue, for in these days the devil has a very long rope. Hold fast to your belief in the moral law. It is the solace of your soul: The only hope of America.”
Catholics in this country, as well as elsewhere are not relinquishing their conviction that the hope of the world centers in an enlarged influence of their Church. The Tablet features a speech made in the Canadian Parliament by Frederick Dorion, independent member from Quebec, in which he enthusiastically advocated that the Pope be given a place at the coming peace parley. Mr. Dorion is quoted as saying in this speech:
“As long as the Vatican is deliberately left aside and excluded from international discussions, the suffering and unhappy peoples of the world will be offered only incomplete and insufficient remedies.”
Secular magazines, as well as religious, now feel free to comment on what one publication has frankly referred to as formerly being the “sacred cow” of journalism, namely Vatican policies. From an editorial in Life magazine, we quote the following:
“There are plenty of Catholic Americans who agree with Izvestia’s criticism of Vatican policy. They have criticized it themselves, on the same grounds, in U.S. Catholic magazines. They think the Pope’s neutrality has been too far ‘above the battle,’ too tolerant of fascism; they have heartily disapproved of his favoritism to Mussolini, Franco and Petain. But Stalin is the last man on earth they want to hear this criticism from.”
Monsignor Sheen apparently believes that attacks against the Church will continue, and that as a result there is a danger of many abandoning the organization, He speaks of it as sneaking out to escape the woe. For many years past, those who have had ears to hear the message of God’s Word have heard Him calling them out of Babylon—“Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” (Revelation 18:4) Apparently there are two ways of leaving an organization. One in response to God’s invitation, and the other a sneaking out to escape the punishments that come upon an institution. We believe that the better way is that of responding to the voice of God.
We agree with Monsignor Sheen that growing unbelief and increasing opposition against churchianity will result in a loss of confidence in the churches on the part of many. There is an important lesson in this for Christians, a lesson which many will find hard to learn, while others, though knowing it, will hesitate to acknowledge; namely, that it is manmade Christianity that is under attack, and not the true Christianity of the Bible.
From the very beginning of the Christian era true followers of the Master have obeyed His instructions to separate their selves from the world. The accumulated evils of church-state rulership in Europe throughout the centuries of the past furnish convincing evidence of the tragedies that result when the divine will is not obeyed. The founding fathers of America recognized that church and state should be kept separate, and provided guarantees for this in the Constitution. Americans, therefore, should not feel too badly when circumstances develop which threaten to break the shackles of political churchianity in Europe.
There is also another lesson for Christians in these developments, a practical lesson, involving our privileges as ambassadors for. Christ and His Kingdom during this day of the Lord’s wrath. If, as Monsignor Sheen fears, people will be sneaking out of institutions which the compelling logic of events is proving are not supported by the Lord, we should be on the alert to give them a helping hand. They will be disillusioned so far as their former beliefs are concerned. Learning, for example, of the destruction of the Benedictine Monastery, many will wonder why the Lord could not have prevented such an apparent tragedy.
At first, the tendency in most cases will be a slump into unbelief, but there will be those, and perhaps an increasing number, whose disillusionment will tend to open their minds to hear the Kingdom message. One of the purposes of the time of trouble is to humble the hearts of the people in order that they may be willing to accept the Lord’s arrangements and bring their lives; into harmony therewith. To the extent that this is accomplished in the minds of some, while the church is still this side of the veil it will be our privilege to pass on the heart-cheering message of the Kingdom to them.
The first destructive spasm of this great time of trouble, as we have heretofore pointed out, began in 1914. The unexpected developments at that time began to have their effect on the so-called orthodox viewpoint of churchianity, that our uncivilized civilization was in reality Christendom—Christ’s Kingdom. This view has been called in question increasingly since, so much so that today it is very rarely that the word Christendom appears in print. Pastor Russell, in his clear vision of world trends as they fulfilled prophecy, noted the effect of the first war upon the people, and the opportunities of service thus opened up to the Lord’s ambassadors. Writing on the subject he said:
“Manifest now, and increasingly so as the days go by, the minds of thinking people will be opening to a realization of the truth. Now, as never before, they will need the Lord’s saints to point them in the right direction—to bring the Scriptures to their attention and the various helps for Bible study which the Lord has been providing, and which are already in the hands of many. As society and religious systems will be reeling as a drunken man, as the Bible explains, these undeveloped saints of God will need the very help we by God’s grace are enabled to render them. Surely there never was so favorable a time as the present for rendering assistance to this class! More and more, as these find that they have been misled by the shepherds of the nominal system, they will be as sheep without a shepherd.
“To those who have the knowledge of God, of His Word, of His plan, the present and the near future offer certainly the most wonderful opportunities of which we could conceive. Whoever loves the Lord will love the brethren. Whoever would serve the Lord will be intent upon serving the brethren; and the more their need, the better the opportunity; and the greater our zeal, the greater the results for others, and the greater the blessing for ourselves. ‘He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.’—John 4:36.”—Reprints, January 1, 1916.
It is not the business of truth-enlightened Christians to join in the struggle now being waged between the contending factions of human society. Let them continue shooting out their bitter words of accusation if they will, but as the shackles of superstition are broken, and human minds are opened to the hearing of God’s Word, let us be ready with its message of good news. Let us rejoice in the confidence inspired by the promises of God’s Word, that the bringing to light the evil practices on the part of the institutions of this world, while it may shake them to their very foundations, will in no wise interfere with God’s plan to establish Christ’s Kingdom by which all the world will soon be ruled and blessed.
And there is no other hope for the world except the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ. This becomes more and more apparent as human selfishness sabotages one after another of the benevolent plans worked out in the hearts and minds of noble-minded men and women who would like to see all the people happy. The rank and file of the people everywhere do want to see a better world, and are willing to work hard in order that their wishful thinking may be transformed into reality. Note the following passionate plea of Freda Kirchwey, which we quote from The Nation:
“Ordinary people everywhere are sick to death of the scramble for power of privileged groups; they are sick of intrigue, of divisions among men; they are sick of the cruelty which has made the world a place of horror and ignominy. What they want—all they want—are the opposites of these products of fascism and war. They want a breath of human warmth in a world grown cold with hate; they want freedom to work and talk and enjoy the decencies of life; to educate their children. They are willing to die—they are dying in millions—so that other men may have these things. But if they die only to keep alive a world in which the hope of freedom again withers and hatred and war come to flower, then the payment for that deception will be even heavier than the awful payment exacted today for the deceptions of last time. It is our task—our only important task on this earth—to help create a world fit, not for heroes, but for ordinary men and women.”
How glad we are to know that those who are dying in order that there may be a better world in which their children may live, will yet have the opportunity of living in a happy world themselves—not the world for which they died, but a better one, God’s world of tomorrow. Christ died in order that God’s world might become a reality, and that all who have longed and struggled for better things may be awakened from the sleep of death and enjoy its blessings. It is the privilege of the Master’s disciples now to lay down their lives proclaiming the message of the Kingdom, and because we have assurance that it is God’s way, we can die for a better world, and know our death will not be in vain.
“Tell the whole world these blessed tidings;
Speak of the time of rest that nears;
Tell the oppressed of every nation,
Jubilee lasts a thousand years.”