Uncle Sam, the Missionary

FOR more than a century the denominational churches of the world sent their missionaries to Japan to convert the people to their concepts of Christianity. Some converts were made, but the number of unconverted Japanese continued to increase and not a dent was made in the minds of those responsible for the governmental affairs of Japan in the way of convincing them that their emperor was not of divine origin, and as such, the civil and religious head of a super-people destined to rule the world. Shintoism in all its ugly forms continued to be the official and undisputed religion of the Japanese people.

But, beginning with “Pearl Harbor,” Uncle Sam went to work on the Japanese, not, of course, as a missionary, but to crush the military might of a nation whose people seemed glad to die in the belief that their emperor, was indeed divine. The military campaign progressed victoriously, and finally two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities, killing untold thousands who had believed their divine emperor could protect them. Then Japan surrendered and submitted to occupation by Uncle Sam’s army.

In this upsetting time of human history many of our old viewpoints and legends have to be revised. What has happened in Japan, for example, may well call for a modification of the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword; because the military power of Uncle Sam has convinced the emperor of that conquered country that he is not divine and that the Japanese are not a “super people.” At the beginning of 1946, Hirohito told his people that he was a mere man, just like the rest of them—and not even a super-man. All the missionaries who ever went to Japan failed to accomplish a result like this. It means that the very foundation of one of the most powerful false religious systems of the world has been destroyed. It is claimed that Hirohita may profess Christianity—presumably much as Constantine did in the fourth century.

In Hebrews 12:27 the apostle tells us that in this great “time of trouble” everything will be shaken that can be shaken, and that only those elements of a world society which cannot be shaken—that is, those which are in harmony with God and righteousness—will remain. Hirohito’s rescript to his people telling them that what they had been taught and forced to believe all their lives was untrue, is certainly a marked evidence of the “shaking” of those things which are not in harmony with God.

There is room for much more shaking along this line. Following the first World War the religious rule over Russia was destroyed when the church-state government of that country was replaced by communism. Perhaps if the Czar had lived long enough to express an opinion he might have stated himself in much the same way Hirohito has: he might have said that in reality God had never appointed him to be the ruler of Russia, and that he was not properly the civil head of the Christian church.

One can’t help wondering—even a little impatiently—when the great shaking processes of the “time of trouble” will cause the Pope of the Catholic Church to make the same frank admission to the Catholic world that Hirohito has made to the Japanese. Will the explosion of a few more atomic bombs accomplish this? Very few of the British people now take seriously the claim that their king is especially appointed by God to be the civil head of the Christian church. But even though few believe this, it will be a wonderful step of progress when his Majesty sees his privilege of acknowledging to the people what he must already realize himself; namely, that there is no true foundation to the idea that he is divinely commissioned to be the “defender of the faith” with a cold steel sword, as is indicated in the coronation ceremony.

The false religion of Mohammedanism must also eventually be destroyed. All religious concepts which are out of harmony with the true God of love and not in keeping with his divine plan for the salvation of the people are to perish. The entire “heavens” of this present evil world are to “melt with fervent heat.” To realize that the melting has already started is to have our faith strengthened in the fact that Christ’s kingdom is near.

No, the world will not be left without religion. We are promised that following this shaking and burning time God will “turn to the people a pure language” that they might all call upon him with “one consent.” (Zeph. 3:8,9) There will be just one religion in God’s new world, and that will be the true religion—not Shintoism, not Hinduism, not Catholicism; not Episcopalianism, but a “knowledge of the glory of God” which is to fill the earth as “the waters cover the sea.”—Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14

Inhabitants Scattered

In an article appearing in the January 5th issue of Collier’s magazine, Pope Pius XII says:

War has forcibly separated husbands and wives, parents and children. It has let youth escape from the normal discipline of home and school. It has weakened the bonds of wedded life. It has released a flood of lusts. It has caused the greatest and most tragic migration of peoples in all history. It has created a vast multitude of exiles, deluded, disheartened, desolate, chained in a servitude not less despotic than the very tyrannies that the war aimed to shatter. In these homeless masses is the yeast for revolution and disorder.

We all knew this, but the Pope has described the facts so vividly that we are aided in grasping the horrible reality of this aftermath of war. It may well be this migration of peoples forced by the war that is foretold in Isaiah 24:1, which reads, “Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.”

An editorial appearing in the Chicago Tribune entitled “The Brutal Century,” gives. further evidence along this dine. We quote:

Europe today has what is called peace, but no end to barbarity. Millions are held in slavery. The economic machinery of civilization is deliberately sabotaged. Millions have been condemned to exile and the roads are clogged with them. The continent starves, and lies powerless and stricken with fear.

In the article by the Pope, from which we quoted above, he states, “We have always maintained and proclaimed the principle that war as a means of solving international differences, is obsolete, and We [capital “W” not ours] have constantly striven to make Christian and religious men reject modern war with its monstrous means of conducting hostilities.” These words have a noble sound, but when analyzed, they are found to contain an admission of terrible guilt on the part of Vatican policies.

Notice the assertion that it is “modern” war which has become “obsolete,” and which the Pope condemns. This is admitting what all know to be the truth, that the Vatican at one time deliberately promoted war as a means of settling international disputes, because it was believed that in this way the disputes could be settled to the advantage of the Catholic Church. Now it is realized that “modern” warfare is dangerous to the Catholic Church, just as it was dangerous—even disastrous—to Shintoism, so it is condemned.

The Pope undoubtedly realizes (it is too obvious not to be seen) that the millions of people uprooted by modern warfare, who are homeless and starving, are not likely to continue exercising faith in the ability of the Vatican to save them from disaster. As millions of these desolate people, their faith in all religion dwindling, wander up and down over the roads of Europe, their presence among the people as a whole, who also are hungry, will continue to spread doubt that the church in which they once trusted, is of God.

Counting the Kings

According to an editorial appearing in the Baltimore Sun, there are now only twelve remaining monarchs in Europe, “and many of these are on the way out,” the writer says—although an effort is being made to bring royalty back to Spain. The editorial was occasioned by the final ousting of the Yugoslavia monarch and the recognition of Marshal Tito’s regime by the United States and Great Britain.

In 1914, according to this editorial, forty-one monarchs ruled in Europe, forming under the leadership of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a veritable “princes trade union.” In 1918 only fifteen of these remained. The big three were gone. The czarist empire became the Russian Soviet. Germany became a federation of seventeen republican states. “King busting was renewed by the fascist dictators,” the editorial states, and the second global was exhilarated the revolutionary trend so that today, as one Bible Student put it, that which was on the top is now on the bottom. The symbolic “earth” has truly been turned upside down as the prophet foretold!

The overturning of world society is being accomplished in different ways. This is to be expected. The symptoms of social and economic disorders are bound to be different in the backward European countries for example, than in America. Actually, however, the principles which are causing crowns to topple in Europe are essentially the same as have come to grips in the General Motors and other strikes in this country. It is the determination of the people to have their just share of the benefits of this machine age.

The issue is not always clearly seen. Even those participating in the struggle frequently fail to understand just what it is they are fighting for. And often, those who lead the “have nots” in the struggle are just as anxious to secure a lion’s share of the spoil as the capitalists and monarchs whom they seek to overthrow. It is, as Pastor Russell points out on page 542 in The Battle of Armageddon, a war of words which ultimately leads to a strife of arms.

As a matter of fact the war of words and the strife of arms frequently go on simultaneously. In this great upheaval of human society there are eruptions of various kinds in all parts of the world. This condition has become so widespread that now the term “anarchy” is creeping into many of the commentaries of world affairs. It is an interesting picture to watch, especially when viewed from the standpoint of God’s Word. If we have faith in the promises of God we will know that the outcome is to be glorious, even the establishment of the kingdom of Christ.

Israel in the News

Riots in the Holy Land; boycott of Jewish industry by Arabs; reports of planned mass migration of Jews from Poland and other European countries; and a continuous bitter controversy between Zionist leaders and the British government concerning immigration to Palestine, characterize the news of what is occurring in the Jewish world.

The general picture, like that of the world in general, is chaotic, even to the extent that the Jews themselves are divided in their opinion as to the merit of Zionist hopes and prospects. But out of the muddled scene of paradoxical events there continues to emerge a definite pattern which is wholly in harmony with the prophecies relating to these closing days of the age.

Palestine was deeded to the natural descendants of Abraham by God. It is their land, and while for centuries they have been scattered among all nations, downtrodden and persecuted in most of them, the time has now come for them to be restored to their own land. But the prophecies are clear that this restoration was not to be without severe trials for the Jews. Jeremiah wrote:

For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. … For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling,, of fear, and not of peace.—Jeremiah 30:3,5

This is but a sample of the manner in which the prophecies reveal that the time of Israel’s restoration to the Promised Land would also be at time of trouble—of “trembling and fear”—for them. And surely they have had a great deal of trouble in recent years. Millions of them in Europe have been killed. And even though their arch-persecutor, the Nazi regime, has been crushed, anti-semitism is still rearing its ugly head throughout many parts of Europe.

It is no wonder that the Jews throughout that devastated country are fearful of what tomorrow holds for them, and are therefore desperately anxious to migrate into Palestine. It doubtless required just such an uprooting experience as that through which they have passed—and are still passing—to make them truly long to be in their own land.

But right now, contrary to the pre-election promises of the present labor government of Great Britain, the doors to Palestine are virtually closed to the Jews, only a pitifully small number being permitted to return there each month. The Arab world is of course bringing pressure to bear upon the British government to keep the Jews out of Palestine. Fears of an Arab uprising, oil interests, and other factors, all contribute to the present stand of the British.

Meanwhile the Zionists are becoming very outspoken in their charges against the British—and against government officials in Washington, also. No plainer words of condemnation were ever spoken against their European persecutors than Zionist Jews are now uttering against the British government and others whom they consider responsible for helping to keep the doors of Palestine closed to them.

Just how many more Jews will be permitted to return to Palestine before the final phase of the present “day of God’s vengeance,” designated in the prophecies as “Jacob’s trouble,” we do not know. (Isa. 34:8; 61:2; Jer. 51:6; 30:7) But this we do know, that Israel will have the land because God has promised it. Humanly constituted governments may, and do break promises, but God does not; and in the final picture God has promised to fight for Israel as in the days of old. And what will it matter then how many Arabs, or Englishmen, or Russians, or others, may be opposed, or have failed to keep their promises?

A Catholic View

THE following editorial is reprinted from the December 29th issue of The Tablet, a Roman Catholic weekly-newspaper. We quote it without comment:

As we see the hand of suppression tightening its grip on Catholics and the Church in every part of the world, American Catholics may be permitted to wonder if they will be spared.

On every continent, the people yearn for a just and lasting peace. Pope Pius XII has stated and reiterated the elementary conditions necessary for such a peace; he has explained them simply and clearly and no one has attempted to disprove them. But the men who represent the people of the many nations and who profess to be seeking peace are completely ignoring the Holy Father’s wise and just advice and are favoring an atheistic experiment guaranteed to produce chaos, dictatorship and certain slavery for the people.

In Europe, as so many of our returning veterans will frankly agree, the Catholic Church, even in predominantly Catholic countries, is functioning within prescribed limits and only with the permission of authorities professedly anti-Catholic. The people of the Continent are of strong and intelligent Faith in their personal lives, but they are weak and docile in political life, apparently, for, except in Spain, they permit in power regimes which are openly and methodically strangling even the spiritual life of the Church of Christ. Millions of Europeans have bravely suffered and died in the cause of patriotism, yet we see their survivors satisfied with a few crumbs of religious freedom tossed down to them from the table of their rulers.

In Asia, the hopes of the missionaries are none too bright. In the territories adjacent to and influenced from Siberia, anti-Christianity is in the ascendancy. In China, the admission of Communists into the Chungking Government will see a fading of the Tatter’s favorable attitude toward the Church; throughout southern Asia, the nationalistic spirit, which pretends to seek the legitimate and noble end of freedom for a down-trodden and enslaved native population, gives every indication of being inspired and encouraged by powerful forces that will in due time deny freedom to Christ’s apostles. In Japan, once the Communists have infiltrated themselves sufficiently into the Allied government, Catholics will begin to experience the same tightening of the intangible fist on the throat of their spiritual body.

In South America, the vast majorities of the peoples of the several nations are yielding their fate into the hands of unrepresentative minorities. Many of us expected the Catholic Latin-American nations to be champions of the Holy Father’s charter for world peace at San Francisco, but they were not. News reports bear witness to the spiritual and liturgical glories, but again, as elsewhere, we find the same double standard: adherence to the principles of Christ among the individual members of a nation but apathy toward the rejection of those principles by the nation itself. No one will deny that the heart of Latin America is Catholic, yet it is equally obvious that the sentiments of that heart are being prevented from becoming vocal in the presence of other nations. The voice of Communism, on the contrary, is loud and persuasive, except from Argentina.

The Church in America today is strong in numbers, in the personal holiness of its members and in the organization of its spiritual and charitable undertakings. Isolate the Church and it can only be viewed with optimism. Catholics who are contended with being tolerated and with being permitted to graze undisturbed in their own recognized pasture have little to complain of in the United States. Nevertheless, one may be permitted to wonder if our lack of voice in the affairs of the nation is not an invitation to the clenched fist which is gripping most of the rest of the world.

Free Schools in India

According to a report appearing in The Christian Century, free schools for primary education have been established in Travancore, India. This Indian state has a population of about 6,000,000, of whom one-third are professed Christians. Until now the Catholic Church has managed about half of the 3,000 Travancore schools, and has received financial aid from the government for so doing.

But this has now been changed. The government is to assume full responsibility for the primary education of Travancore’s children, and will make it compulsory. The church may continue to operate its schools—without financial aid from the government—provided the standard of education meets the approval of the government, and the teaching of religion is done outside of the schools and only at the request of parents.

The church, of course, cries, “Persecution.” Catholic authorities are particularly concerned over this development for it forebodes the end of their influence in educational circles all over India, if and when that country is given its freedom.

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