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1 Why the Episcopal Church Does Not Identify Herself Openly with Prohibition 1915

handle is hein.beal/whyeich0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Why the Episcopal Church Does Not Identify Herself Openly With Prohibition. Bishop Boyd Vincent of Southern Ohio Tells Why the Episcopal Clergy Are Justi ied In Not Introducing the Subject Into Their Pulpits. So Far Pro bition Has Become a Political Issue, Our Church's Attitude on This is-nly a Part of Her General Attitude of Keeping Politics Out of the Pulpit, Says the Bishop in the Church Messenger. The C.urch VOL. XXXVII. Messenger CINCINNATI, DECEMBER, 1915. Ye shall be witnesses unto Me. -Acts 1:8. The MESSENGER has asked me to state the attitude of our Church on this problem; why she does not identify her- self openly, as some other churches do, with Prohibition; and how our clergy are justified, if they are, in not introduc- ing the subject into the pulpit. Well, to start with, let us carefully distinguish between the attitude of the Church, as such, and the rights and duties of her individual members and ministers, as such. The Church, as a whole, may seem to have an attitude in this matter, but she has no declared policy on it in particular; and therefore neither I nor any one else can speak authoritatively for her as a whole. All iat I can do is to offer some probable xplanations of her attitude. If this ttitude seems to some to be one of - moral cowardice, perhaps on a larger -('iew of the whole subject it may look different. Of the rights and duties of her members and ministers as individ- nals, I shall speak later on. Church Not in Politics. 1. In the first place, then, so far as Prohibition has become a political issue, our Church's attitude on this is only a part of her general attitude of keeping politics out of the pulpit. When Jesus said, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's, he declared that politics and religion are entirely distinct spheres of duty. When he re- fused to act as a judge in a dispute over a will, he left to the civil authority what properly belonged to it and confined his own duty. and that of his followers. to teaching righteousness in all things One of the charges which Bob Ingersoll, the infidel, brought against Christianity that it had never denounced slavery as a moral wrong and crime. That is true. Neither our Lord nor His apostles con- demned slavery as a matter of morals, but they evidently felt sure that any in- justice in it as a social institution would. like any other such injustice, and with- out direct attack, be eventually remedied by the Gospel spirit. This has been the case. In this spirit both England and Russia abolished slavery. So when slavery was made a moral issue in our own country, the South clearly had the words of the Bible and of the American Constitution on its side; but the Gospel spirit finally triumphed over the letter of both. But when, during tie Civil War slavery was also made a political issue and the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches took it up, as politics, into their pulpits, this was the result:-that both these Churches were split in two, and have remained divided. North and South, ever since, Episcopalians, as individuals and on both sides, were just as positive and aggressive in their views on slavery and just as active in fighting for them; but the Episcopal Church, as a Church, kept the issue, as politics, out of her pulpits, with this result:-that after the war her Southern members and ministers stepped right back into their old places, and the Episcopal Church, was and is still as entirely one as before the war. Prohibition a Political Issue. So in the matter of Prohibition. Now that the issue has come to be a political one, the Episcopal Church, as such, has not opposed it, but, on the same general principle, has simply not taken it up into her pulpit as widely as some other churches have done. But her people, as individual citizens, are just as free as any body else to work and vote for Pro- hibition; and her individual ministers are just as free as others to take it into their pulpits or express themselves publicly in any other way about it, if they want to. And they actually do it. For instance, at our 'recent Provincial Synod in Chicago, representing our Church in five States, the following action was taken: The Bishop of Chicago presented the following resolutions: The Synod of the Province of the Mid-West, assembled in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Chicago, rep- resenting twelve dioceses of the Episco- pal Church, desires to put on record its deep gratitude that, in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois, the saloons of the City of Chicago have been closed on Sunday. We congratulate the people of Chi- cago on this forward step. We hope that it may be one in a series of for- ward steps towards the higher welfare of the community. We believe that this progressive movement in the direction of temperance and law observance will have a far-reaching effect for good throughout the entire Middle West and throughout the land. Against Intemperance and Lawlessness. We take this opportunity /of exhort- in7 thc clergy and laity of that part of the Church which we represent to take on frest COUTre and fresh vigor in the warfare against intemperance and law- lessness and their allied evils; and, To this end, that they give increased co- operation to those movements which are clearly making for temperance, law- abidingness, the abolition of the saloon, the consequent diminution of crime and poverty, and for the moral and social betterment of the community. Carried. By all means, then, every Episcopal minister who believes that Prohibition is a moral issue ought to speak and work for it with all his might, both in the pulpit and out of it. But the connection of the pulpit with the subject, as politics, is not a question of right and duty, but simply one of Christian expediency, where the issue, as politics, may divide and destroy a whole congregation or a whole Church. Many Conscientiously Differ. 2. But there is also another view of the matter. Prohibition, especially as politics, is by no means a simple issue. There are many questions connected with it about which men may fairly and conscientious- ly differ. For example: Nation-wide or State-wide prohibition, or more restricted local option-the moral right or wrong in itself of the manufact- tire and sale of liquor-whether the saloon is altogether an unmitigated evil, etc. Some men may stand for personal rights and racial customs, and the rights of a large minority as against a bare majority, and may even differ about the practical possibility of enforcing prohibition and the moral effect of failure to do so. Again, no question but a community has a right to protect itself by legisla- tion against any general menace to its peace and prosperity, and this as against any mere personal rights and interests in the case. But there may be a fair ques- tion as to the best public policy in such a case-viz., Whether repression or regula- tion. All of us would like to see the social evil stamped out completely and forever, if it could be done. But police authorities differ decidedly, even while recognizing the, evil to the full, as to wether segregation and strictly regulated toleration is not really greater social security than attempted dissipation Oto points where the evil would still go on secretly and without any control. So, in this matter before us, there may be a question, even between good men, as to whether Prohibition or High License in the safer or more jict socia policy. Are the Churches Working at the Right End of This Matter? And then still another fundamental question-of moral reform as against any form of legal repression. Here is the vast evil of personal intemperance, the sin of drunkenness, as old as the world. Here is the whole business of making and selling liquor, which, when you have said your best for it, certainly carries with it such an endless train of evils, personal, domestic, social and political. But is Prohibition the only effective and really permanent remedy for all these evils? Are the Churches. as a matter of moral and religious duty, workiing today at the right end of the matter? Isn't the Church's first Gospel duty to deal with and save the drunkard himseii Who that is tifty years old does not remember the wonderful good done by Father Matthew in preaching temperance, rescuing and reforming drunkards and working an almost na- tion-wide moral reformation by his great temperance revival; or the same real and noble kind of work done later by John B. Gough and Francis Murphy? Who does not know the steady, success- ful work being done all the time by the Roman Church in her Total Abstinence Societies? And may it not be that if all the time and strength now given to Prohibition were spent in temperance revivals, in reaching and reforming in- dividual drunkards, and in creating a public opinion resolutely opposed to drink-would not such a movement car- ry everybody with it, and might it not be that by such means far the larger part of the liquor trade would eventually be put out of business? Two Sides to Question. At any rate, here are all these ques- tions about which even Christian men may conscientiously differ and vote ac- cordingly as citizens. Must a clergyman, then, however he regards and deals with Prohibition as a question of morals, be rated'as less than a Christian if he de- clines to commit either himself or his congregation to either side of the ques- tion, as one of politics? Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. . . . But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. . . . So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. -(Rom. 14.) BOYD VINCENT. Reproduction by Permission of Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Buffalo, NY No. 11 C' 4P (14=4 aub OP Iliquar Problem

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