Pulpit-Pointers for Preachers

Ministers, Bible instructors, teachers, and writers need to exercise extreme care in selecting sources for needed in formation. Too often one is tempted to use a statement from an unreliable source because it would require considerable study to verify it or prove it untrue; that is, to ascertain the facts. And it may be something sensational that we believe will have the desired effect, or a state ment that will "prove" an assertion we have made.

"Six Hundred (?)" Denominations

How many times have I seen on announcements of evangelistic meetings the subject listed: "Why more than six hundred Christian denominations?" About fifty years ago I saw this subject announced and heard our ministers state that there were more than six hundred denominations. All the ministers in our conference used this announcement, so when I entered the ministry I followed their example; but when I began a search for the "more than six hundred," there were less than half that number to be found.

The first complete report of the Census of Religious Bodies taken by the United States Bureau of Census was based upon the 1906 census of the religious organizations. It was voted in 1902 to take this census once every ten years. The 1916 census listed 201 denominations. The 1926 report, published in two volumes in 1930, gave 213 denominations. Of these, 155 are grouped in 23 families, and 58 are listed as separate denominations. The 1936 Census of Religious Bodies was not printed in book form until 1941. This report lists 256 denominations, for which it gives statistics, and 54 on which no statistics were available, or a total of 310. The 1946 Census of Religious Bodies was not completed, because Congress did not provide the needed funds. No reports for 1946 will be issued. The next Census of Religious Bodies will be taken in 1956, provided the necessary appropriation is made.

Elmer T. Clark, editor of the World Outlook, after nearly twenty-five years of gathering data on the smaller denominations, published in 1949 his revised edition of The Small Sects in America. He states that there were then more than four hundred religious groups in the country, and four of these are the great schools of thought in present-day Judaism. Mr. Clark includes very small denominations. He states that some are almost microscopic, eight having only one congregation each, and one of these having only thirteen members. More than half, he says, have less than 7,000 adult members, and only 33 have as many as 200,000 members each; the latter include considerably more than 90 percent of all the church members in the country.

Practically every Christian denomination found anywhere in the world is represented in the United States; consequently, the number given for the United States would be about correct for the world, and at no time have there been more denominations than in the twentieth century. Some denominations have united, but in nearly all such unions some members in at least one of the denominations have refused to unite. This left just as many denominations as before, if not one more.

Where, then, did the idea originate that there are more than six hundred denominations? For some time I have sought an answer to this question, and I believe I have found it.

Some of our writers back in the 1850's taught that the number of the beast in Revelation 13 was the number of the divisions of the church.

In an article in the Review and Herald of November 29, 1853, entitled "The Number of the Beast," by J. M. Stephenson of Union, Rock County, Wisconsin, it was stated that the church has divided and subdivided until, according to the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, the divisions now number about 666. The author concluded that these constitute the number of the beast of Revelation 13.

However, he does not say in which Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge this is found. I have before me one dated 1836, edited by J. Newton Brown and published by Fessenden and Company, Brattleboro, Vermont, but it has no such statement, nor can I find it in later Encyclopedias of Religious Knowledge; but even if some volume by this title has such a statement, it was not true to fact. It is to be hoped that none of our ministers will ever make such a statement again, nor use it in announcing the subject of an address. It is, however, only a few months since I heard the statement made by one of our ministers before a large audience.

Location of Mummies

In a sermon a minister referred to some of the kings of ancient Egypt and stated that he had seen the mummies of Seti I and Rameses II in a New York City museum. I do not doubt that he had seen mummies of kings of ancient Egypt, since these are found in important museums in many of earth's large cities; but the mummies of Seti I and Rameses II were in a museum in Cairo, Egypt, when I was there, and it was stated that permission would never be given to take them out of the country.

Luther on Baptism

Another minister quoted Luther correctly as saying: "The Greek baptize means I immerse, and baptisma means immersion." 1 From this the minister concluded that Luther favored adult or believers' baptism. But it must be kept in mind that some immerse children and others sprinkle adults. The statement quoted occurs in "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church," and in the same treatise Luther says:

"The minister's immersing the child in the water signifies death; his drawing it forth again signifies life. . . . For this reason I would have the candidates for baptism completely immersed in the water, as the word [baptisma] says and as the sacrament signifies. Not that I deem this necessary, but it were well to give to so perfect and complete a thing a perfect and complete sign; thus it was also doubtless instituted by Christ." 2

Even though Luther favored immersion, he did not give support to baptism of only believers, but seemed to be satisfied with infant baptism. Expressions occur, indeed, in his writings which indicate that he favored infant baptism, because he considered it absolutely necessary to gather all within the church and create a German national church which could become a protection against the Catholic peril. He considered this would be an impossibility if only those were baptized who requested baptism. "If only adults were now baptized, not a tenth part would submit to baptism, nay, we would assuredly, as much as in us lies, speedily become simple Turks." 3

Let us exercise the utmost accuracy in both the information we present and the interpreta tions we place upon it.

A Religion of Bones, Cadavers, and Relics

HENRY F. BROWN, Associate Secretary, International Temperance Association

We are told that in the Vatican Basilica the major relics of the Passion of our Lord, the cross, the linen and the Santo Sudario (burial shroud) may be seen. We have already seen these articles. They are well preserved, considering their supposed age. We have also seen Veronica's handkerchief with which she wiped the Lord's face on the way to Calvary, and onto which a photograph of His face was reproduced. We saw the "true original" footprints of Christ in St. Sebastian's church all others are copies, we were assured. We hastily calculated they are size 12! We have seen the chains which bound Peter, presumably in Jerusalem, though the angel told him to take only his sandals and leave the chains. Perhaps they were in Rome, though few Roman prisoners were allowed to take their chains with them.

A visit to the Catacombs of St. Calixtus is impressive. The guide recites his description and is disturbed by questions which he seems to consider heckling. It is dark, damp and dismal. Six or eight tiers of graves were dug during the years they have been in use. On these shelves the dead were placed and sealed up. These niches are now vacant, having been robbed of their skeletons. We asked the guide, "Where are the bones?" He tells us they have been sent to the churches throughout the world, as sacred relics of martyrs, to be used as aids to devotion under altars. In certain little chapels in the cata combs we see hideous mummy-like cadavers. One's hair rises in horror at the spectacle.

In the Church of the Capuchins on the fashionable Avenue Veneto, just off Piazza Barbe- rini, in the basement, we see one of the most repellent objects of veneration which can be conceived. The whole basement is divided into six little chapels. Each is decorated with human bones in the most fantastic manner. Surely the monk who designed this was a mad sadist! We read in the descriptive leaflet: "This cemetery is 40 meters long, and contains the bones of some 4,000 religious who died here from 1528-1870. Pope Urban VIII had the soil of the cemetery conveyed from Jerusalem. Pope Pius granted a plenary indulgence to the faithful who visit it on the first Sunday in October." This is the only free spectacle we witnessed in Rome. After viewing it we fled in horror and repug nance. We decided we had paid a high price for this macabre scene!

We saw the basement of the San Franciscan Church in Palermo, Sicily, where hundreds of skeletons are draped about the walls on hooks. Many are mummies, and their hideous grimaces seemed to be mocking us. The view is nauseating, but a part of the religious setup of this order.

In Milano we were taken to the Sanctuario de San Bernardino Alle Ossa where another such view met our eyes. Crosses were made of the skulls of men. Frescoes and decorations cover the walls. Here come poor, deluded people to plead with the souls who once used these bones for their mediation with Christ for heavenly aid!

We understand that in Czechoslovakia a much greater one is found. We have pictures of it, but have not seen it. In Lima, Peru, in the Cathedral, we have seen Pizarro's mummy in a glass case as a part of the religious attractions of that church. Life Magazine recently featured an arm of St. Philip Neri, half-decomposed, in a silver case which was taken to Japan to help convert heathen to Christ!

How different from the New Testament religion is all this display of relics and bones! Jesus left no picture of Himself. His garments were taken by soldiers. Constantine's mother would have had unbelievable difficulty in finding the true cross after almost three hundred years!

No mention of relics is found in the Book of Acts or any of Paul's epistles. He says he has no confidence in material objects for salvation. In Galatians 4:3, he says: "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world." He uses a very fitting word expressing his conception of this religion of the cemetery, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." Galatians 4:8. His glory was in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. When the church had apostatized in the second and third centuries, and the Gospel was almost unrecognized, this hideous veneration of relics gradually appeared.

Confusions on the "Rapture"

Although there is a spirit of evangelism and revivalism in many lands today, the strangest ideas are mixed with the most solemn truths. These have become the problem of evangelists and their co-workers. No wonder Jesus warned His followers in the last days, "Take heed that no man deceive you." In helping our listeners and readers to understand the second coming of Christ, we cannot overlook these concepts. Not for the purpose of quoting error, but rather to bring to our evangelistic workers a new consciousness of the need for thoroughly teaching the Bible, we quote a few paragraphs from a brochure that is not without value. These graphic paragraphs might well stir our workers into a new intensity for preaching and teaching the end of all things with evangelistic zeal and Bible accuracy. The brochure is a recent publication from an otherwise depend able press. Further information can be supplied by the Ministerial Association upon request.

The following paragraphs give a confused picture of railway trains running without engineers, of airplane pilots suddenly disappearing from their controls, and ship captains leaving their great ships in mid-ocean, to say nothing of the endless confusions of other things. These are the conclusions of this strange and fanciful theory.

"The Rapture"

"The world will be absorbed in its daily pursuits of business and pleasure. Men will be in their offices and places of business. Women will be about their work in the home. Children will be at their play and at school. Some will be away at the college or university, and, if Christians, they will never return to their earthly homes again. Some will be in the Church or the mission service, while others will be in the theatre, the dance hall, or the saloon. Some will be sitting at their desks studying their Bibles, while others will be bending over the card table, or in a gambler's den. Some will be awake, while others will be asleep, for the coming of Christ will find apart of the world in broad daylight, while in an other part it will be in the night. While the people in the time of Christ supposed the world to be flat, Jesus showed that He understood that it is round and that His coming would find a part o£ this planet enshrouded in darkness while another part would be at noon-day (Luke 17:34-36).

"The suddenness of Christ's coming will disrupt all the ordinary activities of life. Many business concerns will be completely paralyzed because of the taking away instantly, and in the twinkling of an eye, every Christian employer or employee. Think of the railroad trains speeding along at sixty or seventy miles an hour, when suddenly they will be deprived of every Christian engineer, fireman, conductor, and employee, and they will be wrecked. Think of the many electric trains, suddenly deprived of their Christian motormen, which will be wrecked at the next curve in the road. If I were an unsaved individual, I should not like to ride on one of these elevated trains, if I knew the motorman was a Christian, for, should Jesus come, that motorman would be suddenly taken and the train wrecked at the next curve. How do you unsaved men and women dare employ a Christian man for a chauffeur? When Jesus comes hundreds of thousands of your cars will be speeding along the highway at the rate of sixty or seventy miles an hour when in the twinkling of an eye every Christian chauffeur will instantly vanish from the steering wheel, and your car will be wrecked. The sudden coming of the deluge in Noah's day had no regard for man's ac tivities or earthly possessions; neither will the results of Christ's Second Coming have any regard for these material things. . . .

"At the coming of the Lord the domestic relations of many homes will be suddenly and completely changed. Many husbands and wives, parents and children, will be suddenly separated, in the twinkling of an eye, and that for all eternity. Unsaved husbands will rush home from the club, the saloon, or the gambling den to find that their Christian wives have been taken, and they are left. Unsaved sons and daughters will come home from their haunts of sin and vice to find that their Christian parents have been taken and that their grandmother is no longer in her accustomed place by the fireside. They have all been suddenly raptured while their worldly, godless children are left for judgment. Worldly-minded fathers and mothers will rush home from the theatre, the dance hall, or their card games and wine suppers to find that their children's cots are empty. Their children, having been taught by some faithful Sunday school teacher to love the Lord, have been suddenly caught up to meet Him in the air, but their unsaved parents are left behind. Children will suddenly vanish from the embraces of unsaved mothers. Unsaved young people will find that their Christian brothers and sisters and school companions have been suddenly snatched from their presence, while they are left behind to mourn the loss of their companionship forever. . . . "

At the Second Coming of Jesus Christ the ecclesiastical relationships of many pastors and their people will be brought to utter confusion. Faithful pastors will be suddenly taken while their unsaved church members to whom they have preached the gospel will be left behind for judgment. The modernistic unbelieving pastors will be left on earth with their worldly, God-dishonoring flocks. What a hell-on-earth it will be for these faithless shepherds who will be cursed and damned by their worldly-minded unsaved church members for having lulled them to sleep with their little sermonettes, essayettes, instead of having faithfully warned them concerning the consequences of their sins and the coming judgment and eternal punishment in hell."

We recognize that Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic workers are most aware of the doctrinal confusions that must today be clarified. Surely the hour is here when every point of truth is being challenged. Bible teachers must be students of the Word themselves before they can bring the saving truth to honest inquirers.