Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Last Reformation by F. G. (Frederick George) Smith
page 80 of 192 (41%)
CHAPTER VIII

MODERN SECTS


[Sidenote: A mental picture]

Picture a keen observer living in the middle of the first century
of our era. He travels about from place to place studying the
development, nature, and fruits of the recently established religious
phenomenon--Christianity. He observes the purity of its doctrines and
the high moral standard exemplified in the lives of its adherents, and
he inquires particularly concerning the secret of that mysterious bond
which unites in one body and in one fellowship, sympathy, and love the
entire society of believers in Jesus. He departs. After the lapse of
long ages he returns near the beginning of the twentieth century,
and lo, what is it that meets his astonished vision? The mournful
spectacle of a divided Christendom; of rival sects compassing land and
sea to make proselytes; of the spiritual alienation of those who, in
reality, belong to the one divine family; of waste and inefficiency
in methods of evangelical effort; not to mention the error, pride, and
worldliness inherent in the gigantic ecclesiastical systems known as
denominational churches. What a change!

It is useless to minimize the evils inherent in the sect system.
Intelligent men the world over need not the services of an
eye-specialist to see clearly that there is something wrong with
modern Christendom; that the sect system does not represent the
standard of primitive Christianity, but that in reality the sect
principle misrepresents the apostolic ideal as portrayed in the New
DigitalOcean Referral Badge