[CD-ROM Editor’s Note: This article has no initials attached to it; however Jones was the sole editor for that date so it is attributable to him.]
REV. W. F. CRAFTS, editor of the Christian Statesman, makes these remarkable assertions in a sermon:—
Our institutions are so inextricably entwined with God that no infidel plot can unravel them into secular weakness. This can never be a sectarian Nation with a State-established religion, but must always remain a Christian Nation. Not only is the Nation, by compact and Constitution, a Christian Nation, but the several States are equally so. Clearly in sentiment and Constitution at least we are a Christian people, and our duty is to keep it so by better laws and better lives.
What special service does such a man expect to accomplish for reform as editor of the Christian Statesman? If the Nation is already Christian “by compact and Constitution,” and in perfect harmony with the requirements of God’s law, then why are we exhorted “to keep it so by better laws and better lives?“
Can a perfect thing be made better? This is a strange position and remarkable logic for a man who is trying to reform the Nation. Certainly there is “confusion of thought” somewhere. It is news, indeed, that our Constitution is already Christian.—Christian Nation.
This criticism pass upon Mr. Crafts by the Christian Nation is both just and pertinent; but is not our contemporary in the same condemnation? The demand of the Christian Nation is that the Nation shall be constitutional amendment declare itself Christian. But would it then be any more Christian than it is now? If the decision of the Supreme Court that the Nation is Christian did not make it so would a constitutional amendment make it Christian? Is it possible that the Christian Nation is beginning to see that all such profession, whether by decree of court or by constitutional amendment, is only hypocrisy?