EVANGELISING THE WORLD

Hokitika Guardian, 5 June 1920, Page 4

EVANGELISING THE WORLD

VAST AMERICAN SCHEME.

Pastors and preachers throughout the

j United States on Sunday, .March 7th, dij l'ectod the attention of their congregations to the great campaign which >-i about to be launched to evangelise the world, and earnest prayers were offered for the success of the movement, which, it is promised, will be the biggest, best j financed, bast organised, and most agI gressivo religious revival sinbe the Ohtisades. Under the name of the “Inter Church World Movement of America,” 19,500,000 Protestants of thirty denominations (says tllb New York correspondent of the London “Daily Telegraph ”) have united their energies and mapped out a definite programme extending -over a period of five years, at the end of which period, it is hoped, tho religious education of America will be entirely reorganised, and the world itself well on the road to evangelisation. In comparison such militant groups as the Anti-Saloon League, the. Society for the Suppression of Vice, and even tile Lilly Sunday revival machine must be listed as the small fry up-lift. In its businesslike methods, its proposed expenditure, its co-operation in ideals and co-ordination in the details of the immense work it has undertaken, the Inter-Church World Movement challenges eamparison with the Standard Oil and other huge commercial combinations which have sprung up during the last fifty years in this country, and it might be called a religious trust. There are twenty-six million Protestants in America, according to the organisation’s own figures, 75 per cent of whom are behind the Inter-Church World Movement, and the remaining. 25 per cent will be brought into the fold as quickly as possible. It is estimated that the revival budget for the five years will reach the enormous proportions of £26,000,000. The headquarters have already been established in. New York, in a vacant department store, which p - r vides twelve acres of floor-space for executive offices. One of the biggest undertakings now occupying the organisers is a national religious survey of the United States, and tho compilation of a complete card index of every man, woman, and child in the country. A census of each household is being taken, giving full information regarding the religious record of every member. From the colleges in the next five years the Inter-Church World Movement expects to recruit 100,000 young men and women for religious work at home and abroad. The genera] aims of the movement include evangelising the world, churching unchurched America, giving religious education to every child, increasing largely the number of church, hospitals, avoiding duplication and competition in the work of the churches, strengthening weak church contres, bringing religion into the lives of at least a large proportion of the 58,000,000 Americans who are without any definite church affiliations. Funds for this tremendous work are being raised by public subscription, and it is hoped that there will bo sufficient balance at the end of the campaign to pension retired ministers and make provision for. all necessitous clergymen. The leaders of the movement declare that the world is facing a crisis beset with problems which no one can hope to solve until religion has been placed in the .hearts of all men. The world to-day, they say, needs a religious revival more than anything else, and the Protestant Churches, like the Allies, believe that they can win victory only, by working together under a supreme command.