RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4784, 9 May 1884, Page 2

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

\To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sib, —I too as well as " Church-goer" have seen the folly of Mr Woolley's caution to his hearers against controversy on religious subjects. Does not Mr W. know that Christianity was cradled in controversy? Has he ever read the "Acts of the Apostles?" If he has, he must know the above fact; and if he has read carefully Paul to the Thesselonians, 2nd letter, he must know also that the Apostle predicted another fact which in these days is apparent to every enlightened Christian, viz., a falling away from Christianity (literally apostasy). Now, if in these days a few people in various parts of Christendom have, discovered this falling away and the workings of this apostasy, and are bold enough to condemn the aiders and abbettors of this apostasy, as did Luther and his followers in their times,' of course there must be controversy for ministers of all religious organisations. Mother and daughters will be certain to stick out for their supposed rights to the bitter end ;• this is natural enough. Now the few from their knowledge of the Scriptures having discovered that these supposed rights are in reality no Christian rights at all, are bound in all honesty, of purpose boldly to declare the fact, so, of course, there must be controversy; it is unavoidable. The proper thiflg for ministers to do, as "Church' goer intimates, is to meet these declaimers and prove from the Scriptures, if they can, that their doctrines and their positions are the correct thing, for the mere dictum of either priest or parson in these days of enquiry amounts to very little with the people. I fear, however, that these officials, feel very much their own weakness, and so they raise the cuckoo* cry "for goodness sake avoid all con-, troversy or we are ruined, for we can never meet Bible truths." A few people in Christendom some fifty years ago began to think and to enquire, and also to whisper a leetle to one another that they doubted mcny of the doctrines and the positions of orthodoxy, especially the monstrous doctrine of endless roasting. They read iv the old book that " God was, love," and for the life of them they could not see how love could be associated with endless torture. I was one of these thinkers and enquirers, and very soou began to question the whole scheme of orthodoxy, and yet I saw the beauties of true Christianity as pourtrayed in the New Testament. Well, Sir,, the fewenquirers and thinkers have now become many, and the whispers have become a perfect roar of controversy, which, I trust, is leading on, to a second general reformation in doctrine and in church affairs. Mr W. and his compeers | might as well attempt to stop the earth in' its revolution as to stop controversy, especially religious controversy, for there is a life in that which is superior to ordinary life, and which' cannot be extinguished. People will think about the future, and will enquire as to what that future may be ; ministers, therefore, ought to be able to tell them Bible truth in answer to their enquiries, and not put them off with orthodox myths and fancies. If they will persist in doing so, they must expect their" congregations to become beautifully less and less, as controversy proceeds and gets i warmer, and warmer.—l am, &c.,

W. Wood.