LOOKING BACK TO 1972...
I Voted To Close The Church!
Last Sabbath I voted to close the church. I voted to close its doors that its witness and its testimony might be stopped. I voted to close the open Bible on its pulpit – the Bible that had been given us by years of struggle and the blood of the martyrs who died that we might have it to read. I voted for our minister to stop preaching the glorious truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I voted that the children of the Sabbath School no longer lift their tiny voices in singing. I voted for the voice of the choir and the congregation to be stilled.
I voted for every missionary of the Church to be called home, every native worker supported by the church to stop preaching, every hospital, every school and every dispensary in its foreign missionary fields to close. I voted that its colleges close their doors and no longer bother to train its youth for Christian service. I voted for every home missionary project to be abandoned, every influence for good and right and for truth in our community to be curtailed and finally stopped. I voted for the darkness of superstition, the degrading influence of sin, the blight of ignorance and the curse of selfish greed once again to settle their damning load on the shoulders of an already overburdened world.
I voted all this, I say, and more, too. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, lazily, indifferently, I voted.
For, you see, I could have gone and I should have gone, but I didn’t. I stayed away from church last Sabbath.
Editor’s Note: From the May, 1972 issue of Sunday.
