Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Confucian, Shintoist, animist, Jew, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Anglican, Protestants of the hundreds of different non-Catholic religious systems, and those claiming no religion of any kind - all are concerned in the true-to-fact answer to this pressing question. For many centuries Christendom has dominated this world, and now the world's fate is bound up with that of Christendom. Can you afford to share Christendom's fate with her? Does Heaven have something better for truth-loving men? Your gaining the correct answers and learning what attitude to take toward Christendom in this time of decision mean great enlightenment that can lead to a happy future for you.
--THE PUBLISHERS
1955
WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETYPUBLISHERSWatchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc.International Bible Students AssociationBrooklyn, New York, U. S. A.
Made in the United States of America
CHRISTENDOM OR CHRISTIANITY-Which One Is "the Light of the World"?
READER - you know what we mean by "Christendom," namely, that great religious system that spreads around the world and claims to be Christian. According to the religious census there are about five hundred million persons claiming to be Christians that make up Christendom. It calls itself Christendom to distinguish itself from what it calls "heathendom" or "pagandom." Now, whatever you may be religiously, what do you think of Christendom? Do you think there is any hope for it? Do you think that the world may safely rest hope in it? Do you think it is "the light of the world"?
Christendom takes pride in thinking that it and Christianity are one and the same thing, because the dictionary defines "Christendom" as being "the Christian world," as being "Christians collectively," and as being "that portion of the world in which Christianity prevails, or which is governed under Christian institutions, in distinction from heathen or Mohammedan lands." Being given this understanding of matters, the Mohammedan
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looks on, the Buddhist looks on, the Shintoist looks on, the Hindu looks on, the Taoist looks on, the animist looks on, the Jew looks on, the "godless Communist" looks on, and all consider Christendom and Christianity to be one and the same, or Christendom as being the expression of Christianity. So, as all these non-Christians view matters, the one thing is to be judged by the other, Christianity is to be judged by what Christendom is. But to one who is familiar with Christendom's main book, The Holy Scriptures or Bible, the questions arise, Are they one and the same? Is what Christendom practices the real, Biblical Christianity? And is Christendom a godly example for all the rest of the world, so-called "heathendom" or "pagandom," to follow? These are honest, sincere questions.
Almost all will agree that Christendom is advanced in the ways of this world, so that the rest of the world is treated as backward. But for all her material wealth and her advancement.in living conditions, communications, modern conveniences and scientific methods, can she be looked to as "the light of the world"? Her science, which has brought some material enrichment and improvement, does not make her a light for mankind, but rather now it works feverishly upon the means that can cause the world's blackout in total destruction. Said one minister at a religious rally in St. Louis, Missouri, October 31, 1954, in showing the failure of materialistic science: "We have too many men of science and too few men of God." Said another minister on the same day in a church at Washington, D.C., to show that science is not uplifting Christendom spiritually: "If by some
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evil chance our globe is destroyed, this will be the real reason - the tyranny of science and the poverty and defensiveness of the forces of the spirit" -New York Times, November 1,1954.
No, despite all her advantages that have pushed her ahead economically, mentally and militarily, Christendom has not proved herself "the light of ' the world." Why not? Does she not have the Holy Scriptures, the Sacred Bible, by the millions of copies? Yes, but she does not preach or practice its Christianity, rather she follows a confusion of religions. Christianity draws its name from a holy man of nineteen centuries ago, named Jesus Christ, who taught his followers or disciples about the one living and true God. During that first century of the so-called "Christian era" his disciples came to be called "Christians" and what they taught and practiced was called Christianity. (Acts 11:26) Now it was to his disciples, when gathered around him on a mountain, that Jesus Christ said: "You are the light of the world. A city cannot be hid when situated upon a mountain. Likewise let your light shine before mankind, that they may see your right works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens." -Matthew 5:14, 16, NW*
When this Jesus was about to restore sight to a man born blind he first said: "As long as I am in the world, I am the world's light." Then he performed the wonderful cure of the man's eyes. This miracle of healing was one of many proofs that Jesus Christ was no sinner but was from God in
* NW stands for the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
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heaven. (John 9:5, 25, 31, 33, NW) To snuff out that "light," Jesus' religious enemies had him put to death by being nailed on a torture stake. Then a darkness of night settled upon his disciples, so that they could not work as ministers of the light, any more than could Jesus in the darkness of the grave, but they were scattered, quit work and went into hiding. As Jesus had said: "The night is coming when no man can work." (John 9:4 and Luke 22:53, NW) But on the third day from his death and burial, Almighty God resurrected his faithful Son Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrected Jesus then manifested himself visibly to his disciples to show that he was no longer dead but had returned to the invisible spirit realm, that he might go and be with his heavenly Father again. Thus he again became the Light of his disciples, and he brought them out of their night of inactivity and prepared them for taking up their work again as "the light of the world."
Forty days later he ascended up from his disciples into the invisible spirit heavens to sit down at his heavenly Father's right hand. He had sacrificed his human life forever, but the value of that human sacrifice he could now use in heaven for paying to God the debts that his disciples owed to God and thus relieve them of the condemnation of sin and its penalty, death. Ten days after his ascension to his Father's right hand Jesus Christ poured out holy spirit upon his faithful disciples on earth in the city of Jerusalem. Under its power the disciples openly took up their work of being "the light of the world" and letting the Christian light shine forth. -Acts, chapters 1 and 2.
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However, following the activity of Christ's disciples during the first century, a darkness gradually settled down upon the earth. There came a period in-human history that some historians call "the Dark Ages." Who, then, was it that screened out the light, covering over the "light of the world" with a measuring basket, as it were? Do not be surprised at the answer! It was Christendom herself, and it is actually to Christendom that the historical expression Dark Ages is applied. There are religious leaders who take offense at the applying of the expression Dark Ages to Christendom and who claim it was rather a period of great religious glory, but such religionists come under the- woe that God's prophecy mentions: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." (Isaiah 5:20) They are even now howling in their woe! They are eating the fruit of their hypocrisy!
What now? Must heathendom or pagandom now come forward to act as "the light of the world"? No! Heathendom cannot do so. The great religious system outside Christendom has indeed much religious tradition and ancient lore, but it also has failed in this dark hour and is itself endangered by "godless communism" no less than Christendom is. Heathendom has no light for itself or for groping Christendom. The religions of heathendom are being combined with those of Christendom in the recently organized World Parliament of Religions, Inc., but this combination does not brighten things. Neither does the forming of the Protestant World Council of Churches of Christ, for even this Council of many members is at disagreement with itself concerning what is the real hope
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of Christians. The World Parliament of Religions, Inc., has as one of its chartered purposes "to establish a permanent World Parliament of Religions to work with the UNITED NATIONS in the attainment of world peace and understanding among all peoples." But will that save mankind?The United Nations is the successor to the League of Nations, which was started in Christendom. In a letter and a petition that were circulated throughout the United States of America in 1934 by The League of Nations Association, Inc., there appeared the challenging words: "In a world as dark as this, why blow out the only light there is?" In 1939 along came Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany, and blew out that "only light there is." How? By plunging the nations into World War II and rendering the League of Nations helplessly impotent. Its successor, the United Nations, to which the World Parliament of Religions, Inc., wants to attach itself, is also a false and failing light. It will some not-distant day be blown out forever, without a successor, because, like a will-o'-the-wisp, it deceitfully lures men to the morass of destruction by turning them away from the true "light of the world," Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Then the nations, those of heathendom as well as those of Christendom, will suffer a fate far worse than what they suffered during World War II, namely, everlasting destruction.
If ever Christendom was a light, she is now in these most critical times a "light that failed." Instead of being a safeguard against man's certain destruction for disobeying the commandments of the only living and true God, Christendom is like
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a lightship that, in a mighty gale, has broken her moorings and been driven far from her anchorage onto the dreaded sands in front of which she used to stand sentinel, now herself to be pounded to pieces in a raging sea. To try to save herself she brings about alliances or councils for different religious systems to work together outwardly, while the basic differences as to belief and organization still remain. Her internal disunity is a stumbling-block to the heathen or pagan to become a part of her. On this point a British-born bishop of South India said that the disunity of Christian religious bodies "announces to the world the devil's most resounding victory - to have taken the body which Christ formed to be His instrument to draw all men into one and made of it the instrument to divide men from one another..... It is Impossible to continue steadily testifying to every man, Hindu, Moslem, rich or poor, that there is one Saviour, one atonement for all men and all nations and, at the same time, to insist that even this one atonement is not enough to make Christians one." Said another Anglican clergyman the same day in the same New York Cathedral: "The Church is groaning for unity." (New York Times, September 20, 1954) Such self-confessed religious disunity of Christendom is not a mark of Christianity. It is an unmistakable mark of carnality, unspirituality, worldliness, fleshly pride and selfishness. "For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men?" "Is Christ divided?"
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(1 Corinthians 3:3; 1:13, RS*) The true Christian body is not divided, but Christendom is.
The disunity is not only regarding religious belief and practice but also regarding race or color of the skin. Concerning the setting of races apart from one another in South Africa the following was said in the Trusteeship Committee of the United Nations General Assembly by the permanent representative from Iraq, a Mohammedan nation: It is "a source of pain that a church which worships God and His law on earth should perpetrate a doctrine of racial inequality. How far removed is the Dutch Reformed Church and its doctrine of racial supremacy from the Sermon on the Mount! How far removed is this unfortunate philosophy from the teachings of Christ!" (New York Times, October 13,1954) Yes, the non-Christian or the so-called "heathen" takes Christendom's Bible and reads a scripture and then asks or wonders why the church members of Christendom do not believe, obey, do or practice this.
The heathen, with God-given intelligence, are sharp enough to see that if the nations of Christendom were Christians according to the Bible or Holy Scriptures, then they would be the most peaceful neighbors on earth and would love one another; in Christendom there would be no wars, no armaments race, no commercial rivalry, no fears or jealousies or suspicions of one another, no racial prejudices or national pride or a superior air toward others less favored, no unfair dealings, no secret diplomacy, no alliances against others,
* RS stands for the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
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in fact, no nations at all, but all peoples of Christendom would blend into one and would have one government - God's government by Christ - and all would serve its interests for the blessing of all mankind. There would then be no graft in the visible government on earth, no abuse of power by those in office, no mudslinging or misrepresentation or false accusations in political elections, in fact, no opposing parties representing different policies, hence no politicians, no oppressing of their own poor people, not to speak of the oppressing and making gain of the outside poor and backward peoples. No, none of such things, but only blessings for all men.
Even before Christendom existed and down to this day the "heathen" have used images or relics in their worship, their priests or monks or religious leaders wear distinguishing garments, they have mysterious and awe-inspiring ceremonies, they celebrate numerous holidays, etc. So, when they see people of Christendom do such things, why should they feel obliged to change their own religion? Christendom believes in a fiery purgatory or in a hell of eternal torment of human souls after death, and will the heathen get less painful torture from Christendom's purgatory and hell than from their own heathenish purgatory or hell? Is Christendom's teaching of the "Holy Trinity" - of three persons in one God, namely, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost - less mysterious than their own heathenish triads of gods? Why should not the heathen think their own religions to be of greater antiquity and better than Christendom's religions, especially when Christendom has borrowed so much from heathendom?
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Christendom dare not deny this fact; her own mouth confesses it. In 1878 the famous Roman Catholic cardinal of Great Britain, John Henry Cardinal Newman, published what he called "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine"; and from chapter eight of his Essay the following words are quoted concerning Cardinal Newman's confidence in the power of the Roman Catholic Church to keep from being infected with evil, even when it adopts the pagan things of demon worship to evangelize the heathen:"5. [Section 1, § 2] Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class.
"6. . . . The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums, holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [the
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petition, Lord, have mercy on us], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church."
The cardinal thus confesses that the Roman Catholic Church borrowed from the heathen to mix paganism in with the Roman Catholic ideas of Christianity. This was in disobedience to the command of God through the apostle Paul: "What fellowship has light with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God says, 'I will dwell and move among them, I will be their God and they shall be my people.' Wherefore, 'Come out from among them, be separated, says the Lord, and touch not an unclean thing.'" -2 Corinthians 6:14-17, Catholic Biblical Association.
The first Protestant religious systems or sects broke away from the Catholic system in rebellion against the totalitarian rule of the pope of Rome. They now feel that they have a reformed religion, a purified form of Christianity superior to Roman Catholicism, and that God is with them and they are the light of the world. Said a Protestant clergyman in a Brooklyn (New York) church, November 7, 1954: "The forces of Protestantism are essentially true and the future is with it, because God is behind it, underneath it, above it and beyond it." "Protestantism is not a mere departure from established Christianity, it is not the establishment of something new, but the recovery of something that had been lost. We desire increasingly to be the successors and the true interpreters of the
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Apostles and early members of the Christian Church." -New York Times, November 8, 1954. However, let Protestants bear in mind this: In departing from the established Roman Catholic Church with its pagan-drawn beliefs, philosophies, rites and ceremonies, the Protestant reformers discarded some things of Catholicism but held on to many things vital and fundamental to Catholicism. Where did the Protestant sects get Sunday observance, the crucifix, Christmas and Easter? Where did they get their teaching of the unexplainable, mysterious "trinity"? Where did they get their teachings of the immortality of the human soul, of a fiery hell for the everlasting torture of immortal human souls after death, of the fiery destruction of the world (the literal sun, moon, stars, planets and our earth) ? Whom did they copy in dividing up the church into the clergy (called Doctors of Divinity and Reverends) and the laity? In forming state churches or unions of state and church and meddling in the political affairs and violent controversies of the nations, whom do they imitate? Certainly not Bible Christians! Certainly not the Bible Christianity!
POINTED QUESTIONS AND AUTHORITATIVE ANSWERS
Since such proof exists that Christendom does not practice true Christianity, is there a real Christianity being practiced today anywhere? Since it was as long ago as nineteen centuries that Christianity appeared, is it practicable to be a Christian today? Can an intelligent, informed per-
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son be a genuine Christian in such a late and modern age as this twentieth century? If so, are there true Christians in the midst of Christendom? Are the real kind of Christians a part of Christendom and are they responsible for her existence? Are true Christians today just an exception here and there to the mass of pretending ones, or are the actual Christians a separate, recognizable, organized body today? Who are Bible Christians today? Really, what is a Christian? Since Christendom has proved to be a "light that failed," has Christianity failed with her as "the light of the world"? To answer all this, we must now determine who are true Christians and whether these have failed.
A Christian is not one who merely calls Jesus Christ "Lord" or "Master," yet does not obey God. Jesus Christ said concerning our very day: "Not everyone saying to me, 'Master, Master,' will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day: 'Master, Master, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?' And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew you at all. Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness." (Matthew 7:21-23, NW) Hypocrites may call Jesus "Lord" or "Master," but he now rips away the hypocritical mask of these who work lawlessness toward the only living and true God. It was Jesus' disciples or learners who were called Christians, first at Antioch, Syria, and hence a Christian is one who accepts Christ's teaching and obeys it, believing the things he believed, preaching the things he preached, and following him or copying his ex-
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ample in doing the will of his God and heavenly Father, even at the cost of life itself. (Matthew 16:24; 1 Peter 2:21) Said the apostle Paul: "Become imitators of me, even as I am of Christ." (1 Corinthians 11:1, NW) Since Jesus Christ said that a disciple should become as his teacher and a slave as his master, the question, What should a Christian be? can be answered authoritatively by answering the question, What was Jesus Christ as an example to his followers or imitators?
QUESTION: Was Jesus a monk, or were bis twelve apostles or tbe seventy evangelists whom he sent out monks? Did Jesus avoid the people for the sake of seclusion and for protecting himself against the temptations of this world?
ANSWER: No. Up until thirty years of age he was a carpenter at Nazareth and was called the son of the carpenter Joseph. At thirty he dedicated himself to the work God had sent him from heaven to do and he was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. He was then led by God's holy spirit into the wilderness among the wild beasts. Here he came face to face with three great temptations by the great Tempter, the adversary, Satan the Devil. In resisting the Devil, Jesus refused to use his miraculous power for his own selfish benefit; he refused to put God to the test by attempting a spectacular leap from a temple pinnacle to prove to people he was God's Son; he refused to worship Satan as god but reserved his worship for Jehovah as the only living and true God, even
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though the Devil offered him all the kingdoms of the world as a bargain.Although the Devil was not then through with him, Jesus did not stay in the wilderness and become a hermit monk. At the end of forty days he left the wilderness and went out among the people to do them good and to go before the sheeplike ones as their shepherd. His mother Mary was not a nun, but after conceiving Jesus by holy spirit she became the wife of Joseph the carpenter; nor were the various women that accompanied him at times to wait upon him nuns. He did not tell his apostles or his other disciples to establish monasteries or nunneries, but said to them before he ascended to heaven: "Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, ...
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