jesus – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

The Minister in the Pew

A page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” The Christian Century, 4/14/1921.

[The following is the conclusion of the article, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” which Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century in the April 14, 1921, issue. He is speaking to fellow ministers about ways that they can find inspiration, despite their busy schedules. He writes:]

“Every so often, the preacher ought to get away from his church and sit in a pew. He should not content himself with a visit to some church of the same capacity as his own, where he will inevitably take notes and make comparisons. Neither should he go to hear a preacher of the same caliber as himself, in which case he is sure to get little out of the service or the sermon beyond the mechanics of both. He must go, as a worshipper, into a church equipped and manned so excellently that he will forget everything but his own soul, under the inspiration of the hour. His congregation at home should open the way for him to do this, not less than twice a year. They should not expect him to come back and report, either, on what he heard. He should do this for the sake of his own spiritual culture. Incidentally, the restoration of the joy of his own salvation will inevitably affect his preaching.

“If there was room for just one more movement – there is not; so let us have no further thought of that! – but if there was room for one more movement, perhaps it would be well to start something calculated to assist the preacher in the highly commendable business of cultivating his own soul. This is a live question! It would be interesting to learn of the various expedients to which busy ministers have resorted in their efforts to achieve spiritual culture. If we fail at this point, we fail fundamentally. If we never see or hear anything that inspires us, how may we expect to inspire others? If the light that is in us be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

The Homiletic Mood

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the article, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” which Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century in the April 14, 1921, issue. He is speaking to fellow ministers about how they are kept so busy on their work that they have no time or opportunity to be inspired themselves. He writes of the busy pastor:]

“If the preacher is alert to the possibilities of his ministry, he is continually in a homiletic mood. Nothing ever passes before his eyes that is not hailed as potential sermonic material. This mood is ever with him. It is with him when he reads the Book in the early morning, presumably for devotional reasons. It is very much on the job as he offers his prayers. And the better preacher he is, the more grave is the menace that his own spiritual life may be starved. He must contrive, somehow, to achieve soul-culture!

“Perhaps if he would make a resolution that one day of the week – Monday, say – he would refrain from assaying books, conversation, and natural phenomena with a view to their possible sermonic ore, reserving that day for his own private consumption, he might, after a while, consistently practice this habit.

“All America is afflicted with a psychosis which might be called ‘the busy bee.’ (Not the bee apis, but the bee bonnet.) Preachers have it about as badly as anybody. Worse than most. The good man is fearful that someone will think him idle, or of leisurely habits. He thinks he must be racing about, with wilted collar, either doing things or going through the motions of doing things, all the day long. When asked if he doesn’t reserve Monday as a rest day, he sighs and says, ‘Oh, dear, no! All days are alike to us! I’ve given up trying to save my Monday!’ He thinks this is as it should be.

“This is the gentleman who gets himself all excited telling his people that even practical, godless economics requires of mortals ‘one day’s rest in seven,’ and points to notable cases of nations that broke the rule and went heels-over-head to the bow-wows. Yes; everybody needs a rest-day but himself. Alas, poor man, he is too busy to knock off at all. Piffle! He can, and he must, make some provision for the salvation of his own soul. Let him name one day of the week to be sacred to the cultivation of his spirit.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

Slave of Church Machinery

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the article, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” which Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century in the April 14, 1921, issue. He is speaking to his fellow ministers about how they are kept so busy on their work that they have no time or opportunity to be inspired themselves. He writes of the busy pastor:]

“Increasingly has he become enslaved to all the church machinery bequeathed to him by energetic predecessors, plus all the modern conveniences which he himself has installed, in the way of organizations, ‘to assist him in his work.’ Sometimes, when he sits down for a moment before the grate to catch his breath from the exacting labors of the day and contemplates that he must now hurry to the church, with all speed, to meet the executive committee of the Sunny Sons of Something-or-Other – knowing full well that he must adroitly suggest the business to come before the body, hypnotize some Sunny Son into making a motion and another into the act of supporting it and all of them into passing it; and that the outcome of the event will be a smilingly unanimous resolution empowering him to go out, single-handedly, and do whatever it was that he might have done at one-tenth the time and bother without supervising these parliamentary calisthenics – he wonders whether he hasn’t fed both hands, up to the very shoulders, into the rapacious maw of his own machine!

“But it is quite too late to remedy much of this. He has made his bed, and now he must lie in it. He has surrounded himself with cabinets, bureaus, commissions, principalities and powers – The Tri-Mu Fraternity, The Best-You-Can-Do Club, The Merry Matrons, and the Over-the-Tops – from which he may no more readily disengage himself than a mid-August fly with all six legs knee-deep in stickemfast.

“Thus engaged, weekdays, in parish and community duties which leave but little time unmortgaged, the good man is really in as serious need of spiritual rejuvenation on Sunday, the day of rest, as the most jaded beast of burden who appears before him at that time in the sanctuary. But – may he not derive much spiritual uplift from his own sermons? – someone pertinently inquires. Well, let us look into that for a moment.

“Sermon manufacture is a business. It is not exactly the same kind of business as selling gingham, shingling a roof, digging a sewer, or excising a tumor; but it is a business, and if the preacher doesn’t make a business of it his days will not be long in the land as a preacher. It is not an unusual experience for a minister to be so aflame with his subject that the research, composition, and delivery of his sermon develop him spiritually, so that he lives for days in the light and warmth of it. But this is by no means a weekly experience, even with the most ardent, if they themselves are to be believed.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

Agents of Spirituality

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the article, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” which Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century in the April 14, 1921, issue. He is speaking to fellow ministers about how they never get to hear any sermons other than their own. He writes:]

“Occasionally we attend conferences with our fellow ministers and selected groups of devout laymen; but there the program consists mostly of the mere buttons-and-pins of church methods, the discussion of administrative problems, and consideration of workaday statistical reports. Not infrequently it turns out the that promised ‘inspirational address’ with which the conference was to reach its ennobling climax deftly maneuvers its way from the pulpit to the receipt of custom, where it attains to such magnificence of appeal that the baskets are passed again – this time in the interest of some undeniably worthy cause that had come ‘to the parting of the ways,’ and was ‘facing an hour of crisis,’ and ‘now throws down an heroic challenge to the sacrificial courage of the red-blooded!’ And so forth. Ad lib.

“But even this drench of distress on behalf of an excellent movement, involving the re-reconstruction of the preacher’s puny purse to the jeopardized philanthropy, does very little to assuage his heart-hunger for spiritual nourishment. To be sure, the traveling secretary of the bankrupt board tells him that the most effective spiritual tonic known to the profession is self-administered by the act of turning one’s pockets wrongsideout; but the preacher, however salutary may be the moral results of charity, or sweet the uses of adversity, still longs for some genuine inspiration, just once, that doesn’t find its ultimate goal in his jeans.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

Hearing Sermons

by Ronald R Johnson

“Our profession seems pretty thoroughly committed to the belief that hearing the gospel preached week after week is so excellent a safeguard and stimulus to correct living that public morality is greatly influenced by the Christian pulpit. Sometimes the doubt is expressed that people who habitually deny themselves the moral and spiritual uplift from the pulpit may order their lives as becomes good Christian citizens. If this proposition has a leg to stand on, what is to become of us who never have a chance to hear the gospel preached, except as we ourselves interpret it, from one year’s end to the next?

“It is not the object of this writing to imply that preachers, as a class, are misbehaving themselves; for such is not the case. Although our ministerial ordination guarantees no immunity against the common weaknesses of mankind, the public expects us to exhibit a high-grade morality. That this demand has been met in a manner fairly satisfactory is evident from the respect generally accorded the clergy as leaders in the moral life of their communities. Once in a while, we are rasped to spluttering indignation over the front-page prominence given to the story of a moral lapse committed by some weak brother whose name had never meant anything until it had contrived to associate itself with odium; but, if we only stop to reason, this is a sort of awkward, left-handed compliment to our vocation. It means that ministers habitually carry themselves with such circumspection that a mistake on the part of any one of them, however obscure, deserves to be played up as sensational news. Were such delinquencies frequent, they would not startle the public; neither would they earn widespread advertisement.

“But it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the preacher’s morals so much as to inquire somewhat concerning the means at hand for the conservation and development of his spiritual capacities and aspirations. As for the majority of us, we rarely have a chance to hear anything that inspires us to higher thinking or nobler action. Such advices are customarily offered on the first day of the week, at a time when we ourselves are busy with our well-meant, though sometimes ineffective, endeavors to build up a stronger consciousness of human-divine contacts in the souls of our parishioners. We are simply agents and jobbers of spirituality, ourselves menaced with spiritual insolvency due to lack of inspirational income plus a steady drain of expense at that point; starved in the very process of retailing to the ultimate consumer the finest provisions we can lay hands upon – sometimes blissfully unconscious of the pernicious anemia that has sapped our spiritual vigor.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

What About Lent? Part 7

by Ronald R Johnson

A page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “What About Lent?” in The Christian Century, 2/3/1921.

The following is the conclusion of an article by Lloyd C. Douglas in the February 3, 1921, issue of The Christian Century. The title of the article is, “What About Lent?” Douglas has been just been saying that he holds church services every afternoon during Holy Week, and that he handles them topically. He writes:

“For example: Let the general theme of the addresses [all week] be phrased: ‘Suffered Under Pontius Pilate.’ On Monday, the theme might be, ‘The Indictment.’ Pilate asks, ‘Art thou a King?’ That is the indictment. It fits like a glove to the business one was doing on the day before, when the Palm Sunday pageantry was displayed.

“On Tuesday (all of these topics have to do with Pilate’s attitude toward Jesus – Pilate the cold-blooded, self-contained, dispassionate businessman) the topic might be, ‘A Problem of Jurisdiction.’ This deals with the story of Pilate’s sending his prisoner to Herod. He hoped to prove that the adjudication of the case was none of his business. A curious little twist is given to the story when it is noted that ‘Pilate and Herod, who had been previously at enmity, became friends that day.’ Pilate the gentleman strikes hands with Herod, roue and sot. Pilate despised Herod – but today they find common cause.

“On Wednesday a good theme is, ‘A Compromise Settlement.’ Pilate advises the crowd to ‘scourge him and let him go.’ If Jesus was guilty, he should be punished; if innocent, he should be acquitted. Pilate is willing to trim. It all gets back to the old query, ‘What will you do with Jesus?’

“On Thursday the topic might be phrased, ‘A Judgment Affirmed.’ This has to do with Pilate’s remark to the priests, ‘What I have written, I have written.’ After it is too late, Pilate bucks up and reveals a vestige of moral courage. After it is too late, Nicodemus ben Gorion and Joseph of Arimathaea appear as pallbearers. It is a great text – ‘What I have written.’

“Good Friday seems to take care of itself. There should be a program of penitential music, an address on the significance of the sacrifice on Golgotha, a stirring appeal to the courage and devotion of every man who has claimed fealty to Christ. Care must be exercised not to let this service become a mere lugubrious funeral of the Lord. Seeing he is not dead, that manner of memorial is out of drawing. A great theme for that day is, ‘Ye need not weep for me!'”

What About Lent? Part 6

by Ronald R Johnson

The following is from an article by Lloyd C. Douglas in the February 3, 1921, issue of The Christian Century. The title of the article is, “What About Lent?” Douglas has been offering ways that Protestant ministers can make the most of Lent. He writes:

“All of the sermons and mid-week addresses of this period should be clustered around this central idea of self-search, self-examination, spiritual appraisal. Great advantage is gained by printing and distributing a calendar of all these services, showing that they are all of a piece, and all pertaining to Lent. One can build a program that has cumulative value, reaching its high point in the celebration of Holy Week.

“We miss much who do not hold daily services during Holy Week. Unless local conditions absolutely prohibit the plan, it is best to have these meetings late afternoons. There should be excellent music, meditative and devotional of mood. The address should be brief. The congregation should be asked to do little or nothing but sit and think and pray. We have been making mistakes who have considered it necessary to every service that our people should sing hymns and read responsively. Occasionally – during Holy Week, for example – it is better to give them nothing to do but listen and meditate. In the writer’s program for the coming Holy Week, the congregation has nothing to say or do at all. A penitential ritual (homemade, for we are not ritualists) is to be rendered by two choirs, one in the choir box consisting of a mixed chorus of sixteen voices, the other in the rear of the balcony composed of a male quartet acting as an obligato accompaniment to a soprano soloist. In answer to the question that has just come to the reader’s mind – ‘Does this not involve large expense?’ – it may be said that, in our own case, these people are contributing their daily services through Holy Week without financial recompense.

“As to the addresses of Holy Week, it is better for the minister to make them himself rather than call in local colleagues who are unable to establish such continuity of thought as may be achieved by one speaker. The most frequent treatment during this Week is a consideration of the events in Jesus’ life, day by day through the crucial period. This proves quite perplexing. On Wednesday, there is practically nothing to be said; on Thursday and Friday one is positively embarrassed by the abundance of materials. It is better to plan a series of addresses, topically.”

[Douglas will conclude this essay in my next post…]

What About Lent? Part 5

by Ronald R Johnson

“It will be well for us to consider how we may make something profitable and helpful of Lent for our people who have not been trained to observe the season – not even to the extent of going through the motions of celebrating it. Perhaps the caution should be extended to the zealous young minister who feels the importance of doing this thing to the limit and has it in mind to hold daily services all the way from Ash Wednesday to Easter, that forty days are a very great many! He may begin his campaign with much enthusiasm, but before he has arrived at the end of the season, he will feel that instead of commemorating the forty-day fast of the Master in Jeshimon, he has been emulating the period spent by Moses in the Wilderness of Paran. In offering this suggestion, we speak that which we do know.

“This isn’t something that a church may hurl itself into, in one season, with utter abandon. If you have never observed Lent at all in your church, do not plan a lot of extra meetings, but keep the Lenten idea to the fore in all the meetings that you would customarily hold. A series of three sermons, on the first three Sundays of Lent, dealing with the temptations of Jesus, will serve to establish the idea that we are in a season of the year when such meditation is timely.

“Practically inexhaustible are the spiritual resources in this story. The preacher can afford to sit down over it for a whole day and study it in the light of present-day problems. It makes a delightful setting for a series of three sermons because it falls apart naturally into as many distinct propositions. The Wilderness Temptation comes first – temptation on low levels, a frank appeal to appetite. The City Temptation follows -temptation to get into the hurly-burly of the crowd, to take the short-cut to success, to win one’s way at a leap, to gamble with Providence. No less alluring and dangerous is the Mountain-Top Temptation – temptation to dream of glory and honor achieved by other processes than the simple, friendly, hand-to-hand contact with men as brethren.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

What About Lent? Part 4

by Ronald R Johnson

The following is from an article by Lloyd C. Douglas in the February 3, 1921, issue of The Christian Century. The title of the article is, “What About Lent?” Douglas has been saying that the seasons themselves put people in the appropriate mood for each part of the church calendar, but the local pastor is often harried by outside forces to preach about something entirely unrelated to the season the church is celebrating (Great Literature Day, Camp Sunday, etc.). Douglas writes:

“Days and days and days! If it may not be too impudent, I should like to assume the role of soothsayer long enough to predict that we have now passed the crest of these ‘days,’ and that our good friends with the causes and movements and drives and campaigns – good, bad, and indifferent – are presently to discover that they have overdone it. The good old preacher-pitcher has been carried once too often to the campaign-well. He is ‘gone broke.’ And that is a fact.

“Lent begins next week. What are we going to do about it? Most of us who plan the programs for our non-liturgical churches organize classes during this season for the instruction of young people in the fundamentals of Christianity as interpreted by our own denominations. This is as it ought to be. Many of us make special evangelistic efforts. More and more, our churches are coming to think of the pre-Easter weeks as a season of recruiting. But it is to be doubted if many of us are making proper use of this period for the deepening of the springs of spiritual life in the hearts of mature and confessed Christians.

“The preacher who fails to see and utilize the possibilities of Lent is standing in his own light. He may be reluctant to observe the season lest he infringe upon the exclusive privilege of the liturgical churches, but no denomination enjoys a monopoly of Lent. He may fear the indictment that he is ‘headed toward Rome’ – an ancient bugaboo that has cost us heavily who have sacrificed so much of the beauty of holiness in our awkward efforts to avoid doing anything that was ever practiced by historic Christianity previous to 1517. Again, he remembers the ungodly travesty of Lenten observance in the upper ether of ‘high sassiety’ where the self-abnegation of this penitential season seems to enjoin no more rigorous discipline than the refusal to have lemon in one’s tea at the bridge party; and where fasting means laying up, for a few days, in some sanitarium, to take medicinal baths wherewith to recuperate from the winter’s over-gorging and loss of sleep. But good things will be counterfeited; and the better they are, the more likely to be imitated.”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

What About Lent? Part 3

by Ronald R Johnson

“In the fall, when [the pastor] knows he should be driving deeply into the ‘thanatopsis’ mood and making the most of it in his sermons, the secretary of his denomination’s board of education sends him a whole wastebasket full of literature providing plans and specifications for the sermon he is to preach on the importance of supporting the little church colleges. He knows this is a worthy cause. He wishes, however, that he might be permitted to speak about it some other time. Just now he has himself all set to do a constructive task bearing upon the spiritual life of his congregation. To spend one Sunday morning parading the poverty of our wretched little – our own little – our all-but-dead little Peewee College at Hinkum’s Crossing – will upset the continuity of his proposed series of sermons; but if he doesn’t come through with the Peewee business, he will be put down as ‘a brother hard to work with.’

“In the same mail, he gets orders from someplace – he is not quite sure whence – that the next Sunday thereafter is the first day of ‘Good Literature Week.’ Unless he proposes to classify himself among the unread and unwashed who are indifferent to this wonderful movement, he had better load himself with good literature propaganda and be prepared to fire it off on the appointed day. It will be easy to do this, for the National Council for the Spread of Good Literature has not only prepared him a sermon outline, but has selected his text, his hymns, his Scripture lesson, his homiletic illustrations; so that though he may be a wayfarer, he need not err therein. (Incidentally, the impertinence of some of these people who persist in preparing sermons for us wherewith to present their various movements seems equaled only by the stupidity of the stuff they send us. One Sunday when the war was on, and we were getting sermons from Washington, the writer, thinking his people needed a moment of relaxation and a chance to have a hearty laugh, read a few paragraphs of a regulation government sermon. It was good.)”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]