Judge — April 2, 1927 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE Editor, Norman Anthony. The Heretic : sometimes wonder just how many so-called ndamentalists actually know their Bible, about the literal authority of whose every word they are prepared to do or die. Not that we to dispute their religion with them; we ask the question. merely A week or so ago, for instance, the Rev. Roach Straton, who is known nationally as the Fun- damentalist Pope, was put in a ars position by a fellow Fundamentalist, the i Wes Gillon, of Winchester, Ky., on the subject of a >I n mandate from the New Testament. Dr. Gillon was addressing the Baptist Bible Union in Dr. Straton’s New York church when a woman member interrupted to ask a question. Dr. Gillon consented to hear her question, but explained that it was against the principles of the Southern Baptist Church to do so and that he wouldn't promise to answer it. He later, the Biblic in churches: Dr. John had in mind, it was said ] injunctions against women speaking “Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak” (1. Cor., xiv., 34). “Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (I. Tim., ii, 11, 12). Dr. Straton was on his feet in an instant. have a great deal to learn,” he shouted at his col- league. “One of the greatest preachers I ever heard is a fourteen-year-old girl. In fact, I think she is the greatest preacher in the country at this time.” And he went on to express the opinion that the passages in the New Testament quoted above were not to be accepted literally. “You In other words, His Holiness felt that he had to choose between the commands of the Bible and the good-will of half the women in Christendom, and like the successful evangelist he is, he chose the latter. After all, what’s the Bible among preachers? Only this, that the word Fundamentalist, unless we are grossly mistaken, is not a relative term. Either you swallow the Bible line, hook and sinker and are a Fundamentalist, or you begin “interpreting” the passages in it that tax your credulity or your patience and you are something else again. Dr. John Roach Straton, until now ing candidate for heaven,” He’s damned. Pope or no pope, “America’s lead- is something else again, Associate Editors, William Morris Houghton, William Edgar Fisher, Phil Rosa, Jack Shuttleworth. Dramatic Editor, George Jean Nathan “Ask Me Another” iru the Religion of Success, which has been so widely substituted in this country for Christian- ity, goes the Passion for Self-Improvement. Our most successful 1 ines and books are that promote and exploit it. Our most successful ad- vertisers are those that appeal to it. Our most popular fads and reer that, by a familiar mental process, we justify to ourselves as catering to it. For instance, we that we play golf because of the healthful exercise it affords, bridge because it sharpens our wits; that we with the children because it keeps us young. convention junkets because they enlarge our business acquaintance; do cross-word puzzles because they help our vocabulary. If by some mischance we ever do anything purely for the fun of it, there being no other possible explanation, it hurts our consciences. It doesn’t square with our Religion of Success. But most, if not all, of this mass effort at self- improvement is the bunk. The only perfection attainable in this sad world of ours is that of being ourselves completely, of maintaining intact against all comers the integrity of our personalities. The self-improvement ide know it, is directly opposed to this. It picks a standard type into which it would transform us out of all semblance to our real selves—the clean-shaven, go-gctter type, let us obviously athletic, dressed, jovial and spirited, morally responsible, at home in any company. A hint of glostura on the hair, it may be, of listerine on the breath, of the Book of Etiquette in the manners, of the Story of Philosophy in the conversation. But fit to be a college president, a banker, a publisher, the head of an advertising agency, a manufacturer or an evangelist. In fact, when you first meet one of these perfect products of the system of self-improvement you can’t tell what he that he is himself. And if you had to live with him you'd discover that he was not a success, either, at least as a human being. those ations are those romp attend as we obviously prosperous, pre- cisely well-informed, is, except not There is nothing in human form emptier, more taste- less than the thoroughly self-improved. Which brings us to the immediate irritation responsible for this spasm, and that is this Ask-Me-Another cra Of all the devices for permitting the disciple of self- improvement to show off in company, this wins the celluloid pen-wiper. W.M. H. comicbooks.com