The Presbyterian of the South : [combining the] Southwestern Presbyterian, Central Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian. [volume], April 06, 1921, Page 2, Image 3

About The Presbyterian of the South : [combining the] Southwestern Presbyterian, Central Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1909-1931

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
SENSITIVENESS.
The obsolete meaning of "sensitive" is wise,
sagacious. We wish its meaning could be con
fined to this, and all sensitive persons were
wise and sensible and sagacious.
There is a peculiar type of this common dis
ease, which might be called "church sensi
tiveness." The word has come to describe a
person who is easily and acutely affected by
external words or things.
The church variety is the most acnte form.
Men, who go straight forward in their busi
ness regardless of any other's opinion to the
contrary, shrink and cower and surrender to
a biting tongue in the church in opposition to
them, or their plans, however right they may
be. In the give and take of professional life,
or in business, men let the ultimate purpose
control them ; but when it comes to the king
dom of God, they wear their feelings 011 their
sleeves, and one adverse criticism sends them
scuttling to cover.
Even a disagreement in a court of the Lord's
house is taken as a deadly insult. Many a man
hides his head and keeps silent because he is
afraid his words may do so much harm to the
delicate feeling of some man. And the truth
is often silenced because somebody's feelings
might be hurt.
This is the reason there is 110 discipline in
the Church today. Some members of the fam
ily might be hurt, when the scandalous doings
of the erring brother are really the injurious
things. Wrong goes unrebuked ; sins flare up
in the face of the Church and no condemnation
is allowed. The minister who would rebuke
them knows that somebody's sensitive feelings
may be trampled 011 and he and his be bun
dled out into the cold world without cere
mony.
We ought to be sensitive to truth; and where
we err, to correction, but sensitiveness is usu
ally accompanied with an irritation, that ex
presses itself in both words and deeds. The
results of this sensitiveness 011 the part of
church members are manifold. The minister
must say pleasing things or suffer loss of at
tendance and interest and sometimes worse.
Officers, instead of doing what common
sense and business interests dictate, let things
slide along, and hope to "muddle through"
the Church of God, the greatest business in the
world. Babson says there is invested in Church
property not less than 1,800 millions of dol
lars. There are 200,000 paid ministers, and
500,000 workers. Yet it is the most ineffi
ciently operated business in the world. No
factory of industry would survive six months,
if operated as the Church is. Its divine origin
is seen in the fact that it has survived.
Approach business men, and ask th? ques
tion, "why is the Church handled in this slack
fashion?" The answer will be, "you cannot
apply the principles of business to the Church,
because the members are too sensitive."
This answer has been given to the writer
time and again. The storm centre of sensi
tiveness is the choir. The minister is wise who
stands with hands off in this matter. Yet the
average church music is an offense to high
heaven, if the praise of God demands the best.
Those themes which ought to expect the best
musical treatment, often find themselves sac
rificed 011 the altar of some sensitive member
of the choir. Who does not know the chari
ness with which the average officer handles
this delicate object?
The pocket nerve is another delicate one
with the average church member. He looks
upon the deacon as a robber or a beggar, and
cuts the sinews of efficient service 011 the part
of worthy deacons. Instead of recognizing
that they are rendering a high service for,
which they receive nothing, except a good con
science, the sensitive nerve begins to tingle
and the scowl rises to the face, and the sharp
word to the tongue, till the deacon drops into
an apologetic tone, or turns his back and flees.
Who can blame him?
Oh ! these religious nerves of ours. Profes
sors have been known to tingle under any ref
erence to the institution of which .they are
shining lights; as if any institution were per
fect and above kindly criticism.
Ministers lift up warning fingers when their ?
churches are reminded that they are not quite
up to the mark in the Presbyterian Progressive
Program.
Members shy away from the pulpit that can
not deal out ecclesiastical soothing syrup. This
is a world in which truth is the only thing
worth while, and truth is sometimes rather
blunt.
We want nerves, even ecclesiastical nerves,
but we want them so subordinated to con
science, and kindly feeling, and the carrying
on of the purposes of God, that they do not get
to jangling when men disagree with us; or
speak the truth plainly.
What we ought to aim at is not our little,
narrow exaltation of self; but the carrying out
of God's plans to the final consummation of
Ilis kingdom.
A. A. L.
Contributed
THE SOUTH CAROLINA OVERTURE.
By Rev. W. I. Sinnott.
The Synod of South Carolina at its last meet
ing, after some opposition, overtured the next
General Assembly "to make a deliverance in
the following or similar words: Since the pas
tor is the moderator of the session for pru
dential reasons only, and not because of any
inherent authority in his office, the session
may, with his approval, elect one of its mem
bers to preside whenever it is necessary or
expedient to hold meetings at which he cannot
be present. Whenever such a meeting shall
be held, the reason for it should be recorded
in the minutes."
Every Session has an interest in this over
ture, and as the method of making and con
struing law in the Chureh is involved in it, a
subject on which the Church sometimes is like
a ship at sea without chart, compass or rudder,
some thoughts growing out of it may not be
inappropriate.
The law in the Hook of Church Order (to
which I refer by the paragraph numbers) is:
The pastor is always moderator of the Ses
sion, Par. 57, except when for specified reasons,
he, with the concurrence of the elders, invite
another minister of the same Presbytery to
preside, Par. 67. When a church has no pas
tor the moderator is a minister appointed by
the Presbytery, or one invited by the Session
to preside on a particular occasion, and in
judicial cases the moderator must always be
long to the Presbytery to which the Session
belongs. In emergencies if the Session invites
an elder, a deacon, a private member, a licen
tiate, or a minister of another denomination
to preside, it violates no law, Par. 68.
To this overture I offer the following objec
tions :
I. The answer may be unsatisfactory. (1)
Overtures like this are referred usually to a
committee that is so overburdened with other
work that due consideration is not always
given them, and reports are made sometimes
when not even one-half or one-fourth of the
members vote intelligently on them. The
Evangelistic work of the Church at home and
abroad, Education and Ministerial Relief, Pub
lication, Sabbath School Extension, Foreign
Correspondence, etc., take up so much of the
limited time of the Assembly that contradic
tory deliverances sometimes are made ?which
confuse Sessions. (2) The overture itself in
its preamble (which for brevity's sake I omit)
calls attention to the apparent conflict between
the deliverances of the Assemblies of 1 81)6 and
1919 on this very matter. In 1896 also the
Assembly decided that neither one ruling el
der alone nor the pastor alone can constitute a
Session; in 1897 it decided that one ruling el
der alone can constitute a Session, but it did
not reverse its decision regarding a pastor,
leaving the Church in the condition that, while
one elder can receive and dismiss members,
order collections and make sessional reports to
Presbytery, a> pastor cannot do any of these
things. Pars. 7 '2, 73 of Digest. (3) Even in
making law the Assembly is liable in haste not
to be as choice in its language as it should be.
In 1892 the law was "if there be so many as"
two elders both are necessary for a quorum
of Session, but if there be not more than two
only one is necessary. The Digest tells us,
page 73, that it was in answer to the overture
of W. I. Sinnott that this language was made
intelligible. Again in 1912 the Assembly sent
down to the Presbyteries an amendment to
Par. 134, that grammatically could not be ap
pended to it. The adopted amendment as now
printed in the Hook has three unauthorized
changes in its language.
II. Amending the law by grunting the over
ture will not be official. Amendment can be
made oidy by two Assemblies with the advice
and consent of a majority of the Presbyteries.
The Assembly has no authority officially to
construe (or misconstrue) the law in its appli
cation to a lower court, except by general re
view and control, reference, appeal or com
plaint, Par. 258, which construction is always
in a concrete case. If the Assembly miscon
strues the law in a concrete ease, as there is
no higher court to correct the error, it stands,
of course, unless subsequently reversed, but
this error cannot bind any court in a similar
ease to repeal the error, otherwise the law can
be amended by judicial decisions without the
advice and consent of the Presbyteries, re
quired by the constitution.
Two concrete cases may be cited to show
that court decisions when erroneous do not
legally amend the law, but only misconstrue
the law, in that particular case. I ask that it
l>e reineml>ered before making the citations that,
the Book of Church Order is composed of two
parts, Government and Discipline, which never
should be, but often are confused by church
courts. In the first case cited a church in a
congregational meeting requested the Session
to dissolve the relation existing between it and
a venerable elder, which request was granted
against the elder's wishes, Par. 113. Under the
law the elder was entitled to complain and to
have the sessional act annulled, Pars. 267, 271,
but as no sentence had been passed upon him
and no judgment*recorded he was not entitled
to appeal, Par. 255. Both Presbytery and the
Synod illegally allowed him to appeal, and the
Synod tried the case as one of Discipline, Par.
205, and not of Government, Par. 113, and sus
tained the appeal, an act which the General
Assembly with the facts and misapplication of
the law before it in the Synod's records sub
sequently approved. If this now is law, as
some contend, then, under the mutatis mu