A Preacher Among The Magicians

I notice in the paper where a Baptist minister invites the public to attend his church at a specified date and hour to be entertained by some magical stunts. A preacher among the magicians can possibly make the things that are not appear as though they were and the things that are as though they were not. This type of entertainment at the right place and the right time can be wholesome and funny and is no cause for alarm.

There is a type of magic, or manipulation, or trickery which is to be seriously deplored. It is seen in the way some ministers in religion wrest the scriptures. Efforts are made to make a text of scripture teach something the Holy Spirit did not put in it, or take out something the Holy Spirit did put into it. Some preachers are too smooth and fast for the eyes and knowledge of their hearers. Jesus said: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." It is not innocent magic when some preacher makes peoples believe that it means: "He that believeth and is saved should be baptized." Peter said: "Repent ye and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of yours sins." Theological sleight-of-handers have sought to make it appear that people should repent and be baptized because their sins have been forgiven. Jesus told Nicodemus that a man must be born of water and the Spirit to enter into the kingdom of God. A theological professor recently labored through whole columns of the Baptist Standard and was backed up by a lengthy editorial in the same paper, in efforts to make it appear that the Lord did not mean water at all. He did not make that clear enough for even all Baptists, including some first-rate scholars among them. It is pretty obvious that he was mainly moved by doctrinal prejudices. Dr. Graves, a Baptist scholar, remarked some years ago that Alexander Campbell scared some modern interpreters into that false position. Anyhow, the Lord told us what he meant. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."

Then there is the effort to prove that Jesus Christ was a Baptist, that the apostles were all Baptists, that the Lord built the Baptist Church and all that sort of thing. In view of what the New Testament does not say about this, it would require a high degree of magical skill to make it appear so. It is all right to pull a rabbit out of a hat and make Punch talk back to Judy but it is something else when preachers get tricky with the New Testament.