Religion and modern problems

              1916
RELIGION AND MODERN PROBLEMS
POPULAR ADDRESSES FOR CHURCHES, FORUMS, CLUBS, SUNDAY SCHOOLS, CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, ETC.


Figure


By LOUIS WALLIS

Lecturer for the
JOSEPH FELS INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION
122 EAST THIRTY-SEVENTH STREET
NEW YORK CITY



Religion today is moving into a period as critical as that of the Reformation epoch.  The problem of the Church is complex; but its basic elements are very simple.  Every consecrated minister and religious leader, wheresoever placed, knows what those basic elements are.  There is a powerful tendency to drift away from God, and to shape the purposes of individual and national life in response to the claims of a secular and selfish policy which shuts away from view the mountains of spiritual vision.  Where there is no vision, the people perish.

But over against the dark and sinister forces of today is the irresistible urge of a new movement which is compassing the rediscovery of God in terms of modern conditions and problems.  A great moral and civic awakening sweeps over the churches.  There is a deeper and broader understanding of the Bible and its religion.  The Bible was ahead of the world when it was written.  It has been ahead of the world ever since.  And the new social awakening joins with the scholarship of our times in helping us to catch up with the Scriptures.



ANNOUNCEMENT
Religious addresses of a popular nature have been given for some time in the United States and Canada by Louis Wallis, formerly on the faculty of the Ohio State University, and now on the staff of the Joseph Fels International Commission.  His books, Sociological Study of the Bible and The Struggle for Justice, are published by the University of Chicago Press, and have reached a wide and steadily increasing circulation, being used for private reading and as textbooks in colleges and theological seminaries.


1.
An address on Religion and the Social Awakening is given in churches morning or evening, and is of a sermonic and inspirational nature.  It is frequently delivered at a union service of several churches.  Mr. Wallis also speaks to Bible classes, young people's societies, etc., in the interest of Bible study.
2.
An address on The Struggle for Justice touches the questions of the high cost of living, single tax, war, etc., and is for week-night meetings or Sunday-evening forums.  If desired, it can be given in series with the previous address as follows: No. 1, Sunday morning; No. 2, Sunday evening; or No. 1, Sunday evening; No. 2, Monday evening.

Other addresses are: The French Revolution and European History; Joseph Fels and His Work; The Emancipation of Women; Mexico and Her Problem; The Great War, Its Cause and Cure; Can the Church Live on Half the Gospel?  Programs can be constructed on the basis of the foregoing titles, according to local circumstances and interests.



TERMS
As the speaker is on the staff of the Joseph Fels International Commission, which is not conducted for financial gain, the cost of bringing these addresses to any locality is low, the intention being to cover expenses.  No funds solicited.  For terms applying to your locality, write direct to Louis Wallis, 4225 Broadway, Chicago, Ill., or call telephone Lakeview 1247, Chicago.




COMMENT

CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION FIFTH AVENUE AND TENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY
May 2, 1916

MY DEAR PROFESSOR WALLIS:

You will be pleased to know that the Tuesday night lectures, which you inaugurated at the Church of the Ascension, were a great success.  You gave us an exhilarating and encouraging start which set the wheels going in decidedly vigorous fashion.  So far as I know, evening week-night religious meetings have never been held in Ascension before.  Such meetings are rarely held in Episcopal churches in New York.  The undertaking, therefore, was entirely experimental.  There was an average attendance of about two hundred and fifty….  The Fels Foundation may be heartily congratulated on the breadth of your sympathies and the extent of your special knowledge.

Yours sincerely,
PERCY S. GRANT, Rector



Calvary Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N.Y.
(Weekly Bulletin—November 5–12, 1916)
Louis Wallis, of Chicago, formerly a member of the faculty of the Ohio State University, is widely known in America and abroad by his writings.  The subject of his address at the Forum will be The Struggle for Justice.  In his work as an author and lecturer he voices the growing demand of this age for justice in all human relations.  Mr. Wallis has won distinction as a student of sociology and economics, and because of his forceful and original treatment of these subjects he is always heard with liveliest interest.



PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH, University of Berlin, Germany.
Sociological Study of the Bible is one of the most suggestive and instructive books that has come into my hands in many a day.  This is the path which theological research must follow if the history of religious ethics is to be understood.



PROFESSOR HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.
To the Author: I think your book will have great value as a contribution to a really historical understanding of the Bible.  The argument is well sustained.



PROFESSOR CHARLES P. FAGNANI, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.
Louis Wallis has rendered the Church and the world an inestimable service….  By liberating the doctrine of the prophets from its sacerdotal accretions and modifications, he has advanced the cause of justice on the earth by showing its underlying Scriptural foundation in a way never accomplished before.



PROFESSOR EDWARD A. ROSS, University of Wisconsin.
To the Author: I think there is no controverting your thesis that the study of the Bible must now become sociological.  I find your work throughout at once bold and careful, and I should like to see it brought to the attention of scholars everywhere.





COMMENT

GEORGE F. COLEMAN, Director Ford Hall Meetings, Boston.
Mr. Wallis' message was entirely different from anything that we ever had before at Ford Hall.  To very many in the audience it was one of the most significant addresses we have ever had.  Having read Mr. Wallis' wonderful book, Sociological Study of the Bible, I was quite prepared for the message he brought us; but it came home to me with new force, nevertheless, as I saw it reacting on our unique audience.




The Daily Citizen, Ottawa, Canada.
The Struggle for Justice is to be the subject next Sunday evening at the People's Forum, Regent Theatre.  Professor Louis Wallis, of Chicago, who has been filling a series of engagements in New York City, is to be the speaker.  Mr. Wallis is a distinguished author who makes his appeal through logical and convincing arguments, and never fails to interest his audience.



NORMAN HAPGOOD, former editor of Harper's Weekly.
I have read Sociological Study of the Bible very carefully, and have taken an extraordinary interest in it.  My ideas about the Bible have been illuminated by it, and the Bible will be permanently even more interesting to me on account of having read it.



REV. DR. JOHN C. JACKSON, District Supt., M. E. Church, Chillicothe, Ohio.
To the Author: Your sociological study of the Bible unravels many a mystic tangle over which I have often pondered.  It carries its own convincing evidence with it, and opens up a new field for sermonic effort in the problems of today.



REV. DR. JOHN W. BARNETT, Pastor First Congregational Church, Barre, Vermont.
I have found Sociological Study of the Bible suggestive and stimulating.  It compels a reconstruction of one's thinking along the line of Bible study.  While it has not spoiled any of my sermons, it has injected a new element into them.



REV. DR. WILLIAM G. PUDDEFOOT, in The Congregationalist (Boston).
Mr. Wallis' volume on the Bible is a book for the times.




Association News, Appleton, Wisconsin.
A most successful Bible study campaign was waged at a joint meeting of the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. last Sunday evening.  The first speaker of the meeting was Louis Wallis, of Chicago.  He gave a very thorough talk on Catching Up with the Bible.

Mr. Wallis' books, Sociological Study of the Bible and The Struggle for Justice, can be secured through all booksellers, or from the publishers, The University of Chicago Press, Fifty-eighth Street and Ellis Avenue, Chicago.