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THE MAROON TIGER
Page 5
Conquest Of Fear”. Is Your Christianity Appealing To
Our Softness Or Our Strength?”, “Facing The Chal
lenge Of Change”, “Crucified By Stupidity”, and etc.
What are likely to be the themes heard in most of our
Negro churches? Here are three examples: “The Hell-
Bound Train”, “Valley of Dry Bones”, and “Mansions
in the Sky.”
I do not condemn the classmate of mine who feels
that no benefit is derived from going to church. If the
church fails to satisfy or at least sympathize with ihe
aspirations, dreams and difficulties of the intelligent
youths, it cannot hope to gain their allegiance and sup
port. Modern youths prefer an institution or movement
that makes possible the expansion and completion of
their personalities and the realization of the fondest
dreams and heavenly visions.
WHAT PRICE RELIGION
By Carrie Adams, Spelman College
What seems to be the matter with youth and religion?
Today youth ignores religion. He is somewhat indif
ferent to religious practices. Most of the time young
people flinch when they hear “prayer meeting” and
frown in disgust at the sound of chapel bells.
What are you going to do about the college gradu
ates or even students who went off to college trained in
the wav THEY SHOULD GO, and who return indifferent
to church progress and plans? No longer do those dear
ones desire to sit with their aunts and grandparents.
Nor do they desire to be kissed and caressed by dea
conesses and called, “You precious child, God bless
you.” No longer can the minister honestly say that,
“You are the church leader of tomorrow,” and have
it ring true. What is the trouble with the church and
the young people? Youth says, “Don’t blame me.” And
the church says it stands always for right. Maybe both
need new consideration. Maybe the matter lies with the
price of religion.
Youth is adventurous and ever eager for new things.
Yet it has the tendency to avoid things which cost much,
and demand strict discipline and restrained freedom. He
is lured by what is commonly called a good time, and,
therefore, for young folk, religion doesn’t pay. It doesn’t
pay, because they, experimenting with pranks and mech
anism of this age, deem freedom for good times their
only appetite. Religion costs more than they are ready
to pay for. “Straight is the path and narrow is the way
that leads to eternal understanding.” That is too much
for them. They are not ready for that. Whenever their
attitude and their conduct are defined they begin to ob
ject. To them all seems clear cut and pronounced by the
church. And there is that unceasing desire in youth to
feel free to decide its own destiny. This is not new, to
any one of us, that whenever you inform young minds
what path to pursue and how far to go, there is greater
possibility of their balking on your hands, or taking
just the opposite course.
Youth today craves freedom to express, to discover, and
to be different. It likes to feel that it can if it so desires.
Therefore, when the church enters the mind, he gen
erally hears moral conduct preached to him. When he
is asked to become a leader of the league, he frowns,
makes excuses which to himself hold no weight. He
perceives that his conduct as a leader of nothing is un-
.3n fReligion 3s o"Needed
defined, but when he assumes such a position in the
church, his freedom to make or to mar his Sunday af
ternoons is not so. As the superintendent of a church
department, he is not expected to place the key in the
door unlocking his mother’s house at three in the morn
ing returning from a party. He cannot be seen at a
dance Saturday nights, or even a card party, and play
the hymnal for the next morning. And so he’d rather
give up the religion. The church is too much—too con
fining. He understands that Christian leaders sacrifice,
but he can’t he bothered. Maybe in old age he’ll have
to, for then he has “Been”, “Seen”, and “Enjoyed”, so
that there is nothing else in old age to do but relin
quish all. But just now his liberty. Religion does not
pay. So he thinks his attitude is one of indifference
when religion would exact his time, and pronounce
specified conduct, and sacrifice. Religion doesn’t pay.
When probably he could associate an idea from the
Bible with something else. He fails, even, to open his
Bible once during the college year and discover the
ten-dollar-bill placed there by his mother when she went
to school. What price Religion?
RELIGION AND THE COLLEGE STUDENT
By R. 1). Rambeau
When I attempt to write on such a subject, I am in
clined to critize, whether favorable or unfavorable or
both, the present attitude of the college student toward
religious matters. My short discourse shall be drawn
from the more intelligent religious leaders and their
followers.
I think that it might be agreed that one of the problems
of our colleges today is that of compulsory religious
attendance. There are many people of the present gene
ration, over-religious people I might say, who feel
and believe that the college students of today are
Godless. When college students refuse to worship at
the feet of authorities and to come at every command,
it is not because of the fact that they are stubborn
and want to be indifferent, but it is because they are,
in a sense, living spiritual lives of their own and have
immediate problems which confront them.
In the days of old and at present it is the fight
ing over dry bones in which the churches persist. The
college student recognizes this to be a fact. Youth has
realized that Christ did not spend his time on earth
criticizing the prophets who preceded him, but instead
he accomplished a great deal in meeting the problems
of his day.
There are many students, whom I know personally,
who attend colleges where compulsory church attend
ance is required whose lives do not seem to have been
made any better by religion than the lives of others. The
mere ringing of bells for required attendance will not
submerge a student’s natural objection to compulsion in
religious matters. I believe that it should be within this
present generation that the college student be left on
his own initiative, “To do or not to do.”
I think colleges should he bringing persons into their
folds who can be depended upon as capable of think
ing for themselves. I do not believe that a person should
be made or forced to accept something which may not
be of any vital interest to him. However, I do believe
that he should be led to see things by such explana
tions that he will be able to decide whether or not