Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1961 - Rparchives.org

84 MINUTES OF THE SYNOD OF THE
situation in which the work of National Reform was never more
greatly needed than at the present hour. It is a day when public
morals have sunk to a new low. The liquor traffic flourishes as
never before. There is less place provided for God and the Bible
in our public schools than there was even as little as a year ago.
Hollywood has never turned out as brazenly lewd and indecent
motion pictures as she is doing at the present time. Despite the
fact that the Supreme Court has just recently declared civil Sabbath
laws such as we have here in Pennsylvania to be constitutional,
the Sabbath, as a religious institution, was never more
greatly ignored than it is today. Major crimes have increased 56%
since 1950, which is four times as fast as the increase of our
population. There are three times as many criminals in this
country as there are college students and on these criminals we
are forced to spend 4 2/3 times as much money as we spend on
all forms of education, both public and private. According to J.
Edgar Hoover, Chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, crime
is costing the U. S. taxpayers $28,500 a minute, or $1,710,000
an hour. This amounts to $40,040,000 a day or $14,614,600,000
a year.
The traffic in pornographic literature in this country is estimated
to be a half a billion dollars a year business, and is growing
with every passing day.
There is every reason to believe that opposition to these
evils is lessening. Opposition to any kind of regulative legislation
is increasing—even among religious leaders. Out larger
church bodies today are taking the position that any kind of moral
legislation or censorship is wrong, that the only sane way to
deal with the alcohol problem is to teach moderation, and that
the only way to deal with pornographic literature and movies is to
teach the individual to be his own censor and to be selective in
his reading or viewing.
The National Reform Association operates on the principle
that to protect society we must have moral legislation. If one is
going to have a fruitful and healthy garden, he must root up the
obnoxious weeds that, if allowed to grow will stunt or destroy the
other plants. The two cannot be allowed to grow together without
the bad injuring the growth and development of the good. It is
our belief that a nation's youth must likewise be protected lest
their lives be corrupted by the weeds in our society.
The National Reform Association believes that the Bible
means what it says when it declares that "Righteousness exalteth
a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." (Prov. 13:34) It
believes also, that a voice is needed to declare this truth to the
nation and to show how it is to be implemented in the nation's
life. The National Reform Association is such a voice. It reaches
out across the nation by means of its literature and its organ,