1930s
A world
of news
During the Evangel’s history, news of current events and their impact on the church world
has been one of the most popular features of the magazine. Today’s
Pentecostal Evangel places
its “PE Report” at the front of each issue for easy
access. During the 1930s, “The Passing and the Permanent”
(later “The Outlook and the Uplook”) found itself
in different portions of the magazine from year to year, but served
the same purpose.
Without natural
affection
This condition will be one of the signs of the last days (2 Timothy
3:3). Such an attitude toward parents is the direct result of
the teachings of the Soviet government. According to Time,
Soviet children are taught from the kindergarten up that good
children spy upon their parents, grandparents, and old people
generally. Such people, the state fears, may be anti-Communistic
(that is, old fashioned). “When a grain collector came to
a certain village, a 13-year-old child denounced his father for
failure to cooperate with the government, screaming, ‘I
demand that my father be severely punished.’ ”
— March 11, 1933
In the eyes of the
world
An American reporter quoted in [the] November Reader’s
Digest, writing of Mr. Joe Louis, the destined world’s
champion of pugilism, and who is reputed to be a great Bible reader
and churchgoer, says:
“To date, the
[man’s] behavior has been above reproach. But I simply cannot
bring myself to believe that any man who in the ring is capable
of showing the cruel, relentless, calculated ferocity that Louis
shows, can, by the simple process of pulling off a pair of stuffed
leather mittens, backing through the strands of rope and climbing
from the ring to the floor, suddenly become a sweet and gentle
character.”
Comments a writer in
the Elim Evangel, “Evidently the world can’t see the two
mixing together — the Bible and fighting, and neither can
we.”
— March 21, 1936
Suffering with those
that suffer
We learn from Revelation that “a day of fasting and prayer
was proclaimed by the National Protestant Church of Switzerland
for the persecuted believers in many lands who are today exiled
to Siberia and to the Arctic wastes in Russia, put in labor camps
and concentration camps in Germany, forbidden the right to worship
in Spain and Mexico, and who are menaced in many other lands.
It was announced that the day was a day of fasting so that all
who fasted could realize how many were suffering from hunger.”
— July 25, 1936
A disillusioned
communist
Don Enrique Matorras, former secretary general of the Communist
Youth Organization of Spain, has returned to Christianity. “The
more intensely I labored for the cause of communism the greater
was my disillusionment,” he writes. “The private life
of the functionaries, the agents of the Third International, of
the higher ranking communists in general, was not without reproach.
I saw with my own eyes that the liberation of the proletariat
and the rights of the working class were of little concern to
them. They were only looking out for themselves and their selfish
interests.”
— February 27, 1937
