me PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION JOHN V/.SHACKFORD BV 625 .S5 1917 A Shackford, John Walter, 1876 The program of ' the Christiar THE PKOGEAM OF THE CHEISTIAJST EBLIGION (1) TRAINING COURSES FOR LEADERSHIP Learning and Teaching. Harold J. Sheridan and G. C. White. In preparation. The Training of the Devotional Life. Minnie E. Kennedy and Minna M. Meyer. The Program of the Christian Religion. John W. Shackford. The Organization and Administration of the Sun- day School. E. M. North and J. L. Cuninggim. In preparation. Recreational Leadership of Boys. Norman E. Richardson. In preparation. Life in the Making. Wade Crawford Barclay, Arlo A. Brown, Alma S. Sheridan, William J. Thompson, and Harold J. Sheridan. -7 Z TRAINING COURSES FOR LEADERSHIP Edited by HENRY H. MEYER and E. B. CHAPPELL The Program of the Christian Religion BY JOHN W. SHACKFORI) <;^^i OF "timS^ -18 Approved by the Committee on Curriculumi of the Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Committee on Curriculum of the General Sunday School Board of the Methodist Episcbpal Church, South THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI SMITH & LAMAR NASHVILLE DALLAS RICHMOND Copyright, 1917 BY SMITH & LAMAR DEDICATION To the memory of my father, the Rev. Joseph Wesley Shackford, who, being called to be both father and mother to his children, did, by his char- acter and his loving care, make it easy for them to believe in the uncompromising holiness and the self -forgetting love of the "one God and Father of all, , . . from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." FOREWORD The Church never faced greater opportunities for service than those by which she is confronted to-day. The world struggle which has been going on for more than three years has shaken men loose from the conventional bonds by which in normal times they are held in restraint and launched them on a sea of adventurous radicalism such as has almost no parallel in human history. Everything now is in a state of flux. Nothing is regarded as fixed beyond question. Out of this chaos a new world will have to be made after the grim conflict is over. What kind of a world it is to be will depend largely upon the Christian forces of the various countries in- volved in it. If these forces fail to show themselves equal to the occasion, there may follow a long period of con- fusion and uncertainty. If they prove themselves equal to the test which the opportunity will bring to them, they may succeed in reorganizing society upon a more broadly democratic and Christian basis and so inaugurate an era of brotherhood and cooperation in which the world will find rich compensation for all the agony of the grim and horrible struggle. Whether or not this is to be the outcome will de- pend in large measure upon the kind of leadership the Church shall raise up. There is urgent need for men and women who "have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do" and who have been definitely prepared by wise training for 7 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION the tasks to which they are called. "To this end ev- ery church in every community should be a training post as well as a recruiting station." Courses and textbooks have been prepared especially with a view to fitting young Christians for the large demands which the present situation is making upon them, and others are in preparation. This volume belongs to a series bearing the gener- al title, "Training Courses for Leadership." Its mis- sion is to point out the way of approach to some of the problems suggested above. Because of the urgen- cy of the call for intelligent social interest and united social action, its appearance must be regarded as most timely. The author, as a successful pastor, spent many years in not only studying, but also en- deavoring to work out in practice, the matters which he here discusses. He, therefore, speaks vitally be- cause he speaks out of his own experience. His mes- sage should be heartily welcomed by those who are seeking to fit themselves for leadership in Christian service. The Editors. 8 CONTENTS Page Introduction 11 CHAPTER I Meeting the World's Religious Needs 19 CHAPTER II Providing the Basis of a New Social Order S3 CHAPTER III Unto All the Nations 45 CHAPTER IV Missionary Beginnings 59 CHAPTER V The Growth of the Christian Community and Its Impact on Its Non-Christian Environment 73 CHAPTER VI The Christian Community and the Social Task 89 CHAPTER VII The Creation and Preservation of the Christian Family 107 CHAPTER VIII The Christianization of Wealth and of Industry. . . . 125 CHAPTER IX The Christianization of the State 141 9 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION CHAPTER X Page Teaininq the Coming Generation 159 CHAPTER XI The Place and Work of the Organized Church 175 CHAPTER XII The Assurance of Victory — The Ultimate Supremacy OF THE Kingdom of God 189 10 INTRODUCTION The seed cast upon the earth has in it the proph- ecy and purpose of the "full grain in the ear" no less than of the first "blade." Jesus, it is some- times said, had no program. It is true that he left no systematized body of teaching; he provided no complex Church organization; he handed down no detailed instruction regarding the application to be made of his teaching to all the problems that should arise in the after ages. He spoke simply and di- rectly to the hearts of men and left his words in the keeping of his disciples, with the injunction that they should teach them to all nations. There are no rules by which the kingdom is to be built, but there is a law according to which it must grow. The seed is cast upon the earth, and out of the forces of the seed and of the soil the kingdom of God springs into being and grows; and it grows by an orderly and consecutive process determined by the principles of life within and by the conditions of the world without, making unerringly toward the final and complete stage of the "full grain in the ear." A program, then, in this sense Jesus most certain- ly had; but it was without artificialities and with- out detail, because he thought in terms of personal relationships and of life and not in terms of rules of conduct and of methods of procedure. We are, therefore, to look for the program of Jesus in the fundamental principles of his teaching and in his utterances of purpose and of outcome. We look 11 PROGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION upon the kingdom in its beginnings, and there we see its nature, and we are permitted to have a glimpse of its future. That beginning is, indeed, as the "mustard seed" ; but the growing kingdom is to spread abroad its branches until it becomes greater than all others, until, like yeast, it quickens all the inert masses of humanity and subdues all other kingdoms. A world purpose and program may, therefore, be said to be coexistent with the Christian religion. This purpose was understood by the Gospel writers, and the apostle Paul swept to the far confines of the future dominion of Christ when he said: "For he must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet." It is not, of course, to be supposed that there was in the minds of these early believers any very clearly defined idea as to the full significance and final form of the kingdom to which they be- longed and which they were diligently spreading abroad in the earth. This would be revealed in due time. But now they were naturally occupied with the immediate and pressing problems of the first stages of this kingdom — how to introduce it and how to keep it alive in the midst of a hostile worl'd. Yet the small beginning and the sometimes dark present were seen against the bright background af- forded by their vision of the larger and more glori- ous future. From the beginning, therefore, Chris- tianity has sounded a note of world conquest, al- beit that note has not always been equally clear and confident. It will be the aim of this volume to deal with this outward and expansive movement of the Christian 12 INTEODUCTION religion toward the limits of the world and at the same time to consider its transforming power in hu- man society, which is both a result of the entrance of the gospel and the necessary condition of its con- tinued advance and triumph. The detailed discus- sion of the doctrines of personal salvation will be aside from our special purpose. A general acquaint- ance with these must here be assumed ; so that after a brief statement of the central and most unquestioned truths of Christian faith and experience that form the condition and basis of the program, we must con- sider the program itself, which is none other than the task set before the Christian people in the es- tablishment of the kingdom of God on the earth, the Christianization of the world. The program of the Christian religion will vary in detail with the growth and conditions of the king- dom. The seed is cast into the earth, bearing witli- in itself the living potencies of the religious and mor- al transformation of the world. The Christian re- ligion is to create the ever-coming kingdom of God. That kingdom will appear in all of its stages of de- velopment, from the moment of planting until the time of the "full corn in the ear.'' We shall be pre- pared to expect different manifestations of life at the different stages of development. The last stages will naturally represent a more complex and mani- fold life than the earlier stages. There are in the kingdom of God both the change- less and the ever-changing. The truth of God's char- acter and of the salvation that he offers through his Son is ever the same. But men's apprehension of this and the consequent manifestation of the truth 13 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION in their own lives and in society is necessarily a process of continuous unfoldment. Again, that which is living must be ever evolving, expanding, developing. The form in which life man- ifests itself must constantly give place to new forms and modes of expression. To sanctify, for instance, for all time the mere methods of apostolic Chris- tianity is to put form above life and to entomb the living in its own outgrown shell. To suppose that any type of Church government, any statement of Christian doctrine, any individual or social mani- festation of Christian power represents the final and complete development of the Christian religion is to break with Jesus's conception of the kingdom as a growing thing, a principle of life transforming the world. The kingdom itself must necessarily be in- complete and imperfect in its manifestations so long as it is composed of an imperfect membership in all stages of intellectual, moral, and religious develop- ment. The kingdom of God at any given time represents a resultant of the living principle of Christian truth and of the elements into which it is cast. Men are changed, lifted, transformed by this new power that comes into their lives ; but they are not immediately made perfect or set free from all the results of their previous training, thinking, and living. The cit- izenship of the kingdom is thus made up of those who but imperfectly understand the teachings of Jesus and but partially exemplify the true spirit and character of the Christian religion. Again, the application of the gospel will not always be the same, but will vary with the needs of the time, with 14 INTRODUCTION the growing apprehension of the total mission of the Christian religion in the world, and with the in- creased dominance of the Christian people and their influence in human society. Historically, the kingdom had its beginning with the life of Jesus in the flesh, a beginning so small that Jesus compared the kingdom at this stage to the mustard seed. Nevertheless, it is true that this small beginning, made in the Jewish community nearly nineteen centuries ago, has in most essentials been repeated over and over again in many parts of the earth. This has been true wherever the leaven of the kingdom has been Introduced into the raw mass of heathenism and a new center or beginning of Christian life has been established. In the last century, more than any other in Christian history, these new centers of Christian life have been created throughout wide sections of the globe hitherto with- out the gospel. And in those portions of the world still without a knowledge of Christ the Christian Church is even now planning to implant the leaven of the kingdom. We are, therefore, living in an age when we may look back for nineteen hundred years upon the ex- tension of the Christian religion in the world and the development of the kingdom of God and at the same time may behold in our own day the kingdom in many stages of development, extending from the stage of beginnings to that represented by those communities that have made most progress in realiz- ing the Christian ideal. Any attempt, therefore, to state the program of the Christian religion must take into account the 15 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION entire task confronting the followers of Jesus Christ in the world to-day. This task in its nature ranges from the first work of the i)ioneer missionary in the land where Christ is not known to the duty of the Christian people in the most advanced Christian communities and to the attitude of the Christian people as a whole to their world task. It must take full account of both the individual and the social ap- plications of the gospel. It must consider the de- mands of the kingdom both intensively and exten- sively. In view of the mistaken effort so frequently made to place the individual and the social aspects of the Christian religion in opposition to each other, it will be well to state at the outset certain principles of relation between them : 1. The Christian religion roots in the indimdiial life. "Religion is the life of God in the soul of man/^ and that life will bring forth its flower and fruitage and varied manifestation in a right attitude and conduct toward men. He who loves "God whom he hath not seen" will surely love "his brother whom he hath seen," and that love cannot in sincerity stop short of genuine concern regarding all the conditions that affect the life, happiness, and destiny of his brother. 2. The individual and the social aspects of the Christian religion are not in opposition, hut are the necessary counterparts the one of the other. The sources of life are in the Father, but the Spir- it of the Father in the heart of the child makes the child a real brother to every other child of God. 16 INTRODUCTION There is here the bond of kinship and interest that creates a new family and makes the brotherhood of man a vital reality. It is as illogical to place the social and the personal aspects of the gospel in oppo- sition as it would be to think of the spirit of true sonship as being hostile to the common family inter- est. The social gospel is the fulfillment of the gos- pel of individual salvation. It insists that true son- ship means true brotherhood and that brotherhood can be practiced in the complex relations of society only when society is organized according to Chris- tian principles, when its laws and its institutions harmonize with the spirit of true brotherhood, which is the spirit of justice, of mutual consideration, and of love. 3. The social program of the Christian religion is much more than a mere program. It contrasts with all programs imposed from with- out, in that it proceeds from within and is efficient in the creation of a form of character in harmony with the spirit of the new order it proposes to set up. Good laws and institutions, wholesome conditions in work and in living, are not sufficient in themselves to make a good world. The character of society must unquestionably be an expression of the character of the people who make up society. Yet nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that society is a mere aggregation of individuals. It is truly a liv- ing, growing, ever-changing organism, made up of people bound into a unity of interdependence and interaction. The character of the people determines the character of society ; but the character of society also determines the character of the people. Every 2 17 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION social movemeut that makes toward social justice, better conditions of industry and home life, wiser and more Christian control of amusements and of all educational forces must react tremendously in af- fecting the personal development and character of the individual members of society. At the same time there is no power of vital moral growth in society apart from the inspiration and perpetual fountain of life springing up in the hearts of its members who have become the children of God and whose supreme source of moral strength is in their religious faith. All of which is to say that the life of every man is both individual and social and that individual and social redemption cannot properly be thought of separately or wrought out apart from each other. The two must go on together, and he who would divorce the one from the other is the en- emy of both. In all that follows there is this assumption : TJiat the gospel of Christ is the gospel for all nations he- cause it is the gospel for every marij and that it is the gospel of social redemption because it saves men in all their relations. 18 CHAPTER I MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS BIBLIOGRAPHY Clarke, "The Ideal of Jesus." Hall, "The Universal Elements of the Christian Reli- gion." Clarke, "What Shall We Think of Christianity?" Brown, "The Essence of Christianity." Faunce, "What Does Christianity Mean?" CHAPTER I MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS From its origin until now the Christian religion has been an increasing power in the world. It has been tested through the ages and among the many races of men, and to-day, with the strength of im- mortal youth, it claims the attention of the whole earth as never before. Ours is the most complex period thus far in the life of the world, a time when the severest strain is being made on religious faith. The intellectual tests of the age are more searching and the moral standards by which religions are judged more exacting than in any previous period. The life of the whole world is thrown together in a vast complexity of interdependence and stands in need of the undergirding of a religious faith and a moral consciousness adequate to the unexampled de- mands of the hour. The present world situation constitutes an oppor- tunity and a call to assert the leadership of the liv- ing Christ that ought to be the solemn and compel- ling inspiration of his followers. The time has come when that leadership in the reshaping of human af- fairs is called for which Jesus alone can assume. He must go forth conquering and to conquer until the kingdoms of this world are his. His cross, whicli is the symbol of peace through righteousness, must be lifted above the red battle fields of earth. He must lead in the struggle for industrial freedom, in the reshaping of commercial ideals, in the solution 21 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION of all the social and moral problems of the age, in the religious thought and life of the whole earth. Other leaders are outdistanced by the progress of thought and the advance of the world, but they who march in the foremost files of time must more and more recognize his authority and his timeless lead- ership of the race. No religion can meet the demands of the unified world of to-day except a religion that embraces hu- manity and bows before the Author of the universe. Religions and morals alike that are bounded by na- tional frontiers must pass. Henceforth a tvorld life stands in need of a icorld religion. Is the Christian religion sufficient for these things? On tohat is our confidence in its ultimate supremacy 'based? If, indeed, the Christian religion is to become the universal religion, it will be for no other reason than because it represents eternal realities and because these realities may be tested anywhere and at any time in human experience and may be discovered to be true, and because this truth that may be verified corresponds to and satisfies the deep, changeless de- mands of all men. In general, then, we may say that we believe in the ultimate victory of the Chris- ^/tian faith because of its universal and verifiable /^ truth J ivhichy when tested in the life, satisfies the re- ligious needs of the tvorld; and we believe this to be true of no other religion. It will be a part of our study to consider in what the essential, simple truth of Christian belief and ex- perience consists. This may the more properly be at- tempted in brief compass, since the central and es- sential truths of the Christian religion are fewer 22 MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS than are the multiplied and mooted doctrines about which Christian people have differed so widely. For Christianity does not stand or fall with the thousand explanations and theological definitions that have di- vided the Christian people, but rests upon those truths which are the common heritage of all Chris- tians and have been tested in the experience of Christians in all ages. Moreover, these great reali- ties, because they are the common heritage of all Christians, the writer trusts, are not unfamiliar to the reader. He, therefore, will attempt, in accord- ance with the purpose of this volume, to state as simply as possible, apart from the theories concern- ing them, the central verities upon which we base our belief in the world-conquering power of the Christian religion. 1. The Fatherhood of God From words familiar to his hearers Jesus made choice of terms by which to represent the truth. While he said much of the kingdom of God, he did not speak of God as king or emperor. He chose a word that represented authority, but very much more. It represented tenderness and compassion ; it represented love and providence; it represented kin- ship and fellowship. It was of "my Father," "your Father," and "our Father" that he continually spoke. Still there was a deeper meaning to his use of the word "Father" than had ever been given it be- fore. Even when men have purged the term of the many imperfections associated with human father- hood, and when they have joined together all the best elements they know in human fatherhood, there yet PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION remains a depth of unselfish devotion and of self- giving love in God which no word of men can repre- sent. In this sense Jesus himself became the Word, revealing the Father and filling the term with a new significance. He revealed in his own person the na- ture, the character, the very heart of his Father, so that henceforth all fatherhood is glorified by the very word that signifies the relation. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," he said to Philip. Our Father, then, is like Jesus. This is the truth proclaimed by Jesus, the won- drous truth on which human hearts lay hold: that all men may enter into intimate filial relations with the good and holy God. And the glory of this truth is that it has stood the test of the Christian experi- ence of the centuries and has proved itself thus one of the living realities of the Christian faith. "We have not," says Paul, "received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." This is the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God set forth in the language and out of the experience of his child.^ 2. The Saviourhood of Jesus It has not been possible to speak of the Father- hood of God, however briefly, without anticipating the thought of the Saviourhood of Jesus. On the one ^"The Christian conception of God is not abstract, but concrete. It is warm, personal, individual, definite. The Christian sees God in the face of Jesus Christ. His charac- teristic attribute Is love, and his appropriate name Is Fa- ther." ("The Essence of Christianity," by William Adams Brown.) 24 MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS hand the very conception and character of God's Fa- therhood are revealed in him who is our Saviour, and on the other the Father whom Jesus has made mani- fest cannot be otherwise thought of than as putting forth every effort to save those whom he loves. Like- wise, in considering the Saviourhood of Jesus, we shall not cease to be thinking of the Fatherhood of God. (1) Jesus as Saviour in Christian experience and as the object of Christian faith. Christianity began in the personal relationship of the disciples to their Master, and Christian experi- ence has ever had this relationship as its chief char- acteristic. Wherever the Christian religion has gone in the world and wherever the Christian type of ex- perience has appeared, the conspicuous and most characteristic fact in consciousness has been the Sav- iourhood of Jesus, through whom the peace and the power of a new life in God have been realized. There may be said to be a system of Christian doctrine, a body of Christian ethics, an ideal of Christian character; but at the heart of it all, and giving vitality to the whole, is a Christian faith and life. And that faith is faith in a Person, and that life is a life by reason of the indwelling Christ. "Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." Unfortunately, many of the theories of the Saviourhood of Jesus have tended to divert thought and faith from Jesus himself to these theories and explanations. These doubtless have their place. But 25 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION here let the fact be emphasized that Christian faith is faith in Jesus Christ himself.^ (2) Jesus is the revelation of divine character and the source of Christian ethics. Starting from this personal center, Christian eth- ics have a significance they could not otherwise have. The teachings of Jesus are not simply the most per- fect conceptions of conduct ever given to the world ; they become palpitant with life because they repre- sent the will of the One whom we love, the present living will of Him whose approval is our highest re- ward. iVgain, they have the authority, not of a sys- tem of useful and workable rules, but as having their source in the very character of God. For the ethics of Jesus are not so much rules of conduct as they are the spontaneous expression of his own soul, the revelation of the inmost character of his being, where- in he is the supreme utterance of the character of God and of the law of all moral being. By himself becoming the fountain of divine truth he has given, not rules of expediency, but laws of life. He lays bare the bedrock of eternal righteousness, but in so doing shows us the ground of our own moral char- acter and the condition of our highest life. In the presence of this revelation the true nature of sin ap- pears, and a sense of personal unworthiness in the sight of the holy God leads to repentance. (3) Jesus brings us to the Father. The need of God is a universal need, as is shown 2"The personality of Jesus is great enough, and alone great enough, to give an adequate and final basis to life, personal or national." (King, "Fundamental Questions," pp. 205, 206.) MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS by the altar fires lighted by all peoples of earth and by their dim outreachings toward God in all ages. Men have sometimes made their own gods ; and they have made them so much after their own likeness that they not only thought of these gods as mingling with men, but as living on the low moral plane with them. Thus, instead of finding God, they have de- graded the very idea of Deity. Others have thought of God as so far removed from human affairs as to be unapproachable by mortals, while still others have denied to Deity the element of personality and have left no grounds in their thinking for possible person- al relationship with God. But Jesus revealed the holy God in personal terms, as reaching down to lift men up to his own likeness. The salvation he offers is in terms of character. The ideal of this character is Godlikeness : "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus himself is the revelation of what that perfec- tion is.2 This salvation that Jesus offers is a deliv- erance from sin and a realization of Godlikeness in order to fellowship with God. No more is it the arbitrary favor of Deity that is to be placated by pleasing offerings. But God, whose good pleasure it was "through him to reconcile all 8"The distinctive glory of Christianity is that it contains a dynamic which can transform the man who loves sin into the man who loathes sin and, still more, into the man who has broken with sin and is living a new life. It also pro- claims and maintains that any religion is unworthy of the name unless it manifests itself in a changed life, which is constantly rising ethically." ("Sociological Progress in Mission Lands," Capen, p. 142.) 27 'PKOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION things unto himself," is well pleased when by the light from the face of Jesus and from his cross we shall see the infinite depths of divine holiness and love and shall hate whatever is unholy, while we humbly throw ourselves upon the mercy and good- ness of our Father. And it is his joy to receive us and to hold us unto eternal life by his own hand. And "no one is able to snatch them out of the Fa- ther's hands." Salvation is thus the power of a new life of moral triumph and of living fellowship with the Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. *^As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believed on his name." He is the personal, living Way through whom sinful men have seen the light of a new hope and have found entrance into fellowship with the holy God. This is a salvation that means the re-creation of ideals, the establishment of personal relations with the Heaven- ly Father, and divine help working for the comple- tion of that salvation which is realized in the abun- dant life of the fulfilled personality of which Jesus is the pattern. "And this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." The ultimate fact in the Saviourhood of Jesus is the establishment of this life in God. 3. The Friendship of the Spirit The heart hunger of the world for God is not sat- isfied that the Father, however good and loving, should be withdrawn behind the veil of his universe. The cry of the soul is for light, for understanding, 28 MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS and for that fellowship with God himself through which what God is and wills becomes manifest to his children. The very heart of religious desire is for communion with God, for fellowship with the great Companion, for enlightenment and guidance. Prof. Hugh Black has stated this so finely that we cannot do better than quote him here : Communion with God is the great fact of life. All our forms of worship, all our ceremonies and sym- bols of religion find their meaning here. There is, it is true, an ethic of religion, certain moral teachings valuable for life. There are truths of religion to be laid hold of by the reason; there are the consola- tions of religion to comfort the heart. But the root of all religion is mystical union, a communion with the Unseen, a friendship with God open to man. Re- ligion is not an acceptance of a creed or a burden of commandments, but a personal secret of the soul to be attained, each man for himself. It is the experi- ence of the nearness of God, the mysterious contact with the divine, and the consciousness that we stand in a special individual relationship with him. The first state of exaltation, when the knowledge bursts upon the soul, cannot, of course, last; but its effect remains in inward peace and outward impulse to- ward nobler life. Men of all ages have known this close relationship. The possibility of it is the glory of life; the fact of it is the romance of history and the true reading of history. All devout men that have ever lived have lived in the light of this communion. All religious experience has had this in common: that somehow the soul is so possessed by God that doubt of his ex- istence ceases, and the task of life becomes to keep step with him, so that there may be correspondence between the outer and inner conditions of life. Men have known this communion in such a degree that 29 PKOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAI^ RELIGION they have been called preeminently the friends of God, but something of the experience which under- lies the term is true of the pious of all generations.* He continues: To us in our place in history communion with God comes through Jesus Christ. It is an ineffable mys- tery, but it is still a fact of experience. Only through Jesus do we know God, his interest in us, his desire for us, his purpose with us. He not only shows us in his own example the blessedness of a life in fellow- ship with the Father, but he makes it possible for us. United to Jesus, we know ourselves united to God. The power of Jesus is not limited to the his- torical impression made by his life. It entered the world as history; it lives in the world as spiritual fact to-day.^ Still it is true that our hearts cry for the living Christ, and we w^ant to walk with him and talk with him and feel that he is even now our present Friend who guides us in the way of truth and who stands by our side in every hour of trial or joy, of labor or rest, the One w^hose presence is both strength and light. We still need the Saviour, that we may understand and come to the Father. We still yearn for the human touch that is divine. "The best of all is, God is with us.'' "The communion of the Holy Spirit" is the high and holy companionship with God. This is the friendship of the Spirit. 4. The Completeness of This Threefold Teaching In these three great facts of the Christian reli- gion — the Fatherhood of God, the Saviourhood of ^"Friendship," by Hugh. Black, pp. 222-224. UMd.y pp. 224, 225. 30 MEETING THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS Jesus, and the friendsLip of the Spirit — we have rea- son to believe that the world's deepest religious needs are met. Here the Christian religion answers the need for an intelligent personal cause as the ba- sis of rational thinking. It represents God to men as just and good and undergirds the universe with righteousness. It gives assurance through Jesus Christ that this God is the Father of all men, plac- ing supreme value upon the character and destiny of his children, and is not willing that any should per- ish.6 It supplies a transforming and re-creative pow- er that comes with the vision of God in Christ, a vi- sion of One sinless and yet loving the sinful, a vision that brings to human hearts a sense of unworthi- ness and of the need of God. It is a wondrous vision of "love divine, that stooped to share our sharpest pangs, our bitterest tear." The sense of a power within the soul enabling it to reach up and to take hold of the hand outstretched to lift, the yielding to Him, the submission of faith that gives over all things into his keeping and takes up life at his command, the joy of conscious child- hood — these are experiences of which we know and can testify, but that must ever remain beyond the reach of rational analysis and explanation. They are the experiences to which millions of Christian people, and those of almost every race on the earth, can bear witness. It is at once a unique type of ex- ^"The strength of any religion is measured by its concep- tion of God. . . . The whole vitality of Christian faith springs from the conviction that the absolute Sovereign is the absolute Love." (Report of Edinburgh Conference.) 31 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION perience and marks a unique type of character, but it is limited only by the opportunity and the willing- ness of men to accept the verities of the Christian religion. Thought Questions 1. Name for yourself the essential truths of your own personal Christian belief. 2. Write out for yourself a definition of Christian faith. 3. Do you believe that the Christian religion is destined to become the universal religion? Why? 32 CHAPTER II PROVIDING THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question.' Gladden, "The Church and the Kingdom." Alexander, "The Son of Man." Mathews, "The Social Teaching of Jesus." Vedder, "Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus." CHAPTER II PROVIDING THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER In the preceding chapter we set forth briefly the facts of the Christian religion as they enter into the religious experience of the individual. In this chap- ter we continue the study of Christianity as a world religion, but on the social side. The Christian reli- gion does not find its complete expression apart from the life of the Christian community. The point of special emphasis in this chapter is the moral poTVf- er of Christianity in the creation of a new social or- der. Yet it must be borne in mind that it is a moral force only as it is a religious force, while its suffi- ciency for the religious needs of mankind must be found in its social no less than in its individual ade- quacy. I shall now attempt briefly to state the social ideal of the Christian religion and some of the mo- tives and moral forces that make for the creation of a better social order. 1. The Kingdom of God a Social Ideal The social ideal of the Christian religion should first be studied in the teachings of Jesus regarding the kingdom of God. It is very important to get an understanding of the kingdom as Jesus thought of it, so that all of his teachings regarding it may be comprehended and may be seen in their proper rela- tion to it. But it is the defect of most definitions 35 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION of the kingdom that they lay hold on some partial view of the comprehensive idea of Jesus and empha- size one phase while neglecting another not less es- sential. Jesus proclaimed it as beginning with the reign of God in the heart of the believer and reach- ing to the subjection of the whole life of society. The following definition by Dr. Gross Alexander has the merit of balanced statement of all the chief ele- ments of Jesus's teaching concerning the kingdom : The kingdom of God is that divine society which God, through Jesus his Son, is organizing on earth and in which God, as both Father and Sovereign, ex- ercises dominion and rule in the souls and over the lives of its members, who, on their part, having en- tered it through repentance and faith and a renew- al by God of their moral nature, render to him, as filial subjects, the obedience of a free and willing righteousness, both of heart and of conduct ; a reign of love which, while beginning in the inward life of the individual, realizes itself in all his social and civil relations and through him extends its sway over others, so that it is destined to take possession of and to transform the entire domain of human life in this world and to be consummated in a perfect and eternal state in the world to come.^ Dr. Shailer Mathews defines it more briefly thus : By "the kingdom of God" Jesus meant an ideal, though progressively approximated, social order in which the relation of men to God is that of sons and [therefore] to each other that of broth ers.^ Another statement of more than usual grasp and comprehensiveness is that of Dr. Francis G. Peabody : i"Tlie Son of Man," pp. 153, 154. ="The Social Teaching of Jesus," p. 54. 36 THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER The social ideal, then, of Jesus Christ is to be in- terpreted only through his religious consciousness. He looks on human life from above and, seeing it slowly shaped and purified by the life of God, re- gards the future of human society with a transcend- ent and unfaltering hope. In the purposes of God the kingdom is already existent, and when his will is done on earth, then his kingdom, which is now spiritual and interior, will be as visible and as con- trolling as it is in heaven. On the other hand, Jesus approaches life from within, through the inspiration of the individual. Here is his answer to that question which the dis- ciples themselves asked: ^'When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming?" The kingdom is to come, answers Jesus, not by outward force or social organization or apocalyptic dream, but by the progressive sanctification of individual human souls. And does one ask again what is to be the motive of this personal sanctification? It is to be found, according to Jesus, in the thought of the kingdom. On the one hand, the kingdom is an un- folding process of social righteousness, to be worked out through individuals; on the other hand, the in- dividual is prompted to his better life by the thought of bringing in the kingdom. Thus the individual and the kingdom grow together. The individual discovers himself in the social order; and the social order, like that "whole creation'' of which St. Paul wrote, "waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God."3 The following characteristics of the kingdom of God, which are set forth in the above definitions, should be distinguished and definitely fixed in mind : (1) Its form is that of a society, or family, over which God rules as Sovereign and Father. '"Jesus Christ and the Social Question," pp. 100-102. 37 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (2) Its meryihersMp is composed of individuals who have entered into fellowship with God as his obedient children and who love and serve each oth- er as brothers. (3) Its metJiod of growth is spiritual, as opposed to mechanical or material ; is vital and from within, as opposed to programs imposed from without and depending on external influence only.* (4) Its sway is to extend to all the relations that men bear to each other in human society, to the whole domain of human life on the earth, and will "be consummated in a perfect and eternal state in the world to come." The ideal of the kingdom as taught by Jesus re- gards society and the individual always in their re- lation.5 As they cannot exist apart, so one cannot be changed without changing the other. The new society is made up of those who have the kingdom within, and in turn the members of the kingdom will create a society whose every expression is in keep- ing with the spirit of the kingdom, where justice, *"The Christian life of the kingdom is a life above this world, lived in personal fellowship with God. From him Its motives and Inspirations proceed." (Clarke's "The Ideal of Jesus.") ^"It is the marked feature of the teaching of Jesus that he holds in just equipoise the two great elemental, equally necessary ethical truths: First, that society cannot be re- generated except by the birth of the individual souls into a new life; and, secondly, that the individual cannot exist apart from society and cannot be saved apart from his so- cial relation." ("Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus," Ved- der, p. 345.) 38 THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER mutual consideration, and brotherly kindness are dominant. Here, then, we have no detailed economic, indus- trial, political, or other sort of program prescribed for the social order. But we have an ideal of a brotherhood in which justice and love are to obtain. We have no one method of organizing society as the final and perfect method ; but we have the perennial motive of brotherly love, which is willing to test all methods in search of the best and the most brother- ly. Above all and differing in toto from all other social ideals and programs, the kingdom of God is made possible because of the power of God through Jesus Christ to create a Christlike citizenship of men and women whose supreme passion it is to help bring in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, then, represents the divine ideal of a new humanity. It is an ideal at once re- ligious and ethical, personal and social. Jesus deals with persons in their relation to God, but always to make them worthy members of the new society in the kingdom of God, in which alone the divine ideal of the individual may be realized. It is evident, therefore, that any view of individual salvation that neglects the social spirit of the kingdom is out of harmony with the teachings of Jesus, as is also the ef- fort to perfect society while disregarding the necessi- ty for the divine life and character in its members. 2. Human Worth an Individual and a Social Motive Force The influence of the social ideal can be estimated only in relation to the value placed upon the indi- 39 PKOGEAM OF THE CHRISTIAN EELIGION vidual members of society. Therefore we cannot properly estimate the effect of the ideal of the king- dom of God as a motive force in social redemption without giving careful consideration to the value placed upon the individual by the Christian religion. The Christian idea of human worth is not confined to a few isolated phases of Christian thought. It is an underlying assumption of all the teachings of Je- sus and permeates all Christian thinking. It is un- folded to full view only in the light of a complete understanding of the Christian religion. In this brief discussion we shall consider human worth from the following viewpoints : (1) Man's worth as growing out of his value to the Father — his sonship. The high and holy character of God as seen in Je- sus exalts and gives immeasurable dignity and worth to every one whom the Father acknowledges as his child and to whom he gives the pledge of his help in the struggle toward true self-realization. There are no ties of earthly nobility that can so exalt the dig- nity of a soul. To know one's self the child of the Heavenly Father and to behold the larger destiny of the sons of God is to revolutionize human values and give personality a worth and glory nowhere suggest- ed in other religions or systems of thought. Every- where Jesus emphasizes this value that God places upon his child. He teaches that man is of higher worth than the lower animals; that religious insti- tutions, such as the Sabbath and the temple, have their meaning only in service to mankind; that the Father rejoices over the return of the son. But above all measurement is Jesus's giving of himself 40 THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER unto death for human salvation. Here we see the divine estimate of human worth. (2) Man's worth discovered in the higher human capahilities revealed in Jesus. Jesus is not only the revelation to us of the char- acter of God ; he is also the revelation of God's ideal man. Intimations of the higher capabilities of hu- man life we indeed find here and there among men ; and some have stood far above their fellows, exhib- iting those qualities of soul that men have instinc- tively recognized as noble and worthy of human imi- tation. Yet with all these there were jarring incon- sistencies and manifest moral imperfections. But in Jesus the full-orbed life of moral and religious per- fection appears. Beyond what he was, men have not been able to conceive or advance in strength and loveliness of moral character. In him we behold the earnest of the divine purpose to develop a kingdom of sons and daughters in whom a like character shall be formed. They who accept this as the ideal and goal of character will value human life not by what it is, but by this pledge of what it is to become. (3) The value of man as increased hy the helief in the immortal life. The value of the individual man is still further enhanced by the lifting of the narrow limits of the outlook afforded by our home on the earth. There is boundless room for the ever-increasing fullness of life and for the ceaseless becoming of the soul. This divine life begins on earth. Life eternal is already existent in the hearts of those who know God as their Heavenly Father and have entered into his kingdom of obedience and of loving service. They 41 PROGEAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION drink at the ceaseless fountains of divine life, unin- terrupted by the incident of bodily decay. Every hu- man experience, all the forces of this world that play upon the life and affect character, have a mean- ing out of proportion to the measurements of three- score years and ten, inasmuch as they have to do with the character and destiny of one who has godlike ca- pabilities to be realized throughout unending time. So far from minifying this world and the king- dom of God in it, these are exalted as not otherwise possible, since they have enduring value and signifi- cance. Thus human life, viewed both individually and socially, is to be immeasurably bigger and more exalted because of its divinely appointed destiny. The instinctive longing for immortality is to find its answer at the doors of deathless life thrown open when Jesus arose from the dead. The highest reach- es of our human aspirations for God and life are not vain delusions that mock us, but the deep of the hu- man calling to the deep of the divine. This call is not to be disappointed : "If it were not so, I would have told you." (4) The value of the individual as growing out of his relation to the kingdom. In the kingdom of God, which is not an aggrega- tion of unrelated individuals, but a family, each in- dividual is dependent for his own complete life upon the character of the family. The total life and hap- piness of the family is in turn necessarily dependent upon the character and well-being of the individuals that compose it. Jesus made it clear that the indi- vidual is to be measured by his relation to the so- ciety of which he is a part. Each is a servant of the 42 THE BASIS OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER whole. The standard of greatness is in terms of service : "But whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister ; and whosoever would be first among you shall be servant of all." ^ Each in- dividual, therefore, has an added value as a mem- ber of the kingdom of God. It is a new setting that gives new luster to personality, because it affords a new opportunity to give and to receive all that makes for the fullness of life. Devotion to Jesus is expressed in service to men. Therefore obedience to him and devotion to his king- dom are identical. Loyalty to the King and to his kingdom are indistinguishable. The Christian finds his life in giving it for the kingdom. Self-realiza- tion and the growth of the kingdom are both de- pendent upon the self-sacrifice and personal loyalty of the individual. Loyalty to Jesus Christ and his kingdom is the inspiring motive that at once ele- vates human character and enhances all human val- ues. This is not asceticism, but it is a holy aban- don to the interests of the kingdom. The Christian ideal still requires that the disciples shall consecrate themselves to the truth, even as Jesus consecrated himself to the truth. When the interests of God's children call for it, when moral wrong is to be over- come, when the kingdom requires it — then to suffer, to give up home, friends, native land, or even life itself, is glorious. In so doing the follower of Jesus comes to know the deeper things of the experience of his Master and at the same time most perfectly pro- «Mark x. 43, 44, ix. 35; also Matthew xx. 26, 27, xxiii. 11, and Luke xxii. 26. 43 PEOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN KELIGION claims the truth and the life and the love of God. This is what Jesus meant when he said of himself: "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.'' There is in the giving of life for love's sake, for truth's sake, for right's sake, without stopping to count the cost, something that elevates the soul to godlikeness and at the same time pro- duces a harvest in the creation of a like spirit in other lives. Here, in fact, we are permitted in a very real sense to enter into the experiences of the Master and to share in his Saviourhood. The kneeling fig- ure of the dead Livingstone at Ilala, alone in the heart of the Dark Continent, his last strength freely given for Africa and his last breath poured out in prayer for the deliverance of her enchained people, has about it a light that reminds us of that on Cal- vary, and forth from that lonely chamber has gone a power to quicken men's faith in God and to lead them to renewed dedication to God's work in the world. So it is that the spirit of Jesus lives in those who are identified with him, and his kingdom spreads abroad through the contagious influence of those who have the spirit of the kingdom in their hearts. We shall later have occasion to indicate more fully the significance of some of the principles set forth in this chapter. Enough has been said, however, to give a general conception of the ideal and of the motive forces in the Christian religion that make for the cre- ation of a new social order, a universal brotherhood. 44 CHAPTER III UNTO ALL THE NATIONS BIBLIOGKAPHY Barnes, "Two Thousand Years of Missions berore Carey." Carver, "Missions and Modern Thought." "Report of the World Missionary Conference," Vol. IV. Clarke, "A Study of Christian Missions." Doughty, "The Call of the World." Mott, "The Pastor and Modern Missions." CHAPTER III UNTO ALL THE NATIONS 1. A Universal Propaganda Is the Necessary Implica- tion of a Universal Message To be intrusted with a truth, the truth that has in it hope and life for the world, is to be under the utmost obligation to give it to the world.^ The very fact that the gospel of Christ offers the only ade- quate basis of hope for the religious and social life of mankind, its unexampled power to meet the needs of all people, irrespective of race or condition, is itself an unanswerable reason why it should be giv- en to all as their right. The Christian message bears upon its face the image of man universal, and as such it belongs to all men ; and no one dare deny the right of all to possess it. Moreover, the nature of the gospel is such that it cannot be received into the heart without creating there a desire to impart it to others. The love that is awakened in the heart of a child of God impels him to desire the best things for his brother; and the best to the Christian is the good news of Jesus Christ, with all that this means to the one who has received it. The Christian must by the compulsion of ^"Wlien Christianity is rightly grasped, there Is no need of special commands to create missionary duty. The mis- sionary impulse is of Christianity itself. The normal re- ligion for mankind cannot he kept in a corner." (Clarke, "The. Ideal of Jesus.") 47 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Christ within yearn to seek and to save that which is lost. It is clearly impossible for any one with the spirit of Christ to be willing to accept the blessings of the Christian religion and keep them for himself alone. Such unconcern for others is the badge of un- brotherliness and the sure sign that Jesus Christ and his kingdom are not supreme in the life. 2. The Universal Scope of His Gospel, Always Assumed by Jesus, Is Clearly Annunciated in His Teachings In trying to discover the thought of Jesus regard- ing the future of his kingdom we are concerned with the large outlines of his ideal and purpose. It is to the far horizon, on which Jesus gazed with uncloud- ed vision and to which he pointed with conviction and purpose as the only boundary of his kingdom, that we desire to look. The program of Jesus must be discerned in whatever is revealed regarding his consciousness of the final outcome of his kingdom in the world and in the training and specific instruc- tion which he gave to his disciples relative to his continuance of his work through them. (1) The consciousness of Jesus as revealed in cer- tain moments of exalted emotion. Here it becomes us to enter with reverent feet. Nevertheless, we are impelled to search for knowl- edge concerning the mind of Jesus and to examine the records for anything that may throw light on the consciousness of Him who is the Truth, There are given us in the Gospels what may be called the rhap- sodies of Jesus, states of consciousness in which time and circumstance sink from view and Jesus seems to be looking on the ultimate, the final, the outcome, 48 UNTO ALL THE NATIONS far beyond the struggle and the storm of battle, to the end of the long, hard way leading thither. These exalted utterances were prompted by some event that stirred the very deeps of the soul of Jesus. The confession of Peter at Csesarea Philippi was the occasion of such an utterance. "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," Peter had said, thus giving expression to the supreme fact and truth to which Jesus had been leading his disciples as the underlying basis of that faith out of which his king- dom was to grow. It was as though, after long months of preparation, Jesus now beheld with deep emotion the outlines of the kingdom of God emerg- ing as he saw the truth that was to make it a reali- ty begin to possess and to transform this man Peter. Jesus foresaw not only the rocklike character of a future disciple, but the triumphant power of the or- ganized body of his disciples moving forward under the inspiration and power of this conviction, first clearly formed in the mind and heart of Simon Pe- ter. Thus moved, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Fa- ther which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." Again, when the seventy returned and Jesus rec- ognized in this beginning of their ministry the new power to be released through them in the conquest of evil in the earth, he became conscious of the irre- sistible power of righteousness and of the swift flash of judgment before which all thrones set up in oppo- 4 49 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION sition to his rule should fall. In the vividness of this consciousness he beheld it as an accomplished fact : "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven." No more striking instance of this consciousness of Jesus as to the future of his kingdom is recorded than that which occurred toward the close of the last day of his public ministry. Deserted and misunder- stood by the multitude, the rulers plotting his death, his own disciples timid and presently to be scattered when the Master should be taken, and in the back- ground the cross, the deep shadow of which had long lain across his path, his ministry seemed a fail- ure by all outward tokens. It was at this moment that there came inquiring for him a company of Greeks. There was something in the circumstance that deeply moved the spirit of Jesus, as though here he beheld the first fruits of that final ingath- ering from "every tribe and tongue and people and nation." It was not the shadow of the cross, but its glory, that fell athwart the future; it was of the final harvest that should spring forth from his death that he talked. He seems to have seen the identifica- tion of his followers with him through the ages in sacrificial love and devotion, thus carrying the life- giving influence of divine love throughout the world. Forecasting the outcome of it all, he said : "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself." Much likewise might be said regarding Jesus's consciousness of being himself a missionary or mes- senger of the Father to the whole world. Numerous utterances of his are in keeping with the following, 50 UNTO ALL THE NATIONS as rendered by the Twentieth Century New Testa- ment : "Just as I am thy messenger to the world, so they are my messengers to it." (2) Deliberate statements of Jesus as to the fu- ture of his kingdom. The same all-comprehensive end is distinctly sug- gested by Jesus in his more deliberate or didactic utterances. First, there are those in which he teach- es by figure the nature and outcome of the kingdom of God. This, in one way or another, is repeatedly likened unto the thing that grows. Two of the para- bles are especially significant in this connection. "The kingdom of heaven," he said, "is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field ; which indeed is less than all seeds ; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof." This para- ble suggests a growth exceeding all other growths of comparable nature. "Another parable spake he unto them: The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened." Here we have indi- cated not only the end, but the process by which the end is to be reached — that of the impartation of life, the spreading of life from life, and the final victory of the living principle over the elements of the world into which it is cast. Lest the very character of the message they bore and all the suggestions of the Master as to the out- come of his kingdom should not sufiSce to make his purpose clear to his disciples, Jesus gave them spe- cific and unequivocal instructions under such cir- 51 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION cumstances as must forever impress upon them the awful significance of the charge he gave them and the unescapable responsibility under which they were thus placed: ^'And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." These words, it has frequently been said, have the force of marching orders from the Commander in Chief. But this is too suggestive of mere military authority. They have in them the compulsion of love. They are as the last will and testament of One whose desire is dearer to us than life itself. And jet they are more than this, for Jesus lives to be with his followers and to approve the obedience of their devotion. Truly obedience here grows into identification with Jesus Christ in that for which his life and death and resurrection stand. For his disciples are but the living members of his kingdom, and through these he seeks a kingdom and a crown in the Christianization of the world.^ "The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain: His blood-red banner streams afar; Who follows in his train?" ^Luke xxiv. 44-53; Mark xvi. 15-18; Acts 1. 6-9; Matthew xi. 27; Luke x. 22; John xvi. 33, xvii. 18-23. 52 UNTO ALL THE NATIONS 3. This Conception of the Gospel Is Confirmed by the Missionary Activity and Outlook of the Apostolic Church The order of apostolic activity had been forecast in the words : "Ye shall be my witnesses both in Je- rusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Pentecost was followed by the passionate and fearless proclamation of the gospel in Jerusalem and throughout the sur- rounding region. Philip is seen on his way to Gaza and at Azotus and Csesarea. Peter goes to Lydda, to Joppa, and also to Caesarea, where he preaches to the household of the Eoman centurion. The Church was speedily established throughout Judea, Gali- lee, and Samaria, and even in the ancient Syrian city of Damascus. Then, "they therefore that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, and Cy- prus, and Antioch." Here "a great number that be- lieved turned unto the Lord, . . . and the report concerning them came to the ears of the Church which was in Jerusalem." In response Barnabas is sent forth to minister to them. Later Barnabas brings Saul from Tarsus to his aid. And here at the Syrian capital, the third city of the Eoman Empire, where the disciples were first called Christians, was established a new center from which the gospel was to radiate. It was from this city that Paul and Bar- nabas went forth on the first of those journeys re- corded by Luke in the book of Acts to plant the Church in Asia and in Europe. At the same time the gospel was being preached by the other apostles. PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION by humble disciples, and by new converts in many and widely separated parts of the empire. There was a contagion of enthusiasm and of spiritual pow- er in the hearts of these early proclaimers of the Christian truth that carried this new faith irresist- ibly onward. Persecution, like wind on forest fires, swept it but the more swiftly forward. Within the lifetime of the first disciples little Christian commu- nities were established along the shores of the Med- iterranean and in many of the cities of the empire. But our task is not so much to recount the marvel- ous growth of the Christian religion in these early years as to show the conception which the apostles had of their mission. After but momentary hesita- tion in surmounting old prejudices and Jewish ex- clusiveness, the first disciples entered upon the world-wide and unfettered mission of their Master. And, more than they all, Paul the apostle saw and gave utterance to the universal nature and destiny of the gospel. He proclaimed it ^'the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." So that these "are no more strangers and sojourners, but . . . fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.'' Charged with the ministry of this univer- sal religion, Paul regarded himself as "debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.'' The significance of these utterances of Paul is that in them we have not alone Paul's interpretation of the gosp>el as the message of salvation designed for all men, but the interpretation that prevailed in the early Church. The chief business of the Church 54 UNTO ALL THE NATIONS was conceived to be to spread abroad the gospel ev- erywhere and to nourish and train the members of the new Christian communities. The apostolic inter- pretation of the gospel as universal and the con- sciousness of a mission to all people passed to the early Church and became the inspiring motive of the immediate successors of the apostles. 4. The Continuity of the Missionary Ideal With the freshness and vigor of divine youth Chris- tianity made its way in the world. Weak in all outward respects, it had that matchless strength which comes from newness of life. Hence we find it growing in spite of every obstacle, establishing its new creation on the decaying empire of heathen- ism. The generation succeeding the apostles had hardly passed away before Christian apologists could appeal to the world-wide extension of Chris- tianity as a token of its divine origin. ^'There is not one single race of men," said Justin Martyr about the middle of the second century, "whether barba- rians or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, no- mads or vagrants or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus." ^ Nowhere in history are the power and purpose of Jesus more evident than in the conflict of Christian- ity with the paganism of the Koman Empire. He was at the head of an invading army, and the invin- cible empire for the first time yielded to the invader. By the beginning of the fourth century Christianity had won its way to influence and power in the em- ^"The Early Church," by Henry C. Sheldon, pp. 129, 130. 55 PEOGEAM OF THE CHEISTIAN EELIGION pire, and in A.D. 313 religious liberty was granted by the Emperor Constantine in his famous Edict of Toleration. This event marks the beginning of a new era in the history of Christianity. The sifting effect of per- secution was for the time no longer operative, while many causes combined to bring into the Christian Church those who knew little or nothing of the true meaning of the Christian religion. Controversial, ecclesiastical, and political matters begin to over- shadow the spiritual, until sometimes one has great diflSculty in discovering the religion of Christ and his apostles. This is due in part to the alien influ- ences that had made their way into the Church and in part also to the fact that historians have chosen to narrate the development of Church organization and of creeds and ritualism rather than to trace the less conspicuous but deep-flowing currents of life that have never failed, even during the most troubred or unspiritual periods of the Christian Church. Be- neath and at the heart of the Christian movement that outwardly was thought of as the Church, witH its formal organization, doctrine, and equipment, the living stream of the Christian religion, pure as it springs perennially from its source in Jesus Christ, has flowed on, refreshing and sweetening the lives of God's children throughout the ages. Thus the liv- ing present of the kingdom has grown out of the liv- ing past. From the apostolic age to the era of mis- sionary expansion, in spite of many alien influences within the Church — influences that have sometimes dominated even its ecclesiastical councils — the pur- pose of Jesus and his last command to his followers 56 UNTO ALL THE NATIONS have never wholly been lost sight of. The mission- ary, the preacher, the teacher of the gospel, the true follower of Jesus to-day is the spiritual descendant and successor of Jesus and his apostles and of the faithful representatives of the kingdom in all the Christian countries. 5. To-Day It Is Ours to Proclaim the Same Gospel of the Kingdom Pur commission is still ^^unto all the nations." There are to-day more people without the gospel who are accessible and open to receive it than in the timie of the apostles or in any century from then until now. Moreover, to-day the Christian people have be- hind them nineteen centuries of Christian experi- ence and of Christian achievement as unanswerable evidence and as witness to the power of Christ in the world. At the same time every resource necessary in men and in money, in order to carry the gospel speedily to all people, is now abundantly in the hands of those who bear the name of Christian. Can any reason be assigned why the Church should not now plan and commit itself with definiteness and confidence to the planting of the Christian religion in every part of the earth ? Thought Questions 1. "What would you say of one who talks much of his own religious experience, but gives no evidence of concern that others be brought to a knowledge of Jesus Christ? 2. Give three reasons why the followers of Jesus Christ must have a program of world evangelism. 3. What does it mean to "seek first the kingdom of God"? 57 CHAPTER IV MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS BIBLIOGRAPHY "Report of the World Missionary Conference," Vol. I. DeForrest, "The Evolution of a Missionary." Carver, "Missions and Modern Thought." Brown, Arthur J., "The Foreign Missionary." Brown, Arthur J., "Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands." CHAPTER IV MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS The missionary may be a Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles ; an Ulfilas, the apostle to the Goths ; a Cyril and a Methodius, messengers from Thessalonica to the Slavs; an Augustine to Britain; a St. Patrick to Ireland; a Willibrord to Holland; an Ansgar to the Danes; a Boniface to Germany; a Carey to In- dia ; a Morrison to China ; a Livingstone to Africa ; a Paton to the New Hebrides. It is the same. The gospel has been borne to every new center where it has been implanted by those who have carried Christ in their hearts and who have gone with the same spirit that prompted Jesus himself to be the mes- senger of the Father to earth and that led the Chris- tians of New Testament times to go everywhere preaching Christ. The truth lives in the hearts of men. The Chris- tian religion must be propagated by the Christian people. To understand the later developments of Christianity among any people, we must see the Christian religion at work from its first entrance into the community. Let us, then, accompany the missionary to the new field and seek to gain some idea of the methods and nature of his work and of the significance of the stage of beginnings in rela- tion to other stages that are to follow. The American missionary to the Orient goes forth not to carry Western civilization, not to teach West- ern theology, not to plant the Western Church, 61 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION though incidentally some or all of these things he may do. He goes to carry Christ, to live Christ. He goes to be the truth, to impart from a heart of Christlike love to other hearts the living, growing principle of the kingdom of God. It is a principle of divine life which is to regenerate human hearts and lives and to transform human desires that he bears. 1. The Nature of the Missionary's First Work The first work of the missionary is essentially the same everywhere, though methods may vary. His work is to find some medium through which he may make Christ known to those absolutely ignorant of him. The chief and most effective medium must al- ways be that of his own personality. This necessi- tates his coming close to the people. He must es- tablish the most intimate and sympathetic relations with them. He must win their friendship and confi- dence. He must study the people themselves, their language, customs, and modes of thought. He must literally give himself to the people in such wise that the people shall be able to interpret the gospel through him. (1) Evangelism, What the missionary is and what he says must necessarily be felt to be counterparts of one mes- sage, each illuminating the other. Missionary evan- gelism, or the spoken word, the simple telling of the gospel story, has naturally been the method more widely used, especially in the early stage of the mis- sionary's work. But evangelism belongs to the first stage of missions and to every stage of kingdom 62 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS growth. It indeed comes to embrace all methods that have to do with teaching and preaching the message of the Christian religion and every effort to persuade people to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and to follow him as Lord of life. The earliest form of missionary evangelism may be preaching to the promiscuous and curious crowds that gather about the foreigner or, probably more frequently and cer- tainly more effectively, hand-to-hand personal work with individuals. But the aim is the same — to bring men to know and to love Jesus Christ. However, evangelism cannot be set off by any distinct line of demarcation from other forms of missionary work at this stage. It rather interpenetrates all forms. (2) Medical work. Medical work has frequently been the means of opening up a new country or community to the gos- pel. It was said of Peter Parker that he opened China to Christianity "at the point of a lancet." But a like service to the cause of Christianity has been rendered by hundreds of physicians in many parts of China, India, and of the Moslem world, and, indeed, in practically all of the mission fields. By ministering to the suffering bodies of the people the Christian physician has revealed the spirit of his Master, often before he has known the language of the sufferers. Love has here spoken in the universal language of the heart that cannot be misunderstood. Accordingly, the Christian physician has not only prepared the way for the evangelist, but has himself preached the gospel most effectively, both by his sympathetic ministrations and by revealing the in- spiration of his own work in the story of the Great 63 PKOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Physician. Here he has found a unique opportuni- ty to preach Christ, the Saviour from sin, who alone can heal the heart and purify the life. Medical missions, regarded purely as a means of alleviating physical suffering, has been an incalcula- ble blessing to non-Christian lands that many times outweighs every investment in this form of human ministration. Any consideration of the suffering that has been relieved or alleviated makes the work of medical missions, even as a humanitarian and scientific achievement, a glorious chapter in the his- tory of the race. But the larger significance of this truly Christlike service is to be found alone in the inspiring motive of the Christian physician and in the more enduring results wrought out by the new spirit and power of Christ, the Physician of both the bodies and souls of men. (3) Early translations and tract distribution. Next to the personal touch and the spoken word is the written word. One of the earliest labors of the first missionaries, after becoming acquainted with the language, is to translate the Bible, or por- tions of it, into the tongue of the people. Christian hymns and simple gospel tracts are likewise made available, and some of these have a wide circulation. The Bible has been translated into over five hundred languages and dialects, nearly all of which has been done by the Christian missionary. Copies of the Gospels and leaflets intended to arouse interest are distributed by the missionaries on their preaching tours, sometimes in regions far beyond the perma- nent missionary settlement. These are likewise dis- tributed by the physician to those who come for 64 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS treatment. When the patients are sent back to their homes from the hospital, they go not only with restored bodies, but with the Gospel in their own tongue wherein they were born. By these and oth- er means, in wide sections of the country, in advance of the missionary's coming, an interest in Christian- ity is often created and the way prepared for the visit of the gospel preacher. Many interesting sto- ries are told of little groups, into whose hands some copy of the Gospel had fallen, gathered to read the Word of God before ever having seen the face of the missionary. In some rare cases they have been known already to have accepted Jesus as Saviour while they waited for the messenger of Christ to come and tell them more fully of the Christian way. The written Word is essential not only as a forerun- ner to prepare the way of the missionary, but also, and more important, as supplying material for defi- nite study on the part of those who become interest- ed in Christianity and for the further and fuller in- struction of those who are led to accept Jesus as their Saviour. When it is remembered that frequently there is no written language and that the speech of the people must be reduced to written form for the first time in the translation of the Bible, the complex and dif- ficult nature of the task appears. Even where there is already a written language the language is nearly always defective in words adapted to the conveying of Christian ideas. This makes it necessary to purge native terms and expressions of their old associa- tions and to give a new and purified meaning to the language itself. Hence the relation of the personal 5 65 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION to the literary, the necessity for living the truth. The characteristic and essential things of the Chris- tian religion must wait on the missionary himself for interpretation in his own life, in his home, in all his contact with the people. The ideas of purity, marital fidelity, of justice, of honesty, of love and sympathy, of Christlikeness will be understood first and most clearly as they are seen in the true repre- sentatives of Christ Jesus. The word on the writ- ten page, once the interpretation has been seen in life and become actual in flesh and blood, will glow with a new meaning. But in the end, by living the truth, by creating a medium for the propagation of Christian ideas, the way is prepared for the wider development of a Christian literature in the native tongue as one of the most powerful factors in leav- ening whole nations and peoples. Personal evangelism, medical work, and tract dis- tribution, together with some form of industrial work, have constituted the usual methods of first approach on the part of the Christian missionaiy to non-Christian peoples. The aim has been, first of all, to open the way to the making of the first con- verts and to the planting of the Christian Church in the new field. The preparatory work leading up to success in this effort has often been long and sometimes discouraging. Morrison worked seven years in China and Carey seven in India before hav- ing the first convert. James Gilmore labored faith- fully among the people of Mongolia for twenty-one years and, sad at heart, died, having seen as the fruit of his labor but a single conversion. 66 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS 2. Creating an Atmosphere From the very beginning we must take account of the twofold result of the Christian religion in the non-Christian community : First, the winning of ear- ly converts and the organization of the little Chris- tian group; second, the general awakening of inter- est in Christianity and its increasing favor with the people. The reason for the seeming failure of some of the first missionaries is more clearly understood in the light of later experience and a fuller knowl- edge of the educational preparation that must un- derlie the acceptance of Jesus Christ. A prelimi- nary knowledge of Christ is requisite to faith in him, and the missionary must needs live among the people to give them this knowledge. The real suc- cess of the jjioneer apostles has been in their media- tion of the truth to the people to whom they have gone and in the larger and more favorable oppor- tunity created by their work for others who were to follow them. (1) Educational and literary work. A further word must be said about the creation and circulation of a native Christian literature and the development of a system of Christian education. In what may be called the second stage, the educa- tional and literary forms of missionary work be- come tremendous factors in the propagation of Christianity. While each has its beginnings in the earlier stage of missions, the literary and educa- tional developments of missions are more properly identified with the later stages. In this broader and more far-reaching work of creating an atmos- phere in a community out of which larger numbers 67 PROGKAM OF THE CHKISTIAN RELIGION are to be gathered into the Churcli and a fuller un- derstanding is to be had of the kingdom, the Chris- tian school has played a large part. It is by this means that the first converts and those who have be- come favorably inclined to Christianity are brought under the continuous influence of the Christian teacher and have opportunity to study the deeper and fuller meaning of the Christian religion. Out of these schools, naturally, have come native preach- ers and teachers and exponents of the Christian re- ligion to their own people — ^leaders in the new Chris- tian community and voices heard by the whole peo- ple. To this later development of missions also be- longs the creation of a rich and varied Christian literature. This in time becomes an incalculable in- fluence in reaching all the people and in lifting the entire moral level of communities and nations. (2) The spread of Christian ideas. All forms of Christian work will continue to de- velop on ever-broadening lines. Evangelism will be greatly extended ; Christian literature will be wide- ly circulated. The Bible and the Christian religion will become the subject of widespread conversation and discussion and sometimes the object of bitter opposition and even of imitation by the leaders of other religions. Thus by every means the gospel is sounded abroad, and the way of the Lord is pre- pared before him. Erelong the fermenting leaven of the new truth begins to stir whole communities and sections of the country. Old religious ideas and cus- toms are brought into unfavorable contrast with Christian teachings. The lives of the missionaries and likewise of the native Christians stand in unan- 68 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS swerable proof of the power and truth of the Chris- tian religion. The imperfections and inadequacy of other faiths more and more clearly appear, while the truth of the Christian religion is commending itself to an increasing number of earnest souls. Je- sus is lifted up, and as men and women are forced to look upon him and become more and more con- scious of their need of a Saviour from sin they are drawn unto Him who alone is the Saviour of the world. 3. The Church Planted and the Christian Community Established in Many Centers It is now a little more than a century since the beginnings of the modem missionary movement. The result of the small and difficult beginnings in many lands and of the faithful work for a hundred years of the devoted apostles and teachers of the Christian message is that many thousands of con- verts have been won, great hospitals and schools of all grades have been founded, printing presses have been set up, a Christian literature has been created, and the Christian Church has been fully organized in many centers of the non-Christian world. This means that the Christian community has be- come established in these centers as a positive and aggressive factor in winning men to Christ and in transforming the whole life and character of socie- ty. It means, in addition to the fact of the Chris- tian community itself, that the entire atmosphere has been permeated with more or less of the Chris- tian truth and consciousness. Instead of having to face indifference or open hostility, Christianity has 69 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION attained in many parts of the non-Christian world a respected and influential position. Large numbers are beginning to inquire about the Christian reli- gion and even to study the Bible. Some are doing this in order to find out the truth, some in the effort to refute Christianity and to buttress their old and tottering faiths. But in any case a vast "penum- bra," as Dr. DeForrest called it, has been created, an atmospheric condition extending far beyond the immediate Christian membership and constituting the necessary preparation for the great evangelistic campaigns that have been productive of such large results in recent years in Japan, China, India, Ko- rea, Africa, and, in fact, wherever the gospel has been brought to bear upon a people long enough to make possible these large ingatherings. 4. The Unfinished Task The task of missionary extension is still, however, far from being accomplished. There are large areas in China, Tibet, Persia, India, and Africa where the name of Jesus has not yet been so much as named. Furthermore, much of the missionaiy work in the world is still in the early stages and will for a time necessarily show comparatively small results. So it is true, after all that has been done, that the great majority of mankind knows nothing of Jesus, the Saviour of the world. The unfinished task, or the missionary program of the Christian religion and of those who are its trus- tees, may be briefiy summarized as follows : (1) To carry the gospel into every non-Christian center or community in the world as speedily as 70 MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS possible; to see that the Christian Church is plant- ed and that the kingdom of God begins to grow among all the peoples upon the face of the earth. (2) To nourish and guide the young Christian Churches and communities until they shall have be- come strong and aggressive and sufficiently organ- ized and independent to assume responsibility for the evangelization of their surrounding territory, (3) To expand the program of the Christian Church in these lands until it shall become identical with the program of the Church as a whole in the evangelization and the Christianization of the world. Thought Questions 1. How "would you measure tlie success of the life work of the first missionary to a non-Christian people? 2. What is the most important qualification of a Chris- tian missionary? 3. Explain the seeming fruitlessness of the gospel dur- ing the stage of missionary beginnings in a new field. 4. What special preparation among the Jews and prose- lytes had there been for the preaching of the apostles which made immediate fruitage possible, as in the case of the household of Cornelius? 71 CHAPTER V THE GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMU- NITY AND ITS IMPACT ON ITS NON- CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENT BIBLIOGRAPHY Capen, "Social Progress in Mission Lands.** Barton, "Human Progress through Missions." DeForrest, "The Evolution of a Missionary." Dennis, "The Modern Call of Missions." "Report of the World Missionary Conference," Vol. III. Faunce, "The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions." CHAPTER V THE GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMU- NITY AND ITS IMPACT ON ITS NON- CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENT 1. The Growth of the Christian Community With the establishment of the Christian commu- nity the kingdom of God becomes rooted in the new soil — ^the kingdom imperfect and incomplete, yet the kingdom become indigenous and growing, the king- dom penetrating, quickening, and transforming the world. It is of this transforming process that we must now speak; of the silent forces that re-create, that are changing and will change the kingdoms of the world into the kingdoms of our Lord. We shall bear in mind that the kingdom of God roots in the heart, in the personal life ; but the branches thereof spread abroad and bear fruit in human society for the heal- ing of the nations. At first the growing Christian community is like an oasis in the desert. It is surrounded by an un- sympathetic world. The entire order of society round about is unchristian in thought and prac- tice. It is an order for which the Christian commu- nity is as yet in no sense responsible. It is a dark- ness that has never been lighted. The Christian community, while existing in this sort of world, must keep itself unspotted from it. The members of the little group are naturally driven in on them- selves for companionship and for mutual help. This 75 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION group constitutes a true society, based on radically different principles from those that underlie the so- ciety without. Yet by the very conditions of its life and the processes of its growth this Christian com- munity must undergo far-reaching changes both within itself and in its relation to its social envi- ronment. These changes may be described as fol- lows: (1) CJianges from witMn, The character of the Christian community will advance with the advance in character of the mem- bers of the community and with their increasing ap- prehension of the obligations and privileges inherent in a truly Christian brotherhood. Just as the com- plete Christian character of the individual comes only as the result of attainment, so the complete Christian society must be the outcome of develop- ment, of a growing apprehension of the truth, of the experience of men struggling upward together against odds, but with the light of hope on their faces and of divine love in their hearts. (2) Change through influence of that which is without. Actually there never has been and never can be a Christian community wholly apart from the world. Though not of the world, in the sense that they are not to be identified with its unspiritual life, the dis- ciples of Jesus must needs be in it and must ac- cordingly assume certain responsibilities for the world in which they live. Furthermore, because they live in the world, it is inevitable that the Chris- tian community should be affected by the world. The very language, customs, and institutions of the 76 GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY world in which Christians live and which they can- not but make use of are full of associations that are unchristian. Inevitably they are affected by the backward pull of alien ideals, of an atmosphere, and of standards that are opposed to all that is Chris- tian. But we shall also discover that the Chris- tian community has within itself the power of ad- vancing, of apprehending more and more fully the mind of Christ, of outgrowing the unchristian and the partial conceptions of the past, and of advanc- ing ever toward a more complete embodiment of the law and life of an ideal Christian brotherhood. (3) The mutual interpenetration of the Christian community and the outside world. In any place where the Christian religion is spreading abroad there will not long be any very clear line of demarcation between the Christian com- munity and those outside the Christian group. This line is somewhat distinctly drawn in the early days of Christianity among non-Christian people. Par- ticularly is this true when there is persecution and when the opposition and contrast of the Christian and of the non-Christian is brought through conflict into sharp antithesis. But erelong we find many who are near the kingdom, though not positively of it. We also find many of it who have not advanced very far within it. Much of the light of the king- dom we behold falling athwart the darkness outside and softening its severity, while influences from the outside still cast their shadows across even the brightest portions of the Christian community. (4) The transjormation of the world to he com- plete. 77 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION The ultimate mission of tlie Christian religion is to society as a whole. The Christian community cannot attain unto the perfect state by separating itself from the rest of the world and leaving it to pursue its own path to ruin. The final goal is to be attained only by a salvation that leavens the whole lump. "The nearest approach to the realization of a Christian society is to be found where the princi- ples of his [Jesus'] ideal society are most nearly expressed in the institutions and life of a people."^ 2. -The Impact of the Christian Community on the Non- Christian World The Christian religion is implanted in the new soil among a non-Christian people. Here in due time it will bring forth its own leaf and fruit as the proper utterance of the new soul of the people. The creation of a new social and political order must come through the creation of this new soul. It will come as the outgrowth and expression of a new so- cial consciousness, a new conviction in the minds of those who look upon the face of Jesus and gain a new understanding of life and the world. Mis- sionaries have not always anticipated the larger re- sults of their own work in implanting the Chris- tian religion. "The thought and purpose that in- spired those who laid the foundation for our mod- ern missionary endeavor was that of evangelism alone, unmixed with any other department of mis- sionary work and looking to the saving of individ- ual souls from eternal loss."^ But the kingdom of i"The Social Teaching of Jesus," Shailer Mathews. ^"Human Progress through Missions," Barton. 78 GKOWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY God is ever outgrowing the partial understanding of its interpreters. It is only in later years that a careful study of the progress of the missionary enterprise during two generations of endeavor has begun to make manifest the fact that while the missionaries were building up the native Church and extending the borders of that Church widely throughout non-Christian countries, they had been at the same time building up a new form of society. . . . Gradually we have come to recognize that in In- dia, Turkey, Africa, and China the Church of Christ can no more be confined in its operation and in the manifestation of its life within the four walls of a building or embodied alone in a group of persons than it can in the West. In fact, it has become ap- parent that a group of Christian men and women, living in the midst of a non-Christian community, become at once conspicuous to that community and exert an influence far out of proportion to their number, in a variety of ways almost unknown in what are called Christian countries. It was inevitable, in the very nature of the case, that Christianity planted in Eastern communities would build churches ; but, more than that, it proved to be absolutely essential that it should build schools and hospitals and asylums; that it should prepare and distribute enlightening and elevating literature ; that it should stand as an advocate of peace, tem- perance, and fraternal love; and that it should de- mand of its followers industry and thrift and enter- prise. In fact, it was inevitable that the Church, planted within a pagan civilization, should produce a new society which upon first observation may ap- pear to be quite separate and remote from the Church in which it had its birth and from which it has drawn its inspiration and its very life. In a word, the missionaries, in setting out only to plant 79 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION the Church and to gather into its folds such as "were being saved," have sown in the East the seed of a new society which is revolutionary in its character and resistless in its power. It is said of Dr. J. H. DeForrest that "his first purpose as a young missionary had been to convert a group of Japanese to Christianity and found a Church like that of which he had been pastor in America. After he had acquired the language and had had a few years of experience in close contact with the people, he had begun to realize that mis- sions were not the isolated individual phase of hu- man activity that he had once supposed them to be; that they were intimately related to the political condition, the economic and social status, the tradi- tional thought of the whole nation."^ Among the most striking indications of the im- pact of Christianity on its non-Christian environ- ment are : (1) Overthrow of the caste system. No more gigantic and immovable barrier has ever barred the way to the advance of the kingdom than the caste system in India. It seemed even to deny the possibility of human brotherhood, so that it was predicted that Christianity could never make any progress in India unless it should recognize caste. A century ago Henry Martyn wrote in his diary : "If I should see a single high-caste Hindu converted and baptized, I would look upon it as a resurrec- tion from the dead." To-day we have witnessed not only the conversion of Brahmans to Christianity, ^"Tlie Evolution of a Missionary.'* 80 GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY but 'now, after a century of missions, the Brahmans themselves are among the foremost in declaring that caste is the curse of India. "They openly tell the people that Christianity is right in its contention that caste is an evil and must be abolished. A num- ber of native organizations have laid down the prin- ciple that caste is a curse and cannot be retained. So far as a wide acceptance of the idea of the broth- erhood of man is concerned, the battle has already been won. It yet remains to overcome deep-seated prejudices and create a new social order to take the place of the old."* The result has been brought about not by a mere process of abolition, but by the transforming power of the Christian religion, by which the lowest and most hopeless have been re-created and elevated. As a result, new conceptions of the worth of man and a new understanding of the ideal of the brotherhood of man have become inevitable. "Nothing," says Dr. Capen, "has made a deeper impression upon In- dia than the utter revolution which Christianity has wrought in the lives of the outcasts who have been regarded by Hindus as hardly human and as incapa- ble of being raised to anything approaching equali- ty with the caste people."^ He cites the illustration of a professor in a Christian college who is from the humblest origin and yet has become an educational leader highly respected by the Brahmans. Not long ago one of the men of this exclusive caste intrusted his wife to the charge of this Christian gentleman *"Human Progress through Missions," Barton, pp. 56, 57. •"'Social Progress In Mission Lands," Capen, p. 61. 6 81 PROGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION on a railway journey. An Indian gentleman is quot- ed as having said: "I am a Brahman of the Brah- mans and belong, as you all know, to the most or- thodox school; and I am an Indian and love my country; and I must confess that the way in which Christianity has raised the pariahs of Madras is be- yond all praise and puts me to shame as a Hindu." Another said : "After all, when it comes to prac- tice, Christianity alone is effecting what we nation- alists are crying out for — namely, the elevation of the masses."^ The report of the Commission on Ed- ucation of the Edinburgh Conference, from which the above quotation is taken, further says : "The fact is that the education and uplifting by Christianity of the pariahs and the aboriginals in the great na- tive Christian communities which have been mainly recruited from these classes is something so strik- ing and on so large a scale that the most hostile ob- server of what Christianity has been and done in India cannot but recognize it."^ (2) Progress in the ideals of family life. The character of any civilization can be judged by the nature and ideals of its home life. The home is at once a result of the dominant ideals of the people and one of the supreme factors in creating those ideals. Hence the home is a sort of barometer of civ- ilization. At the center of the home is the wife and mother. It has been one of the peculiar glories of Christianity that womanhood has been reverenced, that the wife and mother has been given a place of "Report of World Missionary Conference, Vol. III., p. 258. Ubid, 82 GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY equal honor with the husband and father, and that the ideals of the Christian home have been those of purity, of fidelity, and of mutual respect and confi- dence between husband and wife. There has been in nominally Christian countries a gradual elevation of the status of womanhood through the centuries. But the transforming power of Christianity upon the ideals of the home and the status of womanhood is most strikingly seen in a study of the position of woman in the non-Christian lands and the rapid changes in her position that are there taking place to-day. In Africa and in the South Sea islands she has been held as a mere chattel, the property of the man. In India her position has hardly been essen- tially better. The confession of the Hindu, "We all believe in the sanctity of the cow and in the deprav- ity of woman," sounds like a jest; so that we are startled to find that it represents the current belief of India, supported by all the sanctities of religion. The slavery of the child mothers and the cruelty to the child widows, the practicing of suttee, the en- forced seclusion, the ignorance and .hopelessness of woman in India — all of this fills out one of the blackest and most depressing pictures afforded in the study of race conditions. In China the attitude toward woman is essential- ly the same, though in some respects her condition is better. Yet the very radical which signifies "wom- an'' in the Chinese language has become a part of a wide number of disreputable words. The low status of women is thus wrought into the very structure of the language. Without undertaking to go farther in stating the 83 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION degrading position of woman in practically all non- Christian countries and the consequent effect upon the home life, it may be said that nowhere have non- Christian peoples come into contact with Christian- ity that there has not been an almost immediate, and henceforth a constant, tendency to elevate the po- sition of woman and to establish the home on new and better foundations. The mission schools have been one of the largest factors in bringing about this change. These schools have been open to girls as well as to boys, even though in the beginning it was often necessary to pay parents to permit their daughters to attend school. In these mission schools, ranging from the kindergarten and primary day schools to colleges and professional schools, in all mission fields, there are now numbered more than three hundred thou- sand girls and women. Out of these schools go forth annually thousands of educated Christian women who are to become teachers in Christian schools, Bible women, wives of native Christian workers, and, in fact, leaders in every walk of life, creating a new ideal of womanhood and a new sta- tus for women. But the tree is best judged by its fruits, and the Christian home in the non-Christian land, with its peace and purity and love, has been one of the silent forces in condemning lower ideals and making way for the Christian home and its lofty ideals. A mis- sionary in Japan is quoted as having said that many who did not know English had come to understand and use the phrase "Christian home" as representing an ideal household. 84 GKOWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY The larger social revolution that is resulting from all of this is thus summarized by Dr. Barton : "Such women as Pundita Ramabai and hundreds of others who might be named have come to the front out of the old impossible conditions, and these in rapidly multiplying numbers constitute a Christianizing and socially revolutionizing force that nothing can re- sist. A purer conception of home, of the worth and strength of womanhood, and of the needs of a re- formed social order, finds in these and in the mul- titudes they lead champions whose influence is rap- idly deepening and extending. A social revolution is already taking place among the principal Asiatic nations, which began with the Christian education of Oriental girls, but which has now become of na- tional and even international import, affecting near- ly all phases of society." (3) AhoUtion of inhumanities. These illustrations are but typical of the trans- formations that are actually in process in all the mission fields as a result of the socially re-creative power of Christianity. Other illustrations might be cited, such as the more or less fully realized aboli- tion of the following inhumanities : The practice of burning widows at the burial of their husbands, slavery and the slave trade, foot-binding, child mar- riage, the opium traffic, the cruelties of medical practice, infanticide, cannibalism. We must remem- ber that it was the missionary who first protested against these things and that through the planting of the Christian Church there has grown up a per- manent and increasing community that continues and extends this protest and puts to shame those 85 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION who practice such things. Moreover, these Christian influences and ideals have spread until it has come to pass that far outside the Christian community there are organizations standing for the suppres- sion of these horrors and for the better ideals which have come through the Christian religion. (4) Constructive results. But Christianity does not stop with the suppres- sion of vices and shocking inhumanities. The Chris- tian religion is constructive and re-creative, making all things new. If there were space, it might be shown that Christianity is transforming the educa- tional system wherever it has gone. This has been especially marked in Japan, China, and in certain parts of India. In Africa the missionary is the cre- ator of the written language and the founder of edu- cation. Likewise in the field of economics and in- dustry the ideals of Christianity, representing hu- man worth and brotherhood and the care of a com- mon Father, have been dynamic principles making for social and economic progress and stimulating ev- erywhere the sense of social justice. Again, while the missionaries cannot be said to have fomented political disturbances, since they have everywhere been scrupulous in teaching loyal- ty to government, nevertheless the conceptions of hu- man worth and of the right to self-realization that are inherent in Christianity inevitably culminate sooner or later in a new political consciousness. Students familiar with the struggle for political freedom and human rights in the West will under- stand how the same ideals implanted in the Ori- ent must sooner or later work out like results. The 86 GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY influence of Christianity on the political life be- gan to be manifest in Japan more than a third of a century ago and now as a mighty current is passing through the ancient and populous countries of In- dia and China. It is a notable fact that the recent revolution in China, culminating in the republic, was led by a Christian, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and that the majority of the leaders of this revolution are, by their own confession, Christians. Back of all these changes of which we have spoken is the creation of a ^^new type of personality — the incorruptible, public-spirited Christian citizen who is seeking not his own salvation, but the welfare of others."^ The Christian religion, rooted in the heart, re-creating character and ideals of life, is changing every expression of the individual, the so- cial, and the corporate life of the peoples of non- Christian lands and is preparing a new moral foun- dation for a new social order. Thought Questions 1. By what process is the Christian religion to become established in non-Christian lands? 2. What present-day proofs would you give of the divine origin of the Christian religion? 3. What effect is social failure in Christian lands sure to have on the progress of Christianity in other lands? ^"Social Progress in Mission Lands," p. 172. 87 CHAPTER VI THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AND THE SOCIAL TASK BIBLIOGRAPHY Rauschenbusch, "Christianizing the Social Order." Ward, Harry F., "Social Evangelism." Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question." Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order." Batten, "The Social Task of Christianity." Taylor, "Religion in Social Action." Kent, "The Social Teachings of the Prophets and Je- CHAPTER VI THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AND THE SOCIAL TASK 1. Responsibility for the Existing Social Order The new Christian community begins its life in a world unchristian and beyond its power of imme- diate control. Any process of social change will necessarily be gradual. Meanwhile the community of Christians will find itself constantly confronted with conditions of life that root in the unchristian past. This will in some sense be true until the final goal of a Christianized society is reached. When, therefore, the people who are representatives of a Christian order find themselves living in the midst of an order that is a remnant or resultant of an un- christian past, what are they to do? Can the Chris- tian community continue to live and groic in such a world and not face directly its responsibility for making the order of the world in which it lives con- form to the Christian spirit? We may expect the answer of a group of sover- eigns to differ from that of a group of subjects. Manifestly a little company of Christian subjects, in the midst of a heathen society and under a despotic government, would accomplish little but their own ruin by attacking the unchristian in the political and social order about them. Their duty for the time might well be to confine themselves to building up the Christian community within. But what shall be said when that Christian community is no longer 91 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION an impotent company of subjects, but a powerful and organized company of sovereign people, consti- tuting the major part of influence and power in a nation? Certainly it cannot longer be said of the evils of society : ^'These are things that have grown up from the world. We cannot affect them; there- fore let us leave them alone." The institutions of society are, in the long run, the expression of the life, character, and will of the people ; so that, in so far as these are unchristian in their nature, they may have come down from an un- christian past. But to continue these unchristian expressions of social life must be henceforth to ac- cept responsibility for them. Under a popular form of government and with the growing power of the Christian community, the time inevitably comes when the Christian people can no more refrain from facing their larger social tasks than they can refuse to observe the first requirement of individual right- eousness. The early Christians were not responsible because the Roman emperors debauched themselves and be- cause the people followed their example. They had no power for the time to affect the conditions and in- stitutions, political and social. It was enough that they emphasized the duty of sobriety among the members of the little Christian group. But the Christian citizen of to-day who uses his sovereign power to perpetuate the evils of intemperance is surely as guilty as one who gives his neighbor drink, and no amount of personal sobriety can one whit lessen that guilt. Again, the graft of the Roman taxgatherer was 92 THE SOCIAL TASK not only proverbial, but, like the system that has been prevalent in China, was one of the parts in the government machinery. The little band of Chris- tians would have been going far afield from their immediate responsibilities if they had started a cru- sade against the Roman system of taxation. Yet for the Christian citizen in America complacently to al- low a system of corruption and graft to develop and continue in public office to-day, when Christian pub- lic sentiment is against such practice and when there is strength enough in the Christian citizenship to overthrow it, is to become in a very real sense re- sponsible for the continuance of the iniquity. In like manner, while the Christians of the first century undertook the relief of their poor and gave it a large place in their organization, it was mani- festly futile for them to concern themselves with the existing political and industrial order of the time that might have been responsible for the general con- ditions of poverty then prevalent. Yet to-day for the whole body of the Christian people to content themselves with administering charity to the poor of the Church and ignore the causes of poverty and disease, in so far as they are discernible and in so far as they are remediable, is to become guilty of sharing in the social wrong. But let us fix the responsibility where finally it must rest. The ultimate responsibility for the social order is with the Christian people. This is true be- cause they alone are in possession of a social and moral dynamic that is able to change that which is wrong. Responsibility must rest with those who have the light. It is the duty of the Christian peo- 93 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION pie to turn the light of the message aud spirit of Jesus upon every problem of society and to interpret these problems in the light of that truth and spirit. And it is their duty, as responsible sovereign mem- bers of society, to throw their influence and power on the side of a better order. Here, then, we have a broad conception of morali- ty and of personal responsibility, one that grows out of a fundamental apprehension of the relation of the individual to society. Any view of life that limits morals to the simple lines of individual conduct is not only inadequate; it is likely to become immoral in its practical results in the presence of a world of complex social relationships. It tends to deny re- sponsibility where the results of an act are obscure and complex. But responsibility remains in spite of all social complexities. All ethics are essentially social. The requirements of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not kill" and the rest that define what is due from one per- son to another in the simplest and most elementary terms, recognize social responsibility. The only dif- ference between questions of right and wrong stated in this simple way and the far-reaching questions of social righteousness and social wrong of to-day is one of the degree of complexity. No one will deny the righteousness of the direct command, "Thou shalt not steal," when stealing is bare-faced robbery by personal violence or sneaking thievery by the midnight marauder. Here the wrongdoer and the process are too plainly visible not to be recognized. But when the thief is a corpora- tion, when the hold-up process is not the pistol in 94 THE SOCIAL TASK hand, but the more terrible weapon of starvation or of cold, then the combination of men that worked out of sight to corner the food supply or to limit the coal output and force thousands of the hungry and cold to surrender their slim purses may in some quarters be regarded as "shrewd" ; but to the mind illumined with the spirit of justice and brotherly kindness it is simply a more subtle and not less cul- pable way of sinning the same sin. We shrink with unutterable horror when the high- wayman adds to his crime by steeping his hands in the blood of his fellow man. We do not need to be told of the awfulness of murder. The command- ment, "Thou shalt not kill," is absolute in the code of every sane and civilized country, and none ques- tions the righteousness thereof when the murderer is red-handed and when the deed is for gold or for malice. So long as we can say, "Thou art the man," so long is guilt unquestioned. But when murder is organized and on a vast scale, when murderers are powerful and hide behind the technicalities of the law, and when they slay their thousands for divi- dends, then it seems necessary to charge up to a heartless providence the murdered babies who die because it was profitable to preserve milk with for- maldehyde or to adulterate food with deleterious counterfeits. It is easy to deny responsibility when women and children die of tuberculosis because they are forced to work in dust-laden, unventilated rooms or because disease festers in filthy sections of the city, while the town councilmen see to it that the taxes of all the people are spent in making clean and attractive streets before their own homes, leaving 95 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION the hopeless and uninflueutial to suffer or to die through neglect of sanitation and health essentials. But the just and merciful God bears the same rela- tion to such murder that he bears to the victim of the highwayman. In each case God's laws, which are good, are subverted by those who are evil, to the destruction of the innocent and the helpless. There is no crime so heinous in civilized communi- ties as that of dishonoring womanhood. And yet in every great city of America there are thousands of girls who want to do right and who are fighting for their very souls and bodies against conditions that are subtly undermining character and virtue, under an economic pressure greater than many are able to resist. Yet many grow rich and are called respecta- ble, while the poor starved creatures whose labors make them rich are swept down the stream. But it is the custom, and the hideous wrong, with its in- alienable and immitigable responsibility, is hidden somewhere out of sight, and the whirlpool of the rapids is filled, not with one horrible victim, but with the unnumbered wronged and ruined. These illustrations will suffice for the present pur- pose to show that the commandment, recognized and enforced under simple, obvious, and direct relations, is forgotten or disregarded when the conditions of human life become more intricate. Others of the commandments might similarly be used to illustrate the tendency to evade the responsibility under the cover afforded by complexities of situation and in- directness of personal relation. It is easy for the corporation to look to the manager of the business for profits only, and for the manager, in turn, to 96 THE SOCIAL TASK feel that he has no option but to beat his competitors by the laws current in trade and to produce the prof- its expected by the stockholders. If in the process men are broken and women are crushed and children die and the cry of agonized despair goes up to God, nobody accepts the responsibility. Everybody in good conscience washes his hands of guilt, and the robbed and the murdered and the violated may not hold anybody to account Nor may they even hope for relief. To be sure, it is by no means an easy thing to fix responsibility for many of the wrongs of society. The more we analyze some of these wrongs, the more shall we find that not necessarily the man on whom we are disposed to place the blame may be solely re- sponsible. A hundred people, a thousand, or per- haps the entire community may in some way share in the guilt of plunder, murder, and violence. Many a sickening tragedy, if ferreted out and traced to its origin, would lead back to some respected and pro- tected man or woman who would be horrified if charged with the responsibility. What, then, shall we do, since under the cover of a complex life people continue either in ignorance of their responsibility or in evasion of it? The wrong and the ruin go relentlessly on. Shall nothing be done? Shall we wash our hands in innocency be- cause w^e see no direct way of correcting the wrong? It is not pleasant to accept responsibility for steal- ing, for murder, for violence. If, then, it is only a vast, intricate situation of which any one of us is but a small part, shall we and all of our fellows deny responsibility and let the wrong increase? We may, 7 97 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION if we will, and refuse to think of it as an unpleasant subject. But the wronged, the robbed, the mur- dered, the violated will not so easily forget — nay, they cannot forget — for they are the victims over which the wheels of our social chariot drive. What then? As Christians we are plainly guilty if we hush the cry of the wronged only by stopping our own ears. Tlie fact that a social wrong cannot he righted hy the simple, direct efforts of an indi- vidual does not relieve that individual of responsi- 'bility in the premises — a responsiMlity tvhich can he discharged only hy putting forth every effort, through organized and social cooperation, to redeem the sit- uation. For the processes of redemption become complex in proportion as the processes of ruin are complex. Thus it is evident that unless one means to become a Robinson Crusoe, dealing with his man Friday on a lonely island, he must accept the responsibili- ties that grow out of his social relationships, how- ever complex they may be. When he finds himself a part of a municipality where government is corrupt, a part of a business system where results work in- justice to others, a part of a community responsible for the failing lungs of pale-faced women and chil- dren, he may not be indifferent about these things. He is guilty of complicity and responsibility before God and man if he continues to share in the benefits of the situation or remains at ease and strives not to right the wrong by all the means at his command. In the face of such responsibility, what shall we say to what was once frequently heard, but now, hap- pily, is only repeated by some belated traveler in the 98 THE SOCIAL TASK twentieth century, but not of it, that the Church has nothing to do with social wrongs and social ques- tions? Plainly, from every ethical point of view, this position is the same as if one said the Church has nothing to do with morality, because, from the viewpoint of even the most extreme individualist, it must appear that there can be no social sin that is not also an individual sin. If, then, social robbery, social murder, social violence are beyond the con- cern of the Church, it is equivalent to saying that in these forms the Church has nothing to do with the requirements of the Decalogue, since all that is nec- essary to avoid responsibility is to organize the wrong on a large scale and obscure the line of per- sonal responsibility behind a system or a condition, a corporation or a legal technicality. Once there was at least some excuse for the man who refused to recognize his social responsibility, and once the ex- tent of social wrong possible was incomparably less than it is to-day. But now such a one must be re- garded as a dangerous enemy of society. For socie- ty at large is not greatly endangered by the sneak thief, the highway robber, or by one who shoots his victim for pelf. It is threatened, however, at its very foundations by those who profit by the condi- tions they are able to organize for gain, without re- gard to the effect in the hopes and lives of hundreds and thousands of their fellow men. For the Church to be silent under such conditions is to deny her Lord and to prove herself unworthy to continue as the light bearer of the ages. Such a course must bring discredit to the Church as the champion of righteousness. The Church could far better afford, 99 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION so far as practical results are concerned, to be mum on the subject of petit larceny and assassination than on a whole order of iniquities that, like a fatal parasitic growth, eat out the very heart of honor, justice, brotherly kindness, and love. Even the chicken thief is sure to have his punishment in the light of a well-established custom and code. But the white light of judgment from the face and heart of God is needed to play upon those vaster crimes of our day that carry with them the doom of whole nations and civilizations. 2. The Awakening of the Social Conscience and the Re- discovery of the Social Message of the Christian Religion The exceedingly intricate conditions of society which make it so difficult to locate responsibility are in large measure new. Until the time of the steam engine and the industrial revolution that followed, life moved on very much simpler lines. The manu- facturer labored with his several operatives within his own home. The tools of industry were simple and owned in large measure by those who used them. During the last century the entire conditions of production and of transportation and the whole re- lation between capital and labor have been radically altered. Some of the results of this must be dis- cussed in later chapters. Here it is sufiScient to in- dicate the unavoidable fact that we have to deal with a situation and not a theory — a situation that must be faced, a. situation pregnant with possibilities for the weal or woe of an entire race, a situation that creates social thinking perforce, a situation in which 100 THE SOCIAL TASK the organic relationships involved are too evident to be overlooked. A vast, complex life is growing up to-day. Like the myriad cells knit by their fibers into the unity of one brain, with an interplay and interdependence of the different cells and parts of the brain on each oth- er bej^ond all comprehension, so individuals and local communities, great cities. States, and even nations are more and more being wrought by living process- es into a vast unity of interdependence and responsi- bility. This interplay of forces has brought to the atten- tion of all thoughtful persons the sense of increased social solidarity and responsibility. But chiefly those who are ground beneath the wheels cry out. The victims of this great impersonal, irresponsible system of the things have usually been more con- scious of the true significance of the developing order than those who profited by it. But the cry that has gone up to God has not been in vain. The answer has come and is coming, not in a destructive flood or earthquake to the wrongdoer, but as social judg- ment in the conscience of the people. The social awakening of the last few years will be chronicled by the impartial historian of the future as one of the greatest awakenings to righteousness in the history of the race. The time when vast manu- facturing and mining companies could exercise no care and have no concern for the lives and limbs of men, women, and children, the time when business was measured almost exclusively in terms of divi- dends, regardless of cost in character or in health, in life and happiness of the men who drew the wage 101 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION and produced the wealth, will be regarded as one of the hideous black eras of man's inhumanity. And the light of clearer judgment and knowledge that came into men's hearts with the social awakening will be seen as the white-burning light out of eter- nity, the same light that blazed white-hot in judg- ment in the heart of Jesus when he saw men devour widows' houses and make a pretense of piety. Such also was the light that illumined and stirred to burning wrath the hearts of the prophets like Amos and Isaiah. At its heart and at its highest this social con- science is not a substitute for religion, not a man- made rival of Christianity. It is religion aroused from its sleep of false security and of selfish individ- ualism and face to face with the God of humanity, who demands that men make religion broad enough to square with the facts of his world and the require- ments of his kingdom. 3. The Rediscovery of the Social Elements of the Gospel Back of the social awakening, even when not dis- cernible, is the spirit of Jesus. Both as a result and as a cause of the new social conscience of to-day is the rediscovery of the profound and far-reaching so- cial message contained in the Gospels. Instead of having to adapt a gospel of former ages to a modern world, we discover Jesus to be the most modern of preachers. Passages in the Gospels that had been twisted out of their original and natural meaning through the interpretation of a narrow individual- ism become plain and luminous as one grasps the larger conception of Jesus's teaching concerning the 102 THE SOCIAL TASK kingdom. So much is this the case that even those who have lost sympathy with the Church altogether claim Jesus as their Friend and Brother, while the Church itself, through her real leaders, has found a depth, a breadth, and height in the gospel of re- demption unrealized before. Men have discovered not less of promise for the individual, not less of power for a new life in God, but more, because they have learned that there is a larger and a fuller life for every man as he realizes his destiny as a member of God's family. Thus the social awakening does not mean the loss of the old gospel, but rather a rediscovery of the gos- pel and outlook of Jesus himself. 4. The Wider Task and the Enlarged Gospel The disciple who would follow Jesus into his king- dom beyond this world must share in his purpose and work here. The work of saving this world is the work of the divine Saviour. He has not for one mo- ment given it up. But just because it is his work it is the work of his disciples. The wider task of the Church is to create the kingdom of God. It is to im- plant the kingdom in every part of the earth. It is to spread abroad the influence of righteousness and good will till the light of the gospel flames into ev- ery dark crevice of human life and human thought, till the spirit of the gospel shall become the positive dynamic in molding human institutions and customs and all expressions of the corporate life of humani- ty, until all shall have an opportunity to receive the gospel, even if some shall refuse to have Jesus reign over them. Our task is to create such a world that 103 PROGRAM OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION even these must needs live in a society whose domi- nant influences, ideals, and spirit are those that came into the world through Jesus. This is not too much to expect. It is not a fanati- cal dream. It is the spirit and outlook of the most representative Christian faith of to-day. It is the inspiration of the great missionary leaders of the world, the great Christian social leaders, the great preachers, and the foremost Christian laymen. It is nothing less than the discovery of the enlarged gos- pel of Jesus, the gospel whose wider sweep of mean- ing is even now breaking upon the world. It means that Christian people are accepting, with undaunted faith in Jesus Christ, the challenge of the world for a message of salvation, a message adequate to the whole world's needs. Here is the dynamic of re- demption, sufficient for every man and for every na- tion, a power of salvation equal to the task of mak- ing this a better world in all its vast reaches and in- tricate complexity. Here is a power sufficient to undergircl the world life of humanity and to estab- lish a kingdom in which God shall reign. This is the gospel of the kingdom preached by Je- sus. It is the gospel that insists upon his right to reign in all realms and over all kingdoms. It is the gospel that faces every wrong — individual and so- cial, local, national, and international — without compromise and causes the light of justice and of Christian love to fall squarely upon it, demanding that nothing be allowed to stand that cannot endure that searching test. - It not only holds that justice and brotherly kindness are practicable, but dares as- sert that nothing else is permanent and in harmony 104 THE SOCIAL TASK with the eternally workable. It dares offer Jesus Christ and the changeless truth of God in him as the power of a new life for every man, as a sufficient dynamic for the re-creation of life in all the relation- ships that men sustain to each other. In this gospel is the hope of a brotherhood of men and of the fam- ily of God on the earth, but a family that reaches into the eternities because its home is with the time- less God. Thought Questions 1. How far must the Christian people accept responsi- bility for the conditions that prevail in society? 2. Which is the greater enemy to society, the murderer or the man who adulterates foodstuffs with deleterious products, thereby destroying many lives? 3. Compare the guilt of the thief who steals a few dol- lars with that of the man who "corners" the supply of some necessary of life and extorts his millions. 4. In how far is a man a Christian who is not stirred with indignation at the sight of social injustice? 105 CHAPTER VII THE CREATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY BIBLIOGRAPHY Mathews, *'The Social Teaching of Jesus." Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question. Cope, "Religious Education in the Family." CHAPTER VII THE CREATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY The first and most fundamental institution of hu- man society is the family. It is the social unit. So- ciety is made up of families. In it the individual life is completed, and through it individuals become members of society. In its relation, therefore, to the individual the family is a society, while in its relations to society as a whole it is the elementary unit. It may be said of this primary social unit and of organized society as a whole that they do not exist apart. On the one hand, every condition of so- cial life will tend to affect the family ; on the other, families are the creators of the stuff out of which society is made and the chief of the factors in weav- ing the social fabric itself. The family not only gives being and training to the child as an individ- ual, but the family, itself a society, is an epitome of the whole of society. Here, in part, the laws of so- ciety as it is are learned ; and here, in larger meas- ure, the laws and ideals of the society that is to be are formed. If in order to create a Christian world and to es- tablish the kingdom of God on earth Christianity had first to begin with the individual, it is evident that the next step must have been the Christianiza- tion of the family. For if the Christian religion roots in the individual life, it grows up into its full leaf and fruitage only through the unity of the fam- ily life. Apart from Christian homes, the religion 109 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION of individuals can have but a limited spread and growth; and without Christian homes there can be no normal, self-propagating Christian society. For the Christian religion, therefore, and all that it rep- resents, the Christian family is the chief bulwark. It is the open door of opportunity through which Jesus Christ may come to the throne of his king- dom and is the chief agency by which other social institutions are to be Christianized. 1. The Christian Ideal of the Family (1) Jesus's teaching regarding marriage. It is not surprising that Jesus is more specific in his teaching regarding the family than in regard to any other institution. It is not possible to quote his authority as to the final form of the industrial order, the most approved method of governing the State, or the particular plan according to which the Church is to be organized. His only governing principle in these matters is the law and spirit of the kingdom. But in the case of the family he is specific. The family has a constitution based upon the fixed laws of God, so that its integrity grows out of the nature of things and is essential to the realization of God's purpose for the individual and for the race. Such would seem a fair interpretation of the absolute teachings of Jesus regarding mar- riage when the Pharisees came to him with one of the current questions, indicating the decaying moral state of the times. Going back of all compromises and all concessions to human sin and weakness, and quoting the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, he bases his answer upon the plan and purpose of God from the 110 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY beginning for the creation and the development of the race : "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh?'' And Jesus adds: "So that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, there- fore, God hath joined together, let not man put asun- der." Marriage is not a partnership or contract entered upon for the convenience of the parties, to be dis- solved at pleasure. The man and the woman are no longer parties ; they are members of a new unity, made one by the holy decree and ordinance of God, which is written In the very constitution of their being. The relationship is as fundamental as that between parent and child. A parent may be un- worthy of a child, or a child of the parent; but no consent of parent or child, or decree of court, can alter the fact of parenthood and of childhood. The State and the Church properly recognize it and, by due ceremony and authorization, give it the stamp of their approval. But the foundations of marriage are deeper and more original than those of either Church or State. Jesus says man and woman are made one by no less Authority than that which made them male and female. So that neither the Church nor the State can any more change the one fact than it can change the other. "The Christian law is not primarily designed to make allowance for social failures, but to establish the principles of the king- dom of God."i ^Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," p. 158. Ill PROGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (2) The dignity of marriage and the position of woman. The dignity of marriage resulting from the Chris- tian view is apparent. Marriage is an honorable and holy estate. This is so because of the place it occupies in the divine plan. It is to be held in rev- erence, not made the subject of jest, not entered upon lightly or selfishly, but in view of the seriousness of the responsibilities involved and in recognition of the full devotion and the sacrificial service that are due. The Christian family cannot be built upon selfish desire and inconsideration. Its very first principle is surrender of the individual to the high- er requirements of the family. It is a part of the socializing process which the family is to accomplish that individual rights and preferences should con- stantly be yielded to the rights and needs of the family group. Again, the teaching of Jesus, enforced by his ha- bitual attitude toward women, insures honor and re- spect for womanhood among his followers and gives a new standing to woman in the Christian world. The utter absence of any suggestion that she stands on any other footing than that of equal honor and rights with her husband causes the heathen idea that the wife is a chattel of the husband, to be taken and put away at his will, to slink away and hide itself wherever the force of Jesus's teaching has been felt. Jesus has emancipated woman and has given the wife and mother the place of honor beside the worthy husband and father. (3) Jesus reaffirms an original ideal. It is not, of course, held that Jesus has established 11^ THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY a wholly new institution apart from the development of the family in race history. On the contrary, the essential elements of the Christian family, as set forth in the specific utterances of Jesus, were al- ready in existence in many homes. The home of Mary and Joseph was worthy to serve as his model. What Jesus does is this : In an age when marriage in the Roman Empire was coming to be regarded as a mere contract, to be broken at will, and when through domestic insincerity and corruption the very foundations of society were tottering, he laid hold on the fundamental principles of family life, brought them into clear relief, and asserted their di- vine origin and their changeless nature. It is, how- ever, both interesting and profitable to note that the scientific study of the history of the family leads to the same conclusion. Many variations from the family, as approved by Jesus, there have been. But the original law, which Jesus says was intended by the Creator from the beginning, ever tends to assert itself. So that, in spite of many social customs to the contrary, in spite of the broken law, monogamic marriage has, by the test of the ages, survived and proved its harmony with the law of highest social interest. "It is, indeed, older than the human race. It runs back into the very beginning of creation. It is the law of life — not only of the animal, but also of the vegetable orders. And, in general, the higher life rises in the scale of being, the nearer it approach- es to both monogamy and perpetuity. Promiscuous marriages, temporary relationships, easy separation characterize the barbarous tribes. The modem 8 113 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION movement in this direction is a distinct reversion to barbaric and even brutal conditions."^ (4) The contribution of the Christian religion to the family ideal. But the Christian ideal of the family is not com- pleted in the specific teachings of Jesus regarding marriage. This ideal of the family includes other ele- ments that are characteristic products of the Chris- tian religion. First, there is a new value and significance given to the family and a new incentive for the creation of families after the Christian type. This naturally follows from the Christian outlook on life, the place of the individual and the kingdom in Christian thought. It is plain that whatever enhances the value either of the individual or of society must to that extent give added worth to the family in its es- sential relation to both. The personal value of ev- ery individual and the social ideal of the kingdom, which are essential in Christian thought, give an en- tirely new setting for the family. The family be- comes exalted in proportion as it becomes integrat- ed with God's purpose to rear better sons and daugh- ters and to gather them all into one family in the kingdom of God. Secondly, the Christian religion supplies a new power or dynamic for the realization of the ideal through the moral life and character of the members of the family. The ideal of the family will be real- ized, and the family will be a type of the perfect ^"Westmarck's "History of Marriage," quoted in Abbott's "Christianity and Social Problems." 114 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY Christian society, only when the members of the fam- ily are Christlike in character. The Christian hus- band and father, the Christian wife and mother make the Christian family; and to them the family will become glorified as they see in it the nearest ap- proach to heaven on earth, the symbol and promise of God's family of the redeemed, and as they realize that in and through their own family is their su- preme opportunity to contribute to the upbuilding of the kingdom and family of God. 2. The Family in Relation to the Child The family finds its highest significance in its re- lation to the child. This is true both of its physical life and of the growth and development of the child in the entirety of its nature. The chief purpose of the family, as of society, is to produce better per- sons and a better race. One of the most beautiful manifestations of true parenthood is the deep, in- sistent desire for the best and fullest life for the child. For this parents will strive and sacrifice as for nothing else. Where the ideals of the parents are Christian, this parental desire will be in terms of character and service. Above all else, they will de- sire for their children that they shall become Christ- like men and women and shall render the largest possible service to the world. The childless family is incomplete. Not only does it necessarily fail in making the family's supreme contribution to society in the child brought to the maturity of Christian manhood or womanhood, but it fails, in large measure, as a school for the devel- 115 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION opment in husband and wife of some of the finer and deeper qualities of character. (1) As an educational institution. In the education of the race the family occupies the place of first importance. It is as an education- al and social environment for developing immature persons that the integrity and permanence of the family become imperative, both from the point of view of the child and of society. When we compare the helplessness of the human infant with the young of the lower animals, when we consider the long years of the child's immaturity and the high degree of its educability as compared with the early ma- turity of the brute creation and their very limited capacity for anything like education, the conviction is forced upon us that the family is an essential part of the divine plan, designed as the most potent of all institutions for shaping the character and des- tiny of the race. The highest right of the child is the right to a true home in which to find nourishment, protection, guidance, and training in preparation for the day when, as a full-grown man or woman, the child is to take the place in the world for which, by its capa- bilities and training, it is fitted. This is the highest right of a child, since it includes, directly or indi- rectly, almost all other rights. It is likewise the first concern of organized society that this right should be guaranteed, since upon this depend the growth and development of its members and the very character and existence of society itself. (2) In the social, moral, and religious development of the child. lie THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY Man has a social, a moral, and a religious nature. He can no more divest himself of any one of these than he can cease to be man. "The child is father to the man/' and the inmost man, therefore, appears in the child. Childhood is preeminently the period for the training, the growth, and development of the social, moral, and religious nature. Beyond the boundaries of the normal life of the child within the family there is a well-known fixity of mind and char- acter that leaves a diminishing probability of any new directions being given to the life in any of these essential matters. Education is not synonymous with instruction any more than growth is synony- mous with feeding, though education may be depend- ent upon the one as growth is dependent upon the other. Education looks to the unfolding of the whole life — the growth and development of the complete personality. Therefore the factors in education are the sum total of the influences that environ the life of the growing individual, stimulating, retarding, or guiding the development of budding and expanding powers. Among all of these influences the home is without a rival in the social, moral, and religious development of the child. The reasons are obvious : the proportion of time spent in the home, especially during the years of greatest susceptibility to educa- tional influences; the beautiful intimacy of parent and child ; the instinctive love and trust that keeps open to the parent the deepest springs of childhood's emotion and action, the supreme power of influence, the contagion of ideals and of emotion ; the opportu- nities of training by example, by cooperation, and in intimate companionship; the actual community 117 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION of interests, of ideals, of hopes and fears, of ef- fort and reward — these things put the home in a class alone, so far as opportunities and vital poten- cies in moral and religious education are concerned. We have grouped together the social, the moral, and the religious development of the child because of the limitation of space and because in the unity of the child's nature the threefold process goes on as one, and whatever influences affect the one phase of development must have a vital bearing upon the other. The bond of the family unity is personal. It exists for persons and for their development in all that makes for character and fullness of life. The intimacy of the family life supplies the best possible opportunity for developing those powers that enable people to live together as persons, guarding the rights of others, laboring and sacrificing for the wel- fare of others, and in turn finding the higher joys of life in this loyal devotion and in the fellowship and loving sympathy of the family. It is only necessary that the spirit of the true Christian home be made the spirit governing all human relationships in or- der that the moral problems of the world may disap- pear and that the kingdom be established, of which Jesus has forever made the family the type. (3) The highest office of the family. If Christian morals consist in the right relations between the children of God, religion is the right re- lation of the children to the Father, out of which their whole life together in the family grows. Reli- gious education is the development of the whole life under the power and inspiration of an ever-widening knowledge of God. Religion, then, is a personal re- 118 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY lationship and the highest. It is that relationship which gives worth and meaning to all the rest. Reli- gion is the supreme unifying principle of life. To know God through Jesus, his Messenger, is life, both now and forever. It is in bringing the children to Jesus in understanding, in fellowship, and in like- ness of character, and in acquainting them with their Heavenly Father, that the Christian family rises to its highest office. In establishing this highest of all personal rela- tionships the personality of one who knows God is the supreme human factor. In this office the Chris- tian parent enters the holy of holies, where God and the child meet and where the child enters through the life and experience of a Christian parent into the great companionship. Thus the Christian home is designed to be the first Christian sanctuary and the heart of the Christian parent the open doorway through which the child ascends into the higher fel- lowship with God. Blessed is the child who finds in his father and mother the way to his Heavenly Fa- ther! 3. The Preservation of the Christian Family In the program of the Christian religion there is nothing of more fundamental importance than the increase of the number of families that exist after the Christian ideal. The leavening process of our religion develops most rapidly and permanently through the extension of the Christian ideal into an ever-increasing number of families in all lands of the earth. The Christianization of other institutions or orders — such, for instance, as the State or the indus- 119 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION trial order — ^has Lad to wait upon the Christianiza- tion of a larger group ; but truly Christian families became conspicuous in the earliest days of Chris- tianity, and through the centuries tens of thousands of such families have furnished perhaps the bright- est chapter in the entire history of the victories of the Christian religion. How to preserve the Christian family as an ideal and fact in civilization, and how to cause that ideal to persist and to prevail over all lower ideals, is probably the most urgent question that claims the attention of Christian people to-day. (1) Evils that threaten the Christian jamily. There is not space to mention, save in barest out- line, the conditions and influences that to-day con- spire to undermine the family life and to overthrow its most essential ideals. (a) First — at least in order of popular thought — we may mention the external conditions under which many modern families have to exist. The rapid de- velopment of the great cities, with their congested population, their crowded tenements, or their nar- row apartments, with little ventilation and no play- ground; the economic pressure that forces mothers into the factories and shops ; the city life that scat- ters the family and makes of the home little more than a place to sleep ; the lack of privacy and of oth- er conditions characteristic of the best homes as we have known them — these are among the most star- tlingly serious problems that threaten the stability of the family. Under these adverse conditions some of the sublimest struggles of this time of struggle are being fought out for the maintenance of the home. 120 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY There are uncrowned and unrecognized heroes and heroines standing for the substructure of civiliza- tion against the onrushiug tidal wave of modern ec- onomic and industrial life. The pathos of this ago- ny and sublime devotion, in the effort to safeguard their homes, cannot be put into words. But how long can they hold out against the growing tide? On the other hand, how many homes have we not seen crumble and swept away to join the driftwood of the great, surging city life? Here is a problem, not only serious, but so serious that it demands an an- swer of civilization Itself — and surely of the Chris- tian people. (&) And yet when all is said of the evils that arise from this source there are many indications that the supreme danger threatening the family does not lie in this direction. Peabody well says: "The main sources of domestic instability are not economic, but moral; the problem of the family is not chiefly a re- sult of defective social arrangement, but chiefly the result of a defective social creed. The truth of this statement is at once verified when one recalls the fact that divorce, like nervous prostration, is a dis- ease which afflicts the prosperous more than it does the poor." Impurity and the selfish spirit that de- grades marriage and thinks of home only as an ar- rangement for personal convenience have always been the deadliest enemies of the family. But when this selfishness becomes reenforced by a soft philosophy that justifies it, the evil becomes vastly more serious. A philosophy of sordid individualism that sees in marriage nothing but a temporary contract, to be dissolved at will in favor of some new affinity, should 121 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION be stripped of its fashionable effrontery and branded for what it is — a direct thrust at the most sacred of social institutions and a reversion to barbarism. The morbid tendency of some writers to indulge the imag- ination in marital infelicities and to ignore the most serious responsibilities of the family as a social in- stitution is likewise one of the subtle, far-reaching influences of the day. The home cannot stand if these are to be our teachers. (c) Another danger, and in some respects the most pervasive of all, is the growth of commercialism and a spirit of ostentation. Whenever personal values are subordinated to commercial values, every moral and social interest is imperiled ; and, most of all, the home and family are unable to withstand this subver- sion of values. Whenever the desire for wealth and luxury, or even the desire to imitate those who have these things, is stronger than the desire for a com- plete home; whenever, in fact, a desire to measure up to the superficial standard of mere material dis- play becomes stronger than the fundamental and di- vinely implanted desire for a family — then has com- mercialism made its deadliest attack upon civiliza- tion. The childless homes in which there is no desire for children, not alone among the selfish rich, but among a larger number of their imitators, are indica- tive of far-reaching perversion in social and moral ideals. What remedy for these evils can be suggested? First of all, we must understand that the evils spoken of reflect false ideals and unspiritual conceptions of life — a false social creed that appears more menacing in the domestic realm only because of contrast with 122 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY wholesome Christian ideals of the family and be- cause of the vital relation of the family to social well-being. But the evil must be dealt with at its source. Christian homes are not going to be made by men and women who bow before the shrine of mam- mon or whose ideal of life is that of self-indulgence and of avoidance of responsibility and sacrifice. It is most needful that Christian people should think clearly at this point and should hold without com- promise the ideal of the Christian family, refusing in any wise to lend their encouragement or counte- nance to the unchristian and unsocial tendencies in popular thought. There is need particularly that the Churches and Sunday schools should interpret more thoroughly the laws of social responsibility and the essential place of the Christian family in the social order and in the establishment of the kingdom of God. The full light of the gospel must be turned upon the self- ish individualism and the sordid commercialism that undermine the foundations of society. The source of evil is, after all, in the heart; and the gospel of Christ, which changes human hearts and spiritual- izes all things, is here, as elsewhere, the only ulti- mate remedy. A more thoroughly awakened social conscience and a more intelligent social understanding will serve likewise to bring the problems of the family into the foreground and to exalt the true ideals of the Chris- tian home, while it will force organized society to provide proper relief against living and labor condi- tions that are hostile to home-making. Above all, Christian fathers and mothers must 123 THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY hold up for their sons and daughters the proper con- ception of marriage — the Christian ideal. Parents must teach their children that marriage on a com- mercial basis is dishonorable; that pure love and a purpose to take one's place as a part of God's plan, and to make the sacrifice and render the service of a divinely appointed oflSce, alone meet the Christian requirement ; and that no man or woman comes wor- thily to the marriage altar that does not come with a white life. Thought Questions 1. Indicate the ways in which the Christian family may contribute to the Christianization of the world. 2. State what you consider the highest ends and obliga- tions of the Christian family. 3. Point out some of the insidious forces that are threatening the institution of the family, and mention some of the ways by which the Church may help to pre- serve the Christian ideal of the family. 124 CHAPTER VIII THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH AND OF INDUSTRY BIBLIOGRAPHY Mathews, "The Social Teaching of Jesus." Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question.** Rauschenbusch, "Christianizing the Social Order." Ward, "Poverty and Wealth — from the Viewpoint of the Kingdom of God." Carlton, "The Industrial Situation." Rauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social Crisis." CHAPTER VIII THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH AND OF INDUSTRY We have now arrived at a point where we must examine, as best we may in brief compass, the proc- ess by which the Christian religion is influencing and is to influence the ideals which men hold and the relations which they sustain to each other in the realm of wealth and industry. Here we have to do with questions of the creation and uses of wealth and questions of social justice growing out of the existence of capital and labor. We shall not attempt even to suggest the many forms in which the social question presents itself, nor shall we attempt to identify Christianity with any of the various political programs or social pana- ceas. There is not room for the former ; there is no justification for the latter. It is none the less the mission of the Christian religion to continue to act upon the social order until it shall become a Chris- tian order, and it shall be our task to try to point out the law by which Christianity is to accomplish this. We know that Jesus has not in any wise undertak- en to forecast or to suggest the form of industrial or- ganization or the methods to be applied in the crea- tion and distribution of wealth. Here, as always, he announces the underlying laws that are to govern the motives and the deeds of men. He offers no hope of social salvation by method alone, but he introduces into the world an ideal and a motive power which he 127 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION expects to be effective in determining method and in shaping rules for the control of all material inter- ests. 1. The Spiritual Ideal of Life The task, then, of Christianity in this field is to spiritualize the uses of the material — that is, to make dominant the spiritual ideal of life. The curse of practical materialism is not in the material things with which men have to deal, but in the unspiritual ideal of life which determines how these things are held. This unspiritual view of life assumes the supremacy of personal desire. It knows no finallaw but that of selfish interest and therefore leads to a course of action unbridled by a recogni- tion of the welfare of others and the will of God. It is this spirit, rather than the object desired, that characterizes the worldly life. It is true that the chief means of gratifying selfish demands are apt to be on the plane of the material and the sensuous. Nevertheless, the supremacy of selfish gratification must be held unspiritual, regardless of the particular mode of gratification. This may easily be shown to be true, whether the immediate gratification be of physical appetites and passions or of the desire for position, wealth, power, influence, or anything else. This view of life does not concern itself with ques- tions of responsibility and opportunities of service. It does not first ask of business or industry how its processes will affect others or whether they will be contributory to the general good. The worldly man is in the fundamental sense an unsocial man. From the viewpoint of the Christian religion he is a sinner, because the law of his life is 128 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH that of selfishness, which is the very core and essence of the nnspiritual and the sinful. He is not of the family of God, because he has not surrendered him- self to do the will of God and knows nothing of the law of devotion to the family and of sacrifice for the common good. Over against this false ideal is the spiritual ideal, which represents the Christian view of life. Accord^ ing to this spiritual view, the only ultimate values are personal. The ultimate fact of existence is per- sonality. The ultimate values are personal charac- ter and the relationships existing between persons. The complete spiritual ideal of life includes 'both of these. That is to say, it is a company of persons of right character, existing in right relation to each oth- er and to the Supreme Person. This is the kingdom of God, whether in this world or in any world. This constitutes the Christian ideal of life. In this kingdom there is one law that harmonizes all and subordinates all to one end. It is the law of the family, which is the law of loving obedience to God and of loving service to our brothers. What- ever interests of the individual may be in conflict with the common good are to be sacrificed to the higher good of the family. It is here that one must lose one's life in order to find it, for only in such sacrifice and identification with the interests of the kingdom does the individual find complete realiza- tion of his own highest life. This is the significance of denial of self and the surrendered will. Personal surrender to Jesus Christ, upon which the Christian religion lays so much emphasis, is here seen to be not only of significance in bringing the individual 9 129 PEOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION into harmony with the divine will, but of social sig- nificance as well. It is, indeed, the essential condi- tion and foundation of a true society, since the ac- ceptance of the will of God and identification with the spirit of Christ alone make possible a real broth- erhood among men. It alone exalts the spiritual in- terests of the family and the will of God in his world of men. These two kingdoms are irreconcilable. In one self is supreme; in the other Jesus Christ is sover- eign. The law of selfishness in the one is the unend- ing source of conflicts, wranglings, envyings, hatred, malice, and strife of every sort. It is the law of the jungle, whether in the Congo or in Wall Street. It leads to the moral chaos of unharmonized person- al interests; to commercial, industrial, and even to international wars. The law of love in the other is the law of the synthesis and of perfect harmony of higher personal interests in the will of God. We shall now attempt to suggest how this spirit- ual ideal of life comes to have a practical bearing and a transforming effect upon the world of wealth and of industry. The relation of wealth to subsist- ence and to a proper share of every man in the re- sources necessary to the complete life and develop- ment of the individual makes these problems of uni- versal and unescapable interest. Here at least, in the demand for a share in the material necessaries of life, all meet on a common footing. Here, in gen- eral, men are more sensitive to their rights and more tempted to invade the rights of others. The strug- gle for material goods has been the chief cause of contention, strife, and wars from the beginning. At 130 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH the same time it has also been the object in almost all human industry. Naturally in this elemental struggle for material things, when the individual has considered only his personal gain or that of his family or class or clan, men have been divided into hostile and warring camps as they have become al- lied with this or that material interest. Likewise they have naturally developed different theories con- cerning property and industry. 2. Christianizing Wealth (1) The use of ivealth. Moral quality inheres neither in riches nor in pov- erty. Wealth must be tested by the use to which it is put, by the relation which the motive in its use sus- tains to the interests of the kingdom. It may be nec- essary, as the soldier girding himself for battle throws aside all impediments, to renounce material possessions, the better to do the work of the king- dom. On the other hand, one may be called to the stewardship of material things. But here Jesus sounds an unmistakable warning. It is possible to make and to use wealth as a trustee for the kingdom in the same spirit that one might regard himself as the trustee of the truth or of any power held in trust for the world. It is possible, because all things are possible with God. But it is extremely diflacult. Nothing so tends to stimulate selfishness and to dry up the warm currents of human sympathy as the possession of riches. Not many are able to resist the temptation to put money before manhood; to forget that they and all that they possess belong to the common family of God, and that their only right 131 PEOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION to it is the right so to hold it. Thus Jesus says: "How hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom!" One may desire to serve God in the stewardship of material things; but let him under- stand its danger and remember that many have lost their souls here and made their lives a curse and not a blessing to the world. Let him who would walk in this way beware that wealth, luxury, power do not usurp the throne of his heart, so that the servant shall try to make way with the master's goods. The Christian law, then, is not to flee from material things, but to master them by the spiritual. But if one be unable to do this, then let him renounce all ; for "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" He who has given his soul for gold is the poorest of the poor and the smallest of the small. The true measure of a man is the measure of his soul and of his service. (2) The acquisition of ivealth. Back of the question of the use of wealth lies that of the manner of its acquisition. No possible use of wealth that has been unjustly acquired can atone for the unrighteousness of its acquisition. To return as a gift or a charity that which is taken by unfairness is to despise honesty and to insult charity. There can be no stewardship of ill-gotten gain. There can be only repentance and restitution. Stewardship of life comes before stewardship of things. "We belong to God" is first. And, second- ly, "All that we possess is his." In accordance with the first principle, the command is: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Material things will be "add- ed" as the proper reward of service, but they are not 132 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH to be the chief consideration. The Christian must invest his life in service to the kingdom. The idea that the business man may concern himself primari- ly about the acquisition of property, provided he give a tenth or even more to the Church, is essen- tially opposed to the spiritual view of life. To en- courage or make compromise with this idea is to continue to build on dust which returns to dust. It is not enough to reply that by the very process- es of acquiring wealth men necessarily render serv- ice to society. It is without question true that a certain service is rendered in many of the processes of acquiring wealth, though by no means in all. But the difference is as wide as the poles between the life that is inspired primarily by the spiritual ideal and that which is actuated by the worldly. The result on society is correspondingly great: one makes for cooperation, mutual helpfulness, and brotherly love, while the other leads to suspicion, conflict, and hatred. 3. Christianizing Industry (1) The industrial question. The application of steam to machinery forced hand workers out of business and at the same time made necessary costly machinery which laborers could not afford to buy. Thus, on the one hand, the laborer was cut off from the opportunity to work in- dependently with his own tools and, on the other, was forced to enter the employment of the factory owner at a wage not based on his earning capacity, but on the willingness of the employer to pay. The only alternative was to starve. There are two very 133 PEOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION far-reaching results of this change in the industrial order, which is known as the "Industrial Revolu- tion." First, the laborer's economic freedom is lost. There is left him no option but to enter the employ- ment of the capitalist, who owns the instruments of industry — that is, the natural resources and the tools of production. Second, with laborers competing with each other for a chance to work, which is a chance to live, the employer is led to base wages, not on earning capacity, but on the necessities of la- bor — that is, to pay the wage at which he can se- cure the laborer whose necessity is greatest. This tends always to become a bare living wage. The re- sult is that often the earnings of labor, over and above this bare subsistence, in addition to the prop- er allowance of profit for the capital invested, go into the pockets of the employer. Meanwhile the laborer has no hope of getting beyond the struggle for existence and the dread of want when sickness or old age shall come or when some circumstance shall deprive him of his job. Vast fortunes are thus accumulated by those who have been skillful enough to acquire or who have inherited the initial capital which gives them control both of the instruments of industry and through these of the labor of their fellow men. To those whose eyes have been fixed on profits and who have seen the vast increase in the production of wealth this system has seemed ideal, and they have not been conscious of any particular social wrong in their business. It has seemed a matter of course that labor should be hired in the cheapest market and goods sold in the highest, and that the profits of 134 THE CHEISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH the business should accrue to the owner of the busi- ness. On the other hand, the laborer, with his eyes fixed on his own loss of economic freedom and his own small returns for toil that he knows to be highly pro- ductive, condemns the system as unjust and cruel. He observes the growing fortune of his employer, which his own toil is helping to augment. He is likewise keenly conscious of his own state of de- pendence and his poverty, from which the system of- fers him no hope of escape. He believes himself to be deprived of the just proportion of his earnings, but he is helpless. He is a victim and a slave of the system. The outcome is a rift in human sympathies and understanding, the industrial chasm across which men stare at each other as enemies. The next step is that each side organizes to defend its supposed rights. The toilers form their labor organizations that together they may not be helpless in the hands of their employers. The employers also combine and form great corporations and associa- tions. The final outcome is that we have to-day la- bor and capital organized into opposing camps and on a nation-wide scale, each struggling for the con- trol of power, each studying and contending for its own interests. It would be easy to illustrate the conscienceless processes by which employers have robbed their helpless employees and the methods by which the toilers have been kept in subjection. On the other hand, instances are not far to seek in which labor organizations have committed acts of violence and have disregarded the rights of others when the power 135 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION seemed to be in their hands. But it does not get us anywhere to point out the wrong that has been com- mitted by capital or by labor. What else is to be expected in industrial war? Rules of war there may be, but these will be broken when it seems expedient for one or the other side to break them. But war at best is violence, advantage, trickery, suspicion, hate. And the supreme condemnation of our pres- ent industrial system as unchristian is in its failure, on the one hand, to establish economic justice and, on the other, in its continual tendency to promote distrust, unbrotherliness, and conflict among men. Is it any wonder that this system of industry, in spite of its wonderful eflSciency in producing wealth, is coming more and more under criticism in view of its human results? The evils of the system are only too apparent. Every advocate of some new panacea of social ills finds it an easy matter to point out these ills and to bring the present industrial system under what seems to be a just condemnation. Ev- ery thoughtful person whose selfish interest or nar- row individualism does not blind him to the future welfare of society must be keenly conscious alike of the wrongs and of the dangers of the present indus- trial situation. But it is one thing to condemn ; it is quite another thing to devise and to introduce a better system. (2) How the Christian religion deals with the in- dustrial question. What answer has Christianity to give to the in- dustrial question? The first answer is that Christianity does not at- tempt to specify the form or system of industrial or- 136 THE CHKISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH ganization. At the same time it does throw the light of a new spirit upon every problem, and it ap- plies the test of a new standard to every system. Manifestly, so long as men's primary concern is for their share in the division of spoils, so long will a system obtain that puts things above people. The money measurement, as the supreme standard of values, necessarily divides men into snarling packs who strive with and destrc^y each other for the spoils. But Christianity insists upon the human, the spiritual tests. It asks of any system or order : Does it provide the best possible conditions under which all the people may realize their fullest life? Does it guard the interest of the weak as well as of the strong? Does it tend to make good men and to help them to become brothers? The human standard of values is the standard of love, which ^^seeketh not its own," but unites men in the bonds of mutual service and sympathetic fellowship and leads to con- fidence and cooperation. The second answer is that Christianity teaches that no system, however perfect in its arrangements, can of itself make good men or create in them the spirit of justice and brotherhood. And no system can be a good system unless it is operated by good men. One group of selfish men may succeed in over- throwing another group of selfish men and in gain- ing what they regard as their rights. But the self- ish group that proves itself the stronger will succeed only in establishing another form of wrong and op- pression. Justice will not originate with the un- just. But the hope of a better world, the hope of victory for justice and human rights, is with those 137 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION who overthrow selfishness by love and who regard duty and justice to others as even more insistent demands upon them than the defense of their own rights. For it may sometimes be right to forego the latter, but one cannot deny or disregard duty to others without violating the highest instincts of the soul. The third answer is that it is the mission of the Christian religion to continue to transform the so- cial order until it shall become a Christian order. It is not enough to satisfy the enlightened con- science of those who realize their social responsibil- ity to say that any order or system in the hands of good men is shorn of its worst features. If the sys- tem is evil, it must be changed. The fact is that in so far as a system is bad it must be assumed to be the expression of the spirit that created it. It would not, therefore, easily become the medium through which a different spirit could manifest it- self, which is to say that in the hands of good men a bad system would have to be transformed to meet the demands of goodness; it would have to become the appropriate medium for the expression of jus- tice and brotherly love. It is precisely this which Christianity is to accomplish. If men who have struggled for gain have created a system which breathes the spirit of its creators and neglects hu- man values, shall not they that struggle for the king- dom of God, for the life of God's humanity, trans- form the system until it shall become the instrument of service and the medium through which the spirit of a new brotherhood may reveal itself ? In so far as society becomes dominated by men 138 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF WEALTH with the spirit of Jesus will practices, methods, and systems become increasingly conformed to the re- quirements of the kingdom of God. For the meth- ods and processes of society will eventually become the organized expression of the inner spirit and ideals of its members. The two processes of making better men and creating a better order in society are not to be separated. They go forward together, each reenforcing the other. But the original and creative dynamic in making better men and a better society is the life of God in the soul of man, by which men come to share in the spirit and likeness of Jesus. Thought duestions 1. How much of life ought to be brought within the realm of the spiritual? 2. What have the Christian people to do with the prob- lems of just wages and the proper conditions of labor? 3. What is to be said of the Church official who, how- ever liberal in his gifts to the Church, makes his money- through the exploitation of the weak and the ignorant? 4. To what extent may we hope that the Christian re- ligion will ultimately solve the problems of industry? 139 CHAPTER IX THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE BIBLIOGKAPHY Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question.* Batten, "The Christian State." Mathews, "The Social Teaching of Jesus." Abbott, "Christianity and Social Problems." King, "Fundamental Questions." Brown, "Is Christianity Practicable?" CHAPTER IX THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE The kingdom of God represents a social ideal and stands for the creation of a new humanity. We are, therefore, clearly within the proper scope of the pro- gram of the Christian religion when we enter upon the consideration of the Christianization of the State. It cannot be fairly held that Jesus is authority for any particular order or theory of government, for he did not undertake to change human life by be- ginning with the reconstruction of its institutions. He distinctly refused to state his ideals of life in terms of outward forms. The Sermon on the Mount illustrates how always he emphasized the inward- ness of the principles of the kingdom. But because he emphasized the fountain source of conduct in the heart, it would be absurd to argue that Jesus dis- regarded conduct itself. It is because, as he him- self was careful to explain, "out of the heart are the issues of life" that he sought to determine those is- sues from within. When, on the other hand, we inquire what there is in the ideal of the kingdom as set forth by Jesus that must sooner or later reach to the State and ef- fect the conception of the functions of the State and the form of political government, then we find our- selves facing no single or merely incidental utter- ance regarding political affairs, but we are confront- ed with the essential teachings of the gospel of the kingdom. 143 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Thus while Jesus began at the opposite pole from that of political reconstruction, his teaching of the supremacy of the kingdom of God was in the end to prove the most revolutionary doctrine ever preached. For he presents a new and an absolute standard of values, a new center of life, and a new object of allegiance. He asserts that the ultimate values are those of personal character and social righteousness. The kingdom of God is a society in which the will of a just and loving Father is the law of its members. And loyalty to this kingdom must be supreme. While, therefore, the Christian reli- gion cannot be said to stand for any particular form of government, the influence of its ideal and spirit inevitably comes to bear upon the State, whatever its form, and tends to change that form into har- mony with its own inner spirit and ideal. It sup- plies the power of an insistent moral ideal that makes for public service and for righteousness in all civic affairs. The answer to the question, "What is the best gov- ernment in any place and at any time?" will depend upon the character of the citizenship. The best form of government, when the great majority are honest Christian men, may be the worst possible form when the control of public affairs is in the hands of corrupt officials and where the sense of civic righteousness and responsibility is weak in the citizenship. Government will doubtless continue to evolve as the spirit of Christ comes more and more to prevail among the people, but the perfect form of government can come only when there is a perfect citizenship. Just in proportion as citizens attain 144 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE the spirit of true brotherhood will the govemment of the State harmonize with the ideals and laws of the kingdom of God. When the question is raised, "How far is it wise to extend government service?" Christianity does not necessarily have to decide with the Socialist, who demands that all instruments of industry shall be owned by the State, or with those on the other ex- treme who object to any further extension of the functions of government. It may be urged that gov- ernment may not undertake this or that public serv- ice because of the opportunity and temptation it will afford for graft or failure through lack of a sense of public responsibility. And such objection may, in- deed, have good ground for the time. But Chris- tianity changes government by changing the hearts of the people. The ultimate question in government, therefore, will not be how to protect the public against the grafter, but how a company of citizens, sincerely desiring to render the largest service to the community or the nation, can best achieve that purpose. Thus we may expect that the State will more and more become the trusted servant of the people as the people come to have the spirit of serv- ice and the sense of public duty. The function of the Christian religion in govem- ment is, therefore, spiritual^ creating ideals that ever enlarge and ennoble the conception of govem- ment and keeping the motive pure and the aim di- rected to the highest service of all the people. It is a dynamic operating to re-create the State in spirit and in form until the form serves the spirit and the spirit is that of the kingdom of God. 10 145 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 1, The Christianization of the State in Community Ideals Here we face immediately one of the most serious problems of American life. Our municipal govern- ment has been notoriously inefficient and corrupt. The political ring that in so many of our cities has organized the ignorant and the vicious elements of the community, catering to the very worst instincts of human nature and intrenching itself behind ram- parts of a venal electorate on the one hand and the graft of the powerful interests on the other, is per- haps the most conspicuous disgrace in our American civilization and constitutes a challenge to the Chris- tian citizenship to destroy it, root and branch. When vile men are exalted to positions of responsibility, when young men are led to think that the way of promotion is through courting the support of the corrupt gang, when business men seek to further their own interests by joining the system that fat- tens by favoring its supporters, then indeed is the very foundation of public morals decayed and or- ganized corruption become a menace to public wel- fare. To the Christian the most humiliating aspect of this corruption in community affairs must be that it has existed side by side with a vast array of Church organizations and with a Church membership so large as to be able to control the affairs of local gov- ernment whenever its entire strength should be unit- ed. Yet it is fair to say that the public who believe in honest, clean government are in the majority, even when the corrupt element is in control, and 146 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE that there is latent moral energy enough in almost any community to assume control, if it be but aroused, organized, and intelligently directed. Two things are necessary. First, there must he an aioakening of the civic conscience on the part of the Christian community. The Christian people must be educated to understand their responsibility for the community welfare. Indifference at this point must be seen to be, what it is in fact, immoral and unchristian. And the energies of an awakened Christian conscience must be directed to the over- throw of iniquity and to the establishment of right- eousness in the civic life of the people. Nothing is more needed from the pulpit to-day than a ringing message on the obligations of Christian citizenship. Indifference to civic unrighteousness is indifference to the kingdom of God. Second, there is need for the leadership in civiG affairs of the best and most capable Christian men in the community. It is not enough that Christian people should desire to vote right. They must be led right. Here is where the sheep have been so of- ten left to the wolves. Those who ought to have been protectors and leaders of the people have not been willing to make the sacrifice of time and of business interest necessary to oppose the political corruptionists. They have not considered it a pub- lic duty to stand for public office, especially when private business has been more lucrative. Men whose influence has been necessary to overthrow the corrupt organization have been too cowardly to risk the possible injury to their own business. One of the most disheartening things in some communities 147 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAK RELIGION is to see men promment in Church affairs thus indi- rectly supporting public iniquity because they are so involved in business with the existing order of things that they are no longer morally independent and lack the courage to stand up for clean, right- eous government, regardless of consequences. The great need of the Christian Church to-day is for a new company of martyrs — those who bear witness to the truth, not by shedding their blood in its defense, but by jeopardizing their business and suffering the loss of all things, if necessary, in order that right- eousness may prevail. It would be unfair to end this discussion of com- munity government here. There is the bright side also. The battle has been fought and won for right- eousness in many local communities where the Christian people are awake to their civic duty. More and more the local government in such communities is coming to reflect the Christian spirit of service and of consideration for the physical and moral well-being of all the people. Even where the battle has not been won the fight is on, and the word has gone forth that it shall not cease until righteous- ness prevails. Christians are turning from a one- sided, individualistic faith to see that the gospel has also its social bearing. They are beginning to see that the Church cannot save the world when the Christian people refuse to become the leaven that transforms the world, and that an organized iniqui- ty in the form of community government may do more to debauch and ruin a city than all the Church- es can do to save it. It is for this reason that the people of the Church- 148 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE es Iiave declared that their government shall not participate in the iniquity of the saloon and in the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. And it is because they are awake to the enormity of this evil that this traffic is doomed. It is for this reason that the unspeakable shame of the participation of our cities in the growth of the social evil is being brought to light, and public conscience cannot hence- forth be satisfied until city governments have been purged of this iniquity. It is because the people of moral conscience are awake to their civic duty and because the spirit of Christ is spreading abroad that citizens are organizing to make local government Christian in rendering a just and helpful service to the community and in furthering everything that makes for the fuller and richer life of the people. WJien the government in our local communities shall have been Christianized^ another long step will have heen taken in demonstration of the power of Chris- tianity to undergird the moral life of the world and to make actual the kingdom and family of God in the earth. 2. The Christianization of National Ideals We have already noted the influence of Christiani- ty in revolutionizing governments and in making the State responsive to the growth of Christian ideals. It is not claimed that Christianity is the only influ- ence making for democracy ; but the powerful influ- ence of the Christian religion can undoubtedly be traced in many of the great national uprisings in behalf of popular government, and this even when a 149 PROGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Church dominated by the State has been found in opposition to liberal movements. When we turn to our own national government, we find much in the spirit of our Constitution and in the general ideals that underlie our national in- stitutions that is truly representative of the Chris- tian religion. The circumstances under which our national government was founded and the men who laid its foundations are the reasons. The American government was the outcome of a long struggle for freedom of conscience and political liberty, and the men who builded the framework of our national gov- ernment were sincerely desirous of building it so as to safeguard the rights of all the people and to serve the true ends of public welfare. The American people have cause to be gratified at the high type of men who have filled the first oflSce in the government. In the main, we have learned to expect honest service in the administration of government affairs and impartial treatment at the hands of the courts. Our legislative branch of gov- ernment has perhaps commanded less general confi- dence, since here has been felt the strongest pull of special interests. Here is where corrupt local gov- ernment, through its representative, becomes a men- ace to the general government. Here is where gov- ernment representatives are made most strongly to feel the influence of local constituencies, and hence it is in our legislative halls that national interests are constantly imperiled by the selfish demand of private corporations and of corrupt or narrow local communities. The Christianization of the national government 150 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE is thus tied up with the Christianizatlon of the local government. The Christian ideal requires that pri- vate and local interests he subordinated to the gen- eral good. It demands likewise that a man he a- Christian hefore he he a Repuhlican, a Democrat, a Progressive, or a Socialist, That is to say, while Christianity does not undertake to decide between honest political differences, it does require that Christian citizens shall place the good of the nation and the service of all the people above mere party loyalty if the one comes into conflict with the other. This is only another application of the doctrine of supremacy of the kingdom of God. It is as immoral to make the interest of a political party supreme as it is to give the first place to the interest of a cor- poration or of an individual. Once more we must remind ourselves that the government will not rise above its source in the ideals and character of the people. The Christianizatlon of national govern- ment will keep pace with the Christianizatlon of the nation, while the weakness and the sins of the peo- ple will continue to be reflected in the government. 3. Christianizing International Ideals and Eelationships In speaking of the brutality and horrible results of the great world war and its breaking down of na- tional morals and international ideals. Dr. Henry Churchill King says: "If a man estimates that toll and still thinks it is to be taken as a matter of course that a like war should soon occur and that its sole and chief lesson for a nation is the building up of huge armaments, he thereby proclaims himself an 151 PROGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION enemy of mankind."^ In the face of this existing reign of terror in so large a part of the nominally Christian world, this situation that we cannot dis- regard in the discussion of this subject if we would, what has Christianity to say? Must we here sur- render the ideal of the kingdom of God to the pow- ers of evil and of brute force and join the chorus of those who have been quick to cry out, "Christianity has failed"? Must we surrender henceforth all hope of the world in which righteousness and brotherly love are to triumph and build our hope henceforth on the deification of material force? or are we pre- pared to take our stand with Dr. King in the asser- tion that to hold this position is to proclaim our- selves enemies of mankind ? This is not the place to discuss the specific causes and issues of the worst of all wars. But the propor- tions of this world tragedy need not cause us to hes- itate to reafiSrm our confidence in the changeless ideals and laws of the kingdom of God. No impar- tial student of history will hold that the ideals and spirit of the Christian religion are in any sense re- sponsible for the war. The most that can be said is that Christianity failed to prevent it. But this is enough to force us to ask : "Why did it fail to pre- vent it?" So far from being a question that we must face with despair, this question has latent within it the suggestion of the answer and the promise that Chris- tianity shall not always fail in international af- fairs. It would never occur to any one to ask why ** 'Fundamental Questions/' King, pp. 214, 215. 152 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE the religions that prevailed in Europe before the coming of Christianity did not soften the warlike tendencies of the people. On the contrary, these re- ligions fostered the ideals and spirit of war. But the suggestion that Christianity has failed to pre- vent war is a frank recognition that whatever mor- al power there is in Christianity is on the side op- posing the order of things that seems for the time to be triumphant in the earth. Why do people feel so strongly to-day that war between nations is ab- normal? Why the growing conviction that justice between nations and mutual regard of rights are both possible and to be expected? And why this point- ing at the present time to Christianity's failure to realize this ideal among the nations if not because of the tacit admission of all that Christianity has been the supreme source of these growing ideals of peace and of the federation of the nations? Why point to Christianity at this hour if it is not the Christian religion that has given men those very ideals of international good will which as yet have not become dominant in the world ? What we are considering here is not simply the cessation of war between nations, but the establish- ment of the principles of international righteous- ness, which alone will make peace possible. To ex- alt the ideal of peace while disregarding the de- mands of righteousness is neither Christian nor hon- orable. In trying to suggest in part the answer to the question why Christianity has not yet been able to prevent war, we are forced to the conclusion that Christianity has not so far transformed the ideals 153 PEOGKAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION and laws that govern nations in their relations to each other. It is not enough to say that a large proportion of the population, even in the so-called Christian countries, are not Christians and that the counsel of these has prevailed in international af- fairs. Candor compels us to recognize the fact that Christian ideals regarding the State have not been generally held among Christian people. This need not seem strange when we remember the evils that have grown out of a purely individualistic interpre- tation of Christianity. When we have seen consci- entious men calling Jesus Lord, trusting in him for salvation, and yet wholly at ease in the midst of the reign of all manner of evil in their local communi- ty, for which by their negligence they were responsi- ble, we need not be surprised that the same blindness to the wider implications of the gospel has kept men from seeing that the requirements of the kingdom of God are as absolute in the relations that exist be- tween nations as in those that exist between individ- uals. Speaking of the civilization of the future. Dr. King says truly : "No small part of the horror of the present war and its most threatening danger have grown out of the utterly pagan theory that nations were above morality and not responsible to God. The new civilization we may trust, therefore, will be a humble and a repentant civilization." Here, then, we are dealing with a realm of ideals that have never been Christianized. The gods that made war still make war, and the nations in the name of Chris- tianity are still imploring their national deities. For the doctrine of the supremacy of national inter- 154 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE ests, with disregard of national responsibility, must be held as fundamentally immoral and just as essen- tially opposed to the spirit and ideals of the Chris- tian religion as is that of the exaltation of the self- ish interest of the individual or clan or party in op- position to the wider rights and welfare of humanity. The permanence of world peace must be laid in what Nicholas Murray Butler has called "the inter- national mind/' which he defines as "nothing else than the habit of thinking of foreign relations and business and that habit of dealing with them which regards the several nations of the civilized world as friendly and cooperating equals in aiding the prog- ress of civilization, in developing commerce and in- dustry, and in spreading enlightenment and culture throughout the world." But the basis of this inter- national mind is to be laid in those conceptions of the dignity and worth of all men as sons of God and in the sense of justice and brotherly love for which the Christian religion stands. It is to be laid in the consciousness of men who have come to know the mind and spirit of Jesus Christ and who hold them- selves citizens of the world, daring to stand for the supremacy of the kingdom of God. Nationalism, untempered by the spirit of justice and fairness toward other nations, stands in antago- nism to any ideal and hope of a brotherhood of the nations and in hostility to any rational basis for permanent world peace. For it cannot be that in an age of world life and of the complex interplay of world interests nations can live together in peace when the law of national selfishness and disregard of national obligations is regnant among them. 155 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION But let us turn our faces to the dawn. In the midst of the deepest darkness there are signs of the daybreak. The passion for peace founded on right- eousness was never so strong. Even in the midst of the all-but-unprecedented violation of national rights there has never been such a rapid sweep of public thought in the direction of the necessity for international justice and the development of such concern for the common interest of the entire world as there has been in recent months. It would seem that God is opening the eyes of the nations to under- stand that he means to build a kingdom whose foun- dations are laid in righteousness and into which all peoples are to be gathered. We must remember, too, that while Christian ideals have not been dominant in international mat- ters, there have been many Christian statesmen and multitudes of Christian people who have long be- lieved in the application of Christian principles to all questions of the State, local, national, and inter- national. As for America, the following quotations, which are representative of the best type of Ameri- can statesmanship, are given as indicating the prog- ress that has already been made toward the Chris- tianization of American ideals of national and inter- national relations and as an earnest of the day when these ideals shall rule in the councils of the nation. At the third Pan-American Conference, held in Rio de Janeiro July 31, 1906, Mr. Root, then our Secretary of State, declared : We wish for no victories but those of peace, for no territory except our own, for no sovereignty except the sovereignty of ourselves. We deem the Inde- 156 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE STATE pendence and equal rights of the smallest and weak- est member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guarantee of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. President Wilson has repeatedly, and most con- spicuously in his great address to Congress on April 2, 1917, affirmed the principle of national duties as well as national rights. On that occasion he said : We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among the nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized States. We have further gratification in that these prin- ciples, as set forth by Mr. Root and Mr. Wilson, have not infrequently been acted upon by the American government, as, for instance, in the return of the Boxer indemnity fund, and that they have been in- sisted upon in the Hague Conference and elsewhere. As illustrating the advance of the American ideal toward an unequivocal Christian position, there is added below the formal action on January 6, 1916, of the American Institute of International Law, con- sisting of representatives of each of the American republics : Every nation has the right to exist and to pro- tect and to conserve its existence; but this right nei- ther implies the right nor justifies the act of the State to protect itself or to conserve its existence 157 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION by the commission of unlawful acts against innocent and unoffending States. Every nation has the right to independence in the sense that it has a right to the pursuit of happiness and is free to develop itself without interference or control from other States ; provided, that in so doing it does not interfere with or violate the rights of oth- er States. Every nation is, in law and before law, the equal of every other nation belonging to the society of na- tions; and all nations have the right to claim and, according to the Declaration of Independence of the United States, ^^to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them." Every nation has the right to territory within de- fined boundaries and to exercise exclusive jurisdic- tion over its territory and all persons, whether na- tive or foreign, found therein. Every nation entitled to a right by the law of na- tions is entitled to have that right respected and protected by all other nations; for right and duty are correlative, and the right of one is the duty of all to observe. International law is at one and the same time both national and international : national in the sense that it is the law of the land and aijplicable as such to the decision of all questions involving its princi- ples; international in the sense that it is the law of the society of nations and applicable as such to all questions between and among the members of the society of nations involving principles. The Christian religion continues the insistent and inspiring source of these ideals of international righteousness, and we have reason to hope that the principles already held by the foremost Christian statesmen of the world shall some day become opera- tive in the councils of the nations. 158 CHAPTER X TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION BIBLIOGRAPHY Coe, "Education in Religion and Morals." Atkins, "The Kingdom in the Cradle." Chappell, "Building the Kingdom." Faunce, "The Educational Ideal in the Ministry." Home, "Psychological Principles of Education." Coe, "The Spiritual Life." Barclay, "The Pupil, the Teacher, and the School." Cope, "The Modem Sunday School and Its Present- Day Task." Faunce, "What Does Christianity Mean?" CHAPTER X TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION In the effort thus far to suggest the outlines of the program of the Christian religion the thought has constantly been kept in view that this is not a formal but a vital program. It is the Christian reli- gion at work in the world, going forth into all lands and affecting human life at every point, in every manner of its being and of its expression. The end is the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God. We have been trying to study Christianity on its way to this end. This has necessarily involved a discussion of the field or scope of its activity, whether in its be- ginnings among non-Christian people, in its creation of the Christian community and its gradual trans- formation of a people; whether in its effect on the individual, the family, industry and business, the State, or on the whole of human society. In discussing in this chapter the training of the coming generation we have under consideration the supreme opportunity and the most important means of bringing the race under the influence and power of the Christian religion. It is the supreme opportunity in this, that we are dealing with human life in its beginnings, when the heart of childhood is open to influences both good and bad and when interests, ideals, choices, habits, and character are being determined. It is the form- ative period of life, in which whatever forces or ideals enter into the life strengthen and grow with 11 161 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION the growth of the life. It is the opportunity to work with the expanding powers of the soul in stimulating and nourishing the higher and subordinating the lower. Here the race is responsive to the truth, and here it may be led into all truth. This supreme op- portunity stands over against the diminishing op- portunity in later years, when the heart, already oc- cupied with alien interests and affections, is no lon- ger open and easily responsive to new influences; when character has taken its set ; when the old must be broken up before the new can be implanted — the period calling for re-formation. Here all experience goes to show that the few may be rescued, while the many will continue as they are. It is the most important means of Christianizing the race, because it makes the fullest use of those laws according to which knowledge is acquired, ideals are formed, conduct is determined. It would be more correct to say that education represents the only complete and efficient means by which the char- acter of the race is to be changed in any given direc- tion, because it is the only means that can possibly bring any ideal fully to bear upon the whole life of any generation. This is not in any sense in opposition to the state- ment, reiterated in this volume, that the progress of the kingdom is by means of the re-creative power of the Spirit of God transforming first human hearts and then human society. The two statements are essential parts of a larger whole. Education may he thought of as the cooperation of the teacher with the inner forces of life and power. The disciples, sent forth to teach, were in no wise to supplant di- 162 TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION vine influences, but to cooperate with them and to give them practical direction. The more effective the work of the disciples, the larger would be the oppor- tunity of the Divine Spirit. In all that is said, therefore, regarding education it must be under- stood that the supreme formative power is God. But the question that concerns us is, how most ef- fectively to cooperate with God, how most effective- ly to bring the truth to bear upon the lives of men. There are laws of child nature and child growth and development that are as truly God's laws as are the laws written in the Decalogue or in the revolution of the planets. It is only by obeying these laws that the teacher can bring the child into the fullest under- standing and appropriation of the truth. It is only in obedience to these laws that the gospel can be truly preached or taught, and only thus does God have the opportunity to accomplish his full purposes within. The education that we are talking about, then, is not a substitute for the life of God in the soul ; it is continuous and obedient cooperation with this inner life to the end that there may be the most complete spiritual development of the child. This religious life which feeds upon the truth and grows by expression in obedience to the truth is the gracious possession of the little child, not in its full- ness, but germinant; "for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven." But this life may be neglect- ed until the heart shall become dead and unrespon- sive to the will and to the love of God. To such as have reached this state the words of Jesus come with unabated force : "Except ye turn and become as lit- tle children, ye shall in no wise enter into the king- 163 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION dom of heaven." But no greater wrong can be done the child than to deny its right within the king- dom, a right so explicitly safeguarded by Jesus him- self. The continuous development of this religious life is vastly more important than the special or sporadic efforts in the revival to bring the individual back to what he has lost. These special efforts are neces- sary in order to reach those who have drifted away, as well as to intensify the religious interest of all.^ But this method must not be depended upon as the chief means nor made a substitute for the more far- reaching and thoroughgoing process of nourishing and training the life in Christ Jesus during each stage of its development. Nor must the process of religious education be thought of as in any sense less spiritual than the revival. The revival is primarily remedial, while education is primarily constructive. For this reason educa- tion in religion must be the chief means of saving the world. After the plastic years of youth few men are converted, and even during the plastic years the revival never succeeds in making up for the awful waste of young life through our neglect of education from the cradle up. Our one first-class chance at men is during their years of growth. The progress of the kingdom depends primarily upon our secur- ing control of more and more children and educating them right. Failing to do this, we can never by any possible means catch up with our task.^ ^See Atkins's "The Kingdom In the Cradle," pp. 68-72. 'George Albert Coe, "Education in Religion and Morals," p. 395. 164 TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION 1. The Christian View of Keligious Education (1) The goal of education. Any intelligent view of education must include an educational goal. The goal may conceivably vary from the acquisition of skill in the performance of some particular act or work, or the mastery of cer- tain subjects, all the way to the total outcome in the character, personality, and powers of the man. It is unnecessary to enter into a discussion of the vari- ous theories of education in order to set forth the central goal from the Christian point of view. This is determined by the Christian view of life. Profes- sor Coe is unquestionably right when he says : "Edu- cation cannot accept as its end anything less than the highest destiny that man is capable of." And, again ; "According to our conception of the meaning of life, then, will be our conception of education."^ The Christian view of life, as has already been point- ed out, is spiritual—that is, it is concerned with the fulfillment of the personal life in its relations with God and man. It is concerned with the outcome in character, not in any isolated individualistic sense, but in that development of the potentialities of the soul that results in both the will and the pow- er to serve men and, above all, in the realization of life's highest unity and fulfillment in fellowship with God and the power of joyous obedience to his will. This is nothing more nor less than the realized self in the universe of God, the man come to his di- vinely appointed destiny in the kingdom of God. •"Education in Religion and Morals," pp. 20, 21. 165 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (2) The Christian view of education determined hy the Christian conception of character. The Christian view of education is not different from all other theories of education in having a goal or even in insisting that this goal is character. The uniqueness of the Christian point of view is in its ideal of character, in the Christian interpretation of life. It has, in fact, become a commonplace nowa- days among educators that all true education aims at character. And so far, so good. But this theory will be just as faulty or just as adequate as is one's theory of life and character. The Christian view of education has the advantage over all other concep- tions of education in so far as the Christian view of life and of character is superior to all others. It has the superiority that grows out of Jesus's revela- tion of the worth and destiny of the individual. It refuses to interpret education, as it refuses to inter- pret any question of human life, in terms of a tempo- rary end or a mere means to an end, whether that be eflSciency, material success, learning, or culture. It insists upon an interpretation of the complete man as set forth in the life and teachings of Jesus. Thus, for instance, if the idea of eflSciency in education is suggested as the goal, we may answer with Bishop Atkins: "The complete education of every man makes the most efifective agency for the doing of all the things that are to be done in the world and leaves above all mere achievement the fully developed man as an end in himself and forever."* If the idea of *From an address of Bishop James Atkins, delivered at the laying of the corner stone of Dallas Hall, Southern Methodist University, November 27, 1912. 166 TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION education for the promotion of learning is suggested, we may reply that true education is indeed learning, but learning through and in relation to living; and this living is the whole life of the man, both in this world and in the world to come. The Christian view of life, then, calls for the con- scious control of the educative process to the end that the Christian ideal may be realized in the life of the boy or girl. Christian education is thus "an effort to assist immature persons to realize them- selves and their destinies as persons,"^ destiny being understood in the Christian sense. (3) The place of religion in education. Professor Welton states a well-established princi- ple when he says : "Religion is the only sure basis mankind has ever found for the moral life of the community."^ It is the only sure basis that has ever been found for the control of conduct and the under- girding of character. This is so because its appeal is to ultimate realities. No rule of expediency or re- quirement of custom is sufficient to enlist and to command all the powers of the soul. It is only when a man believes that the moral law is of the very structure of the universe, that it has its source in a personal God, from whom and whose laws there can be no escape, that these laws assume the place of rightful and unquestioned supremacy in the life. Here morality becomes religious, because it becomes a matter of personal relation to God ; and here reli- gion gives the needed strength to morality. ^"Education in Religion and Morals." «"What Is Education?" Welton, p. 57. 167 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION This leads us to a consideration of the relation of the religious interest to the complete life. Religion is the organizing principle in the complete education- al process. If education is to result in the complete man, with powers developed and unified in the high- est character, it is evident that those powers must be developed under the guidance of some unifying principle that makes for such character. Interest governs attention and is essential to the develop- ment of the mind in any particular direction. There may be interest in art, music, mathematics, lan- guage, science, history, etc.; and interest is neces- sary to progress in any of these subjects. Yet one might conceivably be more or less separately inter- ested in one or more of these subjects and not relate his knowledge to an^^ unified view of life nor find his powers developing into strong, consistent character. Psychology teaches us that there is a law of inter- est by which an ultimate or superior interest may govern immediate or subordinate interests. Thus the man who buys a farm with the single thought of making a living becomes interested in the nature of the soil, the character and the development of the crops, and in market conditions — in fact, in a hun- dred things that did not concern him before. The law holds true in any field of activity that a man's business interest will give interest and unity to what might otherwise be meaningless and of no concern to him. If this is true, it must be evident that one's su- preme interest, that which constitutes the goal and meaning of existence, will, more than anything else, determine th3 interest and the value of all knowledge and all experience. Now, religion is that interest 168 TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION which alone is concerned with life as a whole. It has to do with the ultimate facts of being and the su- preme values of the soul. Herein is involved not only a man's belief regarding God, but also his hopes regarding himself and all that he holds dear. Here is the basis of his confidence in the universe and in the future. Here alone is an interest that can com- prehend all interests of life and give to all its proper worth and significance. The man in whom this in- terest has been properly developed will see all things in its light, while his powers will be directed and or- ganized by this controlling interest. Religion is, therefore, not an adjunct to education nor one of the important subjects in education ; it be- longs to man as man, and there can be no true edu- cation of the man as such in which religion is not the central and organizing principle. We may as well talk about a complete education that omits in- tellectual training as about a complete education that disregards the religious nature of man. "Reli- gion is not brought to the school as a new piece of furniture, to be thrust into a room already crowd- ed. It comes into the crowded room as the sun- light, revealing the meaning and value of all that was there before.'"" Professor Coe says : "Whatever religion may have been to early man and whatever it may be to other civilizations than our own, to us it is an all-inclusive, all-commanding principle, the very stuff that human life is made of, or it is nothing at all. Consequently for us religious education is ''Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, In an address published by the Religious Education Association, 1904, p. 77. 169 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION simply education in the complete sense of that term, or else it is not education, but mere special train- ing."s The existence of the religious nature calls for the Christian training of the religious nature. This na- ture is innate in every man. But every man is reli- gious in the sense that every man is intellectual. The capacity is one thing; its development is quite another thing. The intellect may be starved, and the man may be ignorant. Likewise the religious nature may be starved and the man grow up with no conception of God or with crude and perverted thoughts of Deity. If religion is neglected, the soul becomes at war with itself, swept now this way, now that by conflicting impulses, each striving for the mastery. If the religious nature is developed by be- ing fed on degraded conceptions of God and pervert- ed views of life, it may become a tremendous force, but one that makes for a narrow life and a thin soul, and will fail utterly in bringing that soul to a com- pleteness of character in right relation to God and man. But if it is developed by a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, by coming to know God as re- vealed through him, by the acceptance of the Chris- tian view of life, then will the religious power be- come effective in organizing life and shaping it to- ward the highest destiny and character. Herein is the twofold power of the Christian reli- gion in education : First, that the Christian religion lays hold of and calls forth energies that are latent within the soul ; and, secondly, that it is from above ^''Education in Religion and Morals," p. 29. 170 TEAINING THE COMING GENERATION and reveals the highest to the soul. In other words, the capacity of the human heart for response to the highest and the appeal of the Christian religion in offering the highest appeal are counterparts. There- in is the strongest proof that both have the same source and that Christianity is God's answer to the deepest cry of the soul. Christianity is the most complete answer to the religious demands of life and offers the only adequate goal for education. This brings us back to our starting point in this chapter — namely, that in carrying out the program of the Christian religion the supreme opportunity and most important means are in training the com- ing generation under the influence of the Christian truth and the spirit of the living Christ. In closing this chapter there are several corolla- ries that must be set down, even if very briefly : (a) Because the Christian training of the religious nature offers the supreme opportunity and most im- portant means of making a Christian world, it con- stitutes the first and most outstanding obligation upon the Christian Church in its task of trying to realize the program of the Christian religion. (6) The Church, and not the State, is the custo- dian of the Christian faith, and it is her peculiar mission to minister to the religious needs of life and to teach and to interpret the Christian truth. The most urgent call to the Church to-day is to give her- self to this task with eager realization of its signifi- cance for the kingdom and as offering the largest opportunity to build the moral and spiritual founda- tions of the city of God. (c) Any educational system that neglects the reli- 171 PKOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION gious nature is not only incomplete, but, if standing alone, cannot merit the name of education. We may not, therefore, regard the public school system of America, from which religious instruction and train- ing are distinctly excluded, as in itself in any sense a complete educational system. If, therefore, reli- gion is not to wane and character to fail of adequate foundations in American life, this system must be completed by supi)lying elsewhere that which is con- spicuously lacking in the State program. If Chris- tianity is to be established in the hearts of the peo- ple and in the conscience of the nation, then the Christian training of the religious nature must be provided for, and so fully provided for that it shall become the vital and organizing principle in that en- tire educational process by which assistance is given to immature persons to realize their highest destiny in character and in completeness of life here and for- ever. (d) The Sunday school has become the school of the nation and the agency of the Church for the work of religious education. Aside from the home, it sup- plies the only means left for the religious educa- tion of the vast majority of children. As Prof. H. H. Home points out : ^'The Sunday school is the one in- stitution in American life whose avowed purpose is to teach religious truth."^ There ought^ therefore, to be mutual recognition and cooperation on the part of the day school and the Sunday school. While the State and the Church *Horne, "The Psychological Principles of Education/' p. 402. 172 TRAINING THE COMING GENERATION will properly continue separate in operation and con- trol, it is necessary to the best interest of both that they frankly recognize that in education they are dealing with the same child. The child has one life, and not two. The public school and the Sunday school are in reality counterparts of one system, so far as the child is concerned. It is, therefore, impor- tant that each should view the child in the entirety of its needs. This in no sense means dictation or interference on the part of the State in the work committed to the Church, nor of the Church in State affairs. But it does mean an open avowal on the part of the State that religion is necessary in education and that the Church is called to do the work of religious education. And it does mean on the part of the Church that the best-known educa- tional processes shall be made use of in religious ed- ucation and that the Church shall give such serious attention to religious education that religion shall be assured its rightful place in an educational sys- tem that undertakes to make provision for the whole life of the boys and girls of America. It means nothing more than that Church and State shall somehow coordinate their efforts with first refer- ence to the requirements of the undivided and total life of the pupil, but we can be content with nothing Thought Questions 1. Will the world ever be saved so long as the Churches place chief emphasis on adult evangelism? 2. Why must education be made Christian if the world is ever to be won to Christ? 3. Which is more faulty, a system of education that 173 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION omits all study of national history, or one that omits all elements of religious training? 4. Can you conceive of any way by which a nation's doom may more surely be sealed than by eliminating the religious from the training of its boys and girls? 5. What imperative responsibility rests upon the Church in America, in view of the exclusion of religious training from State education? 174 CHAPTER XI THE PLACE AND WORK OF THE ORGANIZED CHURCH BIBLIOGRAPHY Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order." Ward, "Social Creed of the Churches." Ward, "A Yearbook of the Church and Social Service in the United States." Gladden, "The Church and the Kingdom." Brown, "Is Christianity Practicable?" CHAPTER XI THE PLACE AND WORK OF THE ORGANIZED CHURCH We have been studying Christianity at work in the world, transforming human hearts, establishing itself in the family life, creating new centers of spir- itual power through the establishment of Christian communities in non-Christian lands, and finally sending out its influence to affect the general at- mosphere of thought and conscience. We have seen that this aggressive and revolutionary energy of the Christian religion does not leave any human inter- est outside the field of its influence, but sooner or later comes to bear upon all the relationships which men sustain to each other. Thus the problem of the State, of wealth, of industry, of recreation, of education, and everything that constitutes any part of the complex social life of humanity, is a problem with which the Christian religion must have to do, since it is a human problem and therefore an essen- tial phase of the total task of the creation of the kingdom of God. 1. The Necessity of Organization How, then, is Christianity to be propagated in the world ? How is it to be extended to all parts of the earth and to all phases of human life? How is it to make its conquest of the hearts of men and change their motive and the manner of their lives, whether they act as individuals or in groups, whether in di- 12 177 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION . rect personal relations or through the indirect and complex institutions or system of organized socie- ty? Here is the reason for the Church. No cause will permanently advance apart from a distinct agency to promote it. The Church is the guardian, the bearer, the interpreter and teacher of the Chris- tian religion. It is not itself identical with the king- dom of God, but exists to establish that kingdom. The Church is not to take over the functions of the family, of industry, or of the State ; but it is to seek to make Christian all of these and to make each a harmonious part of a new humanity. The truth does not live among men until it becomes incarnate. We have the written Gospels and the teachings of the apostles; but, essential as these have been to the spread of Christianity in the world, they have been secondary to the truth palpitating in the hearts of believers, those who have had the mind and spirit of their Master. Here is where Jesus left his message, and here is where it will ever appear as light and power to transform the world. The Christian Church is the company of the dis- ciples of Jesus joined together for the furtherance of his gospel in the earth. It is an organization of human beings to carry out a divine plan, to make actual the ideal of the kingdom of God in the world. Its methods and its form of organization are inci- dental and ever-changing. Its particular task and form of message may vary from time to time, and its apprehension of the truth may be incomplete and sometimes distorted ; but it has ever the same Lord, the same undying faith in his power to save, the same union with him in life and work. It is heir to 178 THE ORGANIZED CHURCH the message and the mission of the first disciples to teach all nations. To it has been committed the light of the ages, the truth of a holy ideal for human- ity. And that truth, as a searchlight, the Church is to throw upon the life of the world ; and as it falls on human hearts and customs and institutions, these all are to be revealed in the light of that ideal which is at once to become the condemnation of the false and the revelation of the true. The Church is thus to show forth the will of God as it is seen in Christ and apprehended by those whose supreme joy it is to do his will. It is set to keep the light of a new hope and love burning forever on the altar of human hearts and casting its warmth and glow into every dark spot and corner of the earth. Its task is the Christianization of the world. 2. The Church at the Center The Church, conceived as the body of believers in Christ united to do his will in the world, is the ra- diating center of a new light and the source of a re- generating power in human society. That light and that power came into the world through Jesus Christ, and he has established his Church that through it he may continue to enlighten and to transform the world. Thus the Church is to be at the center of a new order as the fountain through which the water of life springs up and overflows into the world. All are to drink of its life-giving stream ; its influence is to be felt alike in the soul alone with its God and in the hearts of men as they mingle with their fellows. It is to be the organized agency for the propagation of the Christian message and the 179 PEOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION realization of the Christian program. It will ac- cordingly reach to the whole of life and concern itself with every human interest and activity, be- cause it stands for the reign of a divine order in all human affairs. It is apparent that other institutions besides the Church will work for the kingdom. The fact is that all institutions, in proportion as they become Chris- tian, will become contributory to this end. We have already seen that the Christian family is the very citadel of the kingdom and the gateway through which the advancing young life of the world should find entrance into the kingdom. So far as the State is Christian does it promote justice and mercy and help onward the kingdom of love. So, too, must it be in the field of wealth and industry — these must be made contributory to righteousness and to the broth- erhood of the family of God. Above all will educa- tion, when it has become truly Christianized, be joined with the home in preserving and extending the divine kingdom. But in and through all of these the Church lives and works to infuse the spirit of Jesus Christ and to transform them from alien to allied forces in hastening the triumphant kingdom of her Lord. Its function is to tring the gospel into the lives of men and into the life of the loorld. The Church is, indeed, more than the bearer of a body of teachings and the prophet of a new social ideal ; it is designed to be the human doorway through which men enter the life that is hid with Christ in God and see all things new. Its mission is to bring men into vital union with God, that they may go forth in 180 THE ORGANIZED CHURCH verity sons of their Heavenly Father and with the power of a new love for all men. 3. The Church in Relation to the State and to the Social Order At the risk of repeating what has already been said, it may be in the interest of clearness to state somewhat more fully the relation of the Church to the State and to the social order in general. The State has not to do essentially with the crea- tion of ideals, but with the enactment and execution of laws representing existent ideals and standards. In a democracy the State presumably represents the present will of the majority of the people, though, as a matter of fact, what the State does is necessarily a result of a compromise of views. But in the main it expresses the present status of society as a whole ; it stands for things as they are, a present practical order. On the other hand, the Church stands for an ideal order. Its goal is on ahead. It looks forward to the establishment of a new democracy of broth- ers, built upon the foundation of justice, truth, and love. The Church awaits the time when the State Itself, performing its proper part in this new democ- racy, shall be governed by these principles. Without attempting to assume the functions of the State, the Church will continue to transform the State by hold- ing up Christian ideals before those who constitute its citizens and by subjecting the State itself to the test of Christian standards. The Church pushes from within with the creative power of life, break- ing the shell of the old and making it necessary that the growing social organism shall find a civic exte- 181 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION rior in keeping with its expanding life and its new ideals and character. The progress of collective so- ciety will ever bring to the front new questions for civic settlement. It is the duty of the Church, not to make the laws of the State nor decide upon the de- tails of legislation, but to test these questions of the times by the eternal standards of morality and to in- sist that there shall be no final settlement of these questions until they shall be settled in a way that squares with the requirements of the gospel of Christ. But the State is only a form of social expression, while the social order embraces everything that has to do with the corporate life of the people. Within this corporate life the Church exists to exalt the Christ of a new humanity and to be the inspirer and revealer of a new world. Its function is to make Christ live among men. Jesus came eating and drinking and mingling with men as a brother of men, that through this intimacy he might become their Saviour. The doctrine of the brotherhood of men, thus authorized b}^ his life even more than by his teaching, must not only be taught by the Church ; it must be lived by the Church. It must be insisted upon in its application to the conditions under which men live and labor to-day. Jesus made serv- ice to his brethren a test of devotion to himself, and the organized company of his followers must keep in sympathy with men in their need, lest men shall miss in his disciples that which was so manifest in their Master. The Church may well hesitate to identify itself with any special theory of government, any program 182 THE ORGANIZED CHURCH or detailed scheme of social reform which may be a mere matter of political wisdom or of temporary ex- pediency. The Church stands for the ultimate and the eternal. But against iniquity in all forms, against industrial oppression and social wrong and civic unrighteousness, against organized sin and in- dividual sin, against political graft and organized dishonesty, against organized intemperance and indi- vidual drunkenness, against the combined forces of the underworld and personal impurity, the Church must stand without compromise and without cessa- tion. And whatever makes for better conditions of living, for better homes, for better health, for better education, for fairer relations between employer and employee, for a juster distribution of wealth, for a larger and truer outlook upon the world for all class- es, that the Church must sympathize with and en- courage. The Church must never forget that she has entered into the work and mission of Him who came that these might have life, and might have it abun- dantly. There is no better illustration of the way in which the Church may make a practical application of the gospel to the vital problems of the day than in what is known as "The Social Creed of the Church- es," adopted December 4, 1908, which is as follows : The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America stands : For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. For abolition of child labor. For such regulation of the conditions of to'l for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. For the suppression of the "sweating system." 183 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condi- tion of the highest human life. For a release from employment one day in seven. For the right of all men to the opportunity for self-maintenance, a right ever to be wisely and strongly safeguarded against encroachments of ev- ery kind. For the right of workers to some protection against the hardships often resulting from the swift crises of industrial change. For a living wage as a minimum in every industry and for the highest wage that each industry can af- ford. For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational disease, injuries, and mor- tality. For suitable provision for the old age of workers and for those incapacitated by injury. For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions. For the abatement of poverty. For the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised. It may be added that this action of the Federal Council has been indorsed by the governing bodies of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as well as by many of the other denominations represented in the Federal Council. 4. The Local Church (!) Delivering the message. The unit of the Church in the world is the local Church, which represents the general Church in its mission to the community and at the same time re- 184 THE ORGANIZED CHURCH lates the congregation to the wider interests of the Church in the whole earth. Within the range of its own special field the local Church must make known the gospel of Christ ; it must represent the cause of Christ worthily here, or else its very occupation of the field will be a barrier to the cause it is set to ad- vance. This involves teaching and preaching the message in the most effective way possible to those of the Church membership, to their families, and, as far as may be, to all who can be reached in the com- munity. This is the task of holding up the Christ by every means, so that men and women may be drawn unto him and that children may grow up in him. But it is a task that cannot be fulfilled by the preacher alone. Every one who knows Christ is called upon to proclaim him in word and deed. If the Christian congregation is led by the preacher, who is especially fitted to interpret the Gospel, it is that the Christian people may the more fully under- stand both how to live and how themselves to be witnesses of the truth in the world. The Christian preacher can at best be but the inspirer and captain of a company of men and women whose business it is to deliver the message of the Christian religion. (2) Studying the commumty and world needs. To the living soul truth is ever unfolding and ex- panding. It is the mission of the Church so to deliv- er the gospel message that, under the leadership of the Divine Spirit, men may continue to advance in the knowledge of all truth. But the Spirit's method of revealing truth is in relation to the life and needs of men. The Church, therefore, as the interpreter of truth, must study the Gospel in its relation and ap- 185 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION plication to the world in which men live. They must be helped to see their pathv/ay in the world of big business, in the world of labor, in the world of rec- reation and pleasure, under the direct illumination of the Gospel. This means that the Church must not only be a student of the Bible, and especially of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, but must study the problems of the community and of the world in the light of those teachings. It must study the eon- ditions under which men live and strive and the acute questions that are raised in this struggle, such as those dealt with in "The Social Creed of the Church- es." Only thus will the Church be able with sympa- thy and intelligence to help lift the burdens of men and to right their wrongs. The Church must know the causes of poverty, of despair, of crime, of social strife, of disease and misery, and of the ruin of great groups of people together. It must know in order to serve. It must know in order that it may create a new conscience in these matters among all classes, so that an enlightened social mind may cease to tol- erate social injustice; that men who practice what is socially and morally indefensible may be put under the ban of public condemnation ; and, if need be, that Christian citizens shall exercise their right in put- ting a stop to such wrongs by appeal to the courts or by joint action in behalf of needed social legisla- tion. The saloon evil, the social evil, the evils of un- just and oppressive industrial conditions, the evils of unsanitary and bad living conditions, where home life is impossible and where childhood is denied its rights — these and many other matters that affect the bodies and souls of men must be studied, that the 186 THE ORGANIZED CHURCH Church may be in position to serve the community by an intelligent understanding of these questions, by pointing out the clear line of public duty, and by calling the community to repentance. At the same time the Church must acquaint itself in a general way with the needs of all people, that it may be able intelligently to render its proper service in giving the gospel to the whole earth. (3) Attempting definite tasks. The Church in a community must be a company of Christian people joined together to do the will of God in that community. This does not mean mere- ly to live the life of private morality or of conform- ity to the rules of the Church. It is the organized company of Christian people united in a definite ef- fort to save their community. It is the effort to bring every man, woman, and child in the commu- nity within the influence of the gospel and into definite personal relation with Jesus Christ and unto fullness of life in him. Its specific tasks will be discovered in the light of the study of its field, for the end of the investigation is the beginning of the program of service. (4) In relation to the entire Church and its world task. While the local Church accepts especial responsi- bility for the territory in which it is situated, it does so as a part of the greater Church. It shares in the burden and task of the Church as a whole. Thus, for instance, the problem of world evangelization, because it belongs to the Church of God in the earth, rests in its proportionate measure upon every indi- vidual congregation and separate section of the 187 PROGRAM OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Church. Likewise the problems of evangelism, of re- ligious education, of social service in the communi- ty can be intelligently understood only when the wid- er scope of these problems is considered. The local Church must, therefore, study its particular tasks in their wider relations. It must seek to understand and to fulfill its part in all that makes for the Chris- tianization of the world. The local Church is to ful- fill its mission in doing the work of the Church uni- versal in the community, while it bears in its own consciousness the realization of its share and has its participation in the work and privileges of the Church universal. Thought Questions 1. What distinction would you make between the Church of God and the kingdom of God? 2. By what means is the Church to seek to create a better social order? 3. In what sense must every local Church be engaged in a world enterprise? 188 CHAPTER XII THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY— THE ULTI- MATE SUPREMACY OF THE KING- DOM OF GOD BIBLIOGRAPHY Hall, "The Universal Elements of the Christian Rellx gion." Strong, "The New World Religion." King, "Fundamental Questions." Brown, "Is Christianity Practicable?" Faunce, "What Does Christianity Mean?" CHAPTER XII THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY— THE ULTI- MATE SUPREMACY OF THE KING- DOM OF GOD 1. The Need of a World Religion When one detaches one's self from personal and local interests in order to a more comprehensive and impartial view of things and vrith open mind permits the forces of the world life of to-day to play upon consciousness, certain fundamental questions, involving nothing less than the destiny of the race, force themselves upon one's attention. The greatest nations of history, with unprecedent- ed wealth, with armies and navies the most terrible of all time at their back, have entered the contest for commercial supremacy in a common market, which is the entire world. What is the basis of our hope that these tremendous forces will ever work to- gether for mutual helpfulness, for world peace, for the betterment of all mankind, rather than for de- struction, the dominance of the stronger, and the en- thronement of selfish greed? Again, the elemental forces of nature have been released and the reins of their governance put with- in the hands of masterful men. The wealth-produc- ing capacity of the race has thereby been multiplied beyond computation. What is the basis of our hope that there is to be a new freedom and not a new bondage for mankind, and that these new energies commanded will make for the increased wealth, com- 191 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION fort, and fuller life of every one, rather than that they will be a new scepter of power in the hands of the selfish strong who are willing to "wade through slaughter to throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind"? Once again the fashions, the customs, the educa- tional and political systems, the ethical codes, and even the vices of the entire world, are being thrown into the same melting pot. What is the basis of our hope that in the more intimate and complex society of the future the best will be preserved and cher- ished, while the worst will be eliminated in all these realms of thought and action? Here are raised questions of the intellectual and moral life of the w^orld. They present themselves in a thousand forms. They point to inevitable and far-reaching changes in the world's life, which make new founda- tions necessary. The question, then, becomes unavoidable : What is to constitute the ethical basis, the moral substra- tum, of this cosmopolitan civilization, this world commerce, industry, community of interest, this world life into which we are all being irresistibly ushered? Whence the moral dynamic adequate to undergird this vast life on our planet and direct these titanic forces constructively toward peace and justice and brotherhood among men? Nothing is more superficial than to suppose that the new creations that mark our material advance- ment will furnish the elements of moral energy req- uisite to this task. These are only additional forces, calling for additional control — forces that will work for weal or woe, according to the character of that 192 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTOKY control. It is less apparently superficial, but no less fundamentally false, to imagine that the answer to this question is to be found in intellectual training or in modern scientific methods in education, for here also it is true that we have added moral power only when under moral direction. With these vain assumptions may be placed another that has attrac- tion for certain minds — namely, that human nature, by a sort of inevitable evolution, will work itself up- ward toward perfection. But human nature has worked upward or downward according to certain moral and spiritual laws that are discernible. Fi- nally, there are a vast number who are looking to some program of political or social reconstruction to solve the ills of the race and bring in the order of true brotherhood among men. It is not necessary to pass upon any such scheme of readjustment, as to its wisdom or unwisdom, as. a political or social pro- gram, in order to say that the moral power for hu- man redemption and a better world is not to be found in any political scheme or social program, however excellent. These are indispensable, to be sure, as means and experiments ; but the inspiration, the ideal, the spiritual dynamic are deeper. It is to miss the lesson of all history to fail to see that the source of effective and persistent moral dy- namic has ever teen in religion. It is to that au- thority alone w^hich is truly religious that the moral conscience of mankind responds with an absolute- ness and an energy that make moral victory possi- ble. So that the question which stands out with startling emphasis at this hour is a question of reli- gion. It is nothing less than an imperative demand 13 193 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION of this cosmopolitan age of the world for a religion that is broad enough and high enough to satisfy its intellectual and sjjiritual needs and that is mighty enough to furnish an adequate source of power for the control of all the forces that enter into the vast and intricate complexities, of human relationships. Just as modern science has' overthrown the ancient cosmogonies, so the jjassing of nations into the broad field of world thought and life is* fast making anach- ronisms of purely tribal and -ethnic faiths. A reli- gion that comprehends all, or no religion, must be the answer to the mind trained in the schools of to- day. Some power that is sufficient to draw all men into the fellowship of one faith is the present reli- gious demand of the world, a faith that rises above the limits of nations to the measure of man univer- sal and makes him one in the universe of his Father. Any religion that fails to meet this demand squarely and triumphantly cannot hope to claim the moral and religious allegiance of mankind, but will be judged by its own moral failures, as to-day we judge Hinduism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism. 2. Christianity on Trial in the Court of the World Can any one fail to see the significance of this hour for the Christian religion ? The very tests and needs which are causing other religions to pass can but serve to set in the center of the world's atten- tion Him who awaits this hour for the manifesta- tion of His glory. Christianity, thus placed in the foreground and alone of the religions of mankind giving any promise of becoming the universal reli- gion, is on trial in the court of the world. It is not 194 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY enough that it shall show its superiority to other re- ligions; it must demonstrate its adequacy to meet the world's needs — to satisfy the reason and heart of mankind and to supply the moral energy necessary to spiritualize all the elements of the intricate and complex life of this new era. Here is the fiery ordeal through which the Chris- tian religion is passing in the present momentous hour of human history. The question cannot be es- caped, for the whole world is asking it: Is Chris- tianity a religion for the individual only? or are there latent in it also the potent forces of social re- demption? Have we Christians a message for this age, so keenly awake to its social life and needs? Have we a salvation to offer a world becoming more and more conscious of its social guilt? Does our faith rise to belief in the Christ of the kingdom of God ? and are we prepared with all confidence to of- fer him as the Saviour of the world ? 3. The Adequacy of the Christian Religion There is nothing to be gained by denying the good that is found in the non-Christian religions, and cer- tainly it would be contrary to Christian philosophy itself to assume that God has not spoken in many ways to his earthly children who have worshiped him under the forms of other faiths than our own. But when every possible value has been conceded to them, it still stands out with increasing clearness that by the test of history and doctrine no one of the non-Christian religions has the elements requisite fo meet the needs of this new world life of humanity. Plainly they have all reached, long ago, the state of 195 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION arrested development and are powerless to contrib- ute further to human uplift and progress. Confucianism stands with its face to the past, anH its total effect is stagnation. The religions of In- dian origin are religions of surrender and of hope- lessness. Mohammedanism is the religion of fatal- ism and of social weakness. It is evident that the religion of the future must be one of assertion of personality and of human worth — one that makes for progress and not for stagnation, one that in- spires to victory and achievement rather than leads to withdrawal and surrender, one that proclaims the moral freedom of the spirit and the gospel of indi- vidual and social redemption. Never before did the world's need of a religion so set Christianity in the foreground or furnish such opportunity for lifting up Jesus Christ before the eyes of the whole world as its only hope. The great realities represented by the doctrines of the Father- hood of the one holy God, the universal Saviourhood of Jesus Christ, and the friendship of the Spirit fur- nish the only solvent for human ills and the only source of moral power suiBficient to make dominant the ideals of social equity and human brotherhood that are on the horizon of the world's consciousness to-day. ^'To the animist, with his belief in myriads of hostile spirits, to the Hindu, with his pantheon of disgusting deities, to the Buddhist, with his doubt whether there be any personal God, and to the Mos- lem, to whom God is an arbitrary Oriental despot, the message of a God who is at once powerful, just, righteous, and loving comes with an inspiration which we little realize. And it is a God like this 196 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY who is needed to solve their problems. They need to realize the universal brotherhood of the race. They must understand that a standard of absolute holi- ness is to be placed before them, and that over these perplexing problems of life there stands a Being of infinite love, who wishes his children to become like him."i 4. The Christian Church Must Dare Assert and Stand for the Right and Power of Jesus Christ to Reign in the Earth (1) Over all men. The last century has witnessed the enthusiasm and abandon with which representatives of the Christian faith, on an unprecedented scale, have gone forth into every part of the habitable earth bearing the message of the Saviour of the world. They have gone with absolute confidence in his power to save men of every race and with the certainty that Chris- tianity would demonstrate its superiority over all other religious faiths. The result has been that they have not been disappointed and that to-day the vic- tories of the cross in mission fields constitute one of the most unanswerable apologetics of the truth and power of the Christian religion. The spirit of these missionaries and the results of their work have re- acted upon the entire Church until the Church sees its universal mission with a new clearness and is planning for the evangelization of the world with a definiteness and comprehensiveness never before ^"Social Progress In Mission Lands," Capen, pp. 268, 269. 197 PEOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION equaled. Plaiuly the Church is gainiug a larger faith in its Christ aud in his power to save all the peoples of the earth. The Church is fast coming to understand that men cannot accept Jesus as person- al Saviour and Lord and not believe in him as the Saviour of all men and obey him in making his gos- pel available to all. (2) Over all realms. While God has thus been revealing to his Church this wider extension of its mission, and while the faith of the Church in Jesus Christ has been enlarg- ing as it has advanced with him in his world pro- gram, there has at the same time been growing upon the Christian people a fuller understanding of the intensive mission of Christianity. They are begin- ning to see not only that Jesus must be elevated to be the Saviour of all peojile if he is to claim our faith as the Saviour of some, but that he must have power to subdue all realms and to meet all needs of humanity if he is henceforth to be held as the world's Saviour. It is a new apprehension of the complete salvation, individual and social, of the life of the world. To try to confine the mission of the Christian religion and of the Christian Church to matters of individual salvation and of the future life is to at- tempt that which would rob the world-wide social movement of its greatest inspiration and power and would at the same time place a fatal limitation upon Christianity in its mission to the world. Speaking of this social mission of Christianity, Dr. Capen says : The two greatest obstacles to Christianity in the East to-day are the unworthy lives of many nominal 198 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY Christiaus resideut in the East and the failure of Christianity to solve the social problems at home. The leaders of Japan, of China, and of India know about our red-light districts, about our lynchings, about our strikes, about our bomb outrages, about the industrial injustice that is found all through our country, about our tenement houses, and about our poverty and crime. The outrages upon Japanese residents in our Pacific Coast States a short time ago almost paralyzed the arms of the missionaries, who were working among people who resented these unjust acts. It is true that the Churches must Christianize the world in order to save America, for without the world vision they will neglect the task at their doors. It is equally true that they must Christianize the life of America, or they cannot save the world.2 The Church awaits the leadership of men whose faith does not falter before the demands of this age, who with holy abandon dare accept the entire pro- gram of Jesus, individual and social, and put him and the principles of his kingdom to the test in the entire individual and corporate life of mankind. "Here is a race dreaming of a new earth, facing the constructive efforts required to make it, yet waiting to be kindled with a great dynamic emotion that shall drive the collective will to the mighty task."^ 5. The Confidence of Jesus and His Followers in All Ages in His TJltimate Victory "In the world ye have tribulation : but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.'' Standing alone, ^Capen, "Social Progress in Mission Lands," p. 279. ^Ward, "Social Evangelism," p. 44. 199 PEOGEAM OF THE CHEISTIAN RELIGION with the world against him, Jesus speaks with calm confidence to his followers, conscious, as he is, of the eternity of the truth and of the immutable will for the victory of righteousness, which he shares with his Father. The assurance of ultimate victory is in himself as the exponent of divine righteousness. In his ascendancy over evil is made certain the final triumph of God's will in the earth. This consciousness of unseen power and this un- shaken faith in the ultimate victory of his kingdom were transmitted to his followers. The conviction of the apostle Paul, "For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet," and the vision of John on Patmos, "I saw the holy city. New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,'' have had their parallel and continuation in the ideal and as- surance of the outcome that have inspired the Chris- tian leaders in all the centuries. And to-day this same ideal and vision inspires a mightier host than ever before followed the leadership of Jesus Christ. 6. The Victories Already Won The truth that was to conquer found its contact with the earth and became rooted in humanity through the person of Christ. A seed, a germ of life, is lodged in the hearts of a few disciples; and be- hold a release of the energies of the Unseen, by which a little company of men, armed with the fiam- ing evangel of truth, begin to conquer the world! It is not strange that the battle has swept back and forth across the plains of the earth through the pass- ing centuries. It is not strange that at times the forces of the world have seemed too strongly organ- 200 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY ized and intrenched to be overthrown. It is not to be wondered at that darkness has sometimes settled down on the field of battle with these forces appar- ently victorious. And yet the words that are arched across the broad highway of history century after century, continent after continent, and realm after realm, wherever the spirit and teachings of Jesus have extended their sway, are these: '^I have over- come." We have seen the Christian religion breaking in upon the Roman Empire and spreading, even though imperfectly and superficially, over Europe. We have seen the far-flung battle line reach out to the New World and then swing westward and eastward to the ancient empires of the Orient, to the Hermit Kingdom and to the remote inland regions, and even to far-off Tibet, to the heart of Africa and to the lonely islands of the sea. We have seen the kingdom in its small and seemingly feeble beginnings. But once planted, we have beheld it grow and split the granite rock of national customs and ideals of long- established law and social institutions. We have seen the spirit of the people, not only within the Church, but oftentimes without, begin to ferment with a new consciousness, and a new and mysterious power has stirred whole communities and reached to the national conscience and will itself — a power of which many responding to it knew not the source ; a power making for justice, for the overthrow of op- pression, for the release of the enslaved, for the free- dom of the body, the minds, and the spirits of men. Through the years of history we have seen, and we are seeing to-day, despots and despotisms, the in- 201 PEOGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION trenchment of selfish power, swept away by the swelling tide of a race's new consciousness of its des- tiny and of its rightful life. To-day we see such monstrous curses as human slavery, suttee, the opium and liquor traffic stagger and die before the aroused conscience of a race that begins to view man as man through the eyes of the man Christ Jesus. We see the Christian ideal of the home become honored and sacred and the home as an institution recognized and defended. We behold the rising wrath of those who love purity and home and country turning the searchlight of investigation upon all the conditions that threaten the family and its sanctity. We see war made on the public iniquities of vice and intemperance. We see the consciences of cities and commonwealths stirred with a sense of re- sponsibility for these sins. Finally, we witness the demand for the spirit of cooperation and of mutual helpfulness in industry, and we hear the insistent question of Jesus put to the captains of industry and to leaders of Church and State : "Is not a man more than property? and shall not these millions, bound these years in industrial servitude, be set at lib- erty?""^ 7. The Triumph of God's Plan in Universal Brotherhood In spite of immeasurable evil and its power yet remaining in the world, the outlook cannot fail to be inspiring to the careful student of the progress of the kingdom. Even now the barriers may be seen to be breaking away, while Jesus goes on before and the truth of his gospel unfolds and expands with the ever-widening life and needs of the world. As there 202 THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY is uo land on the planet over whose borders the mes- sengers of the Christ are not finding their way, so there is no realm of human life and interest, no in- stitution or segment of society whose foundations have not already felt the shock of the new power and life of the kingdom of God. Their very right to exist on any other foundations than those that are laid in righteousness, in brotherly love and service, in obedience to the will of God, is being questioned. Henceforth the unchristian elements of this world must be on the defensive, while the growing under- standing of the mind of Christ shall organize the conscience and will of men to establish all king- doms and institutions in conformity with the spirit of a new humanity, living and laboring together for the fuller and richer life of the world and for the complete realization of the kingdom of God. As followers of Jesus Christ and fellow members of his kingdom, standing at the beginning of a new age, it is ours to exalt the Saviour of the world. It is ours to follow him with that loyalty and enthusi- asm that is born of unwavering confidence. We must accept the challenge that he has issued to his Church, because we believe he is able to satisfy the deepest need of all who come unto God through him and because we believe that he will not be defeated in his purpose to establish a living and universal brotherhood among men. Men of the kingdom, let us rise up and follow Him who bears His cross that He may liberate the world. Let us solemnly dedicate ourselves to the way of that high sacrifice and the realization of that vision. 203 PROGRAM OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Thought Questions 1. In what measure does one fall of understanding the Christian religion who is concerned only about getting people saved from sin and safe to heaven? 2. Wherein do social movements fall of being Christian that begin and end with social reforms? 3. In the light of the victories already won by the Christ of our faith, and in view of his continued leadership, what is the extent of your hope and faith for the future of the kingdom of God in this world? 4. Are you prepared to dedicate yourself to the realiza- tion of the program of the Christian religion? 204 rincelon Theological Seminary-Speer Library 012 01094 8570 Date Due FAWtHTf m»^ iiifr^««^..^ HH>m»iftri»Y^ V "^ 1 ''^^ \ jLaA^ fnKlQQi J^ ^"^"^ K, \996\ ^ ii-^^ m i \i CHui