BRADFIEID 
 The Redemption Of Society
 
 BiBHBBi 
 
 OF SOCIETY
 
 Manuals of Fellowship, No. 12 
 
 
 THE REDEMPTION 
 
 OF SOCIETY 
 
 By Wm. Bradfield, B.A. 
 
 LONDON: THE EPWORTH PRESS 
 
 J. ALFRED SHARP 
 
 n ofi. -

 
 UWVK-. "" 
 
 SANTA - l! -A 
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF 
 SOCIETY 
 
 1. The Problem. 
 
 The life of any human society, while it has many 
 likenesses and analogies to the life of an individual, 
 has also differences so great that the moral and 
 spiritual problems connected with it have to be 
 thought out over again before the great principles 
 by which individual lives are guided can be 
 brought to bear upon it. The question of the 
 relation of the Christian Church to society is one 
 that has provoked many complaints and raised many 
 difficulties in our times. From different points of 
 view, and in tones varying from sorrowful remon- 
 strance to indignant denunciation, the Church has 
 been told, not only by outsiders, but often by its 
 own members, that it is failing gravely in the duty 
 of applying the gospel to the life of society. Too 
 much attention, it is said, has been given to the 
 salvation of the individual, and shameful neglect 
 has often been shown towards the denunciation 
 of the sins of society and the preaching of social 
 reform. 
 
 On the other hand, there are those who think 
 that the Church is most faithful to its own com- 
 mission and most wise in its relation to society 
 when it carefully avoids all matters of political and 
 social interest upon which the opinions of people 
 who desire the kingdom of God are seriously 
 divided. A recent speech of the Prime Minister 
 shows his desire that the Churches should be silent 
 on such current topics as labour troubles and the 
 Irish difficulty.
 
 4 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 These criticisms call for the earnest attentiorTof 
 members of the Church. In thinking over the 
 questions they raise one important fact ought to 
 be faced immediately, because the ignoring of 
 it misleads all who are either judging the Church or 
 trying to mend it. The Church of God is no creation 
 of its present members. They come into it as into 
 a great inheritance. Not only its gospel, but its 
 greatest institutions, its life of fellowship, and its 
 evangelical commission, are all of them instituted by 
 its great Author and Leader. We did not make 
 them; it is ours to use them; but we are not 
 free to lay them aside. Now we find the Church 
 equipped for dealing with the individual. When 
 the child is born into the world, the baptismal 
 font is ready and the solemn service which 
 recognizes him as a member of Christ's body, the 
 Church. In the home, which is a true extension 
 of -the Church, he is taught at his mother's knee to 
 say ' Gentle Jesus.' Then the Sunday school is 
 ready to teach him the ' sweet story of old ' ; and as 
 the boy or girl gets to years of choice and the asser- 
 tion of individual will, there is ' Decision Day/ or 
 a Confirmation Service, followed by that great 
 central gathering of the Church where the members 
 of Christ eat the bread and drink the wine that 
 signifies their spiritual nourishment, their con- 
 secration pledge to be brothers to each, other and 
 witnesses for their Master, and their great hope of 
 His coming. Throughout life the Church provides 
 counsel, warning, consolation, and inspiration. 
 In its fellowship the individual learns how to 
 realize himself as a member of Christ, till, at the end 
 of his earthly journey, the Church assures him of the 
 sure and certain hope, and proclaims its undivided
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 5 
 
 fellowship with all who have passed behind the 
 veil. 
 
 For purposes like these, institutions, doctrines, 
 and ' means of grace ' are provided, and while there 
 is much reason to confess many derelictions of duty, 
 and much shameful coldness of heart, yet the 
 Church knows her duty with regard to these matters. 
 If sheep wander from the fold, she understands the 
 business of seeking and restoring them. 
 
 If, however, the question of the salvation of 
 society is brought under consideration, the whole 
 institution of the Church seems to be inadequate 
 and lacking in equipment, both of thought and 
 of institution. Concerning the ' way of salva- 
 tion ' we are, comparatively speaking, agreed, 
 but there is no such agreement about the 
 way of social life. There is a great paucity of 
 institutions by means of which the mind of the 
 Church as a whole can be ascertained or uttered, 
 and when an attempt is made to speak to society, 
 instead of finding itself equipped with a definite 
 message which it has received from God, and 
 dealing with a conscience that is already on its 
 side, the Church is brought into the field of 
 argument and debate and lacks its customary 
 assurance that what it speaks is the very word of 
 God's salvation. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 I. How far are our Church organizations instituted 
 by Christ ? How far have we any right to alter them ? 
 
 2. Appeal to the Bible : the significance of prophecy. 
 
 When we turn from the Church to the Bible we 
 find something like the same difficulty. If the 
 average man seeks in his Bible to find an answer to
 
 6 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 the question, ' What shall I do to be saved ? ' he 
 is not likely to miss the way; but although the 
 Bible certainly contains a large amount of social 
 teaching, and that of the highest value, there is 
 nothing like the same simplicity and certainty 
 about its message as in the other case. The question 
 of the destiny of human society is indeed not often 
 directly dealt with except in the Apocalyptic books. 
 In them it is true there is some quite definite teaching. 
 The teaching of the Book of Daniel and of the 
 Revelation has deeply influenced the thought of 
 Christendom on this subject. The interpretation 
 of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. ii. cannot 
 well be mistaken, and it should be remembered 
 that it has had a very great influence indeed upon 
 the thoughts and beliefs of Christian men through- 
 out the whole history of our religion. Human 
 society is getting worse, from gold to silver, from 
 silver to brass, from brass to iron, from iron to 
 iron mixed with miry clay. Its destination is 
 destruction ; a stone from the mountain, hewn 
 without hands, breaks it all in pieces, and no place 
 is found for it, and a new social order under the 
 King of Peace replaces it permanently. Similarly, 
 in the Book of Revelation, the great social order of 
 the Roman Empire is represented as the Beast, 
 the enemy of the Lamb, and its destiny is the lake, 
 which burns with fire and brimstone. 
 
 We cannot, however, deal with the interpretation 
 of such teachings as these without getting first to. an 
 understanding as to the principle underlying our 
 interpretation. Many people regard the great 
 prophetic and apocalyptic threats of judgement as 
 if they were fates which must come to pass, do 
 men will. We would plead earnestly that
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 7 
 
 it is not from the Bible that this conception of 
 the place of prophecy is learned. The outstanding 
 evidence on the other side is that of the Book of 
 Jonah. Jonah, compelled much against his will 
 to give the terrible message that in forty days 
 Nineveh shall be destroyed, is haunted by the fear 
 that it will not really happen after all, and builds 
 his booth that he may watch and see. The central 
 lesson of the book is that God is glad not to carry 
 out His own judgement when the people by their 
 repentance make it possible for Him to forgo it. 
 
 The prophet Jeremiah also insists over and over 
 again that his stern denunciations of judgement 
 to come are conditional. If the people will repent, 
 God will be only too happy to withhold these 
 judgements. He assures them that if they 
 thoroughly amend their ways and their doings, if 
 they Oppress not the stranger and the fatherless 
 and the widow, and shed not innocent blood, neither 
 walk after other gods to their own hurt, then God 
 will cause them to. dwell in the land that He gave 
 to their fathers (Jer. vii. 5-7). He declares that 
 the same principle is true concerning other nations, 
 ' If that nation concerning which I have spoken 
 turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that 
 I thought to do unto them.' He follows this with 
 the converse statement, ' At what instant I shall 
 speak concerning a nation, and concerning a king- 
 dom, to build and to plant it, if it do evil in my 
 sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent 
 of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them ' 
 (Jer. xviii. 7-10). And in chapter xxvi. is a most 
 pathetic passage where the prophet is sent to 
 proclaim at great personal peril to himself the 
 judgements of God upon the temple at Jerusalem,
 
 8 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 in the hope that ' it may be they will hearken and 
 turn every man from his evil way, that I may 
 repent me of the evil which I purpose to do unto 
 them because of the evil of their doings' (Jer. 
 xxvi. 3). 
 
 We should not, therefore, assume that any threat 
 of doom which the Bible contains must necessarily 
 be fulfilled. It represents that which will assuredly 
 happen if people continue in their evil ways. It 
 is a great mistake to search the Bible, and to 
 search history, with the endeavour to prove that 
 every prophecy of judgement either has been 
 fulfilled, or is going to be. It is to God's great glory 
 that in so many instances this has not happened; 
 and the fact that it has not happened is not an 
 evidence of any unreliability in His word, but 
 rather of the reality of His government. 
 
 The great apocalyptic conception of a world 
 that is getting worse and worse until the day of its 
 destruction ought not then to be assumed as a 
 terrible but inevitable fact. The question of the 
 destiny of Society is a question of the way in which 
 it behaves and grows, and the work of the Church 
 for its salvation should be taken up in a spirit of 
 earnest hopefulness that the threatened ruin may 
 be altogether averted. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 2. Contrast Paul's teaching about the Roman Empire 
 in Romans xiii. i with that given in the Book of 
 Revelation. 
 
 3. Give other instances of prophecies that have not 
 been fulfilled because ' God repented Him of the evil. . . .' 
 
 3. Modern Studies of the Facts concerning Group Life. 
 
 We are only just beginning to learn what are the 
 laws of the life of the social group. Some of them,
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 9 
 
 however, are becoming increasingly clear, and there 
 are two which are of primal importance for our 
 present quest. 
 
 (i.) There is a tendency towards the preservation 
 and continued existence of social groups which 
 puzzles us by its persistence, even in cases when all 
 the objects for which the groups were originally 
 constituted have lost their value. People who are 
 members of a tribe, of a social or religious fellow- 
 ship, of a political party, keep on holding together, 
 living a common group or community life when 
 all the original purposes that drew them together 
 appear to have vanished. In a very true sense 
 such^ communities can and do 'lose their own 
 soul ' without, at the same time, losing the vitality 
 which continues to integrate them into social 
 unities. The tendency of a social group to continue 
 its existence appears often to be much stronger than 
 the tendency to continue on the road of purpose 
 which it started to explore. The history of religion 
 and of the Churches affords us some very striking 
 examples of ecclesiastical groups which keep on 
 living, and fighting for life, when practically all the 
 original meaning of the purpose which united them 
 has disappeared. This, by the way, is one of the 
 explanations of the present divided state of the 
 Christian Church. The separate Methodist Churches 
 have strong tendencies to continue living as they are 
 when nobody can find any important reasons why 
 they should remain apart from each other, except 
 that the group, once formed, has this strange strong 
 tendency to persist. 
 
 (ii.) Another law of social existence is that every 
 human society has in it a tremendous instinct of 
 antagonism to the people and ways that threaten
 
 io THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 its existence. Civilized society, for instance, cannot 
 stand thieves nor men of violence. Theft and 
 murder, it feels, are unendurable, and the acts of 
 dishonesty and violence that lead up to these evil 
 deeds are sternly repudiated, more by the instinct 
 of society than by its intelligence. It is not so 
 much the common judgement as to what is wicked 
 as the common instinctive sense as to what is fatal 
 to social life which leads to the determined elimina- 
 tion of dishonesty and violence. The evidence of 
 this is that there are other crimes which the common 
 conscience judges to be quite as wicked, and even 
 more wicked, than theft and murder, about which 
 there is by no means the same common mind that 
 they must at all costs be stopped. 
 
 Society has an instinct for self-preservation, 
 and this instinct works with tremendous force 
 (though often with very little help from intelligent 
 thought) to protect it against what are felt to 
 be its deadly enemies. 
 
 The general attitude of very many English 
 people towards pacifists during the war can only 
 be explained by this instinct. Against every 
 plea of common justice and legal right the nation 
 turned away from these men, not because of any 
 clear thought, but because of a great instinctive, 
 unreasoning feeling towards self-protection. The 
 best thought of the country recognized that 
 these people might be most valuable citizens, but 
 the common feeling that they were antagonists 
 to the life of the British nation overpowered even 
 the strong sense of justice which the English people 
 generally show. 
 
 The main facts, then, that we have to keep in 
 mind, are (i.) the tremendous force of this will to live
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY n 
 
 which every social group shows, and its continuance 
 when the force of the original impulse that brought 
 the group together has been misdirected or lost ; 
 and (ii.) the awful power of the instinct which impels 
 the social group to expel or destroy those of its 
 members whose attitude is felt to be inimical to the 
 social purpose and life of the group. 
 
 Let us try to apply these facts to the question we 
 have in hand. It has been the lot of most 
 of us to find ourselves in social groups where 
 even the very name of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 was not welcomed. If we spoke of Him, we were 
 made to feel that we were committing a social 
 offence. If we continued to speak of Him we found 
 that we were not wanted in that social group. Now 
 if the temper that is not willing even to endure His 
 name persists, it soon grows into antagonism, and 
 into persecution of those who wish to be loyal to 
 Him. Our Gospels make it very evident to us that 
 one great motive that led to the crucifixion of our 
 Lord was that the existing religious society simply 
 could not stand Him at any price ; and there are not 
 lacking signs, for those who are able to recognize 
 them, that the same tendency is still at work. The 
 Gospels depict to us the society of the time in the 
 process of grouping itself into two opposite camps. 
 In one of these camps the final conclusion is that 
 He must be killed ; in the other, the final conclusion 
 is that He must be worshipped and obeyed as Lord 
 and God and Saviour. Neither party is able to 
 ignore Him. 
 
 In broad outline it may be that the question for 
 the society of our day is just whether its attitude 
 of ignoring Christ is to be continued up to the point 
 of persecution and murderous antagonism, or
 
 12 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 whether He is to be received into our society as the 
 light which illuminates its pathway, the leaven that 
 influences the whole mass, the saving salt that pre- 
 vents the utter corruption of the common life. 
 The two opposing tendencies show themselves even 
 when our society is trying to do its best hi the way 
 of reform. If the advocate of eugenics does not 
 possess the spirit of Christ, he seems always to 
 arrive finally at the conclusion that his project for 
 the benefit of the race can only be carried out at the 
 cost of the destruction of the unfit, and a great 
 many people who are enthusiastic for the improve- 
 ment of the public health from other points of view 
 appear to arrive at a similar conclusion. The 
 Christian conscience calls this murder. The reason 
 for the wide divergence of view is that the man with 
 the spirit of Christ in him believes that every other 
 living human being is a creature capable of God, a 
 brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a member of 
 the divine family. The man who has not the mind 
 of Christ and who does not know how to help the 
 unfit, or to get social service out of them, desires 
 their suppression in what he believes to be the interest 
 of the community. If St. Paul were really ' a 
 crooked, little, humpbacked Jew,' as some historical 
 students believe, he might have fared very badly at 
 the hands of these people. The point for us to 
 remember is that society still and always, by the 
 working of its own natural laws and tendencies 
 towards continued existence, moves either towards 
 direct and definite antagonism to our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, or else towards submission and loyal obedi- 
 ence to His sway, and the question as to whether 
 ; any society shall be broken in pieces as a potter's 
 [.vessel, or whether it may be transformed into the 
 "
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 13 
 
 kingdom of God, is one which depends upon the ! 
 issue whether it will growingly welcome the presence i 
 and life of Christ in its midst, or whether it will not 
 have this Man to reign. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 4. Give instances of social groups that continue to 
 exist when their original reason and purpose has faded 
 away. 
 
 5. Give instances of social groups which tend actually 
 to kill members whose individuality is not in accord 
 with the group ideal. 
 
 6. Is there any reason to fear that the Christian 
 religion might be exterminated by certain groups? 
 Has this ever happened ? 
 
 4. The Need for God. 
 
 There are those who think that if people will only 
 receive and practise the second great commandment 
 and 'love their neighbours as themselves,' they 
 may afford, without much risk, to pass over the 
 commandment which says they are to love the Lord 
 God with all their heart. Now human society will 
 always love its own life, and in that sense tend to 
 love its neighbour as itself. The trouble is that, 
 unless it accepts the first commandment, it does not 
 know how to love itself. We may see cases where 
 a social group (for instance, of young men) will 
 accept a new comrade because they like him and 
 regard him as a welcome addition to their fellowship ; 
 and, because they love this new neighbour as them- 
 selves, they will teach him all the evil that they 
 themselves practise. He will learn the vile language, 
 he will be shown the way to the house of the strange 
 woman, he will be taught all manner of disobedience 
 and defiance to the law of God, not because he is 
 hated, but because he is loved. They practise these
 
 14 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 things themselves, and they give to their beloved 
 what they most prize. 
 
 Society cannot be trusted to go the right way, or 
 seek the right thing, because it loves its own ex- 
 istence, and in that sense loves its every member 
 who has the spirit of comradeship and unity. It 
 does not know the way, and it misses it most 
 deplorably unless the love of God and of Chiist 
 has the supreme place in it. It is not only that the 
 sins of society lead it astray, but its very good-nature 
 and goodwill and love of life become grave dangers 
 if the spirit of Christ be absent. 
 
 These are matters which deserve and claim from 
 Christian people in our day long and earnest study. 
 Perhaps there is nothing about which co-operative 
 thought can be better used than in the endeavour 
 to see and understand what are these strange and 
 wonderful laws of life which are shaping the destinies 
 of all our social groups, and of that great society 
 of humanity of which they are parts. It may be 
 an unwelcome issue to some that they should be 
 told that none of us yet sufficiently understands the 
 laws of social life to be able to show to others the 
 complete truth as to the way of influencing the groups 
 and communities in which we find ourselves. We 
 are not left without guidance; the mind of Christ 
 does teach us what our individual behaviour ought 
 to be ; but the life of Christ can only be lived truly 
 and worthily where there is most strenuous effort 
 and earnest seeking for a knowledge and under- 
 standing of the ways of fellowship and community 
 life. The temper that tries to escape the trouble 
 of thinking, on the plea that all will be well if we 
 personally and individually follow the Master, is 
 one which fails Him badly. He needs that we
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 15 
 
 should discover, as we may through patient seeking, 
 the secret of the great life which flows around us 
 and carries us forward, in order that we may most 
 effectively bring Him in and give Him His due 
 place and power in it. 
 
 The teaching of individual religion to the neglect 
 of social issues has at the present time left us very 
 helpless in the presence of the great social problems 
 which confront us. With regard to economics, for 
 instance, we know that it is our duty to ' love our 
 neighbour as ourselves,' that it is the mind of our 
 Master to give ' unto this last ' as unto us, and that 
 He is the Son of a Father who makes His sun to shine 
 and the rain to fall upon the just and upon the 
 unjust. We know these things so far as the 
 individual is concerned, but it cannot be pretended 
 that we have found out how to apply them to the 
 social life of our day. We did not make our 
 economic system, but we haVe inherited a system 
 which ha,<s bran allowed to make itself, in 
 accordance with the more selfish interests of society, 
 with an ignoring of the mind and spirit of Jesus 
 that is only too gravely obvious as we study it 
 to-day. It is only a society permeated with the 
 spiritT^and mind of Jesus that can alter it for the 
 better. 
 
 We can see tendencies to-day that make for the 
 splitting up of England into a series of castes worse 
 than those of India. We can see other tendencies 
 threatening the very existence of individual liberty. 
 We can see tendencies towards the violent rending 
 of society into pieces. The question whether our 
 present civilization will become something that is 
 only fit for the lake of fire, a mere mechanism of 
 iron and clay to be scattered irretrievably, or
 
 16 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 whether it can go on developing towards the king- 
 dom of God, depends upon the presence or absence 
 of the mind and spirit of Christ in the social groups 
 in which these tendencies are showing themselves. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 7. Can you think of any other instances than the 
 one given of people whose love for their neighbour is 
 of such a character that it encourages him in evil 
 practices and tends to his ruin ? 
 
 8. ' This weary world we cast behind.' Does this 
 line express the duty of a Christian man ? 
 
 5. How can the Church best Help ? 
 
 We have seen that the present equipment of the 
 Church is in the main an equipment suited to the 
 needs of the individual. It is true that it is also 
 vitally and essentially social because its aim is to 
 make of the individual a member of Christ and an 
 heir of the kingdom of heaven ; but when we ask 
 our question, what the Church can do for the 
 salvation of the group, society, and nation in which 
 we to-day are living our community life, it becomes 
 manifest that we have not yet arrived at an agreed 
 answer which carries the judgement of the general 
 body of Christian folk. 
 
 We have gathered from our glance at prophecy 
 a sense that our existing human societies are in 
 very grave moral peril, and we have seen, when we 
 turn to consider the results of modern investigation 
 into group life, how real this moral peril is. 
 
 The Bible has shown us that the judgements of 
 God are not irrevocable fates, but warnings of the 
 inevitable consequences following evil ways, and 
 we have caught the accents of a great hope and 
 redemption. The question ' Why will ye die, 
 O House of Israel ? ' takes on a new force as we
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 17 
 
 realize more fully the possibilities of socialrepentance. 
 What, then, can we do ? 
 
 One of the resources that seems most commonly 
 turned to when people feel that something must be . 
 done, and do not quite know what, is the passing of U 
 resolutions. Some people appear to think that a \ 
 great deal has been done when a vote has been taken 
 and a resolution sent to the proper authorities 
 declaring the mind of the Christian Church on one or 
 another matter of public importance. If this . 
 method is to be successful, the resolutions in ques- 
 tion ought to be the subject of a great deal more 
 thought and prayer than is usually given to them. 
 Finding a form of words that everybody can vote for 
 will really not help us very much. What will cost 
 us dear to find, but what we must discover if this 
 method is to prove serviceable, is the actual ' mind 
 of the Lord ' on the subject of which we endeavour I] 
 to speak. Moreover, resolutions are a mere mockery ) 
 unless there are resolved men behind them. People 
 who vote for a resolution and then go home with a 
 sense of virtuous achievement and accomplishment 
 really miss the point of the situation altogether. 
 If we could convince our social groups that we really 
 are resolved people, who will not cease from mental 
 strife nor let our sword sleep in our hand till we 
 have accomplished the things that we declare we are 
 resolved upon, they may consider us, and wait with 
 some respect for what we have to say, but resolu- I J 
 tions which nobody really ' resolves,' but only V| 
 ' passes,' are most inept. They deceive nobody and ' 
 they influence nobody. Can we not find some better 
 way? 
 
 There is very much to be said for the new way of 
 corporate thinking and fellowship. The state of 
 
 I
 
 18 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 the society in which we are living ought to be 
 to us a matter of constant thought and prayer, 
 if we are indeed ' to serve the present age.' We 
 must talk about it, and we must share together in all 
 the light that our wisest have with regard to it. We 
 must, and we can, if we are in company with Him, 
 and with His body, the Church, see these things 
 through the eyes of Jesus Christ. We shall have to 
 begin with a great humility. The assumption that 
 we know in any kind of detail how to put society 
 right when we think it wrong is not only futile but 
 a great cause of a blind self-delusion. It is only with 
 purified eyes, it is only in the fellowship of our 
 Master and of His people, that we can ever hope to 
 be competent to see the way of social salvation. 
 But the humility must never be a despairing one, 
 but always hopeful. We are people to whom God 
 has spoken in His Son, and we have no right to 
 forget what that means. We are capable of under- 
 standing God. 
 
 We always need to remember that the great 
 discoveries of the spiritual life are not found by 
 ' ascending up into the heavens or going to the 
 uttermost parts of the seas/ but are near to us, in 
 our mouth and in our heart. So it may be, for 
 instance, with the tangled economic questions to 
 which reference has been made, and some of us 
 believe that already the vision is shaping itself for 
 those who have eyes to see. 
 
 We must be patient if we cannot at once formulate 
 the way of life for society in practical fashion such 
 as could be a guide to social endeavour and action. 
 The light had been coming from the beginning, but 
 it keeps on growing, and it is one of our commoner 
 experiences to find out something revealing in
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 19 
 
 things that we have looked at many times without 
 seeing any particular meaning in them. 
 
 One of our perils is the danger of being in such a 
 hurry to say ' thus saith the Lord ' that we proclaim 
 it, and try to insist upon it, when we really have not 
 been into His council-chamber, and do not know 
 any better than our fellows what He is doing and 
 where He is leading us. There is no authority in all 
 the world like the word of the li ving God, even when 
 it comes through the mouths of such strange people 
 as some of His prophets are ; but the prophet who 
 has no message, yet is still very keen on having the 
 authority of a piojWitit, m a great danger in all 
 ages, perhaps especially in our pwn. Moreover, it 
 must always be remembered that it does not make 
 a thing true for our majorities to agree upon it. 
 Truth, authority, conviction, all depend upon the 
 fact that we know and can speak the will of God. 
 But if the people of Christ were willing to seek it, 
 and seek it together, they might find, and find 
 close to them, that living word which would make 
 them able to be a guide to their generation. The 
 Church, which is the body of Christ, would then 
 be able to take the place of the watchman, and 
 to warn society with no uncertain voice with 
 regard to the ways that are not good, as well as to 
 show forth those great visions which are intended 
 to be the inspiration of us all. 
 
 It does not seem as if success in its grosser form 
 could ever be guaranteed. ' A wicked and adulter- 
 ous generation ' will not listen whoever be the 
 messenger, and we are not sure that even God can 
 save a wilfully defiant people, resolute to refuse Him. 
 But He has taken on Him the adventure of re- 
 deeming the world ; and if He thinks He can win,
 
 20 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 we may well think so too. The inspiration that 
 comes from being on His side, and taking our risks 
 with Him in this tremendous adventure, will give 
 us more courage and strength than any amount of 
 certainties could. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 9. Give examples of service that has been rendered 
 by the passing of resolutions. 
 
 10. Do you know any case where corporate thinking 
 has really brought new life to the group concerned? 
 Give particulars. 
 
 11. Do you know cases where people proclaim as the 
 will of God matters about which they have no real 
 justification for thinking themselves certain at all ? 
 
 6. The Forerunner. 
 
 When Christ would redeem us from our sins He 
 dwelt as a citizen among men, and we must be 
 willing also to accept the same citizenship. He 
 took His place in a human family, the sweetest 
 and most sacred as well as the most fundamental 
 form of group life. The family, when simple love 
 rules, is the group of all others in which the nobler 
 ends of social life obtain their fullest earthly 
 realization. If we had sufficiently simple hearts 
 we might even now learn from it the laws of the 
 earning and sharing of daily bread, the ways of 
 obedience and liberty, the fellowship of the strong 
 and the weak. He showed us the meek obedience 
 of childhood. He was 
 
 A son that never did amiss, 
 
 That never shamed His mother's kiss. 
 
 His place in that home of which we know at 
 once so much and so little points us to family life
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 21 
 
 as a place where we may begin our study of the 
 redemption of society. For the nation is but 
 an extension of the family, and the laws of the 
 home have the greatest affinity with the true laws 
 of the State. If the question be asked whether we 
 can as Christian people live a really social life in 
 the imperfect and unsatisfactory, the non-Christian 
 and sometimes even anti-Christian groups in which 
 we so often find ourselves, the answer is that He has 
 already shown us the way. The Christian conscience 
 grows very uneasy as to our share in the common 
 sins of our society. It seems to us that we ' must 
 needs go out of the world,' and so we must unless 
 we are willing to carry our part of that load. He 
 took upon His shoulders the whole crushing load. 
 He bore our sins. The fact that the Son of God 
 did live a human life amidst deplorably bad social 
 surroundings must come to our help. He certainly 
 did not refuse any participation in the life of 
 society that was possible to Him. To the sterner 
 moralists He became offensive as a gluttonous 
 man and a winebibber. He was the friend of 
 publicans and sinners. He even advised His 
 people to submit cheerfully to- the unjust exac- 
 tions of Government. ' If any man compel thee to 
 go one mile, go with him twain.' He taught that 
 not the evil circumstances but the evil heart was 
 the place where salvation must begin, and He 
 showed us by His own great example that evil 
 circumstances cannot defeat nor soil the purity of a 
 true heart full of the love of God and man. The 
 message that the ' Word became flesh ' has more 
 significance than any of us have seen in it yet. We 
 can live the beautiful life in the shameful society, 
 for He did so. But we must suffer, as He suffered
 
 22 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 for us. We must accept the consequences of the 
 sins of society as He did and ' fill up the measure 
 of the sufferings of Christ.' Still the way of the 
 I Cross is the way of life. If we want to help Him 
 redeem society we must help Him bear its sins. 
 The redemption of society will cost us dear, but 
 the joy that is set before us makes it worth while 
 to endure, and despise the shame. 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 12. What was the attitude of Jesus towards : (a) 
 The Roman Empire? (b) The Jewish State ? (c) The 
 organized religion of the Temple? 
 
 7. The Outlook. 
 
 If Christian people are taught to think that the 
 great human society for which Christ died is some- 
 thing to be abandoned to the powers of evil, some- 
 thing whose destruction is to be quietly looked 
 forward to as a part of God's plan, then the life of 
 Christ in the members of His Church becomes 
 straitened and stifled. And in such a case the voices 
 of those who judge and blame us for not caring 
 about social redemption become true and carry 
 grave condemnation to us who fail to see that to be 
 a member of the Body of Christ means to love 
 humanity as He loves it, and to seek to save, as He 
 sought to save, the great social organization in 
 which the love of humanity struggles to express 
 itself. 
 
 So far as society is concerned, we cannot see the 
 end. Certain great landmarks emerge one of them 
 is the judgement to come. That is always to be among 
 the last things. We are not so sure as our fathers
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 23 
 
 were that it involves an equitable distribution of 
 rewards and punishments. If it does, it must be 
 quite plain that this cannot take place until the 
 consummation of all things. 
 
 There is a note in the Bible that makes the judge- I. 
 ment to come a very joyful thing. All nature is H 
 called upon ' to rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh I 
 to judge the earth.' It must be a supreme good for !' 
 everybody to be put in His right place. Yet our 
 conscience forces us back to the cry, ' Who may 
 abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand 
 when He appears ? ' We cannot conceive either the 
 issues to be tried or the results arrived at in that 
 day. 
 
 Another landmark is a separation of the sheep 
 from the goats. This again is quite beyond all our 
 powers of realization. We only know goodness 
 in its long struggle against evil, and cannot well think 
 what goodness will be like if there be no more evil 
 to contend with. Also, we cannot conceive nor 
 endure the effort of trying to imagine what would 
 be the condition of evil people separated from all 
 the good. 
 
 Another outstanding word belonging to the last 
 things is that of the newness of the creation that is 
 to be. Our attempts to think of the kingdom of 
 God as existing both in heaven and on earth are 
 baffled by the fact that we do not know how to 
 think of heaven and earth together. 
 
 Notwithstanding these great signs of the end, it 
 remains true, therefore, that we cannot conceive, 
 except in merest outline, what the Redemption of 
 Society will amount to, and what is the blessed future 
 for which we hope. Enough is given to us to guide 
 our hopes and efforts, but the life is to be lived, the
 
 24 THE REDEMPTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 world saved, and the kingdom realized not only in 
 heaven but also here in this present sin-ruined world ; 
 and our critics are speaking words of truth and 
 soberness, and words to which indeed we ought to 
 listen, when they are telling us that we must not 
 so preach individual salvation as to forget that larger 
 entity, the human race of which our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God, is a member, and the kingdom 
 of God on earth of which He is the Sovereign. But 
 neither must we, or our critics, forget that the 
 weapon which our Master has put into our hands, 
 and of which by His own life among us He has 
 shown us the right use, is just that very personal 
 gospel which in working out our own salvation 
 makes us able to manifest in our social and group 
 life the presence within us of that strong Son of 
 God whose Father sent Him to be the Saviour of 
 the world which He ' so loved.' 
 
 QUESTIONARY 
 
 13. Why cannot an equitable system of rewards and 
 punishments be carried out now? 
 
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