PART IV. CONQUEST BY CONFLICT_The Social Principles of Jesus

College Voluntary Study Courses

Fourth Year—Part 1

The Social Principles Of Jesus

Walter Rauschenbusch

Professor of Church History, Rochester Theological Seminary

Written under the Direction of Sub-Committee on College Courses, Sunday

School Council of Evangelical Denominations, and Committee on Voluntary

Study, Council of North American Student Movements

The Woman’s Press

600 Lexington Avenue

New York City

1917

The International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations

Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, 1916

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I. The Axiomatic Social Convictions Of Jesus

Chapter I. The Value Of Life

Chapter II. The Solidarity Of The Human Family

Chapter III. Standing With The People

Part II. The Social Ideal Of Jesus

Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values

Chapter V. The Kingdom Of God: Its Tasks

Chapter VI. A New Age And New Standards

Part III. The Recalcitrant Social Forces

Chapter VII. Leadership For Service

Chapter VIII. Private Property And The Common Good

Chapter IX. The Social Test Of Religion

Part IV. Conquest By Conflict

Chapter X. The Conflict With Evil

Chapter XI. The Cross As A Social Principle

Chapter XII. A Review And A Challenge

Footnotes

COLLEGE VOLUNTARY STUDY COURSES

“The Social Principles of Jesus” takes seventh place in a series of

text-books known as College Voluntary Study Courses. The general outline

for this curriculum has been prepared by the Committee on Voluntary Study

of the Council of North American Student Movements, representing the

Student Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations and the

Student Volunteer Movement, and the Sub-Committee on College Courses of

the Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denominations, representing

twenty-nine communions. Therefore the text-books are planned for the use

of student classes in the Sunday School, as well as for the supplementary

groups on the campus. The present text-book has been written under the

direction of these Committees.

The text-books are not suitable for use in the academic curriculum, as

they have been definitely planned for voluntary study groups.

This series, covering four years, is designed to form a minimum curriculum

for the voluntary study of the Bible, foreign missions, and North American

problems. Daily Bible Readings are printed with each text-book. The

student viewpoint is given first emphasis—what are the student interests?

what are the student problems?

The Bible text printed in short measure (indented both sides) is

taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible,

permission.

INTRODUCTION

This book is not a life of Christ, nor an exposition of his religious

teachings, nor a doctrinal statement about his person and work. It is an

attempt to formulate in simple propositions the fundamental convictions of

Jesus about the social and ethical relations and duties of men.

Our generation is profoundly troubled by the problems of organized

society. The most active interest of serious men and women in the colleges

is concentrated on them. We know that we are in deep need of moral light

and spiritual inspiration in our gropings. There is an increasing

realization, too, that the salvation of society lies in the direction

toward which Jesus led. And yet there is no clear understanding of what he

stood for. Those who have grown up under Christian teaching can sum up the

doctrines of the Church readily, but the principles which we must

understand if we are to follow Jesus in the way of life, seem enveloped in

a haze. The ordinary man sees clearly only Christ’s law of love and the

golden rule. This book seeks to bring to a point what we all vaguely know.

It does not undertake to furnish predigested material, or to impose

conclusions. It spreads out the most important source passages for

personal study, points out the connection between the principles of Jesus

and modern social problems, and raises questions for discussion. It was

written primarily for voluntary study groups of college seniors, and their

intellectual and spiritual needs are not like those of an average church

audience. It challenges college men and women to face the social

convictions of Jesus and to make their own adjustments.

PART I. THE AXIOMATIC SOCIAL CONVICTIONS OF JESUS

Chapter I. The Value Of Life

Whatever our present conceptions of Jesus Christ may be, we ought to

approach our study of his teachings with a sense of reverence. With the

slenderest human means at his disposal, within a brief span of time, he

raised our understanding of God and of human life to new levels forever,

and set forces in motion which revolutionized history.

Of his teachings we have only fragments, but they have an inexhaustible

vitality. In this course we are to examine these as our source material in

order to discover, if possible, what fundamental ethical principles were

in the mind of Jesus. This part of his thought has been less understood

and appropriated than other parts, and it is more needed today than ever.

Let us go at this study with the sense of handling something great, which

may have guiding force for our own lives. Let us work out for ourselves

the social meaning of the personality and thought of Jesus Christ, and be

prepared to face his challenge to the present social and economic order of

which we are part.

How did Jesus view the life and personality of the men about him? How did

he see the social relation which binds people together? What was the

reaction of his mind in face of the inequalities and sufferings of actual

society? If we can get hold of the convictions which were axiomatic and

immediate with him on these three questions, we shall have the key to his

social principles. We shall take them up in the first three chapters.

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Worth of a Child

And they were bringing unto him little children, that he should

touch them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it,

he was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the

little children to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such

belongeth the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever

shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall

in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his arms, and

blessed them, laying his hands upon them.—Mark 10:13-16.

The child is humanity reduced to its simplest terms. Affectionate joy in

children is perhaps the purest expression of social feeling. Jesus was

indignant when the disciples thought children were not of sufficient

importance to occupy his attention. Compared with the selfish ambition of

grown-ups he felt something heavenly in children, a breath of the Kingdom

of God. They are nearer the Kingdom than those whom the world has smudged.

To inflict any spiritual injury on one of these little ones seemed to him

an inexpressible guilt. See Matthew 18:1-6.

_Can the moral standing of a community be fairly judged by the statistics

of child labor and infant mortality?_

_What prompts some young men to tyrannize over their younger brothers?_

_How does this passage and the principle of the sacredness of life bear on

the problem of eugenics?_

Second Day: The Humanity of a Leper

And when he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes

followed him. And behold, there came to him a leper, and

worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me

clean. And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I

will; be thou made clean. And straightway his leprosy was

cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go,

show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses

commanded, for a testimony unto them.—Matt. 8:1-4.

Whenever Jesus healed he rendered a social service to his fellows. The

spontaneous tenderness which he put into his contact with the sick was an

expression of his sense of the sacredness of life. A leper with fingerless

hands and decaying joints was repulsive to the æsthetic feelings and a

menace to selfish fear of infection. The community quarantined the lepers

in waste places by stoning them when they crossed bounds. (Remember Ben

Hur’s mother and sister.) Jesus not only healed this man, but his sense of

humanity so went out to him that “he stretched forth his hand and touched

him.” Even the most wretched specimen of humanity still had value to him.

_What is the social and moral importance of those professions which cure

or prevent sickness?_

_How would a strong religious sense of the sacredness of life affect

members of these professions?_

Third Day: The Moral Quality of Contempt

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not

kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother

shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his

brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever

shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of

fire.—Matt. 5:21, 22.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus demanded that the standards of social

morality be raised to a new level. He proposed that the feeling of anger

and hate be treated as seriously as murder had been treated under the old

code, and if anyone went so far as to use hateful and contemptuous

expressions toward a fellow-man, it ought to be a case for the supreme

court. Of course this was simply a vivid form of putting it. The important

point is that Jesus ranged hate and contempt under the category of murder.

To abuse a man with words of contempt denies his worth, breaks down his

self-respect, and robs him of the regard of others. It is an attempt to

murder his soul. The horror which Jesus feels for such action is an

expression of his own respect for the worth of personality.

_How is the self-respect and sense of personal worth of men built up or

broken down in college communities?_

_How in industrial communities?_

Fourth Day: Bringing Back the Outcast

Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto him to

hear him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying,

This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

And he spake unto them this parable, saying, What man of you,

having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not

leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that

which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he

layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he

calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them,

Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say

unto you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven over one

sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine righteous

persons, who need no repentance.

Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,

doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently

until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth

together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I

have found the piece which I had lost. Even so, I say unto you,

there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner

that repenteth.—Luke 15:1-10.

Every Jewish community had a fringe of unchurched people, who could not

keep up the strict observance of the Law and had given up trying. The

pious people, just because they were pious, felt they must cold-shoulder

such. Jesus walked across the lines established. What seems to have been

the motive that prompted him? Why did the Pharisee withdraw, and why did

Jesus mix with the publicans?

_What groups in our own communities correspond to the __“__publicans and

sinners,__”__ and what is the attitude of religious people toward them?_

_What social groups in college towns are spoken of with contempt by

college men, and why?_

_Is there a Pharisaism of education? Define and locate it._

Fifth Day: The Problem of the Delinquents

For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was

lost.—Luke 19:10.

Here Jesus formulates the inner meaning and mission of his life as he

himself felt it. He was here for social restoration and moral salvage. No

human being should go to pieces if he could help it. He was not only

willing to help people who came to him for help, but he proposed to go

after them. The “lost” man was too valuable and sacred to be lost.

_How does the Christian impulse of salvation connect with the activities

represented in the National Conference of Charities and Correction?_

_How does a college community regard its __“__sinners__”__?_ Suppose a man

has an instinct for low amusements and a yellow sense of honor, how do the

higher forces in college life get at that man to set him right?

Sixth Day: Going Beyond Justice

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was a

householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers

into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a

shilling a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out

about the third hour, and saw others standing in the marketplace

idle; and to them he said, Go ye also into the vineyard, and

whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.

Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did

likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others

standing: and he saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day

idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He said

unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard. And when even was come,

the lord of the vineyard said unto his steward, Call the laborers,

and pay them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.

And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they

received every man a shilling. And when the first came, they

supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received

every man a shilling. And when they received it, they murmured

against the householder, saying, These last have spent but one

hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the

burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he answered and said

to one of them, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree

with me for a shilling? Take up that which is thine, and go thy

way; it is my will to give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is

it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? or is thine

eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the

first last.—Matt. 20:1-16.

Judaism rested on legality. So much obedience to the law earned so much

reward, according to the contract between God and Israel. Theoretically

this was just; practically it gave the inside track to the respectable and

well to do, for it took leisure and money to obey the minutiæ of the Law.

In this parable the employer rises from the level of justice to the higher

plane of human fellow-feeling. These eleventh-hour men had been ready to

work; they had to eat and live; he proposed to give them a living wage

because he felt an inner prompting to do so. In the parable of the

Prodigal Son the father does more for his son than justice required,

because he was a father. Here the employer does more because he is a man.

Each acted from a sense of the worth of the human life with which he was

dealing. It was the same sense of worth and sacredness in Jesus which

prompted him to invent these parables.

_Do we find ourselves valuing people according to their utility to us, or

do we have an active feeling of their human interest and worth?_ Let us

run over in our minds our family and relatives, our professors and

friends, and the people in town who serve us, and see with whom we are on

a human footing.

Seventh Day: The Courtesy of Jesus

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all

the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And

the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and

having set her in the midst, they say unto him, Teacher, this

woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law

Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her?

And this they said, trying him that they might have whereof to

accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on

the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted up

himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let

him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and with

his finger wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went

out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and

Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst.

And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, Woman, where are

they? did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And

Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth

sin no more.—John 8:2-11.

Was there ever a more gentlemanly handling of a raw situation? This woman

was going through one of the most harrowing experiences conceivable,

exposed to the gaze of a leering and scornful crowd, her good name torn

away, her self-respect crushed. Jesus shielded her from stoning by the

power of his personality and his consummate skill in handling men. He got

inside their guard, aroused their own sense of past guilt, and so awakened

some human fellow-feeling for the woman. When he was alone with her, what

a mingling of kindness and severity! Surely she would carry away the

memory of a wonderful friend who came to her in her dire need. Why did

Jesus twice turn his eyes away to the ground? Was he ashamed to look at

her shame?

Such a sudden, tragic happening is a severe test of a man’s qualities. It

brought out the courtesy of Jesus, his respect for human personality even

in its shame. _How can we train ourselves so that we may be equal to such

emergencies?_ Would continued spiritual contact with Jesus be likely to

make a difference?

Study for the Week

The passages we have studied are inductive material. Can there be any

doubt that Jesus had a spontaneous love for his fellow-men and a deep

sense of the sacredness of human personality? Physical deformity and moral

guilt could not obscure the divine worth of human life to him. To cause

any soul to stumble and go down, or to express contempt for any human

being, was to him a horrible guilt.

This regard for human life was based on the same social instinct which

every normal man possesses. But with Jesus it was so strong that it

determined all his viewpoints and activities. He affirmed the humane

instinct consciously and intelligently, and raised it to the dignity of a

social principle. This alone would be enough to mark him out as a new

type, prophetic and creative of a new development of the race.

Whence did Jesus derive the strength and purity of his social feeling? Was

it simply the endowment of a finely attuned nature? Other fine minds of

the ancient world valued men according to their wealth, their rank, their

power, their education, their beauty. Jesus valued men as such, apart from

any attractive equipment. Why? “The deeper our insight into human destiny

becomes, the more sacred does every individual human being seem to us”

(Lotze). The respect of Jesus for every concrete person whom he met was

due to his religious insight into human life and destiny. But how did he

get his insight?

Love and religion have the power of idealistic interpretation. To a mother

her child is a wonderful being. To a true lover the girl he loves has

sacredness. With Jesus the consciousness of a God of love revealed the

beauty of men. The old gods were despotic supermen, mythical duplicates of

the human kings and conquerors. The God of Jesus was the great Father who

lets his light shine on the just and the unjust, and offers forgiveness

and love to all. Jesus lived in the spiritual atmosphere of that faith.

Consequently he saw men from that point of view. They were to him children

of that God. Even the lowliest was high. The light that shone on him from

the face of God shed a splendor on the prosaic ranks of men. In this way

religion enriches and illuminates social feeling.

Jesus succeeded in transmitting something of his own sense of the

sacredness of life to his followers. As Wundt says: “Humanity in this

highest sense was brought into the world by Christianity.” The love of men

became a social dogma of the Church. Some other convictions of Jesus left

few traces on the common thought of Christendom, but the Church has always

stood for a high estimate of the potential worth of the soul of man. It

has always taught that man was made in God’s image and that he is destined

to share in the holiness and eternal life of God.

What effects has this registered on social conduct? Has the Church

intelligently resisted social forces or conditions which brutalized or

shamed men?

It is most difficult to estimate accurately the historic influence of

religious ideas. They are subtle and hard to trace. But we can justly

reason from our own observations in evangelism and foreign mission work.

Those of us who have gone through a clearly marked conversion to

Christianity will probably remember that we realized our fellow-men with a

new warmth and closeness, and under higher points of view. We were then

entering into the Christian valuation of human life. In foreign missions

the influence of Christianity can be contrasted with non-Christian social

life, and there is often a striking rise in the respect for life and

personality as compared with the hardness and callousness of heathen

society. This is one of the distinctive marks of the modern and Western

world compared with the ancient and the Oriental. Those individuals among

us who have really duplicated something of the spirit of Jesus are always

marked by their loving regard for human life, even its wreckage. That

sense of sacredness is the basis for the whole missionary and

philanthropic activity of Christian men and women.

It is also an important force in the social movements. Have there been any

widespread, continuous, and successful movements for social justice

outside of the territory influenced by Christianity? Was there any causal

connection between the historic reformation and purification of

Christianity since the sixteenth century and the rise of civil and social

democracy? Does the spread of Christian ideas and feelings predispose the

powerful classes to make concessions? What contribution did the Wesleyan

revival among the working people of England make toward the rise of the

trade union movement, the education of stable leaders, and the faith in

democracy? It takes idealistic convictions a long time to permeate large

social classes, but they often spring into effectiveness suddenly.

Certainly a belief in the worth and capacity of the common man is a

spiritual support of democratic institutions, and where the Church really

spread the Christian sense of the worth and sacredness of human life, it

has been a great stabilizer of civil liberty.

Jesus asserted with religious power what all men feel. Sometimes it

requires the solemn presence of death to brush aside the artificial

distinctions of society and to make us realize that a life is a life, and

precious as such. But when we are at our best, we do feel the sacredness

of human life.

III

Does our present social order develop or neutralize that feeling in us?

Presumably it works both ways. For those who want to spread the spirit of

Christ, it becomes important to inquire at what points our social

institutions cheapen life and take the value out of personality.

The class differences inherited from the past are designed to hedge the

upper classes about with honor, but they necessarily depreciate the lower

classes by contrast and neutralize the tie of the common blood. In some

countries the self-respect of the lower classes is affronted by degrading

forms of legal punishment reserved for them. Forms of servility are

exacted from servants and peasants. The practical working of class

differences is most clearly seen in the relation of the sexes. Love is a

great equalizer; hence it clashes with class pride. The plot of

innumerable dramas and novels turns on the efforts of love to overcome the

laws of social caste. Where class spirit is traditional and fully

developed, men have a double code for the women of their own class, and

those of the lower classes. It is a far greater offense for a gentleman to

marry a girl of the lower class than to ruin her.

It is the glory of America that our laws do not intend to recognize class

differences. The conditions of life on a raw continent and the principles

embodied in religious and political idealism fortunately cooperated. Will

this last, or are the great differences in wealth once more resulting in

definite class lines and in class pride and contempt? What does the phrase

“of good family” imply by contrast? What evidence does college fraternity

life offer as to the existence of social classes? How is immigration

likely to increase the cleavages by adding differences of race and color,

religion, language, and manners? What light does the history of

immigration in America cast on our valuation of human life in strangers?

Political oligarchies have usually defended their rule by the assumption

that the masses are incapable and the few are superior. The laws made by

them, however, have usually shown ignorance and indifference as to the

human needs of the working masses. The same fundamental adjustment exists

in industry. It is not an expression of the worth of the working people if

they have no right to organize or to share in governing the conditions

under which they work, and if years of good work earn a man no ownership

or equity, no legal standing or even tenure of employment in a business.

Is the right to petition for a redress of grievances an adequate

industrial expression of the Christian doctrine of the worth and

sacredness of personality? Is not property essential to the real freedom

and self-expression of a human personality?

War and prostitution are the most flagrant offenses against this social

principle. War is a wholesale waster of life. Prostitution is the worst

form of contempt for personality.

Does our intellectual and scientific work ever tend to chill the warm

sense of human values? Do we acquire something of the impassiveness of

Nature in studying her enormous waste of life? Do we transfer to human

affairs her readiness to use up the masses in order to produce a higher

type? Jesus did not talk about eliminating the unfit. He talked about

saving them, which requires greater constructive energy if it is really to

be done. It also requires a higher faith in the latent recuperative

capacities of human nature. The detached attitude of scientific study may

combine with our plentiful natural egotism to create a cold indifference

toward the less attractive masses of humanity. We need the glow of

Christ’s feeling for men to come unharmed out of this intellectual

temptation.

Doubtless the objection has arisen in our minds that it is not in the

interest of the future of the race that religious pity shall coddle and

multiply the weak, or put them in control of society.

But did Jesus want the weak to stay weak? Was his social feeling ever

maudlin? He was himself a powerful and free personality, who refused to be

suppressed or conformed to the dominant type. He challenged the existing

authorities, one against the field. Even in the slender record we have of

him we can see him running the gamut of emotions from wrath and invective

to tenderness and humor. It was precisely his own powerful individuality

which made him demand for others the right to become free and strong

souls. Other powerful individuals have used up the rest as means to their

end. What human life or character did Jesus weaken or break down? He was

an emancipator, a creator of strong men. His followers in later times did

lay a new yoke on the spirits of men and denied them the right to think

their own thoughts and be themselves. But the spirit of Jesus is an

awakening force. Even the down-and-out brace up when they come in contact

with him, and feel that they are still good for something.

“Jesus Christ was the first to bring the value of every human soul to

light, and what he did no one can any more undo” (Harnack). But it remains

for every individual to accept and reaffirm that religious faith as his

own guiding principle according to which he proposes to live. We shall be

at one with the spirit of Christianity and of modern civilization if we

approach all men with the expectation of finding beneath commonplace,

sordid, or even repulsive externals some qualities of love, loyalty,

heroism, aspiration, or repentance, which prove the divine in man. Kant

expressed that reverence for personality in his doctrine that we must

never treat a man as a means only, but always as an end in himself. So far

as our civilization treats men merely as labor force, fit to produce

wealth for the few, it is not yet Christian. Any man who treats his

fellows in that way, blunts his higher nature; as Fichte says, whoever

treats another as a slave, becomes a slave. We might add, whoever treats

him as a child of God, becomes a child of God and learns to know God.

“The principle of reverence for personality is the ruling principle in

ethics, and in religion; it constitutes, therefore, the truest and highest

test of either an individual or a civilization; it has been, even

unconsciously, the guiding and determining principle in all human

progress; and in its religious interpretation, it is, indeed, the one

faith that keeps meaning and value for life” (President Henry C. King).

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Ordinary Estimate of Men_

1. How much do we care for a man if he is of no practical use to us?

2. On what basis do we ordinarily value men?

II. _Jesus’ Estimate of Men_

1. Which source passages in the daily readings seemed to put the feeling

of Jesus in the clearest light?

2. How did the religious insight of Jesus reenforce his social feeling?

3. To what extent is it possible to duplicate his sense of humanity

without his consciousness of God?

III. _The Valuation of the Individual in Modern Life_

1. List the evidences that modern society values men as such apart from

economic utility or standing, or show that it does not so value them.

2. Is the tendency in modern life toward a lower or higher valuation of

the individual? To what extent is this due to the influence of

Christianity?

3. How do the statistics of industrial accidents agree with our Christian

valuation of life?

IV. _The Test of History_

1. What widespread and successful movements for social justice have there

been outside the territory influenced by Christianity?

2. How do modern missions serve as an experiment station for the problem

of this chapter?

3. What connection was there between the Wesleyan revival and the rise of

the trade union movement in England?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Do permanent class differences necessarily result in a slighter social

feeling for the inferior class?

2. Describe the class lines drawn in your home town.

3. Did you feel these lines more or less when you entered college?

4. Does college life tend to make us callous or sympathetic?

5. Does life in social settlements seem to increase or decrease respect

for human nature in college men and women?

6. How would you preserve your self-respect if you were a working man

placed in degrading labor conditions?

7. Does an honor system build up self-respect?

8. Have your scientific studies, and especially evolutionary teachings,

increased your regard for humanity in the mass?

9. According to your observation, does religion make a man a stronger or

weaker personality?

Chapter II. The Solidarity Of The Human Family

Every man has worth and sacredness as a man. We fixed on that as the

simplest and most fundamental social principle of Jesus. The second

question is, What relation do men bear to each other?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Social Impulse and the Law of Christ

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him:

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said

unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and

with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and

first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt

love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole

law hangeth, and the prophets.—Matt. 22:35-40.

Which among the multitudinous prescriptions of the Jewish law ought to

take precedence of the rest? It was a fine academic question for church

lawyers to discuss. Jesus passed by all ceremonial and ecclesiastical

requirements, and put his hand on love as the central law of life, both in

religion and ethics. It was a great simplification and spiritualization of

religion. But love is the social instinct which binds man and man together

and makes them indispensable to one another. Whoever demands love, demands

solidarity. Whoever sets love first, sets fellowship high.

_When Jesus speaks of love, what more than mere emotion does he mean?_

_Is love really the highest thing?_

_What do you think of the epigram of Augustine:_ AMA ET FAC QUOD VIS?

Second Day: Jesus Craving Friendship

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and

saith unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray.

And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began

to be sorrowful and sore troubled. Then saith he unto them, My

soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and

watch with me. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face,

and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup

pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.

And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them sleeping, and

saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch

and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is

willing, but the flesh is weak. Again a second time he went away,

and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I

drink it, thy will be done. And he came again and found them

sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them again, and

went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words.

Then cometh he to the disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on

now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son

of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be

going: behold, he is at hand that betrayeth me.—Matt. 26:36-46.

Jesus was personally very sociable. He evidently enjoyed mixing with

people. He liked the give-and-take of life. He had friendships. A group of

men and women gathered around him who gave him their devoted loyalty. He

in turn needed them. The denial of Peter and the betrayal of Judas hurt

him, partly because they were defections from the comradeship of his

group. In Gethsemane he craved friendship. He prayed to God, but he

reached out for Peter and John. The longing for friendship and the unrest

of loneliness are proof of a truly human and social nature.

_In how far is a need for others a sign of strength or of weakness?_

_What connection has the spirit of a team, or the loyalty of a college

class, with the Christian law of love?_

Third Day: Restoring Solidarity

Then came Peter and said to him, Lord, how oft shall my brother

sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus saith

unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until

seventy times seven.—Matt. 18:21-22.

Love binds together; hate and anger cut apart. They destroy fellowship.

Therefore the chief effort of the Christian spirit must be to reestablish

fellowship wherever men have been sundered by ill-will. This is done by

confession and forgiveness. Forgiveness was so important to Jesus because

social unity was so important to him. In the Lord’s Prayer he makes full

fellowship with men a condition of full fellowship with God: “Forgive us

our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.”

Are there any personal injuries which are beyond forgiveness?

_Think back to any striking experience of forgiving or being forgiven.

What was the religious and moral reaction on your life?_

Fourth Day: The Christian Intensification of Love

Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we

ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the

world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up

his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My

little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue;

but in deed and truth.—1 John 3:16-18.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every

one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that

loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love

of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son

into the world that we might live through him.—1 John 4:7-9.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No

man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God

abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us.—1 John 4:11-12.

These are quotations from one of the early Christian writings. They are

evidence of the emphasis put on love as a distinctive doctrine of the new

religion. Note how the natural social instinct of human affection is

intensified and uplifted by religious motives and forces. Which of these

motives are directly taken from the personality and life of Christ?

_Do you remember any quotations from non-Christian literature in which a

similar love for love is expressed?_

Fifth Day: Solidaristic Responsibility

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty

works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee,

Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had

been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would

have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you,

it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of

judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted

unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty

works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would

have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be

more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than

for thee.—Matt. 11:20-24.

We know that by constant common action a social group develops a common

spirit and common standards of action, which then assimilate and

standardize the actions of its members. Jesus felt the solidarity of the

neighborhood groups in Galilee with whom he mingled. He treated them as

composite personalities, jointly responsible for their moral decisions.

_What groups of which we have been a part in the past have stamped us with

the group character for good or evil? How about those of which we are now

a part?_

_What have we learned from the Great War about national solidarity?_

Sixth Day: The Solidarity of the Generations

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the

sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the

righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we

should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the

prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of

them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your

fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape

the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets,

and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify;

and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and

persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the

righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the

righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye

slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you,

All these things shall come upon this generation.—Matt. 23:29-36.

Jesus saw a moral solidarity existing, not only between contemporaries who

act together, but between generations that act alike. Every generation

clings to its profitable wrongs and tries to silence those who stand for

higher righteousness. Posterity takes comfort in being fairer about the

dead issues, but is just as hot and bad about present issues. The sons

reenact the old tragedies on a new stage, and so line up with their

fathers. In looking back over the history of his nation, Jesus saw a

continuity of wrong which bound the generations together in a solidarity

of guilt.

_Does the connection consist only in similarity of action, or is there a

causal continuity of wrong in the life of a community?_

_Is there anything in our personal family history or family wealth and

business which threatens to line us up with past evils?_

Seventh Day: Social Consciousness in the Lord’s Prayer

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in

heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive

us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us

not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.—Matt.

6:9-13.

_Is there anything more solitary than a human soul calling to the

invisible Presence? Is there anything more social in consciousness than

the Lord’s Prayer?_

_Where in these petitions do you feel the sense of social coherence as the

unspoken presupposition of the thought?_(_1_)

_Could Jesus have thought this prayer if the unity of the race had not

been both an instinctive reality and a clear social principle with him?_

Study for the Week

That man is a social being is the fundamental fact with which all social

sciences have to deal. We may like or dislike people; we can not well be

indifferent to them if they get close to us. As Sartor Resartus puts it:

“In vain thou deniest it; thou _art_ my brother. Thy very hatred, thy very

envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour; what

is all this but an inverted sympathy? Were I a steam-engine, wouldst thou

take the trouble to tell lies of me?”

Sex admiration, parental love, “the dear love of comrades,” the thrill of

patriotism, the joy of play, are all forms of fellowship. They give us

happiness because they satisfy our social instinct. To realize our unity

gives relish to life. To be thrust out of fellowship is the great pain.

Many evil things get their attractiveness mainly through the fact that

they create a bit of fellowship—such as it is. The slender thread of good

in the saloon is comradeship. (See Jack London, “John Barleycorn.”)

None ever felt this social unity of our race more deeply than Jesus. To

him it was sacred and divine. Hence his emphasis on love and forgiveness.

He put his personality behind the natural instinct of social attraction

and encouraged it. He swung the great force of religion around to bear on

it and drive it home. Anything that substitutes antagonism for fraternity

is evil to him. Just as in the case of the natural respect for human life

and personality, so in the case of the natural social cohesion of men, he

lifted the blind instinct of human nature by the insight of religion and

constituted it a fundamental principle of life. It is the business of

Christianity to widen the area of comradeship.

Common human judgment assents to the valuation of Jesus. Wherever an

effective and stable form of fellowship has been created, a sense of

sacredness begins to attach to it, and men defend it as a sort of shrine

of the divine in man. Wherever men are striving to create a larger

fellowship, they have religious enthusiasm as if they were building a

temple for God. This is the heart of church loyalty.

The family is the most striking case of solidarity. It is first formed of

two units at opposite poles in point of sex, experience, taste, need, and

aims; and when they form it, they usually have as much sense of sacredness

as their character is capable of feeling. When children are added, more

divergences of age, capacity, and need are injected. Yet out of these

contradictory elements a social fellowship is built up, which, in the

immense majority of cases, defies the shocks of life and the strain of

changing moods and needs, forms the chief source of contentment for the

majority of men and women, and, when conspicuously successful, wins the

spontaneous tribute of reverence from all right-thinking persons. In using

the equipment of the home, in standing by one another in time of sickness

and trouble, and in spiritual sympathy, a true family practices solidarity

of interests, and furnishes the chief education in cooperation.

Political unity was at first an expansion of family unity. The passionate

loyalty with which a nation defends its country and its freedom, is not

simply a defence of real estate and livestock, but of its national

brotherhood and solidarity. The devotion with which people suffer and die

for their State is all the more remarkable because all States hitherto

have been largely organizations for coercion and exploitation, and only in

part real fraternal communities. Patriotism hitherto has been largely a

prophetic outreaching toward a great fellowship nowhere realized. The

peoples walk by faith.

What evidence does college life furnish us of the fact that social unity

is realized with some sense of sacredness? Why do the years in college

stand out in the later memories of graduates with such a glamour? Why do

students devote so much unpaid service to their teams and fraternities? Is

it for the selfish advantages they hope to get, or because they feel they

are realizing the best of life in being part of a solidaristic group? Do

the dangers of college organizations prove or disprove the principle that

fellowship is felt to be something sacred?

Any historical event in which men stood by their group through suffering

or to death is remembered with pride. Any case of desertion or betrayal is

remembered with shame. No group forgives those who sell out its solidarity

for private safety or profit.

Insurance and cooperation are two great demonstrations of the power of

solidarity. In insurance we bear one another’s burdens, “and so fulfil the

law of Christ.” The cooperative associations, which have had such enormous

success in Europe, succeed only where neighborhood or common idealistic

conviction has previously established a consciousness of social unity.

They have to overcome the most adverse conditions in achieving success.

When they do, the effect on the economic prosperity of the people and on

their moral stability and progressiveness is remarkable.

Thus the instincts of the race assent to the social principle of Jesus,

that fellowship is sacred. The chief law of Christianity does not

contradict the social nature of man but expresses and reenforces it. It is

the special function of Christians to promote social unity and expand its

blessings. To do this intelligently we should take note where, at present,

solidarity is frustrated.

For instance, it is important to inquire how social unity is negatived in

commercial life. Is competition necessarily unfraternal? Would a Socialist

organization of society necessarily be fraternal? Is it a denial of

fellowship to exact monopoly profit from consumers, or to take advantage

of the ignorance or necessities of a buyer? Is the law of the market

compatible with a fraternal conception of society?

Where can you trace the principle of solidarity actually at work in

industrial life? Give cases where you have observed a real sense of human

coherence and loyalty between employer and employes. How had the feeling

been promoted in those cases and what effect did it have on the economic

relations of the two groups? Why is the feeling of antagonism between

these groups so common? Does the wages system make this inevitable? How

ought we to value the willingness of organized labor to stand together,

especially on strike, and what connection does the bitterness toward

“scabs” have with our subject?

War is a rupture of fellowship on a large scale. The Great War of 1914 has

been the most extensive demonstration of the collapse of love which any of

us wants to see. As soon as one nation no longer recognizes its social

unity with another nation, all morality collapses, and a deluge of hate,

cruelty, and lies follows. The problem of international peace is the

problem of expanding the area of love and social unity. It is the sin of

Christendom that so few took this problem seriously until we were

chastised for our moral stupidity and inertia. The young men and women of

today will have to take this problem on their intellect and conscience for

their lifetime, and propose to see it through.

III

Does religion create social unity or neutralize it? Does prayer isolate or

connect? Has the force of religion in human history done more to divide or

to consolidate men?

Evidently religion may work both ways, and all who are interested in it

must see to it that their religion does not escape control and wreck

fraternity. Even mystic prayer and contemplation, which is commonly

regarded as the flower of religious life, may make men indifferent to

their fellows.

It is worth noting that the prayer experiences of Jesus were not ascetic

or unsocial. They prepared him for action. When he went into the desert

after his baptism it was to settle the principles on which his Messianic

work was to be done; his temptations prove that. When he went out from

Capernaum to pray “a great while before day,” it was to launch his

aggressive missionary campaign among the Galilæan villages. Prayer may be

an emotional dissipation. Prayer is Christian only if it makes us realize

our fellows more keenly and affectionately.

It is one thing to praise love and another thing to practice it. We may

theorize about society and ourselves be contrary and selfish units in it.

Social unity is an achievement. A loving mind toward our fellows, even the

cranky, is the prize of a lifetime. How can it be evoked and cultivated in

us? That is one of the most important problems in education. Can it be

solved without religious influences? Love will not up at the bidding. We

can observe the fact that personal discipleship of Christ has given some

persons in our acquaintance a rare capacity for love, for social sympathy,

for peaceableness, for all the society-making qualities. We can make test

of the fact for ourselves that every real contact with him gives us an

accession of fraternity and greater fitness for nobler social unity. It

makes us good fellows.

The man who intelligently realizes the Chinese and the Zulu as his

brothers with whom he must share the earth, is an ampler mind—other things

being equal—than the man who can think of humanity only in terms of

pale-faces. The consciousness of humanity will have to be wrought out just

as the consciousness of nationality was gradually acquired. He who has it

is ahead of his time and a pioneer of the future. The missionary puts

himself in the position to acquire that wider sense of solidarity. By

becoming a neighbor to remote people he broadens their conception of

humanity and his own, and then can be an interpreter of his new friends to

his old friends. The interest in foreign missions has, in fact, been a

prime educational force, carrying a world-wide consciousness of solidarity

into thousands of plain minds and hones that would otherwise have been

provincial in their horizon.

A world-wide civilization must have a common monotheistic faith as its

spiritual basis. Such a faith must be unitive and not divisive. What the

world needs is a religion with a powerful sense of solidarity.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _Solidarity in Human Life_

1. Are comradeship and team-work instinctive, or must they be learned?

2. Do the symptoms of hatred prove or disprove social unity?

3. Does a strong sense of social unity make a vigorous individualism

harder to maintain?

II. _Christianity and Solidarity_

1. Give proof that Jesus felt a human hunger for companionship.

2. How does the place assigned to love in the teachings of Jesus bear on

solidarity? How does the duty of forgiveness connect with this?

3. How does the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer prove the place of solidarity

in Christianity?

III. _Jesus and the Social Groups_

1. Where did Jesus treat communities as composite personalities? Would it

be equally just today to hold cities responsible as moral units?

2. How did Jesus trace a moral solidarity between generations?

IV. _Solidarity in Modern Life_

1. Where do you see the principle of solidarity accepted and where do you

see it denied in modern social life?

2. In what way does war outrage Jesus’ principles of social unity? Does it

ever promote fraternity and solidarity? If so how?

3. Is class consciousness a denial of social solidarity or an approach to

it? How can group loyalty be made to contribute to the common weal?

4. How should we value the willingness of organized labor to stand

together, particularly on strike? What light does bitterness toward scabs

throw on social solidarity?

5. Why is the feeling of antagonism between employer and employe so

common? Does a wage system make this inevitable? Can a real sense of

cooperation be secured? If so how?

6. If a manufacturer has a monopoly, how much profit will loyalty to

Christian principles permit him to make?

7. When is competition unfraternal? Would socialism insure fraternity?

8. Do college fraternities practice fraternity?

V. _Strengthening Solidarity_

1. How can the law of love be made the basis of modern business?

2. Does religion create social unity or neutralize it? How about prayer?

3. How does the Christian law of love bear on the relations of the races

in America?

4. What have Christian missions done to lead society from the

nationalistic to the international and inter-racial stage?

5. Can world-wide social unity be secured without the influence of

Christianity?

VI. _For Special Discussion_

1. To what extent does our present commercial and industrial organization

furnish a basis for experience of solidarity and education in it?

2. What aspects of modern advertising are Christian and which are

non-Christian?

3. To what extent is the law of the market compatible with a fraternal

conception of society?

4. Would a successful socialist organization create a stronger sense of

solidarity or would divisive interests get in by new ways?

5. Which has the better inducements to loyalty, a college, or a trade

union? Which has more of it?

6. How does the team spirit go wrong among students?

Chapter III. Standing With The People

We have found two simple and axiomatic social principles in the

fundamental convictions of Jesus: The sacredness of life and personality,

and the spiritual solidarity of men. Now confront a mind mastered by these

convictions with the actual conditions of society, with the contempt for

life and the denial of social obligation existing, and how will he react?

How will he see the duty of the strong, and his own duty?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Social Platform of Jesus

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he

entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day,

and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of

the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place

where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor:

He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovering of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty them that are bruised,

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat

down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been

fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at

the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth: and they

said, Is not this Joseph’s son?—Luke 4:16-22.

Luke evidently felt that this appearance of Jesus in the synagogue of his

home city at the outset of his public work was a significant occasion. The

passage from Isaiah (61:1f) was doubtless one of the favorite quotations

of Jesus. He saw his own aims summarized in it and he now announced it as

his program. Its promises were now about to be realized. What were they?

Glad tidings for the poor, release for the imprisoned, sight for the

blind, freedom for the oppressed, and a “year of Jehovah.” If this was an

allusion to the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25), it involved a revolutionary

“shedding of burdens,” such as Solon brought about at Athens. At any rate,

social and religious emancipation are woven together in these phrases.

Plainly Jesus saw his mission in raising to free and full life those whom

life had held down and hurt.

“As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them.” Must the

platform of Jesus be our platform and program?

Second Day: The Social Test of the Messiah

And the disciples of John told him of all these things. And John

calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to the Lord,

saying, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another? And when

the men were come unto him, they said, John the Baptist hath sent

us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for

another? In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and

evil spirits; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And

he answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the things which

ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame

walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are

raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And

blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in

me. Luke 7:18-23.

Was Jesus the Coming One? He did not quite measure up to John’s

expectations. The Messiah was to purge the people of evil elements,

winnowing the chaff from the wheat and burning it. His symbol was the axe.

Jesus was manifesting no such spirit. Was he then the Messiah?

Jesus shifted the test to another field. Human suffering was being

relieved and the poor were having glad news proclaimed to them. Sympathy

for the people was the assured common ground between Jesus and John. Jesus

felt that John would recognize the dawn of the reign of God by the

evidence which he offered him.

What, then, would be proper evidence that the reign of God is gaining

ground in our intellect and feeling?

Third Day: The Church, a Product of Social Feeling

And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in

their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and

healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when

he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them,

because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a

shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is

plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of

the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest. And he

called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over

unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of

disease and all manner of sickness.—Matt. 9:35-10:1.

The selection of the Twelve, their grouping by twos, and their employment

as independent messengers, was the most important organizing act of Jesus.

Out of it ultimately grew the Christian Church. Now note what motives led

to it. Jesus was relieving social misery. He was oppressed by the sense of

it. The Greek verbs are very inadequately rendered by “distressed and

scattered.” The first means “skinned, harried”; the second means “flung

down, prostrate.” The people were like a flock of sheep after the wolves

are through with them. There was dearth of true leaders. So Jesus took the

material he had and organized the apostolate—for what? The Church grew out

of the social feeling of Jesus for the sufferings of the common people.

To what extent, in your judgment, does the Church today share the feeling

of Jesus about the condition of the people and fulfil the purpose for

which he organized the apostolate? Or has the condition of the people

changed so that their social needs are less urgent?

Fourth Day: Jesus Took Sides

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed are

ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that

hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now:

for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and

when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you,

and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice

in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in

heaven; for in the same manner did their fathers unto the

prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received

your consolation. Woe unto you, ye that are full now! for ye shall

hunger. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now for ye shall mourn and

weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for in

the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.—Luke

6:20-26.

In these Beatitudes, as Luke reports them, Jesus clearly takes sides with

the lowly. He says God and the future are not on the side of the rich, the

satiated; the devotees of pleasure, the people who take the popular side

on everything. Ultimately the verdict will be for those who are now poor

and underfed, who carry the heavy end of things, and who have to stand for

the unpopular side. In the report of the Beatitudes given by Matthew

(5:3-12) the terms are less social and more spiritual, and the contrast

between the upper and lower classes is not marked; but even there the

promise of the great reversal of things is to the humble and peaceable

folk, the hard hit and unpopular; they are to inherit the earth, and also

God’s kingdom.

Would it make Jesus a wiser teacher and nobler figure if he had reversed

his sympathies?

Fifth Day: Salvation through the Common People

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I

thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst

hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst

reveal them unto babes: yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing

in thy sight.—Luke 10:21.

For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the

flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose

the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them

that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he

might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things

of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose,

yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the

things that are: that no flesh should glory before God.—1 Cor

1:26-29.

The actual results of his work proved to Jesus that his success was to be

with the simple-minded, and not with the pundit class. He accepted the

fact with a thrill of joy, and praised God for making it so. Paul verified

the same alignment in the early Church. The upper classes held back

through pride of birth or education, or through the timidity of wealth. In

bringing in a new order of things, God had to use plain people to get a

leverage.

_What really was it that Jesus saw in the lowly to attract him?_

Sixth Day: Jesus, a Man of the People

And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and came unto Bethphage,

unto the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying

unto them, Go into the village that is over against you, and

straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose

them, and bring them unto me. And if any one say aught unto you,

ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will

send them. Now this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled

which was spoken through the prophet, saying,

Tell ye the daughter of Zion,

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee,

Meek, and riding upon an ass,

And upon a colt the foal of an ass.

And the disciples went, and did even as Jesus appointed them, and

brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and

he sat thereon. And the most part of the multitude spread their

garments in the way; and others cut branches from the trees, and

spread them in the way. And the multitudes that went before him,

and that followed, cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David:

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the

highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was

stirred, saying, Who is this? And the multitudes said, This is the

prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.—Matt. 21:1-11.

Here was a democratic procession! No caparisoned charger, but a

burro—though a young and frisky one, carefully selected—no military escort

with a brass band and a drum major, but a throng of peasants, shouting the

psalms of their fathers and the hope of a good time coming; no costly rugs

to carpet the way of the King, but the sweat-stained garments of working

people and branches wrenched off by Galilæan fists. What was he, this King

of the future, ridiculous or sublime?

If Jesus is ever to make his entry into the spiritual sovereignty of

humanity, will the social classes line up as they did at Jerusalem?

Seventh Day: The Final Test for All

But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the

angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and

before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall

separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the

sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right

hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them

on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the

kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I

was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me

drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed

me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came

unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when

saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink?

And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and

clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came

unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I

say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren,

even these least, ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also unto

them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal

fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was

hungry, and ye did not give me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave

me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and

ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer, saying, Lord, when saw we thee

hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in

prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them,

saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one

of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away

into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal

life.—Matt. 25:31-46.

“Whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” Think of

it—absolute justice done at last, by an all-knowing Judge, where no

earthly pull of birth, wealth, learning, or power will count, and where

all masks fall! By what code of law and what standard shall we be judged

there? Here is the answer of Jesus: Not by creed and church questions, but

by our human relations; by the reality of our social feeling; by our

practical solidarity with our fellow-men. If we lived in the presence of

hunger, loneliness, and oppression, in the same country with child labor,

race contempt, the long day, rack rents, prostitution, just earnings

withheld by power, the price of living raised to swell swollen profit—if

we saw such things and remained apathetic, out we go.

_You and I—to the right or the left?_

Study for the Week

No one can turn from a frank reading of the Gospels without realizing that

Jesus had a deep fellow-feeling, not only for suffering and handicapped

individuals, but for the mass of the poorer people of his country, the

peasants, the fishermen, the artisans. He declared that it was his mission

to bring glad tidings to this class; and not only glad words, but happy

realities. Evidently the expectation of the coming Reign of God to his

mind signified some substantial relief and release to the submerged and

oppressed. Our modern human feeling glories in this side of our Saviour’s

work. Art and literature love to see him from this angle.

His concern for the poor was the necessary result of the two fundamental

convictions discussed by us in the previous chapters. If he felt the

sacredness of life, even in its humble and hardworn forms, and if he felt

the family unity of all men in such a way that the sorrows of the poor

were his sorrows, then, of course, he could not be at ease while the

people were “skinned and prostrate,” “like sheep without a shepherd.”

Wherever any group has developed real solidarity, its best attention is

always given to those who are most in need. “The whole have no need of a

physician,” said Jesus; the strong can take care of themselves.

So he cast in his lot with the people consciously. He slept in their

homes, healed their diseases, ate their bread, and shared his own with

them. He gave them a faith, a hope of better days, and a sense that God

was on their side. Such a faith is more than meat and drink. In turn they

rallied around him, and could not get enough of him. “The common people

heard him gladly.”

Furthermore, the feeling of Jesus for “the poor” was not the sort of

compassion we feel for the hopelessly crippled in body or mind. His

feeling was one of love and trust. The Galilæan peasants, from whom Peter

and John sprang, were not morons, or the sodden dregs of city slums. They

were the patient, hard-working folks who have always made up the rank and

file of all peoples. They had their faults, and Jesus must have known

them. But did he ever denounce them, or call them “offspring of vipers”?

Did he ever indicate that their special vices were frustrating the Kingdom

of God? They needed spiritual impulse and leadership, but their nature was

sound and they were the raw material for the redeemed humanity which he

strove to create.

There is one more quality which we shall have to recognize in the attitude

of Jesus to “the poor.” He saw them over against “the rich.” Amid all the

variations of human society these two groups always reappear—those who

live by their own productive labor, and those who live on the productive

labor of others whom they control. Practically they overlap and blend, but

when our perspective is distant enough, we can distinguish them. In Greek

and Roman society, in medieval life, and in all civilized nations of

today—barring, of course, our own—we can see them side by side. Each

conditions the other; neither would exist without the other. Each class

develops its own moral and spiritual habits, its own set of virtues and

vices. Some of us were born in the upper class, some in the lower; and in

college groups the majority come from the border line. By instinct, by the

experiences of life, or by national reflection, we usually give our moral

allegiance to one or the other, and are then apt to lean to that side in

every question arising.

Now, Jesus took sides with the group of toil. He stood up for them. He

stood with them. We can not help seeing him with his arm thrown in

protection about the poor man, and his other hand raised in warning to the

rich. If we are in any doubt about this, we can let his contemporaries

decide it for us. Plainly the common people claimed him as their friend.

Did the governing classes have the same feeling for him? It seems hard to

escape the conclusion that Jesus was not impartial between the two. Was he

nevertheless just? To the æsthetic sense, and also to a superficial moral

judgment, the upper classes are everywhere more congenial and attractive.

To the moral judgment of Jesus, as we shall see more fully in a later

chapter, there was something disquieting and dangerous about the spiritual

qualities of “the rich,” and something lovable and hopeful about the

qualities of the common man. Was he right? This is a very important

practical question for all who are disposed to follow his moral

leadership.

The perception that Jesus championed the people can be found throughout

literature and art. Our own Lowell has expressed it in his “Parable” in

which he describes Jesus coming back to earth to see “how the men, my

brethren, believe in me.”

“Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,

On the bodies and souls of living men?

And think ye that building shall endure,

Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

“With gates of silver and bars of gold

Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father’s fold;

I have heard the dropping of their tears

In heaven these eighteen hundred years.

“Then Christ sought out an artisan,

A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,

And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin,

Pushed from her faintly want and sin.

“These set he in the midst of them,

And as they drew back their garment-hem

For fear of defilement, “Lo, here,” said he,

‘The images ye have made of me.’ ”

III

We shall get the historical setting for Christ’s championship of the

people by going back to the Old Testament prophets. They were his

spiritual forebears. He nourished his mind on their writings and loved to

quote them. Now, the Hebrew prophets with one accord stood up for the

common people and laid the blame for social wrong on the powerful classes.

They underlined no other sin with such scarlet marks as the sins of

injustice, oppression, and the corruption of judges. But these are the

sins which bear down the lowly, and have always been practiced and hushed

up by the powerful. “Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that oppress the

poor, that crush the needy.... Ye trample upon the poor, and take

exactions from him of wheat; ... ye that afflict the just, that take a

bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right.... For

three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the

punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and

the needy for a pair of shoes; they that pant after the dust of the earth

on the head of the poor” (Amos 4:1; 5:11-12; 2:6-7). Micah describes the

strong and crafty crowding the peasant from his ancestral holding and the

mother from her home by the devices always used for such ends, exorbitant

interest on loans, foreclosure in times of distress, “seeing the judge”

before the trial, and hardness of heart toward broken life and happiness

(Micah 2:1-2; 2:9; 3:1-2). We cannot belittle the moral insight of that

unique succession of men. Their spiritual force is still hard at work in

our Christian civilization, especially in the contribution which the

Jewish people are making to the labor movement.

Among the Greeks and Romans political and literary life was so completely

dominated by the aristocratic class that no such succession of champions

of the common man could well arise. Yet some of the men of whom posterity

thinks with most veneration were upper-class champions of the common

people—Solon, for instance, Manlius, and the Gracchi.

In recent centuries the vast forces of social evolution seem to have set

in the direction toward which Jesus faced. Since the Reformation the

institutions of religion have been more or less democratized. The common

people have secured some participation in political power and have been

able to use it somewhat for their economic betterment. They share much

more fully in education than formerly. Before the outbreak of the Great

War it seemed safe to anticipate that the working people would secure an

increasing share of the social wealth, the security, the opportunities for

health, for artistic enjoyment, and of all that makes life worth living.

Today the future is heavily clouded and uncertain; but our faith still

holds that even the great disaster will help ultimately to weaken the

despotic and exploiting forces, and make the condition of the common

people more than ever the chief concern of science and statesmanship.

Jesus was on the side of the common people long before democracy was on

the ascendant. He loved them, felt their worth, trusted their latent

capacities, and promised them the Kingdom of God. The religion he founded,

even when impure and under the control of the upper classes, has been the

historical basis for the aspirations of the common people and has readily

united with democratic movements. His personality and spirit has remained

an impelling and directing force in the minds of many individuals who have

“gone to the people” because they know Jesus is with them. In fact we can

look for more direct social effectiveness of Jesus in the future, because

the new historical interpretation of the Bible helps us to see him more

plainly amid the social life of his own people.

So we must add a third social principle to the first two. The first was

that life and personality are sacred; the second that men belong together;

the third is that the strong must stand with the weak and defend their

cause. In his description of the Messianic Judgment, Jesus proposed to

recognize as his followers only those who had responded to the call of

human need and solidarity. He created the apostleship and therewith the

germ of the Church in order to serve the people whose needs he saw and

felt.

How does this concern college men and women? By our opportunities and

equipment we rank with the strong. Disciplined intellect is armor and

sword. Many of us have inherited social standing and some wealth; it may

not be much, but it raises us above the terrible push of immediate need.

What relation do we propose to have with the great mass of men and women

who were born without the chances which have fallen to us without

exertion? Do we propose to serve them or to ride on them? Will we seek to

gain some form of power by means of which we can live in plenty, with only

slight and pleasurable exertion? In that case we can hardly return to our

fellow-men in work as much as we take from them in enjoyment and luxury.

We shall be part of that dead weight which has always bent the back of the

poor. Is that an honorable ambition? Or do we propose to enter the working

team of humanity and to hold up our end? Our end ought to be heavier than

the average because we have had longer and better training. “To whomsoever

much is given, of him shall much be required.”

The moral problem for college communities is accentuated when we remember

that few students pay fully for what they get. Whether our institutions

are supported from taxation or from endowments, a large part of their

incomes are derived from the annual labor of society; tuitions pay only a

fraction of the running expenses and of the interest on the plant. Even if

a student pays all charges, he is in part a pensioner on the public. The

working people in the last resort support us; the same people who are

often so eager for education, and who can not get it. Some of them would

feel rich if they had the leavings of knowledge which we throw to the

floor and tread upon in our spirit of surfeit. To take our education at

their hands and use it to devise ways by which we can continue to live on

them, seems disquieting even to a pagan conscience. It ought to be

insufferable to a sense of social responsibility trained under Christian

influences.

Here is a test for college communities more searching than the physical

test of athletics, or the intellectual tests of scholarship. Do we feel

our social unity with the people who work for their living, and do we

propose to use our special privileges and capacities for their social

redemption?

“When wilt Thou save the people?

O God of Mercy, when?

Not kings and lords, but nations,

Not thrones and crowns, but men.

Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they.

Let them not pass like weeds away,

Let them not fade in sunless day!

God save the people!”—EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Partisanship of Jesus_

1. Did Jesus really take sides with the poor? Prove it.

2. Try to prove the other side.

3. Which would be safer evidence: single sayings, or the total impression

of his life and teachings?

4. What do you conclude regarding the attitude of Jesus?

II. _The Church and the People_

1. What motives led Jesus to organize and send out the twelve? What was

the historical significance of that action?

2. When and how did the Church lose its working class character?

3. Does the Church today share Jesus’ feelings about the condition of the

people? Sum up evidence for and against.

4. What is the true function of the Church in society so far as the poor

are concerned?

III. _Standing up for the People Today_

1. Is it a superficial or profound test to range a man according to his

sympathy with the common people?

2. What does it involve to stand up for the people today? How does it

differ from charity and relief work?

3. Name some men and women in our own times who seem to have stood up for

them most wisely and effectively.

4. What are the vices of social reformers?

IV. _The Concern of College Men and Women_

1. How can college men and women make a just return for their special

opportunities?

2. What movements in college and university life in recent years are in

line with this social principle of Jesus?

3. What part have the university students of Russia, Austria, Germany, and

England taken in social movements? Have American students ever taken a

similar interest in working class movements? If not, why not?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Is it an advantage or disadvantage to Christianity that it began among

the working class? What effects did that have on its ethical points of

view and its impulses?

2. Why did the regeneration of ancient society have to come through the

lowly? Will it have to come the same way today?

3. Is it ethical to live without productive labor? Is it morally tolerable

to enjoy excessive leisure purchased by the excessive toil of others?

4. Is there any clear conviction on this question in the Christian Church

today?

5. Is the fact that a person has sprung from the working-class a guarantee

that he will have the working-class sympathies?

6. Who seem to have more natural democratic feeling, the men or the women

of the upper classes?

PART II. THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF JESUS

Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values

_The Right Social Order is the Highest Good for All_

The first three chapters dealt with simple human principles which are

common and instinctive with all real men. Jesus simply expanded the range

of their application, clarified our comprehension of them, placed them in

the very center of religious duty, and so lifted them to the high level of

great social and religious principles.

In the next three chapters we shall take up a conception which is not

universally human, but which Jesus derived from the historic life of the

Hebrew people—the idea of the “Kingdom of God.” A better translation would

be “the Reign of God.” This conception embodied the social ideal and

purpose of the best minds of one of the few creative nations of history.

How did Jesus interpret this inherited social ideal? What did the Kingdom

of God seem to him to offer men? What did it demand of them? What

immediate ethical duty did this social ideal involve? Our inquiry will

move along these lines in the next three chapters.

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Main Chance

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field;

which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth

all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant

seeking goodly pearls: and having found one pearl of great price,

he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.—Matt. 13:44-46.

When war was common, property insecure, and safe deposit vaults were

scarce, it was common for men to bury treasure in time of trouble and to

forget it when they were dead. Whoever accidentally found it “struck pay

dirt” and hastened to locate his claim. An extraordinary jewel, too, was a

bonanza. The infant capitalists of that day were wise enough to liquidate

their other holdings and invest everything in the main chance. Jesus calls

for the application of the same method on the higher level. The Kingdom of

God is the highest good of all; why not stake all on the chance of that?

These parables were spoken out of his own experience. He was gladly

surrendering home, comfort, public approval, and life itself to realize

the Reign of God in humanity.

Imagine that Jesus had surrendered his religious idealism, had gained

wealth and official standing, and died of old age. Would he have gained?

What would the world have lost?

Second Day: The Master Fact

From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for

the kingdom of heaven is at hand.—Matt. 4:17.

The Kingdom of God is a master fact. It takes control. When the Kingdom

becomes a reality to us, we can not live on in the old way. We must

repent, begin over, overhaul the values of life and put them down at their

true price, and so readjust our fundamental directions. The conduct of the

individual must rise in response to higher conceptions of the meaning and

possibilities of the life of humanity. Tolstoi has described his

conversion in the simplest terms in the introduction to “My Religion:”

“Five years ago faith came to me; I believed in the doctrine of

Jesus, and my whole life underwent a sudden transformation. What I

had once wished for I wished for no longer, and I began to desire

what I had never desired before. What had once appeared to me

right now became wrong, and the wrong of the past I beheld as

right. My condition was like that of a man who goes forth upon

some errand, and having traversed a portion of the road, decides

that the matter is of no importance, and turns back. What was at

first on his right hand is now on his left, and what was at his

left hand is now on his right; instead of going away from his

abode, he desires to get back to it as soon as possible. My life

and my desires were completely changed; good and evil interchanged

meanings. Why so? Because I understood the doctrine of Jesus in a

different way from that in which I had understood it before.” ...

“I understood the words of Jesus, and life and death ceased to be

evil; instead of despair, I tasted joy and happiness.”

Some seek religion to escape hell and attain heaven; some to attain a

perfect personality; some to bring in the Reign of God. Give cases.

Estimate the relative religious and social significance of these different

spiritual experiences.

Third Day: Baptism and the New Order

Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,

Who shall prepare thy way;

The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

Make ye ready the way of the Lord,

Make his paths straight;

John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism

of repentance unto remission of sins. And there went out unto him

all the country of Judæa, and all they of Jerusalem; and they were

baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And

John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leathern girdle

about his loins, and did eat locusts and wild honey. And he

preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier than

I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and

unloose. I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the

Holy Spirit.—Mark 1:2-8.

The men who were baptized by John were not looking forward to death and to

salvation after death, but to the coming of the Kingdom of God and of his

Messiah. They repented and accepted the badge of baptism in order to have

a share in the blessings of the Kingdom and to escape the imminent

judgment of the Messiah. Baptism was then the mark of a national and

social movement toward a new era, and was a personal dedication to a

righteous social order. This original idea of baptism was practically lost

to the Christian consciousness in later times. Every man who today

realizes the Kingdom of God as the supreme good, can reaffirm his own

baptism as a dedication to the social ideal and to the leadership of Jesus

who initiated it. Such a social interpretation of our personal

discipleship will bring us into closer spiritual agreement with the

original aim of Christianity.

_Has our baptism ever had a social significance to us?_

Fourth Day: The Way to Happiness

Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye

shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye

shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body

than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow

not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your

heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than

they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the

measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,

neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all

his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so

clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is

cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of

little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat?

or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For

after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly

Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye

first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things

shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow:

for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day

is the evil thereof.—Matt. 6:25-34.

This is a song of divine carelessness; not the recklessness of a tramp who

has lost his self-respect and his capacity for long outlooks, but the

carelessness of an aristocratic spirit, conscious of his high human

dignity. God has given us life; will he not give what life needs? If the

birds and the lilies can make a living, can not we? It is pagan and

low-bred to wear out our souls with worry about minor needs.

The key to this passage lies in the words “your Father,” and “his

Kingdom.” Man is a child of God, and that dignity gives some calm and

assurance amid the worries of life. If we set our life toward the Kingdom

as the supreme aim, all the lesser interests will drop to their proper

place. In the measure in which the will of God is done and his

righteousness practiced among men, the satisfaction of the main material

wants will be easy. The Kingdom, the true social order, is the highest

good; all other good things are contained in it.

To worry or not to worry, that is the question. _Have we ever tried the

adoption of a high aim as the way to happiness?_

Fifth Day: Sunny Religion

And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they come

and say unto him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the

Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto

them, Can the sons of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom

is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they

cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shalt be

taken away from them, and then will they fast in that day. No man

seweth a piece of undressed cloth on an old garment: else that

which should fill it up taketh from it, the new from the old, and

a worse rent is made. And no man putteth new wine into old

wine-skins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine

perisheth, and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh

wine-skins.—Mark 2:18-22.

Fasting was an important part of piety with strict Jews. It was an

expression of religious sorrow and self-abasement. Afflicting the body

intensified this spiritual emotion. The disciples of the Pharisees and of

John were surprised and shocked by the fact that Jesus and his group

disregarded this custom. The reply of Jesus shows the religious temper of

Jesus in a new light. He says his disciples were happy, like guests at a

wedding; why should they act as if they were mournful? Fasting was alien

to the spirit which ruled in his company. It would be just as

inappropriate as to patch a piece of unshrunken stuff on an old garment,

or to put fermenting wine in old and brittle skin bottles. The religion of

Jesus, then, was distinguished from other earnest religion by its happy

and sunny character. See also the sharp distinction he makes between the

ascetic life of John and his own enjoyment of social life (Matt.

11:16-19). Yet Jesus was a homeless man, moving toward death.

There seems to be a difference between the self-denial of ascetic

religion, and the surrender of self to the Kingdom of God. What is it?

Sixth Day: The Poise of Expectancy

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who

took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five

of them were foolish, and five were wise. For the foolish, when

they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took

oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom

tarried, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there is a

cry, Behold, the bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him. Then all

those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said

unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are going out.

But the wise answered, saying, Peradventure there will not be

enough for us and you: go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for

yourselves. And while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came;

and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast:

and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins,

saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I

say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know not the

day nor the hour.—Matt. 25:1-13.

The Lord was to return soon and consummate the establishment of his

Kingdom. The first two generations of Christians took this hope very

seriously. Expectancy was the true pose of Christians. Under the

conditions of that time this was their way of declaring that the Kingdom

of God is the highest good and that all our life should be concentrated on

it. If Jesus lived today he could find even more effective exhortations to

look sharp and not get left. But is the constant expectation of a divine

catastrophe from heaven possible for modern minds? Must we translate that

expectation into the hope of moral and social development? By doing so,

can we still have a religious sense of a great and divine future

overhanging humanity which will give to our life the same value and

solemnity which the first generation felt?

_Explain what a strong social hope and faith would contribute to a

person’s life in the course of years._

How do faith and practical social effort react on each other?

Seventh Day: The Coming Joys

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for

they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’

sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.—Matt.

5:5-10.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus formally outlined his conceptions of

ethical and religious life as distinguished from those then current. It

was the platform of the Kingdom of God. We might expect it to begin with

denunciation. Instead it opens with a spontaneous burst of joy. A great

good was coming. It would bring a store of blessings to all who had the

inward qualifications to receive them. All who felt the divine

dissatisfaction with themselves and the craving for social justice and

righteousness, would get their satisfaction (v. 3, 4, 6). The higher

social virtues, gentleness, purity of heart, peaceableness, would get

recognition and gain ascendancy (v. 5, 7, 8, 9). But the climax of praise

and promise is for those who propagated righteousness where it was not

wanted, and suffered for it (v. 10-12). “These words belong to the

greatest ever uttered” (Hegel). They are pure religion, and they were

called forth by religious faith in a social ideal.

Have we known men and women who had some of these qualities, who lived

within the Kingdom of God, and who enjoyed its blessings? If they have

ennobled our life, let us think of them a moment with a silent

benediction.

Study for the Week

We see from the passages we have studied that the mind of Jesus was

centered on a great hope which was just ahead. It was so beautiful that

even in anticipation it was filling his soul with joy and he knew it would

bless all who shared in it. It seemed to him so valuable and engrossing

that a man ought to stake his whole life on attaining it, and subordinate

all other aims to this dominant desire.

He spoke of this great good as “the Kingdom of God.” Even a superficial

reading of the first three Gospels shows that this was the pivot of his

teaching. Yet he nowhere defines the phrase. He took an understanding of

it for granted with his hearers, and simply announced that it was now

close at hand, and they must act accordingly. What did the words mean to

them? The idea covered by the phrase was an historic product of the Jewish

people, and we shall have to understand it as such.

The Hebrew prophets had concentrated their incomparable religious energy

on the simple demand for righteousness, especially in social and national

life. The actual life of the nation, especially of its ruling classes, of

course never squared with the religious ideal. The injustice and

oppression around them seemed intolerable to the prophets, just because

the ethical imperative within them was so strong. So their unsatisfied

desire for righteousness took the form of an ardent expectation of a

coming day when things would be as they ought to be. God would make bare

his holy arm to punish the wicked, to sift the good, to establish his law,

and to vindicate the rights of the oppressed. This great “day of Jehovah”

would inaugurate a new age, the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God. The

phrase, then, embodies the social ideal of the finest religious minds of a

unique people. The essential thing in it is the projection into the future

of the demand for a just social order. The prophets looked to a direct

miraculous act of God to realize their vision, but they were in close

touch with the facts of political life and always demanded social action

on the human side.

Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia are intellectual productions which have

appealed to single idealistic minds. The Hebrew prophets succeeded in

socializing their ideal. By the force of religion they wrought the

conception of the Kingdom of God into the common mind of a nation as a

traditional conviction which was assimilated by every new generation.

But when a great idea is appropriated by the masses, it is sure to become

cruder to suit their intellect and their need; and when a national ideal

is handed on for centuries, it will change with the changing fortunes of

the people that holds it. When the Hebrew nation came under the foreign

rule of the Assyrians, Persians, and finally the Romans, its freedom and

chance for political action were lost, and its political ideals, too,

deteriorated. The Kingdom hope became theological, artificial, a scheme of

epochs of predetermined length and of marvelous stage settings. Yet, even

in this form, it was a splendid hope of emancipation, of national

greatness, and of future justice and fraternity, and it helped to keep the

nation’s soul alive amid crushing sorrows.

The people at the time of Jesus in the main held this apocalyptic

conception of the Kingdom. It was to come as a divine catastrophe,

beginning with an act of judgment and resulting in a glorious Jewish

imperialism. Jesus shared the substance of the expectation, but as a true

spiritual leader he reconstructed, clarified, and elevated the hope of the

masses. He would have nothing to do with any plans involving blood-shed

and force revolution. The Hebrew Jehovah became "our Father in heaven" and

this democratized the Reign of Jehovah. The pious Jew expected God to

enforce the ceremonial laws; Jesus had little to say about religious

ceremonial, and a great deal about righteousness and love. Under his hands

the Jewish imperialistic dream changed into a call for universal human

fraternity. He repeatedly and emphatically explained the coming of the

Kingdom in terms taken from biological growth, and his thoughts seem to

have verged away from the popular catastrophic ideas toward ideas of

organic development. These changes—if we have correctly interpreted

them—represent Jesus’ own contribution to the history of the Kingdom

ideal, and they are all in the same direction in which the modern mind has

moved. (For a fuller statement of these modifications see Rauschenbusch,

“Christianizing the Social Order,” p. 48-68.)

So much by way of historical information. Now let us emphasize again that

this social ideal seemed to Jesus so fair and fine that he gave his whole

soul to it. Naturally he would. Since he loved men and believed in their

solidarity, the conception of a God-filled humanity living in a righteous

social order, which would give free play to love and would bind all in

close ties, would be the only satisfying outlook for him. He promised that

all who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be satisfied in

the Kingdom, and he was himself the chief of these. The Kingdom of God was

his fatherland, in which his spirit lived with God; and with that vision

of perfect humanity before him, he kept its calm and tranquillity amid the

enmity of men as he sought to win men to its better ways.

The Kingdom of God is the highest good. The idea of God is the highest and

most comprehensive conception in philosophy; the idea of the Kingdom of

God is the highest and broadest idea in sociology and ethics. It is so

high and broad that many find it hard even to grasp the idea. Just as a

barbaric tribe of hunters or fishermen would find it impossible to

comprehend the social coherence and the patriotism of a nation of a

hundred millions; just as the narrow nationalist of today falls down

intellectually and morally when he confronts world-forces and relations:

so we who are trained to think in terms of family and State, give out when

we are to treat the Kingdom of God as a reality. It takes faith of the

intellect to comprehend a stage of evolution before it is reached. It

takes faith of character to launch yourself toward a great moral goal

before its tangible and profitable elements are within reach. It takes

more moral daring today than for a century past to believe in the

reemergence and final victory of God’s social order. But this is the time

for all true believers to square their shoulders and say with Galileo,

“And yet it moves.”

Any man whose soul is kindled by the conception of the Kingdom of God is a

real man. Whoever loves the idea, must turn it into reality as far as life

lets him. Whoever tries it, will suffer. But even if he suffers, he will

be more blessed and more truly a man than he would be if he did not try.

In seeking the Kingdom he realizes himself. “He that loseth his life for

my sake, shall find it.”

III

Jesus bade us “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and

he obeyed his own call. The main object of his life was the ideal social

order and the perfect ethic. Now if Jesus is our ideal of human goodness,

is any goodness good unless it works in the same direction? If a man is of

flawless private life, but is indifferent to any social ideal, or even

hostile to all attempts at better justice and greater fraternity, is he

really good? Even a strong desire for personal perfection, if there is no

desire for a regeneration of society in it, must be rated as sub-Christian

because it is lacking in the sense of solidarity and may be lacking in

love.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Power of a Great Idea_

1. Did the idea of the Kingdom of God ever play a part in your religious

education?

2. Did you feel any response to it in studying this lesson? Does it have

reality?

3. Suppose an entire study group should fail to see anything in it, would

that prove it valueless?

II. _Historical Changes in the Kingdom Ideal_

1. How did the Kingdom ideal take shape in the minds of the Hebrew

prophets?

2. Explain the nature of the apocalyptic hope and its divergence from the

prophetic ideal.

3. What passages seem to throw the most light on Jesus’ conception of it,

and his feeling about it? What do you think about the Beatitudes from this

point of view?

4. At what points did Jesus clarify and elevate the hereditary hope of his

nation? Summarize the conception of the Kingdom as it lay in the mind of

Jesus.

III. _Present Possibilities of the Kingdom Idea_

1. What value would the preaching of the Kingdom of God have in

evangelistic work today?

2. How would it affect religious education and the moral outlook of the

young?

3. How would the possession of the Kingdom faith equip the Church for

leadership in an age of social movements and unrest?

4. How does the Kingdom hope add to the joyousness of the Christian life?

5. How does Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom of God connect with the great

social and national hopes of today?

IV. _For Special Discussion_

1. How does a man realize himself in seeking the Kingdom? How does a man

realize the Kingdom in developing himself?

2. Does the idea seem to offer a religious vehicle for conceptions you

have derived from sociological work?

3. Does a social concept like the “Kingdom of God” gain anything for its

practical efficiency today from being ancient, and from being religious?

4. Will such a concept ever be effective with the masses unless it is

essentially religious?

Chapter V. The Kingdom Of God: Its Tasks

_The Right Social Order is the Supreme Task for Each_

The perfect social order is the highest good. In so far as it is a gift of

God, offered to the individual like the fertile earth and the oxygen of

the air, we must appropriate it and enjoy every approximation to the

perfect society. But what is the responsibility of the individual toward

the achievement of the ideal social order? What task does it lay on him?

How did Jesus see this problem? It is finely stated in the words with

which Émile de Laveleye closes his book “Sur la propriété”: “There is a

social order which is the best. Necessarily it is not always the present

order. Else why should we seek to change the latter? But it is that order

which ought to exist to realize the greatest good for humanity. God knows

it and wills it. It is for man to discover and establish it.”

What, then, is the responsibility of the individual with regard to the

achievement of this highest good?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Kingdom of Hard Work

For it is as when a man, going into another country, called his

own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he

gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each

according to his several ability; and he went on his journey.

Straightway he that received the five talents went and traded with

them, and made other five talents. In like manner he also that

received the two gained other two. But he that received the one

went away and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. Now

after a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and maketh a

reckoning with them. And he that received the five talents came

and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst

unto me five talents: lo, I have gained other five talents. His

lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou

hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many

things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord. And he also that

received the two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst

unto me two talents: lo, I have gained other two talents. His lord

said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast

been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things;

enter thou into the joy of thy lord. And he also that had received

the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a

hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where

thou didst not scatter; and I was afraid, and went away and hid

thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own. But his lord

answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou

knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I did not

scatter; thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the

bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own

with interest. Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and

give it unto him that hath the ten talents. For unto every one

that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from

him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.

And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness:

there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.—Matt.

25:14-30.

Evidently the sympathy of Jesus was with the two men who hustled, and not

with the fellow who took it out in growling and blaming the boss. Jesus

would have agreed to the proposition that to live an unproductive life is

one of the cardinal sins. Evolution and Christianity agree on that. This

exhortation to do good work was given when Jesus was looking forward to

his death and his absence. He would leave the Kingdom of God as an

unfinished task. He wanted his disciples to carry forward their Master’s

business under their own initiative when he was not there to direct them.

The new conditions would throw even heavier responsibilities on them.

Can you translate this parable into terms of college life and sketch three

college students as companion pieces to the three business men?

Second Day: The Call to Action

And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew

the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were

fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will

make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the

nets, and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw

James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in

the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them: and

they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired

servants, and went after him.—Mark 1:16-20.

-------------------------------------

And as Jesus passed by from thence, he saw a man, called Matthew,

sitting at the place of toll: and he saith unto him, Follow me.

And he arose and followed him.—Matt. 9:9.

-------------------------------------

And as they went on the way, a certain man said unto him, I will

follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The

foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the

Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto

another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and

bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their

own dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And

another also said, I will follow thee, Lord; but first suffer me

to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto

him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is

fit for the kingdom of God.—Luke 9:57-62.

The way in which Jesus called his disciples shows that he felt he had a

big business in hand. It was a call to action, to conflict and loss, and

there was snap in it. Leaving their boats and nets doubtless seemed a big

proposition to these four fishermen; but they did it. Matthew had to give

up a government job with pickings. These five rose to their chance with

courageous decision, and their names are still borne by millions of boys

today. The names of the other three are lost to fame. One of them gushed

and Jesus cooled off his emotions. The second and third wanted to

procrastinate and hid behind social obligations. Note that epigram about

the ploughman. It is a splendid expression of intelligent and concentrated

energy. You can’t drive a straight furrow while you “rubber.” You’ve got

to “tend to your job.”

Four of the first five are said to have died a violent death. Would they

have been wiser if they had looked out for Number One?

Third Day: The Futility of Talk

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the

kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is

in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not

prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy

name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I

never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth

them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon

the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the

winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was

founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of

mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who

built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the

floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it

fell: and great was the fall thereof.—Matt. 7:21-27.

Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much of the

religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions

which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words

have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious

emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the

world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that

case it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God

among men.

How about our own religious talk?

Would it be better, then, to give up preaching and public prayer?

_What has the utterance of religion done for us?_

Fourth Day: This Camel Passed Through

And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And behold, a man

called by name Zacchæus; and he was a chief publican, and he was

rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the

crowd, because he was little of stature. And he ran on before, and

climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass

that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and said

unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must

abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received

him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He

is gone in to lodge with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchæus

stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods

I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any

man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, To-day is

salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of

Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which

was lost.—Luke 19:1-10.

Zacchæus was engaged in the profitable but shady business of farming the

Roman taxing system in one of the richest districts of Palestine. He was a

politician and business man combined, and the kind of man that is “bound

to land.” Being only five feet one he had no chance amid a crowd in a

narrow street watching a procession. So he climbed a tree. Imagine a

corporation president climbing a telegraph post to see Jesus! This spirit

of determination appealed to Jesus and he promptly made friends with him,

though he well knew he would lose some more of his reputation by

identifying himself with a publican. Zacchæus proved his fitness for the

Kingdom of God by parting with his accumulated graft at a single sweep.

Fifty per cent of his property given away outright; the balance used to

make restitution at the rate of four hundred per cent—how much was left?

Here a camel passed through the needle’s eye, and Jesus stood and cheered.

At what points is the moral energy of college men and women most severely

tested? Where do they meet their great spiritual decisions?

Fifth Day: Will in Prayer

And he spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always

to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge,

who feared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in

that city; and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine

adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said

within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because

this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out

by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the

unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge his elect, that

cry to him day and night, and yet he is longsuffering over

them?—Luke 18:1-7.

In most of his sayings on prayer Jesus either objected to the wordiness of

prayers (Matt. 6:5-13), or he demanded more will and persistence. In the

story of the widow and the judge the odds were against the widow. Being

only a widow she had no pull and no vote. The judge was frankly a tough

case, untouched by religion and conscience, and thick-skinned as to public

opinion. Yet the widow won out by sheer doggedness. Surely the mind that

sketched the reiterating widow and the collapsing politician had an

admiring eye for energy of action. Jesus wanted that spirit and

determination put into prayer. But note that he was thinking, not of

personal edification, nor of private benefits to be obtained, but of the

“avenging of God’s elect”; that is, of straightening out the affairs of

the world so that the wrongs of the righteous would be redressed. A keen

social consciousness about the condition of God’s people, coupled with

“hunger and thirst for justice,” can turn prayer into action.

_Have we any experience of prayer concentrated on great public evils?_ How

does that differ from prayers centering about our own interests? (See

Fosdick, “The Meaning of Prayer,” Chapter X.)

Sixth Day: Twelve against the Field

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out

demons: freely ye received, freely give. Get you no gold; nor

silver, nor brass in your purses: no wallet for your journey,

neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy

of his food. And into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter,

search out who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go

forth.... And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your

words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off

the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more

tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of

judgment, than for that city.... And be not afraid of them that

kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.—Matt. 10:7-11,

14-15, 28a.

This whole chapter expresses with immense vitality the heroic spirit

called forth by the Kingdom propaganda. Jesus sent these twelve men

through the villages of Galilee to duplicate and multiply what he was

doing. The natural leaders of society, the able, the educated, the

powerful, were concerned in setting up their own kingdom and enslaving

their fellows to serve them. So Jesus took what material he had, peasants

and fishermen, and created a new leadership. He flung them against

existing society, knowing well that they would have to face opposition. In

fact, they were destined, one by one, to go to death for their cause. He

tells them not to mind a little thing like death, but to do their work and

rally the people around the idea of the Reign of God.

Can the men and women who are today trying to rebuild human society on a

basis of social justice and fraternity claim any right of succession in

the sending of the Twelve?

Seventh Day: Doing All, and Then Some

But who is there of you, having a servant plowing or keeping

sheep, that will say unto him, when he is come in from the field,

Come straightway and sit down to meat; and will not rather say

unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and

serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt

eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he did the things

that were commanded? Even so ye also, when ye shall have done all

the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable

servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.—Luke

17:7-10.

Jesus often boldly took his illustrations from the facts of life even when

they were repellent to him. Here he holds up the joyless life of a Syrian

agricultural laborer. After plodding all day in the field, this man comes

home, tired and hungry. Is he promptly cared for? No, he must first cook

and serve his master’s meal. Then he can eat what’s left. Does he get any

thanks for working overtime? Not a thank. Now, says Jesus, what this man

does under the hard coercion of his lot, you and I must do of our own free

will. After we have done a man’s work, let us go and do some more for the

sake of the cause, and disclaim praise. That spirit of utter service is,

in fact, the spirit in which men work when the Kingdom vision gets hold of

them. They become greedy for work and can not satisfy themselves. The

strong and inspired men always feel at the end that they have not done

half they ought to have done. The last words of Martin Luther, scribbled

on a scrap of paper, were: “We are beggars. That’s true.”

What would Jesus say to a college student who is chronically tired and who

feels that he is laying his professors and his father under heavy

obligation by working at all?

Study for the Week

Is it not a strange fate that down to the most recent times art has

pictured Jesus all meek and gentle, and theology has emphasized his

passive suffering? Yet he was high-power energy. His epigrams and

hyperboles crack like a whip-lash. He was up before dawn. He always rose

to the sight of human need. To do the will of his Father was meat and

drink to him. His life was a combat. He faced opposition without flinching

and “stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem” when he knew it meant

death. Even when he stood silent before the court and when he hung nailed

to the gallows, he was a spiritual force in action and men were disturbed

and afraid before him.

He communicated energy to others. He hated mere talk and discouraged

fruitless theorizing. He praised energetic action when he found it, as in

the case of Zacchæus, and of the men who climbed the roof with a paralytic

man and dug up the roofing to let him down to Jesus. He called that sort

of thing “faith.” Faith, in Jesus’ use of the word, did not mean shutting

your eyes and folding your hands. He said it was an explosive that could

remove mountains. He gave three of his disciples nicknames, and they were

all given to express forcefulness; Simon he called Peter, the Rock; and

James and John he called Boanerges, the sons of thunder. He sent his

disciples open-eyed to face trouble; he told them the wolves were waiting

for them, but to rejoice and be exceeding glad for the chance of lining up

against them. Let us clear our minds forever of the idea that Jesus was a

mild and innocuous person who parted his hair and beard in the middle, and

turned his disciples into mollycoddles. Away with it!

Though the spirit of Jesus has never had more than half a chance in

historic Christianity, yet it is demonstrable that the total efficiency of

humanity, the bulk of work done, and the capacity for heroic tension of

energies have been greatly increased by it. Taking it on the smallest

scale—every real conversion means a break with debasing habits, with

alcoholism, with the waste of sexual energies; it means more self-control,

more responsiveness to duty, more capacity to take a long outlook, and

consequently better work. We can observe this in ourselves and others. We

still need the coercion of stern necessity and of public opinion to keep

us straight, but an inward compulsion is added. A Christian carries his

policeman around inside of him. Where Christianity gets a really firm hold

on men or women, especially if there is a basis of natural ability, it

pushes them on to lead in moral movements and they break away for human

progress.

When Christianity multiplies such cases, and makes soberness, duty, and

hard work the habit of entire communities, we have a social fact of

first-class importance; for the human animal is naturally lazy, sluggish,

and inclined to live for today. The capacity to subordinate immediate

gratification for a future good is scarce; the capacity to subordinate

selfish advantage to a great common and moral good is scarcer still.

We can see this force working on a larger scale on the foreign mission

field where Christianity is a new social energy. There it is easier to

disentangle it from other social forces. What are the comparative results

when it gets a lodgment in a single social class or tribal group? This

question will bear watching during the next fifty years. The full social

results of Christianity will not show till the third generation.

We get another demonstration of increased working efficiency in humanity

wherever Christianity has passed through an internal purification which

has set free more of its spiritual energies. What, for instance, has been

the historic connection between the development of capitalistic industry

in Holland, England, and France, and the sober and frugal piety and

patient laboriousness created in the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans

of England, and the Huguenots of France?

The contributions made by Christianity to the working efficiency and the

constructive social abilities of humanity in the past have been mainly

indirect. The main aim set before Christians was to save their souls from

eternal woe, to have communion with God now and hereafter, and to live

God-fearing lives. It was individualistic religion, concentrated on the

life to come. Its social effectiveness was largely a by-product. What,

now, would have been the result if Christianity had placed an equally

strong emphasis on the Kingdom of God, the ideal social order? Other

things being equal, a Christian father and mother are better parents than

others because they have more sense of duty, more love, and a higher

valuation of spiritual things. But if, in addition, they have a religious

desire for a higher social order and realize that noble children are a

splendid contribution to it, how will that affect their parenthood? A

teacher, artist, or scientist who is also a religious man, will do

conscientious work if he works under the motives of individualistic

religion. But if he has a vision of the Kingdom of God on earth and sees

the contributions he can make to it, will not that raise the character of

his output? A business man of strong Christian character will work hard,

keep his word in business, and deal fairly with employes and customers.

But would not a new direction be given to his moral energies if his

religion taught him that he must help to shape the workings of industry

and trade so that hereafter there will be no fundamental clash between

business and the morals of Christianity?

What the world of Christian men and women needs is to have a great social

objective set before them and laid on their conscience with the authority

of religion. Then religion would get behind social evolution in earnest.

This would be no new and foreign element imported into our religion. It

would be a modern revival of the doctrine of Jesus himself, which has been

too long submerged and neglected. One chief reason why it was side-tracked

is that no despotic State and no society dominated by a predatory class

ever wanted religion applied to a reconstruction of the social order. The

idea of the Kingdom of God reawoke with the rise of modern democracy. Now

is the time for it.

III

The idea of the Kingdom of God is not identified with any special social

theory. It means justice, freedom, fraternity, labor, joy. Let each social

system and movement show us what it can contribute and we will weigh its

claims. We want the old ideal defined in modern terms, in the terms of

modern democracy, of the power machine, of international peace, and of

evolutionary science. But we want to embrace it with the old religious

faith and ardor, so that we can pray over it.

This great task of establishing a righteous social life on earth embraces

all minor tasks in so far as they are good. The mother who tries to make a

good home, the farmer who feeds the people, the teacher who trains them,

the scientist who gets the facts for all, the merchant, the workingman,

the artist, the leader in play—they are all contributing to the Kingdom,

provided they view their work so, and are trying to put an evolutionary

_plus_ into it which will lift the total nearer to the divine will. The

Kingdom is the supreme task, and all small tasks are part of it. That

gives every man a place in it who works—where is the idler’s place in

it?—and it hallows all good work with religious glory.

It may seem as if this social aim of religion may depreciate the aim of

developing our own personality and of saving our souls. It ought not.

Sometimes it does for a time. But we are each so enormously important to

ourselves that we are not likely to forget ourselves, and the practical

struggle with temptation and sorrow will teach us to seek strength for our

personal needs from Christ. In time we shall learn to say with Jesus, “For

their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified.” In time

surrender to the Kingdom ideal, toil for it, self-denial for it,

cooperation with others for it, will have the strongest kind of reactions

on ourselves and our moral fiber. Gymnasium work is all right, but real

work in the open is better. We are most durably saved by putting in hard

work for the Kingdom of God.

In every great task a religious man is consciously thrown back on the aid

of God—most of all in the greatest task of all. Eternal powers are

cooperating with our puny efforts. That alone guarantees that our work is

not wasted. We plant and water, but unless God’s sun shines upon it, our

work is nothing. He is a fool that is not reverent and humble. We sorely

need this faith in the collaboration and patience of God today when so

much of the best spiritual achievement of mankind is swept away, and we

seem far away from a kingdom of love. “As the heavens are higher than the

earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your

thoughts.”

Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. A collective moral

ideal is a necessity for the individual and the race. Every man must have

a conscious determination to help in his own place to work out a righteous

social order for and with God. The race must increasingly turn its own

evolution into a conscious process. It owes that duty to itself and to God

who seeks an habitation in it. It must seek to realize its divine destiny.

“Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!”

This is the conscious evolutionary program of Jesus. It combines religion,

social science, and ethical action in a perfect synthesis.

What has this to say to students? Everything, it seems.

First, whatever is to be our particular job, we must relate it to the

supreme common task at which God and all good men are working. Unless we

see and assert that relation, we are mere day-laborers or slaves, with

neither intelligence nor enthusiasm.

Second, anyone who, instead of loyally relating his life-work to God’s

work, pursues his own ambition at the expense of the Kingdom and damages

it to make profit for himself, is like a man who takes pay to damage his

country. He makes the work harder for all who are more faithful than he,

and their blood will be upon him.

Third, “_noblesse oblige_.” If we belong to the republic of learning and

education, something extra is justly due from us. Here, for instance, is

the evangelization of the world in this generation. An organization has

been created to accomplish it. Heroic pioneers have died, preparing the

way for larger forces. Is our life fit and good enough to put into that?

Here is the Christianization of the social order in the next two

generations. What have all our social studies been for in the design of

God? To fit ourselves for exploiting our fellows or to show them the way

to the Kingdom of God?

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _Our Untapped Reserves_

1. How far is a person who produces nothing, of use to the community? Is

increase of productive efficiency the test of progress?

2. Does religion help to call out reserves of energy in human nature?

II. _The Energy of Jesus_

1. How far did Jesus give evidence of audacity and high power energy? Has

the Christian Church realized this? How about the portrayals of him in

art?

2. Furnish evidence that Jesus demanded sincere work. How was this

connected with the Kingdom of God in his mind?

3. Give proof that he demanded heroism of his followers as a commonplace

thing.

4. How did this temper affect his view of prayer?

III. _Christianity and Work_

1. Has Christianity ever promoted idleness? If so, what type of

Christianity was it?

2. Taken as a whole has Christianity increased the amount of work done, or

lessened it? Give historical proof.

3. Would it raise the economic efficiency of an African tribe to become

Christians? Would it raise the efficiency of the Mexican people if they

adopted a purer type of Christianity? How?

4. Where is the idler’s place in the Kingdom of God?

IV. _The Reenforcement of Christianity by the Kingdom Ideal_

1. Is a call to be converted a call to enjoy spiritual peace or to exert

spiritual energy?

2. How has the idea arisen that Christianity is a "dope" to make people

contented amid wrong conditions?

3. How would the Kingdom faith give religious quality to the plain man’s

job?

4. Other things being equal, has a religious man more or less fighting

energy against wrong than a non-religious man?

5. If a man passes from an individualistic to a social conception of

religion, what change will it make in moral action?

6. To what extent is the enterprise of the Kingdom of God a dynamic

expression of accepted sociological principles?

7. What is the special obligation of college men and women to the Kingdom

of God?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Is the Kingdom of God to be brought about by an act of God in the

future or by the work of men in the present? Does the one exclude the

other?

2. Does our social order call out the full energy and intelligence of the

working people?

3. Can an overworked and underpaid workman feel that _he is working_ for

the Kingdom of God?

4. Does the Kingdom of God necessarily involve elements of social

readjustment and change?

5. Would a predatory governing class in the past have allowed the

preaching of a social conception of the Kingdom of God?

Chapter VI. A New Age And New Standards

_As the Kingdom Comes Ethical Standards Must Advance_

Every approximation to the Reign of God in humanity demands an advance in

the social relations of men, that is, an advance in ethics. Every really

epochal advance must have it or slip back. There must be, first, better

obedience to the moral principles already recognized and accepted by

society; second, an expansion of the sway of ethical duty to new fields

and wider groups of humanity; and third, a recognition of new duties and

the assimilation of new and higher ethical conceptions.

To what extent did Jesus appreciate these supreme needs?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: Living up to the Old Standards

In the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came

unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into

all the region round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of

repentance unto remission of sins; as it is written in the book of

the words of Isaiah the prophet,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

Make ye ready the way of the Lord,

Make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

And every mountain and hill shall be brought low;

And the crooked shall become straight,

And the rough ways smooth;

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

He said therefore to the multitudes that went out to be baptized

of him, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the

wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance,

and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our

father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to

raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the axe also lieth at

the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not

forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.—Luke 3:2-9.

The ABC of social renewal and moral advance is for each of us to face our

sins sincerely and get on a basis of frankness with God and ourselves.

Therefore Christianity set out with a call for personal repentance. If we

only acted up to what we know to be right, this world would be a different

place. But we fool ourselves with protective coloring devices in order to

keep our own self-respect. Take our language, for instance; it reeks with

evasive euphemisms intended to make nasty sins look prettier. We call

stealing “swiping” and cheating “cribbing.” When we have been drunk we say

we were “squiffy.” As soon as we face the facts, we realize that what we

call peccadilloes in ourselves are the black sins that have slain the

innocents and have hag ridden humanity through all its history. That is

the beginning of social vision. Personal repentance is a social advance.

What equivalent have college men and women for the plea of the Pharisees

that they were Abraham’s children and had a pull with God?

Second Day: Expanding the Area of Obligation

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him,

saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he

said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And

he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy

heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with

all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him,

Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he,

desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my

neighbor? Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down

from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both

stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when

he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a

Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on

the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came

where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion,

and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and

wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,

and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two shillings,

and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him; and

whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will

repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor

unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed

mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou

likewise.—Luke 10:25-37.

A meaty story and a famous one. The lawyer found his own answer

uncomfortably simple when it was taken up in such a matter-of-fact way. It

was suddenly up to him to act on his own advice. He tried to hedge by

raising a new question: “Love my neighbor? Certainly. But who is my

neighbor?” Who is within the cordon of fraternal fellowship with me? All

men of my people and religion? Or only the good and desirable people?

Where do you draw the line? Follows the story of the Good Samaritan. “Your

neighbor? The alien and the heretic.” The logic of the reply demanded that

some good Jew would be shown caring for a wounded Samaritan. Jesus gives

it a smashing effectiveness by reversing the role and showing the hated

Samaritan as the heroic lover of his kind. To get the situation we must

remember the historic enmity between the Jews and the half-breed aliens

who had stolen their land and their religion while they were exiled. If we

substitute Spaniard and Moor, Kurd and Armenian, Serb and Bulgar, we may

get the tension.

_Who are our American Samaritans?_

Third Day: Raising the Standards

We must live up to what we know is right, and we must expand the area of

ethical obligation to take in even men of alien race and hostile religion.

But beyond that, we need a conscious advance in the ethical standards

themselves. Jesus worked out this principle with perfect clearness in a

part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-48. He states the need, and

then shows in six cases how such an advance would work out. We shall take

these up in their order. Matthew has introduced scattered sayings of Jesus

which serve as corollaries, but which do not bear directly on the real

course of the argument; for instance, Matthew 5:23-26; 29-30. In our

quotations in this and the following days we shall confine ourselves to

the main line of thought in order to concentrate attention on that.

Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came

not to destroy, but to fulfil.... For I say unto you, that except

your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes

and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of

heaven.—Matt. 5:17, 20.

Apparently conservative Jews soon felt the spiritual freedom and force in

the teachings of Jesus. He seemed to them to be attacking the sacred Law,

the foundation of morality and religion. Jesus mentions the charge but

denies it. His purpose was not destructive but constructive. He demanded

not less righteousness but more. The lines of right living needed to be

prolonged. The traditional standards were no longer adequate. A man might

obey them and yet not be a good man. The scribes and Pharisees were the

model church members of Judaism and experts in piety, yet they were not

qualified to enter the Kingdom of God.

_Are we also good people who are not good enough?_

Fourth Day: The Sins of Hate

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not

kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother

shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his

brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever

shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of

fire.—Matt. 5:21, 22.

The Law of Moses forbade murder; a man-slayer was amenable in the ordinary

court. Was this an adequate expression of the sacredness of human life and

personality? It never even scratched a man or woman who assaulted the soul

of another with anger and curses. Jesus proposed that these sins be

restandardized. Plain anger ought to be valued about as murder used to be.

And if anybody went so far as to revile a brother and deny his moral or

intellectual worth, the Supreme Court and Gehenna would be about right for

him. The lawyers’ gauge of culpability can not get down to the subtler

expressions of lovelessness which break the prime law of the Kingdom.

_By what methods is contempt expressed in our own social life?_

_How highly do we rate the moral value of self-respect?_

Fifth Day: The Sins of Sex

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust

after her hath committed adultery with her already in his

heart....

It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give

her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that every one

that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,

maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she

is put away committeth adultery.—Matt. 5:27, 28; 31, 32.

These two cases deal with sex. The old law forbade adultery, the

infringement of family life, and stopped there. Jesus goes back of the act

to the lustful imaginations and the wandering eye, which may lack

opportunity but which are the real spring of all uncleanness. He runs the

line of ethical obligation farther back.

The law of divorce (Deut. 24:1), especially as interpreted by the scribes,

was very comfortable—for the male. He could divorce his wife for almost

any cause. Her only protection was that a formal paper had to be given her

which enabled her to marry again. As a woman’s economic and social

standing in that age depended almost wholly on her family relations, she

was at the mercy of the man. Jesus demanded more protection for her. To

him the relation was indissoluble. The Mosaic provision for divorce was a

concession to the low moral level of the people. The ideal was the “one

man, one woman” provision of the Creator. (See Matt. 19:3-8). The

disciples ruefully remarked that such a strengthening of the bond did not

add to the attractiveness of marriage—for the male (19:10).

Where do we draw the line between the rightful, natural desire of sex and

lawless predatory lust?

Sixth Day: The Sins of Words

Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou

shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine

oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the

heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is

the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of

the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou

canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be,

Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the

evil one.—Matt. 5:33-37.

Current morality had reached the point of insisting on truthfulness when a

man was under oath. Solemnly to call God to witness a statement and yet to

fool your neighbor by it, was downright wicked. But it was very handy. So

they developed a joyful lot of casuistical distinctions as to which kind

of oaths were binding and which didn’t count. See how Jesus ridiculed this

(Matt. 23:16-22). Here he proposed that the obligation of veracity be

extended to all statements. A truthful man needs no oaths to assure a

doubting world that this time he is really telling what is so. Oaths are a

device of the devil to limit the amount of truth in the world.

How about oaths for legal purposes? Could they be dispensed with? Have

they done more good or harm?

Seventh Day: The Sins of Strife

Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for

a tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but

whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other

also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy

coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee

to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and

from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and

hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray

for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father

who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and

the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye

love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the

publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do

ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye

therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is

perfect.—Matt. 5:38-48.

The Law restricted the natural desire for revenge to the limit of a strict

equivalent. If a man knocked out your tooth, you could knock out one for

him, but not two teeth, nor all he had. Of course retaliation never heals

a feud. Jesus proposes to limit revenge still farther and to retaliate

only by acts of kindness. That is, in fact, the only way to end a quarrel

completely and victoriously. It reestablishes fellowship and kills an

enemy.

The Law called for love for one’s neighbors; the scribes had added the

permission to hate one’s enemies. Jesus raises the standards of good-will.

The law of love applies to all. There is nothing great in loving those who

love us. Anybody can do that. Heroic love begins where no love comes to

meet it. Those who can win that triumph show the true family likeness of

God, and are now living in his Kingdom.

_What are our personal experiences as to the utility of revenge?_

_What is the difference between the non-resistance which Jesus proposed,

and cowardice?_

_Is there such a thing in fact as loving your enemies?_

Study for the Week

The Hebrew religion was an unfinished religion. That is one of the best

proofs of its divine inspiration. The prophets had the forward look. Great

things were yet to come. As one of the most daring expressed it, the old

and hallowed covenant, made by God at the Exodus, would be superseded by a

new and higher relation; God would write his law into the hearts of the

people; the old drill in outward statutes would disappear, for all men

would know God by an inward experience of forgiveness and love (Jeremiah

31:31-34).

Jesus not only shared this expectation of a new religious era, but set it

in the center of his teaching. Religion to him was not static. He lived in

a moving world. A new age was coming, and he would be the initiator of it.

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God suffereth

violence, and men of violence take it by force.” John had been the

greatest of the prophets; with him a new swift movement had begun; but

something far greater was coming; even the least in the new age would have

an advantage over John (Matt. 11:11-19).

The popular conception expected the new age to come by divine miraculous

interference simply. The Messiah would descend from heaven with angelic

legions, expel the Romans, judge the nation, punish the apostate Jews, and

then the new Jerusalem, which was already complete and waiting in heaven,

would descend from above. That was the Utopia of Jewish apocalypticism.

Jesus never eliminated the direct acts of God and the significance of

divine catastrophes from his outlook. But in his parables taken from

biological processes (see especially Matthew 13) he developed a conception

of continuous and quiet growth, culminating at last in the judgment act of

God. The Kingdom of God, he said, is like a farmer who sows his grain and

lets the forces of nature work; he goes about his daily tasks, and all the

time the tiny blades come up, the ear forms and gets heavy, and then comes

the harvest (Mark 4:26-29). Jesus was working his way toward evolutionary

conceptions. They were so new to his followers that he put them in parable

form to avoid antagonism.

Such a conception of the Kingdom brought it closer to human action. It was

already at work; it was in one sense already present (Luke 17:20-21). It

was possible then to help it along.

The most obvious duty was for every man to clean up his own backyard and

repent of his sins. Every one should approximate the life of the Kingdom

by living now as he would expect to live then. But, as we have seen from

his sayings, Jesus went far beyond this. He demanded an elevation of the

accepted ethical standards. It was not simply a matter of erring and

lagging individuals, but of the socialized norms of conduct. He had deep

reverence and loyalty for the religion of his nation, and never told his

followers to break with it. But he asserted boldly that the customary

ethics of Judaism, based on the Decalogue and its interpretation by the

Jewish theologians, was not good enough. It was good as far as it went,

and he had no destructive criticism of it, but it needed to be “fulfilled”

and to have its lines prolonged.

We have studied the six sample instances which he offered in order to

explain his principle of moral and social progress. In each case he

accepts the law as it stood, but asks for more of the same thing, more

respect for personality, more reverence for womanhood, more stability for

the home, more truthfulness, more peacefulness, more love. Thus he

combined continuity with progress, conservatism with radicalism.

The platform for ethical progress laid down in the Sermon on the Mount is

a great platform. When Tolstoi first realized the social significance of

these simple sentences, it acted as a revelation which changed his life.

Even men who reject the supernatural claims of Christianity uncover before

the Sermon on the Mount. Yet its fate is tragic. It has not been “damned

with faint praise,” but made ineffective by universal praise. Its

commandments are lifted so high that nobody feels under obligations to act

on them. Only small sections of the Christian Church have taken the

sayings on oaths, non-resistance, and love of enemies to mean what they

say and to be obligatory. Yet all feel that the line of ethical and social

advance must lie in the direction traced by Jesus, and if society could

only climb out of the present pit of predatory selfishness and meanness to

that level, it would be heaven.

Do you and I believe in it? Do we believe that it is not enough to keep

out of the spiritual hell and damnation of adultery, but that a clean mind

would be the most efficient and cheerful mind? Do we believe that a man

who forgives and keeps sweet is happier and safer than a man who always

resents things and stirs the witches’ caldron of hate in his soul? If a

man loved his enemy and turned the other cheek, would he be everybody’s

door-mat or everybody’s temple of refuge?

Suppose we mark for the present those parts which we are willing to accept

as our own standards of action. If there are portions which do not seem

practicable, let us post them in our minds as debatable propositions, as

points to be tested by the experience of coming years, or as working

hypotheses in the science of living.

But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading

thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is,

toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards

accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every

leading intellect ought to know by heart.

III

When Jesus offered his six sample cases of ethical progress, he had no

intention of exhausting the principle of advance which he laid down. There

was more to say about the Jewish law. It is now for his followers to treat

the inherited ethical conceptions of traditional Christianity with the

same combination of reverence and courage with which he treated the Jewish

law.

From the beginning Christianity taught self-control and the mastery of the

spirit over physical desires. It always condemned drunkenness. But ancient

Christianity never demanded abstinence from fermented drink. With modern

methods of manufacturing alcoholic drinks and modern capitalistic methods

of pushing their sale, the danger has become more pressing. With modern

scientific knowledge the physiological and social problems of drink have

become clearer. Modern life demands an undrugged nervous system for quick

and steady reactions. It was said of old time, “Thou shalt not get drunk”;

but today the spirit of Christianity and modern life says, “Thou shalt not

drink nor sell intoxicants at all.”

In every case in which the interests of woman came before Jesus, he took

her side. At that time woman was the suppressed half of humanity. The

attitude of historic Christianity has been a mixture between his spirit

and the spirit of the patriarchal family. Today Christianity is plainly

prolonging the line of respect and spiritual valuation to the point of

equality between men and women—and beyond.

From the beginning an emancipating force resided in Christianity which was

bound to register its effects in political life. But in an age of

despotism it might have to confine its political morality to the duty of

patient submission, and content itself with offering little sanctuaries of

freedom to the oppressed in the Christian fraternities. Today, in the age

of democracy, it has become immoral to endure private ownership of

government. It is no longer a sufficient righteousness to live a good life

in private. Christianity needs an ethic of public life.

It was said of old “Thou shalt not commit murder.” It is said to us, “Ye

shall not wear down life in the young by premature hard labor; nor let the

fear of poverty freeze the fountain of life; and ye shall put a stop to

war.”

It was said of old, “Thou shalt not steal.” It is said to us, “Ye shall

take no unearned gain from your fellows, but pay to society in productive

labor what ye take from it in goods.”

This matter of raising the moral standards of society is preeminently an

affair of the young. They must do it or it will never be done. The Sermon

on the Mount was spoken by a young man, and it moves with the impetuous

virility of youth. The old are water-logged physically. They are mentally

bound up with the institutions inside of which they have spent a lifetime,

and they want to enjoy in peace the wealth and position they have

attained. We shall be just the same forty years from now. But while we are

young is the time to make a forward run with the flag of Christ, the

banner of justice and love, and plant it on the heights yonder. We must

not only be better men and women than we are now. We must leave a better

world behind us when we are through with it. Whatever we affirm in our

growing years will work out in some fashion in our years of maturity and

power. If fifty thousand college men and women a year would range

themselves alongside of Jesus Christ, look at our present world as

open-eyed as he looked at his world, see where the social standards of

conduct are in contradiction with his spirit and with modern need, and

work to raise them, the world would feel the effect in ten years. And

those who would strive in that way would live by faith in the higher

commonwealth of God and have some of its nobility of spirit.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _Living Up to the Old Standards_

1. What would happen if a college community began to live up to the

standards of work and honor which all acknowledge?

2. Does human nature welcome a moral advance?

II. _The Ethical Program of Jesus_

1. What advance does Jesus’ program make necessary? State the main

principle in Matt. 5:17-48, and the six applications made by Jesus

himself. How was this principle connected with his idea of the Kingdom?

2. Can we agree with the principle? How far can we go with Jesus in his

application?

3. Would a man get more or less satisfaction out of life if he obeyed

these maxims in private life?

4. How far could a man hold his own if he obeyed them in a reasonable way

in business or in public life? If a man loved his enemies and turned the

other cheek, would he be everybody’s doormat or everybody’s friend and

refuge?

III. _Raising the Standards Today_

1. On what ethical questions have we come to the point where the moral

standards accepted by society can be and must be raised?

2. If you could purchase one single advance by your life, what would you

choose?

3. How does an expansion of the area of full social obligation operate to

raise the standards of conduct? Who is my neighbor, and who is not?

IV. _For Special Discussion_

1. A new intellectual age has opened with the rise of modern science; what

new moral standards should be the result of our new knowledge?

2. A new economic age opened with the invention of power machinery and the

social organization of labor; what new moral standards should have been

the result of the new wealth of civilization?

3. A new political era opened with the rise of democracy; what new moral

standards should be achieved in the life of States and cities?

4. A new era began in world-wide relations with the beginning of

steam-carried commerce; what new standards are needed for international

and inter-racial relations?

PART III. THE RECALCITRANT SOCIAL FORCES

Chapter VII. Leadership For Service

_Ambition Must Get Its Satisfaction by Serving Humanity_

The Kingdom of God was an ideal. If it was to be turned into concrete

realities, it would encounter the recalcitrant and stubborn instincts of

human nature and the conservative forces of society. Where did Jesus

locate the obstacles? At what points was he aware of resistance? Did he

realize the force of ambition and the love of power? Did he gauge the pull

of the property instinct? Did he feel religion as a help or a hindrance in

realizing the Kingdom of God? These questions we shall follow up in three

lessons.

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Trustee

And Peter said, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even

unto all? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and wise

steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them

their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom

his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto

you, that he will set him over all that he hath. But if that

servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and

shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to

eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant shall

come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he

knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion

with the unfaithful. And that servant, who knew his lord’s will,

and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten

with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of

stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much

is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they commit

much, of him will they ask the more.—Luke 12:41-48.

The preceding verses (v. 35-40) dealt with the faithfulness of the rank

and file; this parable deals with the responsibility of official position

and sketches the alternative of selfish and serviceable leadership. The

head steward had charge of a great estate, directing the labor of workmen

and maids, dealing out supplies, and controlling the welfare and happiness

of all. The absence of the master made his authority for the time

absolute. Would he use it for the good of all? If so, wider scope and

higher honor would come to him. Or would he become intoxicated with power,

take things easy, boss his fellow-servants around, and become a petty

tyrant? If so, he would get what was coming to him. Every man’s duty is

measured by his knowledge and by his power. If, therefore, a man rises to

leadership, and finds his elbow-room enlarging, let him stiffen his sense

of duty to correspond, or there will be trouble. Degeneration by power is

written all over history.

The functions of a head steward belong to the age of great landowners. How

would you modernize this parable to express the same ideas?

Second Day: Preparing for the Use of Power

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be

tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty

nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto

him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become

bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live

by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth

of God. Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set

him on the pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou art

the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written,

He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and,

On their hands they shall bear thee up,

Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not make

trial of the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him unto an

exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the

world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these

things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is

written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt

thou serve.—Matt.4:1-10.

The baptism of Jesus was an act of dedication to the coming reign of God,

and it brought him a deep spiritual experience. He came out of it with the

sense of an immediate mission, of being called to a supreme leadership,

and with the consciousness of power to correspond with his destiny. At

once he confronted the question: How would he employ his Messianic power?

By what means would he obtain leadership? In the desert his mind was

concentrated on these problems. This story displays the temptations of a

leader, and sums up his settlement on three points: first, he realized

that he must not swerve aside for personal gratification, but must serve

the will of God only; second, he must not debase his power by playing for

popularity by means of spectacular, miraculous display; third, he must not

win his leadership by methods that would mortgage him to the prince of

this world, for instance by the use of force.

How would these points apply to a young man seeking political office,

intellectual eminence, or artistic achievement?

_Have we ever had a time of religious concentration to consider the

problems of our future leadership?_

Third Day: The New Principle of Leadership

Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons,

worshipping him, and asking a certain thing of him. And he said

unto her, What wouldest thou? She saith unto him, Command that

these my two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy

left hand, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know

not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to

drink? They say unto him, We are able. He saith unto them, My cup

indeed ye shall drink: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left

hand, is not mine to give; but it is for them for whom it hath

been prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were

moved with indignation concerning the two brethren. But Jesus

called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the rulers of the

Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise

authority over them. Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever

would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever

would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of

man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give

his life a ransom for many.—Matt. 20:20-28.

This passage is fundamental for our subject. It is the clearest

formulation of the social principle involved in leadership. It contrasts

two opposite types of leadership throughout human history. Salome and her

sons thought Jesus was going to Jerusalem to inaugurate his Kingdom. They

asked for an advance pledge assuring them of the chief place. Jesus

replied that that place would not go by favoritism. There is a price to be

paid for leadership in his reign, and God alone will allot the final

honors. He felt in their request a relapse into conceptions that he

detested. In all political organizations he saw the tyrannical use of

power over the people. There must be an end of that in the new social

order. Ambition must seek its satisfaction by distinguished service, and

only extra-hazardous service shall win honor. He himself proposed to be a

leader of that new type, and to give his life as a ransom for the

emancipation of the people.

Our Master here offers each of us the conscious choice between two

principles of action. _Have we made our choice?_

He offers a norm for estimating the real value of men in public life.

_Have we ever tried to apply it?_

Fourth Day: The History of a Governing Class

Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder, who

planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a

winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen,

and went into another country. And when the season of the fruits

drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, to receive his

fruits. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and

killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants

more than the first: and they did unto them in like manner. But

afterward he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence

my son. But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among

themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his

inheritance. And they took him, and cast him forth out of the

vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard

shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto

him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let

out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the

fruits in their seasons. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read

in the scriptures,

The stone which the builders rejected,

The same was made the head of the corner;

This was from the Lord,

And it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The

kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to

a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And he that falleth on

this stone shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall

fall, it will scatter him as dust. And when the chief priests and

the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of

them. And when they sought to lay hold on him, they feared the

multitudes, because they took him for a prophet.—Matt. 21:33-46.

A delegation of the chief priests, lawyers, and elders challenged the

authority of Jesus to act as he did. He replied by challenging their

authority to act as they did. The vineyard parable sums up his view of the

moral history of the governing class in his nation. It was like a group of

men who had rented a vineyard on shares, but took advantage of the owner’s

absence to embezzle his share, insolently to beat up his representatives,

and to put themselves in possession of the farm. Every demand of God for

righteousness in the history of Israel had been resisted by those in

power. What title, then, did they have to the rights they claimed? Unless

they fulfilled the function of true leaders, why should they not be put

out of power and brought to justice? In this passage, then, we have a

characterization of leaders who take the profits and honors of leadership,

without performing its higher duties to God and humanity.

Is there any connection between this challenge of Jesus, and the

functional theories of society and the evolutionary conception of history?

Fifth Day: An Indictment of a Governing Class

Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying,

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, all things

therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do

not ye after their works; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind

heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s

shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their

finger. But all their works they do to be seen of men: for they

make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their

garments, and love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats

in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces, and to

be called of men, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is

your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father

on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your master, even the

Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever

shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye

shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in

yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to

enter.—Matt. 23:1-13.

The invective against the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23) is a

characterization of selfish leadership in the field of religion. Its

fundamental elements have remained the same in all religions and through

all history: fine talk and little action; religion turned into a law and a

burden, in order to hold the people in obedience to the interests of the

leaders; pride and ambition exploiting religion to get honors. Jesus tells

the people to revolt against the titles in which this domination had found

decorative satisfaction. He demands democracy, humility, brotherliness.

Does this description justly apply to the Christian ministry today, or has

there been a great historical change by which that profession has become a

profession of service?

Where in modern social life would the invective of Jesus against selfish

leadership still be true?

Sixth Day: The Lost Leader

And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, and

said (and there was a multitude of persons gathered together,

about a hundred and twenty), Brethren, it was needful that the

scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spake before

by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to them that

took Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and received his portion

in this ministry. (Now this man obtained a field with the reward

of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the

midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all

the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch that in their language that

field was called Akeldama, that is, The field of blood.) For it is

written in the book of Psalms,

Let his habitation be made desolate,

And let no man dwell therein:

and,

His office let another take.—Acts 1:15-20.

The character and motives of Judas remain an unsolved riddle. The Gospels

leave no doubt that money played a part with him. But could a man whom

Jesus selected and trusted be actuated by so sordid a motive alone? Was he

perhaps embittered because he had staked his ambition on the Galilean

Messiah and Jesus failed to act the part assigned to him? Was he hoping to

force him to revolutionary action? We may be sure that Judas was no

slinking thief only. In Rubens’ picture of the Last Supper at Milano Judas

has a strong and noble face, but troubled and restless eyes, telling of a

hurt soul. The other disciples were deeply impressed by his betrayal of

the Master and of the common cause. Judas is the type of the lost leader.

“Just for a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to stick in

his coat.” Some leaders blunder and learn better; some sag to lower levels

but plod on; some sell out. Judas could not bear to live. Read James

Russell Lowell’s “Extreme Unction.”

Have you known of cases today of men who have abandoned or betrayed a

cause to get office or income? Any who abandon humanity itself to get

thirty pieces for themselves?

Seventh Day: The New Order of Leaders

And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in

their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and

healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when

he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them,

because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a

shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is

plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of

the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.

And he called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them

authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all

manner of disease and all manner of sickness.

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon,

who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of

Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas,

and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphæus, and Thaddæus;

Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed

him.—Matt. 9:35-10:4.

We have studied part of this passage before as an expression of the social

feeling of Jesus. Note now that it was their leaderless condition which

impressed him. Plenty of priests, lawyers, and experts on the Bible, but

no friendly shepherds for the people. When he created the apostolate, he

initiated a new order of leadership, a band of men who would serve and not

exploit. Read the instructions he gave them (Chap. 10), and see how

carefully he fences out selfish gain. Service versus exploitation, that is

one of the tests of all who claim leadership in his name. We realize that

in the field of religion. But why should not the same test be made in

professional, political, and business life? Predatory action may not be as

glaringly shameful there, but is it any the more moral?

_Now what about you and me?_

Study for the Week

The desire to lead and excel is natural and right. Because men are

gregarious, they need leadership for their social groups, and social

progress depends largely on securing adequate leaders. Those who have the

natural gifts for leadership—and also those who merely think they

have—usually have a keen desire for its satisfactions. College life is a

miniature world of criss-cross ambitions and of contrivances for trying

out leaders.

Jesus did not demand self-effacement and the suppression of ability. He

welcomed evidences of noble self-assertion. His own Messianic call was a

summons to the highest leadership. His temptations were the settlement of

leadership problems. His final lament over the city of Jerusalem was a

burst of sorrow because he had failed to win his people to follow him.

Now, in moving about among men to win them for the Kingdom, Jesus

encountered the leaders who were on deck before he came—the wealthy men

who controlled the economic outfit; the official groups who held what

political power was left to the Jews; and the lawyers, theologians,

priests, and zealots who dominated the religious life of a very religious

people. These classes overlapped; together they constituted the oligarchy

of his nation. Both sides soon realized that there were fundamental

antagonisms between them. The conflict grew acute, until it headed up in

the great duel of the last days at Jerusalem. His experiences in this

conflict with hostile leadership are recorded in the passages which we

have studied and others like them.

In the fundamental reply to James and John he formulated his observations

in a great political generalization: “Ye know that the rulers of the

nations lord it over them and their great men hold down the rest by

force.” In its earlier and cruder forms, the State is a contrivance of a

victorious group to hold down the conquered, and exploit them. If anyone

has not yet read political history as an account of systematic

exploitation of nation by nation and class by class, he has some education

still coming to him.

Even where political leadership has not been plainly predatory but rested

on real service, humanity has often had a heavy price to pay for it.

Successful military leaders were able to perpetuate a royal dynasty and

perhaps fasten a race of hereditary incapables on a nation, to be

maintained in royal splendor. The feudal nobility performed useful work in

the earlier, turbulent times, but it continued to take rent and tribute

for centuries after its useful functions had lapsed. Modern business men

who have organized public service corporations have often served the

nation well, but they now own the highways and fundamental outfit of the

nation, and if their descendants or assignees collect tribute, perhaps on

inflated capitalization, for generations to come, it looks like rather

costly service. The obligations of power have a curious way of getting

lost in the shuffle of time, but titles, rank, legal privileges, rent, and

interest are carefully groomed. If one man loses them, some other man

nurses them, and the people always pay.

The Kingdom of God sets a fraternal and righteous social order against the

predatory and unrighteous order which humanity has inherited from the

past. The new order must have a new dynasty of leaders, for every social

order has its own kind of aristocracy. Jesus does not propose to abolish

leadership, but he proposes a new basis for greatness which is sharply

opposed to the old: “Whoever has ambition to be a great man among you, let

him be your servant; and whoever is ambitious to rank first among you, let

him be your bondservant. Just as the Son of Man did not come to have

others serve him, but to render service and to give his life as a ransom

for many.” Ability and ambition are still to lead, but they are to be

yoked to the service of all. Not he who kills and subjugates, but he who

makes life safe and happy, shall have the statue set up in his honor. Not

the great warrior and killer, but the great healer and the man who

multiplies the blades of grass and the ears of wheat and the size of

potatoes shall be the great names treasured. The higher the honor craved,

the more strenuous must be the service; if a man wants first prize, he

must get down to voluntary slavery. The old way to leadership was to knock

others down and climb up on them; the new way is to get underneath and

boost.

III

Jesus put himself under this law of leadership. We see from his words that

the cross was the outcome of a consistent principle adopted by him. The

rules he laid down for his apostolate were meant to bar out selfish

acquisition: “Freely ye received, freely give. Get you no gold, nor

silver, nor brass in your purses; no wallet for your journey, neither two

coats, nor shoes, nor staff; for the laborer is worthy of his food.” It is

a significant fact that again and again religious leaders who really cared

for the condition of the people, have tried to create a genuine leadership

for them along the same lines; Francis of Assisi gathered his “little

brothers”; Peter Waldus his Bible teachers; Wycliffe his “poor preachers”;

John Wesley his local preachers and itinerants; William Booth his ensigns

and captains with the big bass drum; and the entire foreign mission

propaganda calls for leaders who will go to the people and offers them

nothing but enough to live in health. Today practically the entire

Christian ministry, one of the most important bodies of men, has come

under the law of leadership for service. It was once, at least in its

upper-class sections, rich with unearned incomes, pervaded by graft, and

domineering in spirit; it is now a clean and plain-living profession;

whatever its shortcomings, graft and extortion are not of them.

The question is now, whether other professions will go through the same

historical process of cleansing. The religious spirit has pioneering

qualities; under its impulse men blaze the trail which broad social

movements or historical developments follow later. Greedy leadership first

seemed intolerable in the Church; after a time it may become intolerable

in politics and business. The trend of civilization is toward intelligent

service on plain pay. Educators, judges, scientists, doctors are on that

basis now. It has become dishonorable for them to use their positions for

a holdup. The great discoverers in the line of sero-therapy might have

taken toll in golden streams, but they did not. It would have been

contrary to the ethics of their profession. That means that their

profession is on a Christian basis. Where graft is taken out of politics,

officials become devoted public servants. The reproach has been made

against a man of great ability that at the end of his life his name is not

connected with any great cause or measure for the welfare of the people.

Whether the judgment was just or not, that point of view is the one to

take.

Can business be brought under the law of service? Or is commerce

constitutionally incapable of it? There are many indications that a

conscious spiritual change is coming over those men in business who have

enough intellect and character to look beyond immediate needs. The type of

business leadership which took millions out of filthy factory towns, wore

out women and took the youth out of children, cleared twelve per cent from

slum tenements, kept men and women from marriage by underpayment, and kept

the cradle empty by high prices and fear of the future—this type of

leadership is antiquated. It belongs to a pre-Christian and pagan age. It

is only a question whether business leaders will voluntarily turn their

back on such misuse of power or have a change forced on them. Those who

mark time on the old methods will become moral derelicts, and their wealth

will not forever screen their moral obtuseness.

The nation needs leaders who will persuade conservative farmers to use

scientific methods; who will teach our wasteful people the value of

self-restraint, and the beauty of cooperative buying and selling; who will

teach our communities that it is a sin to rob our own children by leaving

soil, water, and forests poorer than we found them; who will give the

people good housing without taking the unearned increment; who will

organize the dangerous industries for safety; who will place the relations

of leaders and workers in industry on a basis of justice and goodwill so

that industrial peace can be attained. Is such an object satisfying to a

young man of business capacity, or does he want to build a million dollar

house and populate it with one child? It is confessed that civilization

has been succeeding on the technical side and failing on the ethical. The

more the machinery of life is concentrated in the hands of a limited group

of business leaders, the more important does the social enlightenment and

moral objective of these leaders become to society. To which of the two

types do we belong?

Will a life of service satisfy the capable and call out their best powers

for the service of humanity? Men will play the game according to the rules

of the game. If humanity changes the rules, its strong men will still let

out their energies, because they can not help it, and they will like

themselves all the better for being on the side of their fellow-men. There

is no pleasure in being isolated, eyed with resentment, and conscious of

hardness. If ten per cent net means long hours, low wages, and repression,

and if six per cent would mean good will and contentment, it might pay the

leaders of industry to take less in dividends and take it out in the

higher satisfactions.

For men of great ability this is the chance for enduring fame. Who will

remember the men that did nothing but amass wealth? Who of our presidents

are remembered and loved? Those who suffered with and for the people.

The leadership of service validates its rightness by its intellectual

results. Predatory and parasitic classes become intellectually sterile and

ignorant of real life. A man who wants to serve men, must get close to

them. If we carry a load uphill, we have to choose our footing, and will

perforce become intimately acquainted with the law of gravitation. Nothing

develops the intellect like heading a just cause and fighting for it.

Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. The ambition of the

strong must be yoked to the service of society. Power and honor must be

earned by distinguished and costly service. Progress along this direction

marks the progress of the Kingdom of God. Extortionate and domineering

leadership must be superseded where the Kingdom of God moves forward.

Does the life of our colleges and universities square with this principle?

College men and women crave honor from their fellows, or their

fraternities crave it for them vicariously. How do the “big men” in

college win it? Do they win it by raising the standards of intellectual

work for all? By making fun clean and honorable through the power of a

clean public opinion? By creating a college spirit which will put manhood

into every generation of Freshmen that plunges into it? Or do they win

honor by organizing parties, by intoxicating themselves and others with

frothy “social” successes, by acting for the gallery to see and applaud,

and by wasting the dynamics of youth on shooting rockets that look like

stars and come down like sticks? Such men are essentially selfish; even

their service is self-seeking and deserves no honor from others. The more

talented and attractive they are, the more damage do they do. They

perpetuate their kind. If fraternities or honorary societies honor and

reward that sort of leadership, they force individuals into futility, and

reenforce the natural temptation to shallow work and display by the

powerful pressure of socialized public opinion.

What has just been said applies to the inner life of the college group

during its brief command over young men and women. But meanwhile the

outside life is waiting for them. Society creates and finances the

colleges and universities from the social fund created by those who work.

A college man who toys with his work and fights those who want to make him

work, ought to be demoted and his chance given to some workingman who has

intellectual hunger and would use it. But even of the able and efficient

college men society has a right to inquire whether it is training enemies

and exploiters or friends and leaders. This question will be asked more

and more insistently by democracy as it becomes intelligent. Christianity

anticipates this inquiry by its appeal to the individual conscience. Every

college man and woman should choose the principle on which he proposes to

exercise leadership in case he wins it. Are we willing to gain wealth by

impoverishing others? Are we willing to get pleasure by degrading others?

Are we willing to gain power and freedom for ourselves by making others

powerless and unfree? Jesus distinguishes three kinds of men who are

interested in the sheep—the robber, the hireling, and the shepherd. You

can tell the presence of the robber by the death of the sheep; the

hireling by his cowardice; the true leader by his valor and love.

A special word should be said to college women. In her book on “Woman and

Labor,” Olive Schreiner has pointed out that as families rise to wealth,

the women slip into parasitism more readily than the men. They cease to do

productive work, accept the luxuries of life as their right, and fall in

with upper-class pretensions. The means of leadership—time, wealth, social

resources—are at their command. How will they use them? The number of

women with unearned incomes is increasing rapidly in America. Now, if much

is given them, much will be required. Can they produce enough social

values to justify what they consume? The least we can do is to give as

much as we get. Anything less is immoral.

What kind of influence do college girls exert on able young men who turn

toward them in love? Nothing will shrivel the idealistic conceptions of

life in a young man as thoroughly as love for a selfish woman. The world

is full of eyeless Samsons, grinding the money-mills, and whipped to a

quicker pace by smiling grafters—who would not recognize this description

of them if they saw it.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Need of Leadership_

1. Does the need of leadership diminish with the spread of democracy? With

the growth of education?

2. Do we need leadership more or less in America today than fifty years

ago?

II. _Jesus on the Problems of Leadership_

1. Give proof that Jesus consciously confronted the problem of social

leadership.

2. What elements did he condemn in the old leadership of his nation?

3. What principle of leadership did he lay down for the new social order?

4. What body of leaders did he create, and what standards of special honor

did he impose on them?

5. What do we think of the historic effectiveness of the leadership he

created? What is the true interpretation of Judas Iscariot?

6. What evidences are there in Jesus’ career that he was true to his

ideals of leadership?

III. _The Problem of Leadership in History_

1. How have the great leaders in the field of religion attacked the

problem of leadership in the Church? What does the Protestant Reformation

signify from this point of view?

2. How have the landed aristocrats of the past met the Christian test of

leadership?

3. Give examples from history and from modern life of men who exercised

power in the way Christ condemned. Give examples of others who exercised

it according to Christ’s law.

IV. _The Problem of Leadership in Modern Life_

1. In what professions is ambition now securely tied up with service, so

that a man must serve well in order to rise?

2. In what positions can a man still gain power and wealth by exploiting

society?

3. Is the consciousness that they are public servants spreading among

business men? If so, to what is this due?

4. Is society paying too big a price for the leadership of the industrial

aristocracy today?

5. When the interests of the stockholders are set over against the health

of women and children, and the safety of employes, which consideration

determines the wages paid?

6. How have the social leaders of the past mortgaged the economic

resources of nations to their own families? To what extent is this true of

our country?

7. How can society protect itself against exploitation under present

conditions?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. A corporation has averaged 24 per cent to its stockholders. It pays

twelve dollars a week to its ordinary workmen. Would you call this

predatory leadership? Where do you draw the line?

2. Does the salary of teachers in our country indicate that we give honor

according to service rendered?

3. How does the increasing size of business undertakings and their

importance for public welfare emphasize the ethical importance of right

leadership?

Chapter VIII. Private Property And The Common Good

_Private Property Must Serve Social Welfare_

A glance across history or a simple acquaintance with human life in any

community will show us that private property is at the same time a

necessary expression of personality and stimulator of character, and, on

the other hand, a chief outlet and fortification of selfishness. Every

reformatory effort must aim to conserve and spread the blessings of

property, and every step toward a better social order will be pugnaciously

blocked by its selfish beneficiaries.

What were Jesus’ convictions about private property?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Rival Interest

And he spake to them many things in parables, saying, Behold, the

sower went forth to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the

way side, and the birds came and devoured them: and others fell

upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth: and

straightway they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth:

and when the sun was risen, they were scorched; and because they

had no root, they withered away. And others fell upon the thorns;

and the thorns grew up and choked them: and others fell upon the

good ground, and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty,

some thirty.... When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and

understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away

that which hath been sown in his heart. This is he that was sown

by the way side. And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this

is he that heareth the word, and straight-way with joy receiveth

it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and

when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,

straightway he stumbleth. And he that was sown among the thorns,

this is he that heareth the word; and the care of the world, and

the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh

unfruitful. And he that was sown upon the good ground, this is he

that heareth the word, and understandeth it; who verily beareth

fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some

thirty.—Matt. 13:3-8; 19-23.

This parable was intended to explain to the disciples why the Kingdom was

not coming with a rush, as they expected. The story embodies the practical

experiences of Jesus in his propaganda. He saw his work as a duplication

of the sower’s work on a higher level. The success of both depends on the

receptiveness of the soil. The sower encounters hard trodden ground, rocky

patches, and spots where hardy thorns or thistles drain the soil and where

his work produces only empty ears and futile beginnings. So Jesus met the

stolid conservative and also the emotional type. But the climax of his

difficulties was a mind preoccupied by property worries, or lured by the

illusions of wealth. He early found, then, that devotion to property is

likely to be a rival to the higher interests and the common good.

How do modern social groups line up when measured by spiritual

receptiveness?

Second Day: The Accumulator

And one out of the multitude said unto him, Teacher, bid my

brother divide the inheritance with me. But he said unto him, Man,

who made me a judge or a divider over you? And he said unto them,

Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness: for a man’s

life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he

possesseth. And he spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground

of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he reasoned

within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have not where

to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down

my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my grain

and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much

goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be

merry. But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy

soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared,

whose shall they be? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself,

and is not rich toward God.—Luke 12:13-21.

Most men today would have no fault to find with this man. He was only

doing what the modern world is unanimously trying to do. Having made a

pile, he proposed to make a bigger pile. Meanwhile he slapped his soul on

the back and smacked his lips in anticipation. To Jesus the fat farmer was

a tragic comedy. In the first place, an unseen hand was waiting to snuff

out his candle. To plan life as if it consisted in an abundance of

material wealth is something of a miscalculation in a world where death is

part of the scheme of things. In the second place, Jesus saw no higher

purpose in the man’s aim and outlook to redeem his acquisitiveness. The

man was a sublimated chipmunk, gloating over bushels of pignuts. If wealth

is saved to raise and educate children, or achieve some social good, it

deserves moral respect or admiration. But if the acquisitive instinct is

without social feeling or vision, and centered on self, it gets no

respect, at least from Jesus.

Unlimited acquisition used to be considered immoral and dishonorable. How

and when did public opinion change on this?

Third Day: Quit Grafting

And the multitudes asked him, saying, What then must we do? And he

answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him

impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do

likewise. And there came also publicans to be baptized, and they

said unto him, Teacher, what must we do? And he said unto them,

Extort no more than that which is appointed you. And soldiers also

asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them,

Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully;

and be content with your wages.—Luke 3:10-14.

The social teachings of John the Baptist were so close to those of Jesus

that we can safely draw on them in this passage.

John told the people that a new era was coming and they would have to get

a new mind and manner of life as an outfit for it. The people asked for

specifications. John’s suggestions ran along two lines. He encouraged the

plain working people to be neighborly and friendly, and share with a man

who was hard up. With powerful individuals, like hired soldiers and Roman

tax-farmers, he insisted that they must quit using their physical force

and legal power as a cinch to extort money. In other words, they must quit

grafting. In the Kingdom of God the “big, black book of graft” will be

closed, and men will no longer eat their protesting fellow-men. The more

we realize that some form of graft is at the bottom of most easy incomes,

the more good sense will we see in this kind of evangelism.

Have we ever been a victim of extortion? How did it feel? Did it sour the

milk of human kindness in us?

Fourth Day: God versus Mammon

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and

rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay

up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust

doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

for where thy treasure is there will thy heart be also. The lamp

of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy

whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy

whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that

is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can

serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the

other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye

cannot serve God and mammon.—Matt. 6:19-24.

Acquisition may operate on different planes. A man may accumulate material

stuff, or he may acquire spiritual faculties, memories, and relations. In

a balanced life the two work side by side in peace, and each may aid the

other. But the experience of all spiritual teachers shows that practically

the acquisition of property often becomes a passion which absorbs the man

and leaves little energy for the higher pursuits. Most men who have used

up their life to acquire wealth look back with homesickness to some

idealistic aspiration of their youth as to a lost Edenland. Jesus felt the

antagonism of private wealth and the Kingdom of God so keenly that he set

God and Mammon over against each other, and warned us that we must choose

between them. Placed in this connection, the saying about the darkening of

the inner light seems to refer to the influence of money-getting on the

higher vision of the soul. This entire passage is fundamental and will

explain other sayings which follow.

Do God and money come into flat collision in college life?

Fifth Day: The Divisive Influence of Riches

Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and

fine linen, faring sumptuously every day: and a certain beggar

named Lazarus was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to

be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table; yea,

even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that

the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into

Abraham’s bosom: and the rich man also died, and was buried. And

in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth

Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said,

Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may

dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am

in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that

thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in

like manner evil things: but now here he is comforted, and thou

art in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you there is

a great gulf fixed, that they that would pass from hence to you

may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us.

And he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest

send him to my father’s house; for I have five brethren; that he

may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of

torment. But Abraham saith, They have Moses and the prophets; let

them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one go to

them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If

they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be

persuaded, if one rise from the dead.—Luke 16:19-31.

Why does Jesus send the rich man to hell as if it were a matter of course?

No crimes or vices are alleged. It must be that a life given over to

sumptuous living and indifferent to the want and misery of a fellow-man at

the doorstep seemed to Jesus a deeply immoral and sinful life. Jesus

exerted all his energies to bring men close together in love. But wealth

divides. It creates semi-human relations between social classes, so that a

small dole seems to be a full discharge of obligations toward the poor,

and manly independence and virtue may be resented as offensive. The sting

of this parable is in the reference to the five brothers who were still

living as Dives had lived, and whom he was vainly trying to reach by

wireless. See verse 14 in explanation.

Is it fair to call the relations between the selfish rich and the

dependent poor “semi-human relations”?

Sixth Day: Get a Plank for the Deluge

And he said also unto the disciples, There was a certain rich man,

who had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he was

wasting his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, What is

this that I hear of thee? render the account of thy stewardship;

for thou canst be no longer steward. And the steward said within

himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the

stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am

ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the

stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. And calling to

him each one of his lord’s debtors, he said to the first, How much

owest thou unto my lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil.

And he said unto him, Take thy bond, and sit down quickly and

write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And

he said, A hundred measures of wheat. He saith unto him, Take thy

bond, and write fourscore. And his lord commended the unrighteous

steward because he had done wisely: for the sons of this world are

for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light. And I

say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of

unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you

into the eternal tabernacles.—Luke 16:1-9.

This is one of the wittiest stories in the Bible and must be read with

some sense of humor. The tenant farmers of a great estate paid their rent

in shares of the produce. This elastic system offered the steward a chance

to make something on the side. He was found out and discharged, but while

he was closing up his accounts he still had a short spell of authority.

Things looked dark. He did not care to blister his white hands with a

hoe-handle, nor his social pride by begging. So he grafted one last graft,

but on so large a scale that the tenants would be under lasting

obligations to him. The scamp was a crook, but at least he was

long-headed. Jesus wished the children of light were as clever in taking a

long look ahead as the children of this world. In that case men would get

ready for the new age, in which mammon loses its buying power, by making

friends with it now, and their friends would take them in as guests after

the great reversal.

How do you like the humorous independence of Jesus?

Seventh Day: Stranded on His Wealth

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Teacher, what shall I

do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest

thou me good? none is good, save one, even God. Thou knowest the

commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal,

Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and mother. And he

said, All these things have I observed from my youth up. And when

Jesus heard it, he said unto him, One thing thou lackest yet: sell

all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt

have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. But when he heard

these things, he became exceeding sorrowful; for he was very rich.

And Jesus seeing him said, How hardly shall they that have riches

enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to

enter in through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into

the kingdom of God.—Luke 18:18-25.

A fine young man, of clean and conscientious life, but with unsatisfied

aspirations in his soul. Jesus invites him to a more heroic type of

excellence, cutting loose from his wealth and devoting himself to the

apostolate of the Kingdom of God. It was a great chance for a great life.

He might have stood for God before kings and mobs, and ranked with Peter,

John, and Paul as a household name. He did not rise to his chance. What

held him? Jesus felt it was his wealth. A poor man would have had less to

leave, and might have left it cheerfully. So Jesus sums up the

psychological situation in the saddened exclamation that it is exceedingly

hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom where men live in justice,

fraternity, and idealism.

Have you noticed that in recent years an increasing number of this man’s

grandsons are trying to cut loose and find the real life, eternal life?

Can you name any?

Study for the Week

Evidently the dangers connected with property were much in the mind of

Jesus. He seems to have emphasized them more fully and frequently than the

evils of licentiousness or drunkenness. The modern Church has reversed the

relative emphasis. Why?

Of course we must not look for the methods or viewpoints of political

economy in his teachings. His concern was for the spiritual vitality and

soundness of the individual, and for the human relations existing among

men. He was interested in property only in so far as it corrupted the

higher nature or made fraternity difficult. But let no one underestimate

the importance of these considerations. These things are the real end of

life. All the rest is scaffolding. We should be farther along if the

economic and social sciences had kept these fundamental questions more

sternly in sight.

Plainly Jesus felt that the acquisitive instinct, like the sex instinct,

easily breaks bounds and becomes ravenous; there is even less natural

limit to it. It absorbs the energies of intellect and will. As with the

rich fool, the horizon of life is filled with chances to make the pile

grow bigger. Life seems to consist of money, and the problems of money.

People are valued according to that standard. Marriages are arranged for

it. Politics is run for it. Wars are begun for it. Creative artistic and

intellectual impulses are shouldered aside, fall asleep, or die of

inanition. Property is intended to secure freedom of action and

self-development; in fact, it often chains men and clips their wings. This

is what Jesus calls “the deceitfulness of riches” and “the darkening of

the inner eye.”(2)

In addition to the blight of character, wealth exerts a desocializing and

divisive influence. It wedges apart groups that belong together. Dives and

Lazarus may live in the front and rear of the same block, but with no

sense of solidarity. Dives would have been deeply moved, perhaps, if one

of his own class had punctured a tire in the Philistian desert and gone

for two days without any food except crumbs. The separation of humanity

into classes on the lines of wealth is so universal and so orthodox that

few of us ever realize that it flouts all the principles of Christianity

and humanity.

In the case of the young ruler Jesus encountered the fact that wealth bars

men out of the world of their ideals. The question was not whether the

young man could get to heaven, but whether he could have a share in the

real life, in the kingdom of right relations. It is hard to acquire great

wealth without doing injustice to others; it is hard to possess it and yet

deal with others on the basis of equal humanity; it is hard to give it

away even without doing mischief.

We have seen that Jesus believed profoundly in the value and dignity of

human life; that he sought to create solidarity; that he was chiefly

concerned for the saving of the lowly; and that he demanded an heroic life

in the service of the Kingdom of God. But wealth, as he saw it, flouted

the value of life, dissolved the spiritual solidarity of whole classes,

and kept the lowly low; the wealthy had lost the capacity for an heroic

life.

This is radical teaching. What shall we say to it? Jesus is backed by the

Old Testament prophets and the most spiritual teaching of the Hebrew

people, which condemned injustice and extortionate money-making even more

energetically than did Jesus. Medieval Christianity sincerely assented to

the principle that private property is a danger to the soul and a

neutralizer of love. Every monastic community tried to cut under sex

dangers by celibacy, and property dangers by communism. This was an

enormous misinterpretation of Christianity, but it shows that men took the

teachings on the dangers of private property seriously. The modern

Christian world does not. It has quietly set aside the ideas of Jesus on

this subject, lives its life without much influence from them, and

contents itself with emphasizing other aspects.

Has the teaching of Jesus on private property been superseded by a better

understanding of the social value of property? Or has his teaching been

suppressed and swamped by the universal covetousness of modern life? “Our

moral pace-setters strike at bad personal habits, but act as if there was

something sacred about money-getting; and, _seeing that the master

iniquities of our time are connected with money-making_, they do not get

into the fight at all. The child-drivers, monopoly-builders, and crooked

financiers have no fear of men whose thought is run in the moulds of their

grandfathers. Go to the tainted-money colleges, and you will learn that

Drink, not Graft, is the nation’s bane” (Edward A. Ross, “Sin and Society,

an Analysis of Latter-day Iniquity,” p. 97—the italics are his).

The machinery for making money which Jesus knew, was simple, crude, and

puny compared with the complicated and pervasive system which the magnates

of modern industry have built up. There was probably not a millionaire in

all Palestine. What would he have said to our great cities?

We need a Christian ethics of property, more perhaps than anything else.

The wrongs connected with wealth are the most vulnerable point of our

civilization. Unless we can make that crooked place straight, all our

charities and religion are involved in hypocrisy.

We have to harmonize the two facts, that wealth is good and necessary, and

that wealth is a danger to its possessor and to society. On the one hand

property is indispensable to personal freedom, to all higher

individuality, and to self-realization; the right to property is a

corollary of the right to life; without property men are at the mercy of

nature and in bondage to those who have property. On the other hand

property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a

club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and

as the fundamental tool of oppression.

Where do we draw the line? Is it true that property created by productive

labor is a great moralizer, and that property acquired without productive

labor is the great demoralizer? Is it correct that property for use is on

the whole good, and property for power is a menace?

What is the relation between property and self-development? At what point

does property become excessive? At what point does food become excessive

and poisonous? At what point does fertilizer begin to kill a plant? Would

any real social values be lost if incomes averaged $2,000 and none

exceeded $10,000?

To what extent does a moral purpose take the dangers out of acquisition?

Is any life moral in which the natural capacities are not sincerely taxed

to do productive work? If a man’s wealth is destined to cut his

descendants off from productive labor, is it a blessing? What is the moral

difference between strenuous occupation and labor? How large a proportion

of our time and energy can be devoted to play and leisure without

softening our moral fiber?

At what points does private property come to be anti-social? If we could

eliminate the monopoly elements and the capacity to levy tribute, would

there be much danger in the remainder?

Does private property, in the enormous aggregations of today and in

control of the essential outfit of society, still correspond to the

essential theoretical conception of private property, or have public

properties and public functions fallen under private control? “Much that

we are accustomed to hear called legitimate insistence upon the rights of

property, the Old Testament would seem to call the robbery of God, and

grinding the faces of the poor” (The Bishop of Oxford).

III

The religious spirit will always have to call the individual farther than

the law can compel him to go. After all unjust and tainted portions have

been eliminated from our property, religion lays its hands on the rest and

says, “You are only a steward over this.” In the parables of the talents,

the pounds, and the unjust steward, Jesus argues on the assumption that

our resources are a trust, and not absolute property. We manage and

control them, but always under responsibility. We hold them from God, and

his will has eminent domain. But the will of God is identical with the

good of mankind. When we hold property in trust for God, we hold it for

humanity, of which we are part. We misuse the trust if by it we deprive

others of health, freedom, joy, hope, or efficiency, for instance, by

overworking others and underworking our own children.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Love of Money_

1. Define graft. What is wrong in it? Where do we see it? Where are we

myopic about it?

2. Why did Jesus have so much to say about money and so little about

drink? Why does Paul call the love of money “the root of all evil”?

II. _Jesus’ Fear of Riches_

1. On what ground does Jesus fear the influence of riches and of their

accumulation?

2. Summarize Jesus’ teachings regarding wealth.

3. In what respects is his attitude different from the ordinary viewpoint

of the modern world?

4. Was Jesus opposed to the owning of farming tools or fishing smacks?

Where would he draw the line between honest earnings and dangerous wealth?

5. Was his teaching on wealth ascetic? Was it socialistic?

6. To what extent should we recognize his insight on this question as

authority for us?

III. _The Problem of Wealth in the Modern World_

I. Are the "master iniquities" of our age located in sex life, politics,

or business?

2. Distinguish between “property for use” and “property for power.”

3. What are the moral evils created by mass poverty? By aggregations of

wealthy families?

4. Why has the modern world set aside Jesus’ teachings about wealth? To

what extent have we substituted a better understanding of the social value

of property? How far should we be satisfied with our present adjustment of

the property question?

5. What methods of money making are condemned by the common sentiment of

the Church? Is there anything which ought to be included in this

condemnation? If so, what?

IV. _The Christian Attitude Toward Property and Wealth Under Modern

Conditions_

1. At what point does the amassing of private property become contrary to

the principles of Jesus?

2. What legalized property rights are antagonistic to Jesus’ principles?

3. How can society accumulate wealth without the injustice and social

divisions which now accompany the amassing of private fortunes?

4. If a man has an invested income, has he the right to live a life of

leisure? When is it right to be a non-producer?

5. How rich has a Christian a right to be? In a Christian society what is

the minimum limit of income?

6. Would economic democracy eliminate or enforce the doctrine of

stewardship?

7. How can we pluck the sting of sin out of private property?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Are millionaires a symptom of social disease or a triumph of

civilization?

2. Should social science reckon with the influence of wealth on personal

character?

3. What moral conviction is expressed in the condemnation of usurious

interest and of rack-rent? Should excessive profit be included?

4. How could industry be financed if there were no wealthy investors with

accumulations?

5. When is a college student a parasite?

6. If college communities had less money would they breed better men and

women?

7. How have the successes of predatory finance affected the outlook and

morality of college students?

Chapter IX. The Social Test Of Religion

_Religion Must be Socially Efficient_

The teaching of Jesus dealt with three recalcitrant forces, which easily

escape from the control of social duty and become a clog to spiritual

progress: ambition for power and leadership, and the love of property,

have been considered. How about religion? Is it a help or a hindrance in

the progress of humanity? Opinions are very much divided today. No student

of society can neglect religion as a social force. What did Jesus think of

it?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: Worship is not Enough

What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I

have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed

beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs,

or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath

required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more

vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and

sabbath, the calling of assemblies,—I cannot away with iniquity

and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts

my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing

them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes

from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your

hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the

evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn

to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the

fatherless, plead for the widow.—Isa. 1:11-17.

Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the

high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with

calves a year old? will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams,

or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born

for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah

require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to

walk humbly with thy God?—Micah 6:6-8.

These two passages are classical expressions of a note which runs through

all the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. There was a fundamental

antagonism between those who saw the service of God in the inherited

ritual and sacrificial action, and those who felt that the essential

service of God is righteousness of life. The prophets wanted a religion

that would change social conduct, and repudiated religious doings that had

no ethical value. They held that worship alone is not enough. God wants

life and conduct.

Suggest parallels from the history of the Christian or the non-Christian

religions.

Second Day: The Test of Social Value

And it came to pass, that he was going on the sabbath day through

the grainfields; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck

the ears. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on

the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them,

Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was

hungry, he, and they that were with him? How he entered into the

house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the showbread,

which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also

to them that were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was

made for man; and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man

is lord even of the sabbath.

And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there

who had his hand withered. And they watched him, whether he would

heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he

saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth. And he

saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good, or to

do harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their peace.

And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being

grieved at the hardening of their heart, he saith unto the man,

Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth; and his hand

was restored.—Mark 2:23-3:5.

The Mosaic law intended the Sabbath to be a haven of rest for all who were

driven, the slave, the immigrant, even the cattle. It was a precious

institution of social protection. But the strict religionists of Jesus’

time had made a yoke of tyranny of it, so that hungry men could not rub

the kernels from ears of grain without being charged with threshing, and

Jesus could not heal a poor paralytic without getting black looks. A fine

institution of social welfare and relief had been turned into an

anti-social regulation. Jesus fell back on the fundamental maxim of the

prophets, “I desire kindness and not sacrifice,” and laid down the

principle that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the

Sabbath.” The religious institution of the Sabbath must have social value;

this is the essential test even in religion.

Is the Sabbath more useful to society now than in Puritan times?

From which do we suffer more today, from excessive strictness or excessive

looseness in Sabbath observance?

How is the social value of the rest-day frustrated for the working class?

Third Day: Natural Duty above Artificial

And the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, Why walk not thy

disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their

bread with defiled hands? And he said unto them, Well did Isaiah

prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

This people honoreth me with their lips,

But their heart is far from me.

But in vain do they worship me,

Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.

Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of

men. And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment

of God, that ye may keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy

father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or

mother, let him die the death: but ye say, If a man shall say to

his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been

profited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given to God; ye no

longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother; making

void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered:

and many such like things ye do.—Mark 7:5-13.

Contemporary Jewish religion was full of taboos, defilements, and

purifications. Read Mark 7:1-23. Jesus was so indifferent about the

religious ablutions that he was brought to book for it by the pious. He

replied that these regulations were not part of the divine law, but later

accretions the product of theological casuistry, and that they tended to

obscure the real divine duties. He cited a flagrant case. By eternal and

divine law a man owes love and support to his parents. But the scribes

held that if a man vowed to give money to the temple, this obligation,

being toward God, superseded the obligation to his parents, which was

merely human. To Jesus this seemed a perversion of religion.

Ecclesiastical claims were made to stifle fundamental social duty. To

Jesus the latter had incomparably higher value. Religion had become a

social danger through such teaching.

Give proof from modern history that religious institutions may become

injurious to social morality and welfare.

Fourth Day: Religion Which Obscured Duty

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint

and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters

of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to

have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides,

that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse

the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are

full from extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first

the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof

may become clean also.—Matt. 23:23-26.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass

sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye

make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves.—Matt. 23:15.

The great invective of Jesus against the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew

23) deals wholly with the perversions of religion. In these verses he

emphasizes the fact that the solemn importance attached to external

minutiæ turned the attention of men from the really fundamental spiritual

duties, such as justice, mercy, and good faith. As the blood was supposed

to be the sacred element of life, it had to be drained off in butchering,

and a drowned animal could not be eaten. Jesus wittily describes the

Pharisee filtering out drowned gnats from the drinking water, but bolting

some camel of a sin without blinking. The outside of the cup was kept

scrupulously scoured, but the inside was filled with the products of

rapacity and the material for luxurious excess. When religion had become

of such a sort, even missionary activity became an actual damage, for the

converts were turned into fanatical sticklers on trifles. In all this we

can see him striking out for a kind of religion that would result in

righteous conduct and have social value.

_Have we had any experience of religion which obscured duty to us? Have we

had any experience of religion which revealed duty to us?_

Fifth Day: Religious Wonders and Social Realities

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and trying him asked him to

show them a sign from heaven. But he answered and said unto them,

When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the

heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day:

for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the

face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times.

An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there

shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah. And he left

them, and departed.—Matt. 16:1-4.

This demand for a miracle pursued Jesus all through his teaching activity.

He settled with it on principle in his desert temptation; he would not

leap from the pinnacles of the temple, or do anything to turn his work

into a holy circus. But the demand followed him to his death: “If thou art

the Son of God, come down from the cross.” A good, stunning miracle seemed

a short cut to faith, the most convincing way of furnishing proof of his

divine mission. Also, it would be mighty interesting. But he never catered

to the demand. His power was only for the relief of suffering. He tried to

keep his acts of healing private. In this passage he advised his opponents

to use their intellect in more useful directions than stargazing for signs

from heaven. They were weather-wise. Let them read the signs of the times.

Storms were brewing on the horizon. Forty years later Titus destroyed

Jerusalem and broke the back of the Jewish nation. The prophetic mind of

Jesus saw it coming (Luke 19:41-44).

If they had accepted his teaching of peace instead of getting intoxicated

by the visions of revolutionary apocalypticism, the doom might have been

averted. He was trying to bring their feet to the ground, turn their mind

to realities, and make their religion socially efficient.

Would the sight of a miracle have effected a moral change in a Pharisee?

How would religion be affected, if miraculous demonstrations could be

furnished at will?

Sixth Day: When Religion Separates Men

And as Jesus passed by from thence, he saw a man, called Matthew,

sitting at the place of toll: and he saith unto him, Follow me.

And he arose, and followed him.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat in the house, behold, many

publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his

disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his

disciples, Why eateth your Teacher with the publicans and sinners?

But when he heard it, he said, They that are whole have no need of

a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what this

meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice: for I came not to call

the righteous, but sinners.—Matt. 9:9-13.

The Jewish community, religious at the core, had a fringe of people who

had failed to live up to the requirements of the Law. They came under the

condemnation of the respectable people and of their own conscience, and

drifted into the despised and vicious occupations. These were the

“publicans and sinners,” the “publicans and harlots,” to whom the Gospels

refer. A socially efficient religion would have prompted the good people

to establish loving and saving contact with these people. Actually

religion so accentuated the social divergence that the Pharisees were

shocked when Jesus mingled in a friendly way with this class and even

added one of them to his traveling companions. The parables of the lost

coin, lost sheep, and prodigal son were spoken in reply to the slur, “This

man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15). The elder brother

of the prodigal pictures this loveless and censorious religion.

Jesus crossed the line of demarcation and established social contact and

friendliness, through which salvation could come to these religious

derelicts. He quoted again the old saying of the prophets, “I desire

mercy, and not sacrifice.” God was not as much concerned about correct

religious performances as the Pharisees thought, and a great deal more

concerned about mercy for the fallen, and the simple human qualities which

bring the strong and the weak together.

What experiences have we had of refusal to associate? Was the cleavage

along lines of race, wealth, education, morals, or religion?

_Has religion with us been an impulse toward men, or away from men?_

Seventh Day: Be Useful or Die

And he spake this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in

his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none.

And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come

seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why

doth it also cumber the ground? And he answering saith unto him,

Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and

dung it: and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou

shalt cut it down.—Luke 13:6-9.

Jesus evidently had some interest in scientific agriculture. Both the

owner and the vine-dresser in this parable were out for agricultural

efficiency. The owner hated to see soil and space wasted; the vine-dresser

was reluctant to sacrifice a tree, and proposed better tillage and more

fertilizer. Taking this parable in connection with what precedes, we see

that Jesus was concerned about the future of his nation and its religion.

Both would have to validate their right to exist; God could not have them

cumber the ground. They must make good. This is the stern urge of the God

whom we know in history and evolution, with the voice of Christ pleading

for patience. But it is agreed between them that ultimately the law of

fitness must rule. Religion can not bank on claims of antiquity alone.

Every generation must find it newly efficient to create the social virtues

then needed. Remember that this was spoken by a Jewish patriot and the

supreme exponent of the Hebrew religion.

Give historical instances of the permanent downfall or decline of nations.

Trace the connection between their fate and their religion.

Study for the Week

Jesus Christ was the founder of the highest religion; he was himself the

purest religious spirit known to us. Why, then, was he in opposition to

religion? The clash between him and the representatives of organized

religion was not occasional or superficial. It ran through his whole

activity, was one of the dominant notes in his teaching, culminated in the

great spiritual duel between him and the Jewish hierarchy in the last days

at Jerusalem, and led directly to his crucifixion.

The opposition of Jesus was not, of course, against religion itself, but

against religion as he found it. It was not directed against any departure

from the legitimate order of the priesthood; nor against an improper

ritual or wrong doctrine of sacrifices. In fact, it did not turn on any of

the issues which were of such importance to the Church in later times. He

criticized the most earnest religious men of his day because their

religion harmed men instead of helping them. It was unsocial, or

anti-social.

The Old Testament prophets also were in opposition to the priestly system

of their time because it used up the religious interest of the people in

ceremonial performances without ethical outcome. It diverted spiritual

energy, by substituting lower religious requirements for the one

fundamental thing which God required—righteousness in social and political

life. They insisted over and over that Jehovah wants righteousness and

wants nothing else. Their aim was to make religion and ethics one and

inseparable. They struck for the social efficiency of religion.

At the time of Jesus the Jewish sacrifices had lost much of their

religious importance. During the Exile they had lapsed. They were

professional performances of one class. The numerous Jews scattered in

other countries perhaps saw the temple once in a lifetime. Modern feeling

in the first century was against bloody sacrifices. The recorded sayings

of Jesus hardly mention them. On the other hand the daily life of the

people was pervaded by little prescribed religious actions. The Sabbath

with its ritual was punctiliously observed.(3) There were frequent days of

fasting, religious ablutions and baths, long prayers to be recited several

times daily, with prayer straps around the arm and forehead, and a

tasseled cloth over the head. The exact performance of these things seemed

an essential part of religion to the most earnest men.

We have seen how Jesus collided with these religious requirements and on

what grounds. If men were deeply concerned about the taboo food that went

into their bodies, they would not be concerned about the evil thoughts

that arose in their souls. If they were taught to focus on petty duties,

such as tithing, the great ethical principles and obligations moved to the

outer field of vision and became blurred. The Sabbath, which had

originated in merciful purpose toward the poor, had been turned into

another burden. Religion, which ought to bring good men into saving

contact with the wayward by love, actually resulted in separating the two

by a chasm of religious pride and censoriousness. A man-made and

artificial religious performance, such as giving toward the support of the

temple, crowded aside fundamental obligations written deep in the

constitution of human society, such as filial reverence and family

solidarity.

Other reformers have condemned religious practices because they were

departures from the holy Book or from primitive custom. Jesus, too,

pointed out that some of these regulations were recent innovations. But

the real standard by which he judged current religious questions was not

ancient authority but the present good of men. The spiritual center on

which he took his stand and from which he judged all things, was the

Kingdom of God, the perfect social order. Even the ordinances of religion

must justify themselves by making an effective contribution to the Kingdom

of God. The Sabbath was made for man, and its observance must meet the

test of service to man’s welfare. It must function wholesomely. The candle

must give light, or what is the use of it? The salt must be salty and

preserve from decay, or it will be thrown out and trodden under foot. If

the fig-tree bears no fruit, why is it allowed to use up space and crowd

better plants off the soil? This, then, is Christ’s test in matters of

institutional religion. The Church and all its doings must serve the

Kingdom of God.

The social efficiency of religion is a permanent social problem. What is

the annual expense of maintaining the churches in the United States? How

much capital is invested in the church buildings? (See U. S. Census

Bulletin No. 103, of 1906.) How much care and interest and loving

free-will labor does an average village community bestow on religion as

compared with other objects? All men feel instinctively that religion

exerts a profound and subtle influence on the springs of conduct. Even

those who denounce it, acknowledge at least its power for harm. Most of us

know it as a power for good. But all history shows that this great

spiritual force easily deteriorates. _Corruptio optimi pessima._

Religion may develop an elaborate social apparatus of its own, wheels

within wheels, and instead of being a dynamic of righteousness in the

natural social relations of men, its energies may be consumed in driving

its own machinery. Instead of being the power-house supplying the Kingdom

of God among men with power and light, the Church may exist for its own

sake. It then may become an expensive consumer of social wealth, a

conservative clog, and a real hindrance of social progress.

Live religion gives proof of its value by the sense of freedom, peace, and

elation which it creates. We feel we are right with the holy Power which

is behind, and beneath, and above all things. It gives a satisfying

interpretation of life and of our own place in it. It moves our aims

higher up, draws our fellow-men closer, and invigorates our will.

But our growth sets a problem for our religion. The religion of childhood

will not satisfy adolescent youth, and the religion of youth ought not to

satisfy a mature man or woman. Our soul must build statelier mansions for

itself. Religion must continue to answer all our present needs and inspire

all our present functions. A person who has failed to adjust his religion

to his growing powers and his intellectual horizon, has failed in one of

the most important functions of growth, just as if his cranium failed to

expand and to give room to his brain. Being microcephalous is a

misfortune, and nothing to boast of.

Precisely the same problem arises when society passes through eras of

growth. Religion must keep pace. The Church must pass the burning torch of

religious experience from age to age, transmitting the faith of the

fathers to the children, and not allowing any spiritual values to perish.

But it must allow and aid religion to adjust itself. Its inspiring

teaching must meet the new social problems so effectively that no evil can

last long or grow beyond remedy. In every new age religion must stand the

test of social efficiency. Is it passing that test in Western

civilization?

Religion is a bond of social coherence. It creates loyalty. But it may

teach loyalty to antiquated observances or a dwarfed system of truth. Have

you ever seen believers rallying around a lost cause in religion? Yet

these relics were once a live issue, and full of thrilling religious

vitality.

Society changes. Will religion change with it? If society passes from

agriculture and rural settlements to industry and urban conditions, can

the customary practices of religion remain unchanged? Give some instances

where prescientific conceptions of the universe, embodied in religion,

have blocked the spread of scientific knowledge among the people. The

caste distinctions of Hinduism were the product of a combination between

religion and the social organization of the people; can they last when

industrialism and democracy are pervading India? The clerical attitude of

authority was natural when the Catholic clergy were the only educated

class in the community; is it justified today? Protestantism won the

allegiance of industrial communities when the young business class was

struggling to emancipate itself from the feudal system. It developed an

individualistic philosophy of ethics. Today society tends toward

solidaristic organization. How will that affect religion and its scheme of

duty? Thus religion, by its very virtues of loyalty and reverence, may

fall behind and lose its full social efficiency. It must be geared to the

big live issues of today if it is to manifest its full saving energies.

How does this problem of the efficiency of religion bear on the foreign

missionary movement? How will backward or stationary civilizations be

affected by the introduction of a modern and enthusiastic religion?

We may feel the defects of our church life at home, but there is no doubt

that the young men and women who go out from our colleges under religious

impulses, are felt as a virile and modernizing force when they settle to

their work in Turkey or Persia. Christian educational institutions and

medical missions have raised the intellectual and humane standards of

young China. Buddhism in Japan has felt the challenge of competition and

is readjusting its ethics and philosophy to connect with modern social

ideals. The historical effects of our religious colonization will not

mature for several generations, but they are bound to be very great. The

nations and races are drawing together. They need a monotheistic religion

as a spiritual basis for their sense of human unity. This is a big,

modern, social task. It makes its claim on men and women who have youth,

education, and spiritual power. Is the religious life of our colleges and

universities efficient enough to meet the need?

Here are the enormous tasks of international relations, which the Great

War has forced us to realize—the prevention of armed conflicts, the

elimination of the irritant causes of war, the protection of the small

nations which possess what the big nations covet, the freedom of the seas

as the common highway of God, fair and free interchange in commerce

without any effort to set up monopoly rights and the privilege of

extortionate gain, the creation of an institutional basis for a great

family of nations in days to come. These are some of the tasks which the

men and women who are now young must take on their mind and conscience for

life, and leave to their children to finish. What contributions, in your

opinion, could the spirit of the Christian religion make to such a

program, if it were realized intelligently and pressed home through the

agencies of the Christian Church? In what ways has American religion shown

its efficiency since the war broke out?

Christianity has been a great power in our country to cleanse and

fraternalize the social life of simple communities. Can it meet the

complex needs of modern industrialism in the same way? It can not

truthfully be claimed that it has done so in any industrial country. Its

immense spiritual forces might be the decisive element, but they have been

effectively organized against a few only of the great modern evils. On the

fundamental ethical questions of capitalism the Church has not yet made up

its own mind—not to speak of enforcing the mind of Christ. Nor have the

specialists in the universities and colleges supplied the leaders of the

Church with clear information and guidance on these questions. We can not

make much permanent progress toward a just social order as long as the

masses of the working people in the industrial nations continue in

economic poverty and political helplessness, and as long as a minority

controls the land, the tools, and the political power. We shall linger on

the borders of the Inferno until a new accession of moral insight and

spiritual power comes to the nations. How will it come?

III

What could the churches in an average village community accomplish if they

intelligently directed the power of religion to foster the sense of

fraternal unity and to promote the institutions which make for unity? How

could they draw the new, the strange, and the irregular families into the

circle of neighborly feeling? In what way could they help to assimilate

immigrants and to prevent the formation of several communities in the same

section, overlapping, alien, and perhaps hostile? How would it affect the

recreational situation if the churches took a constructive rather than a

prohibitive attitude toward amusements, and if they promoted the

sociability of the community rather than that of church groups?

With the rise of land prices and the control of transportation and

markets, the rural population is moving toward a social crisis like that

which transformed the urban population in the industrial revolution.

Agriculture will become capitalistic, and the weaker families will drop to

the position of tenants and agricultural laborers. Cooperation is their

way of salvation. Its effectiveness has been amply demonstrated in older

countries. It requires a strong sense of solidarity, loyalty, and good

faith to succeed. It has made so little headway in America because our

national character has not been developed in these directions. What could

the churches do to save the weaker families from social submergence by

backing cooperation and developing the moral qualities needed for it?

The strong religious life of our people might be more effective if the

churches were less divided. Their economic and human resources are partly

wasted by useless competition. Our denominational divisions are nearly all

an historical heritage, imported from Europe, and coming down from a

controversial age. Their issues all meant something vital and socially

important in the midst of the social order of that day; but in many cases

the real significance has quietly crumbled away, and they are not really

the same issues that deeply engaged our forefathers. We are all “tithing

mint, anise, and cummin,” and forgetting the weighty matters, such as

social justice and Christian fraternity. Everybody is ready to acknowledge

this about every denomination except his own. We need a revaluation of our

religious issues from the point of view of the Kingdom of God. That would

bring us into harmony with the judgment of Jesus. Nothing else will.

The social efficiency of religion—what call is there in that to the

college men and women of this generation? Shall they cease to worship and

pray, seek the salvation of society in ethics and sociology, and abandon

religion to stagnation? Or shall they seek a new experience of religion in

full sight of the modern world, and work by faith toward that reign of God

in which his will shall be done?

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _When the Salt Loses its Savor_

1. What is the individual to do when religion becomes a hindrance to

religion?

2. What types of revolt against inherited religion have you met in

college?

II. _Prophetic Religion Against Traditional Religion_

1. What did the prophets criticize in the religion of their day?

2. What was Jesus’ test of religion?

3. Give instances in which he found religion to be a hindrance to the

highest welfare. How did religion obscure duty?

4. What was the essential cause of the clash between Jesus and the

religious leaders of his day?

III. _The Historic Reformation of Religion_

1. In studying history, what sins or failures of the Church have impressed

you most?

2. What did the Protestant Reformation contribute to make religion

efficient?

3. Has the Church been a rival or a feeder of the Kingdom of God?

4. Give historical examples of the failure of religion to meet the changed

requirements of a new epoch.

5. What contributions has the Church made to social progress?

IV. _Religion Today_

1. What have Christian missions done to change the social conditions in

non-Christian countries?

2. How do you rate the social service value of a first-class minister in a

community? On what does his value depend?

3. Of what social value to a community is a costly and beautiful church

building?

4. What investment in capital and annual expenditure does the maintenance

of the churches in your community entail? Does the social return to the

community justify the investment?

5. Are the issues which divided the Protestant denominations in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries still vital enough to justify the

continuance of the divisions? Summarize the evils of the divisions and

their counter-balancing good.

6. Is the ordinary criticism of the churches fair? Are ministers overpaid

or underpaid? Do the churches graft? How do the churches compare in social

efficiency with other similar social institutions?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Why did the reformation of the Church historically precede the reform

of politics and industry?

2. Do the unsolved social problems of Christian nations prove the social

inefficiency of religion? Could religion alone change the maladjustment of

society?

3. Why has religion been more effective in the field of private life than

of public life?

4. If you had full control of the churches in a given country or village

community, on what aims would you concentrate their forces?

PART IV. CONQUEST BY CONFLICT