THE AGONY OF THE CHURCH
The present time should be one of self criticism. The European race now
needs this self-criticism more than any other race, and the Christian
Church needs it more than any other religion in the world, for before
this War the European race set itself up as the critic of the defects
and insufficiencies of all other races, and the Christian Church exalted
herself over all other religions "as high as the heaven is exalted over
the earth." The other races and religions thought that behind this proud
criticism of Christian Europe there must be at least a well-possessed
security for the world-peace. Of course it was an illusion. On no
continent was the peace of mankind more endangered than in Europe, the
very metropolis of Christianity and Christian civilisation. And it has
been so not only during the last few years, it has been the case during
the last thousand years, that Europe has represented a greater contrast
to peace than any other continent. During the last thousand years
history can report more wars, more bloodshed, and more criminal unrest
in Christian Europe than in the heathen countries of the Far
East--China, Japan, and India. It is a very humiliating fact, both for
the white race and for its religion, but, nevertheless, it is a fact.
This humiliating fact should rouse us in the present painful times to
the consideration of our own defects and insufficiencies. Europe is
sick, and her Church is sick too. How can a wounded man be healed unless
his wounds are unveiled? Europe's soul is sick, therefore her body is so
sorely suffering and bleeding. Well, Europe's soul is nothing else than
Europe's religion, but the religion of Europe to-day is not Europe's
guide and lord, it is Europe's most obedient servant.
THE CHURCH THE SERVANT OF PATRIOTISM AND IMPERIALISM
Patriotism and Imperialism--qualities more physical than spiritual--were
the worst enemies of the primitive Church, as I tried to show in my
previous chapters. Well, Patriotism and Imperialism have been the most
prominent qualities of modern Europe. Now compare the primitive Church
with the modern Church: the primitive Church fought most tenaciously and
heroically against the exclusive Patriotism of the Jews and against the
Imperialism of the Romans, and the modern Church serves very obediently
modern Patriotism and Imperialism! I wish I were wrong in what I am
stating now, but, alas! the facts are too obvious, both the facts of
this War, and the facts of previous peace.
Here are the facts:
When Austria mobilised against Serbia and declared War, the Church in
Austria did not protest against it, but, on the contrary, she supported
the Vienna Government with all her heart and means.
It is well known how much the Church of Germany, both the Protestant and
the Roman Catholic, unanimously and strongly supported the War policy of
the Kaiser's Government--the very policy of a blind exclusiveness and a
regardless Imperialism.
The Governments of Russia and Great Britain declared War against their
enemies without consulting their respective Churches, yet the Churches
of both countries have done their best to help their "country's cause."
The Churches of France, Italy, Serbia, Rumania, Belgium, and Bulgaria
have been at the disposal of the War Governments of their countries.
Now we have almost the same denominations of religion on each fighting
side (it is, however, significant that the whole Anglican Church and the
Eastern Orthodox Church are on the side of the Allies), so that we
cannot say it is a War of Protestants against Catholics, nor of the
Orthodox against the Modernists, nor of the Episcopalians against the
Presbyterians, nor even of the Christians against Mohamedans (because on
both sides we have Christians and Mohammedans). No, we cannot say that,
for it is not a War of one Church against the other, nor of one religion
against another; it is a War of Patriotism against Patriotism, of
Patriotism against Imperialism, and of Imperialism against Imperialism.
The Churches are only the tools of Patriotism or Imperialism. Not one of
the Churches has stated her standpoint as a different one from the
standpoint of its respective Government. The Churches have simply
adopted the standpoint of the Government. They seemed to have no
standpoint of their own concerning this War between nations. As if the
War were quite a surprisingly new event in history!
When the Austrian Government declared war on Serbia, the Church of
Austria adopted the standpoint of the Austrian Government as the right
one. The Serbian Church adopted the standpoint of the Serbian
Government, of course, as the right one. So it happened that the
Churches in Austria and Serbia prayed to the same God, and against each
other.
The Church of Germany stood up against the Church of Russia because the
German Government stood up against the Russian Government. Neither could
the Church of Germany raise any protest against the warlike German
Government, nor could the Church of Russia say anything to cancel what
the Russian Government had already said. And so it happened that the
Churches of Germany and Russia prayed to the same God for each other's
destruction.
The Churches of France, England, Belgium, and Italy have fully
recognised the justice of the Governments of France, Belgium, and Italy
concerning the War of those countries against other countries, whose
justice on the other hand has been fully recognised by their Churches.
And so it has happened that during the last three years the most
contradictory prayers have been sent to God in Heaven from the "One,
Holy, Catholic Church" on earth.
The Churches of the different countries adopted the standpoint of those
countries which governed them. What is the consequence if a Christian
Church adopts the standpoint of a worldly Government as the true one? It
means practically nothing else but that the said Church recognises that
standpoint as the Christian one.
Now, if the German policy is right, the German Church is right, and
consequently, the Russian Church is wrong; and, on the other hand, if
the Russian policy is right the Russian Church is right, and,
consequently, the German Church is wrong. The same, if the Serbian
Patriotism, which dictates the Serbian policy, is right, then the
Serbian Church, too, is right; and if the Austro-German Imperialism is
right, then the Austro-German Churches are right, and the Church in
Serbia wrong. Of course the same could be said for other belligerent
Churches, i.e., the justice or injustice of the Church of England
depended on the justice or injustice of the English Government, and the
same about the French, Belgian, and Italian Churches, which are
dependent on the justice or injustice of their respective Governments.
The same is true not only of the so-called established Churches, but of
the Disestablished as well. The great fact remains: no Church whatever
did protest against the War action taken by the respective Governments;
no Church whatever refused to do the War work she was asked to do, and,
finally, no Church whatever opposed her views to the views of the
Governments. In one word, no Christian Church now existing has declined
to be the very obedient servant either of Patriotism or Imperialism.
Future generations will be, I hope, more truly Christian than we have
been--they will be shocked to read in the history of the greatest and
bloodiest conflict in the world's history, that the worldly Governments,
and not the Christian Church, formulated the truth; in other words, that
the politicians and soldiers were bearers and formulators of the truth,
and that the Church was only a follower and supporter of that truth,
this truth having to wage War in consequence, i.e. the disobedience of
all God's ten Commandments--not to speak of the New Testament--which
truth must be condemned by the Church as untrue. Following to the
extreme the ideals of Patriotism and Imperialism, the Churches partially
did not shrink even from preaching War as a legal thing. The court
preacher of the Kaiser, preaching in the Domchurch at Berlin after the
Allie's refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Germany, said: "We
have spoken to our enemies (read, the enemies of German Imperialism),
and they did not listen to our words; well, let our guns talk now until
our enemies are compelled to listen to us!" That is the voice of a great
Church. Yet this voice has not remained unaccompanied with similar
warlike and unchristian voices from other great and small Churches.
THE LITTLE ISLANDS AMIDST THE OCEAN
Why did not the Church--the educator of Europe for the space of nineteen
hundred years--why did she not protest against this War?
Because she was too weak everywhere; and, even if she had protested, her
voice would not have been listened to.
But why was the Church so weak as to be silent at a most fatal moment in
history, and to have to listen to the Foreign and War Offices to know
what the truth was?
Because she was not a united, universal Church, like a lofty mountainous
continent despising all the storms of an angry ocean around. She was
weak, because she was cut in pieces and had become like an archipelago
of small islands in a stormy ocean.
The Churches were not prepared to protest, they were prepared only to
surrender to any temporal power. Therefore, they surrendered altogether,
without making any effort, to Patriotism and Imperialism.
But what led to the Churches' surrender? It was through their internal
quarrels; through their fruitless controversies and paralysing mutual
accusations and self-sufficiency.
For instance:
The Eastern Church proudly insisted on her superiority over all other
Churches, because she preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most
ancient traditions of Christianity, and because she had an episcopal
decentralised system of Church administration, which has been capable of
adapting itself to all political and social situations. She reserved
perfection only for herself, and was prodigious in criticising other
Christian communities. She became an isolated island.
The Roman Church has had nothing to do with any other Church, living in
her isolation and raising higher and higher the walls which separated
her from other Churches. She has a wonderful record of missionary work
in Europe and outside; she has a minutely organised centralisation, with
an infallible autocrat at the head; and she has an enlarged dogmatic
system, larger than any other Church. She pointed out again and again
her superiority to all other Christian communities, and claimed for
herself the exclusive right to speak in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus
she became an isolated island.
The Anglican Church repudiated the papal authority. She repudiated as
well the Eastern worship of the saints and use of ikons on the one side,
and on the other she repudiated all the extremes of Protestantism in
teaching, worship and administration. She thought in that way to be the
absolutely true Christian organism, incomparably better than any other
all around. Thus the Anglican Church became an isolated island too.
The Protestants of the Continent, and of England and Scotland, thought
to save the Christian religion in its integrity by bringing it back to
its primitive simplicity. By repudiating the Pope and the Bishops, by
shortening the Christian dogmatic, and by reducing worship to a minimum,
they boasted of restoring the true Church of Christ and His Apostles.
Everything which was an addition to their simplicity was regarded by
them either as unnecessary, or even as idolatrous and false. Thus the
Presbyterian and Protestant Nonconformist Churches became isolated
islands.
But the more the morselling of Christianity went on, the more dangerous
became the raging ocean around it, so that now the Christian Archipelago
seems to be quite covered with the stormy waves. The Church, therefore,
is in an agony everywhere. Even if the Church had no responsibility upon
her shoulders for the present bloodshed in Europe, she would be in
agony, just because the whole Christian world is in agony, but much more
so because a great deal of responsibility for it must rest on her
shoulders.
SELF-CASTIGATION
The Christian monks of old used to castigate themselves when a great
plague came over the world. They used to consider themselves as the real
cause of the plague, and did not accuse anybody else. Well, this extreme
method ought to be used now by the Churches, for the good of mankind and
for their own good. It would be quite enough to bring the dawning of a
new day for Christianity if this self-castigation of the Churches were
only a self-criticism.
If, for instance, the Eastern Church would say: Although I have
preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most ancient traditions of
Christianity, still I have many faults and insufficiencies. I have much
to learn from the Roman Church, how to bring all my sections, all my
national and provincial branches into closer touch; and from Anglicanism
I have to learn the wonderful spirit of piety, expressed not only in old
times, but even in quite modern times through new prayers, new hymns,
new Psalms, added to the old ones; and from Protestantism I have to
learn the courage to look every day to the very heart of religion in its
simplest and most common expressions.
Or, if the Roman Church would use this self-criticism, saying: My
concentration is my strength and my weakness. Perhaps, after all, my
Pope is more a Caesaristic than a Christian Institution, making more for
worldly Imperialism than for the Spirituality of the world. I have to
learn from the Christian East more humility, and from Anglicanism more
respect for human freedom and social democracy, and from Protestantism a
more just appreciation of human efforts and results in science and
civilisation generally.
Or, if the Anglican Church would use self-criticism like this, and say,
I am, of course, an Apostolic Church, but I am not the only Church. I
have to learn from the Eastern Church something, and from the Church of
Rome something, but, above all, I have to learn that they are the
Apostolic Churches as well as I, and that I am, without them, too small
an island, and unable to resist alone the flood of patriotic and
imperialistic tendencies. And from the Protestants I have to learn to
put the living Christ above all doctrinal statements and liturgical
mysteries.
Or, if the Protestants of all classes would abandon their contemptuous
attitude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise
themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and
human words. Our worship is bare of every thing but the poor human
tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is
purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of God than
men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and
signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of
life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words
only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the
Church, but now we see that the episcopal system is a golden midway
between the papal and our extremes. Besides, we have gone too far in
our criticism of the Church tradition and of the Holy Scriptures. We
have to learn to abstain from calling the Eastern Church idolatrous and
the Roman Church tyrannical, and the Episcopal Church inconsistent. We
have our own idolatries (our idols are: individualism, human reason, and
the human word); and we have our own tyranny (the tyranny of criticism
and pride); and we have--thank god--our own inconsistencies.
Such a self-criticism would mean really a painful self-castigation,
because it would mean a reaction from a policy of criticism and
self-sufficiency which has lasted a thousand years, ever since the 16th
July 1054--the very fatal date when the Pope's delegates put an
Excommunication Bull on the altar of St Sophia's in Constantinople. The
primitive monks, who practised self-castigation because of the
world-evil, experienced a wonderful purification of soul, a new vision
of God, and an extraordinary sense of unity with all men, living and
dead. Well, that is just what the Church needs at present; a
purification, a new vision of God, and a sense of unity.
A COMMON ILLUSION
The present agony of the Church has resulted from an illusion which has
been common to all the Churches, i.e. that one of the Churches could be
saved without all other Churches. It is, in fact, only the enlarged
Protestant theory of individualism, which found its expression,
especially in Germany, in the famous formula: "Thou, man, and thy God!"
It is an anti-social and anti-Christian formula too, quite opposed to
the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father," which is in the plural and not in the
singular possessive. This prayer is a symbol of our salvation: we can be
saved only in the plural, not in the singular; only collectively, not as
individuals: i.e. we can be saved, but I cannot be saved. I cannot be
saved without thee, and thou canst not be saved without me. For if thou
art in need I can be saved only by helping thee; and vice versa, if I am
in need, thou canst save thyself only by saving me. And we all, and
always, are in need of each other. Peter could not be saved without
Andrew, and John and James, nor could the others be saved without Peter.
That is why Christ brought them all together, and educated them to live
and pray together, and spoke to them in assembly as to one being. If
Christ's method were like the German Protestant method, "Thou, man, and
thy God!" He would really never have gathered the disciples together,
but He would have gone to Andrew and saved Andrew first; and then to
Peter and saved Peter; and then to John and James and the others, and
saved them individually, one by one. That is just what He did
not--because He could not do it. He knew, and He said (speaking of the
two Commandments), that God is only one constituent of our salvation,
and that the other constituent is our neighbours. What does that mean,
but that I cannot be saved without God and my neighbours? And my
neighbours! The whole of mankind must become the mystical body of Christ
before any one of us is saved. If ninety nine of us think we are saved,
still we must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one lost sheep is
found and brought in; the door of Heaven does not open for one person
only. And speaking in larger circles we may say: If ninety-nine Churches
think they are saved, still they must wait in the corridor of Heaven
until the one retrograde Church has become the member of the mystical
body of Christ. The door of Heaven is open for Christ only and for
nobody else. And the mystical Christ does not mean one righteous man
only, or two, or twelve, or one Church denomination, or one
generation--no. It means milliards and milliards of human beings. All
the Churches are inbuilt into His body. This building is yet far from
being finished, still it is much larger and more magnificent than we
think. It is larger than a denomination, it is loftier than our nation,
or our race, or our Empire; yea, it is stronger than Europe.
Consequently, the Church of England cannot be saved without the Church
of the East, nor the Church of Rome without Protestantism; nor can
England be saved without Serbia, nor Europe without China, nor America
without Africa, nor this generation without the generations past and
those to come. We are all one life, one organism. If one part of this
organism is sick, all other parts should be suffering. Therefore let the
healthy parts of the Church take care of the sick ones. Self-sufficiency
means the postponement of the end of the world and the prolongation of
human sufferings. It is of no use to change Churches and go from one
Church to another seeking salvation: salvation is in every Church as
long as a Church thinks and cares in sisterly love for all other
Churches, looking upon them as parts of the same body, or there is
salvation in no Church so long as a Church thinks and cares only for
herself, contemptuously denying the rights, beauty, truth and merits of
all other Churches. It is a great thing to love one's Church, as it is a
great thing to love one's country, but it is much better to love other
Churches and other countries too. Now, in this time, when the whole
Christian world is in a convulsive struggle one part against the other,
now or never the consciousness of the desire for one Church of Christ on
earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never should the
appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of this one
Church of Christ on earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never
should the appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of
this one Church begin in our hearts.
Stick to your Church: it is a beautiful and a holy Church, but,
nevertheless, break up every sort of disgraceful exclusiveness from
other Churches. That is the way to bring the Church out of the present
agony and weakness. That is the best way for you to serve your own
Church and your own nation. And the Crucified does not ask any other
service from your Church in the present world agony.