No other political event of the past year has awakened so great
interest and hope as the calling by President Harding of the
Conference on Limitation of Armaments and Far-Eastern Questions.
The greatest statesmen of Europe, America, and the Far East have
avowed their belief in the supreme significance to world civilization
and political and industrial progress of such a conference, and the
sincerity of their statements is proved by the caliber of their
representatives.
Secretary Hughes has expressed the desire that leading Christian
bodies in the United States be active in presenting their views to
the public and to the members of the conference, in the hope that
thereby the influence of a powerful public opinion may be exerted
along the noblest lines. It seems peculiarly fitting, therefore,
and in full accord with the spirit of the Bross Foundation, that an
attempt be made to search out the bearings which the teachings of the
founder of the Christian religion may have upon the solution of these
most important political problems. Moreover, if we are to be just and
helpful, his teachings must be analyzed and treated not as religion
and therefore sacred, but as psychology and political or social
science, as are those of Aristotle or Kant or Herbert Spencer.
Any careful student of the New Testament recognizes at once that
however deep Jesus laid the philosophical foundation of his life-work
in human nature, his teachings dealt directly with the day-by-day
practical activities of the individuals with whom he talked. His
direct appeals to his hearers were so to change their outlook
upon life as to make of them new creatures. They were to do their
life-work in a new and better way, and the final outcome of this
changed, wiser, and loftier mental and spiritual attitude on the part
of great masses of people was to be a new type of society, a better
world which he designated the Kingdom of God.