redemption which now confronts us. Other aspects of the work, not less
serious, might be presented, but these are some of the outstanding needs
of modern society. Certainly it is a tremendous work. To reconcile
hostile and suspicious races; to pacify industrial classes; to moralize
business; to extirpate social vice; to purify politics; to simplify
life;--all this is an enterprise so vast that we may well be appalled by
the thought of undertaking it. But this, and nothing less than this, is
the business which the church has in hand. For which of these tasks is
she not responsible? From which of them would she dare ask to be
excused? To what other agency can she think of intrusting any of them?
Nay, this is her proper and peculiar work. For this is she sent into the
world.
In truth, the one thing that the church needs to-day is to envisage this
task,--to take in its tremendous dimensions; to comprehend the
overpowering magnitude of the work that is expected of her. It is this
revelation that will rouse her. Never before, in all her history, has
such a disclosure of her responsibility been made to her. And the
enormity of the obligation will set her thinking. It will dawn upon her
after a little, that it is for just such tasks that she is called and
commissioned; that the achievement of the impossible is the very thing
that she is always expected to do; that the strength on which she leans
is omnipotence; that she can do all things through Christ who
strengthened her. She will see and understand that her progress is not
made by seeking the line of least resistance: some such worldly wisdom
as this has been her undoing. She will learn that it is only when she
undertakes the greatest things that she finds her resources equal to her
needs.
This is the heroic note of the new evangelism. The work of making a
better world of this is a tremendous work, but it can be done. It can be
done, because it is commanded. If there is a God in heaven, what ought
to be done can be done. To doubt that is to deny him. And there is one
way of doing it, and that is Christ's way. For all this manifold,
herculean labor on which we have been looking, there is no wisdom
comparable with his. He said that he came to save the world, and he is
going to save it. He has waited long, but he knows how to wait. The day
of his triumph is drawing near. This world is going to be redeemed. This
social order, so full of strife and confusion, of cruelty and
oppression, of misery and sorrow, is going to be transformed, and the
love of Christ shed abroad in the hearts of men will transform it. We
are not going to wait another thousand years for our millennium; we are
going to have it here and now. This is the gospel of the new evangelism
which it has taken the church a long time to learn, but which she is now
getting ready to proclaim with demonstration of the spirit and with
power.
We must not hide from ourselves the fact that some great changes will
need to take place in her own life before she can give effect to this
great evangel. She must heal her divisions, and fling away her
encumbering traditions, and greatly deepen her faith in her Lord and
Leader. Above all, she must simplify her own life. She cannot bear
witness, as she must, against the deadly influences of our modern
materialism, until she utterly clears herself of all complicity with it.
This means, in many quarters, a radical change in her administration.
When the church has thus envisaged her task, and comprehended its
magnitude, and when, with her heart on fire with the greatness and glory
of it, she has laid aside every weight and the sins that so easily beset
her, and has girded herself with the truth as it is in Jesus, and has
set the silver trumpet to her lips, she will have a gospel to proclaim,
to which the world will listen.
It will tell the world, as it has always told the world, of forgiveness
and hope, of comfort and peace, of the help and guidance that comes to
the troubled soul in believing in Jesus. It will speak, as it has always
spoken, of the rest that remaineth, and of the great joys and
companionships of the eternal future. But it will have something more
than this to tell.
The kingdoms of this world--this will be its message--are becoming the
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. It is not an event to be
awaited, but to be realized, here and now. Nothing is needed but that
men should believe the word of Jesus Christ and live by it. We do
believe it, and we mean to show our faith by our works. We believe that
by simply living together as Jesus has taught us to live, we can make
this world so much better than it now is, that men shall think heaven
has come down to earth. We believe that the race question and the labor
question and the trust question and the liquor question and the graft
question and all the other questions will find a speedy solution when
men have learned to walk in the way of Jesus. And we call you to come
and walk with us in that way.
It is not a smooth and thornless way. It is a toilsome and painful way.
It is the way of the cross. It means hardship and struggle and
suffering. Such intrenched and ingrained iniquities as now infest our
society will not be overcome without conflict. We are not calling you to
a pastime. We are not offering you riches or honors or sensual joys. We
are calling you to service and to sacrifice. But we are going to build
here in this world the kingdom of heaven. We know that it can be done:
we know how to do it, and the glorious thing we have to tell you is that
you can have a share in it. Look forward with us to the day when--
"Nation with nation, land with land,
Unarmed shall live as comrades free,
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity;
"New arts shall bloom, of loftier mould,
And mightier music thrill the skies,
And every life shall be a song
When all the earth is paradise,"--
and come and help us to bring that glad time. The Leader whom we follow
knows the way, and the future belongs to Him.
That is the message of the new evangelism, and when the church learns
to speak it with conviction, and to make it good in her life, she will
find that the gospel has a power that she has never even imagined it to
possess.
IX
The New Leadership
These discussions have failed of their purpose if they have not made a
few things clear. Let us restate them:--
1. The roots of religion are in human nature. It is a fact as central
and all-pervasive in the social realm as gravitation is in the physical
realm. It is no more likely to become antiquated or obsolete than oxygen
or sunshine. It is an interest which no intelligent person can afford to
ignore.
2. Like every other living thing, religion grows. It is not outside the
sphere of operation of Him who said, "Behold! I make all things new!" It
is subject, continually, to his wise economy of renewal.
3. Our religion is Christianity. With the other religions of the race it
is destined to be brought into closer and closer comparison and
competition, and that religion will survive and become universal which
most perfectly explains the universe and provides for the wants of the
human soul. All the indications are that the religion which survives
will include the essential elements of Christianity.
4. All religions are rooted in the social nature of man, but
Christianity, more than any other, is a social religion. It depends for
its culture and propagation upon the social forces. Some form of social
organization, like the church, is necessary to the life of religion.
Worship, to be sane and salutary, must be social; and the life of
Christianity can find expression only in such coöperations as those for
which the church provides.
5. As the life of religion is nurtured in social worship and service, so
its fruit is gathered in the transformation of society. The primary
function of the church is the Christianization of the social order. The
business of the church is to save the world by establishing here the
kingdom of heaven.
6. The church has very imperfectly performed this function. It has but
dimly discerned and but feebly grasped the social aims of Jesus. It has
tried to do a great many other things, some of them good things; but the
one thing it was sent to do it has largely left undone.
7. A new reformation is therefore called for, and that reformation must
accomplish what the reformation of the sixteenth century failed to
accomplish,--the restoration of the social teachings of Jesus to their
proper rank and dignity. As the reformation of the sixteenth century
brought the individual to Christ as a personal Saviour, so the
reformation of the twentieth century must bring society to Christ as a
social Saviour, and must make men see that there is no way of living
together but his way.
8. The church is therefore called to the redemption of society. But the
work of redemption to which it is called is not a reconstruction of
economic or political machinery; it is the quickening of the social
conscience, and the reënthronement of justice and love in the place of
selfishness and strife as the ruling principles of human society.
9. For the redemption of society a new evangelism is needed. The new
evangelism will not emphasize the interest of the individual; it will
rather emphasize the truth that the individual can only be saved when he
identifies his own welfare with the welfare of his fellow men. And it
will not try to win men by offering them ease and safety and comfort,
but rather by showing them how tremendous are the tasks before them;
what a mighty work there is to do in delivering this world from the
bondage of corruption and selfishness; what hardship and toil and
sacrifice are needed; but how sure the victory is for those who are able
to believe the word of Jesus Christ and follow, whole-heartedly, his
leadership.
Such are the characters and conditions under which the church of Jesus
Christ presents herself in this new day to modern men. Her record is far
from flawless; it is the necessities of logic, not the facts of history,
which make her infallible. She has blundered along through the
centuries, missing much of the work she was sent to do, and staining her
garments not seldom with the soilure of greed and the blood of the
innocent; but through all these generations the patient love of her Lord
has been chastening her, and through many wanderings and stumblings she
has come down to this hour. The light upon her candlestick has often
grown dim, but it has never been wholly extinguished; the fire upon her
altars has burned low, but it is still burning. She has not done all
that she ought to have done, but she has done a large part of all that
has been done to enlighten, to comfort, and to uplift humanity. And the
discipline through which she has passed gives some indication of the
work she has yet to do. It is not credible that a wise Providence should
have kept her alive so many centuries, and should have made so much use
of her in the establishment upon the earth of the kingdom of heaven, and
should have led her into a constantly increasing knowledge of Himself,
if he had not meant to make her his servant in the great work now
waiting to be done.
Her hour has come, and her task lies before her. It might be urged that
she ought to have been better fitted for her work before she was called
to undertake it; but that is not God's way. We get our preparation for
great work in the work itself. We are called from the sheepfolds to lead
the armies of Israel. We are sent out with a few loaves and fishes to
feed the multitude. Our powers are developed and our resources are
multiplied by using them. And though the church is far from having the
equipment she needs for the redemption of society, the power and the
wisdom will come when the work is bravely undertaken.
To whom, now, does this great enterprise of social redemption make its
strongest appeal? It ought to appeal to all good men and women. It ought
to enlist the powers of those who are in the meridian of their strength.
The men whose vision has been widened and whose wills have been
invigorated in the great undertakings of industry and commerce ought to
find in this proposition something worthy of their powers. It ought,
also, to stir the hearts of those who have labored hard and waited long
for the coming of the kingdom to hear a great voice saying, "Now is the
accepted time: behold! now is the day of salvation!" To many of those
who have not much longer to live life never seemed a thing so fair as it
is to-day.
But this great appeal ought most strongly to lay hold upon the hearts of
the young men and women of this generation. The enterprise is mainly
theirs. If the new reformation comes, they will lead it on. If society
is redeemed, it will be by their toil and sacrifice. If the church ever
learns its business, it will be under their tuition. And it must be by
their voices, chiefly, that the new evangel will be proclaimed.
The young men and women who have had the patience to read these
chapters have been invited to consider some large and serious themes. It
has been assumed that they did not care for kindergarten talk, nor even
for the ethical platitudes to which youth are apt to be treated. There
has been no talking down to them; they have been asked to sit where
Jesus sat, among the doctors in the temple, to hear and answer
questions, and to consider, with the rest of us, our Father's business.
All this tremendous work of social reconstruction about which we are
talking must be done, and most of it must be done by them. It is to be
hoped that they will be able to see the urgency of it, and to feel that
it is something worth their while.
Those of us who have been permitted to come in contact with the more
thoughtful young men and women of this generation, especially those in
the colleges and the professional schools, have been made aware of a
deepening conviction among the best of them that the kind of prizes for
which the multitude are contending are not of the highest value. Great
revisions have been taking place, during the past few years, in the
estimates of success. Many careers which, but a little while ago,
seemed enviable, now appear much less alluring. And while this change of
attitude is far from being universal, there is a goodly number of young
men and women scattered through all our communities whose souls are
kindled with social passion, and who are asking not so eagerly how they
may succeed as how they may serve. To these we have a right to look for
leadership in the work of social redemption.
Many phases of this work will appeal to them. In education, in
philanthropy, in journalism, in literature, in art, they will be called
to serve; many philanthropies will invite them; the organization of
industry upon coöperative lines will offer some of them a vocation, and
the government will be upon their shoulders.
But what they are asked to consider here is the claim of the church upon
them. That claim need not conflict with any of these other vocations,
unless, indeed, the work of the Christian ministry should offer itself
to their choice. That possibility, by the way, is well worth thinking
of. Some of them, let us trust, will keep it in mind for further
consideration. If the business of the church is what we have found it
to be, and the new evangelism is such as we have outlined, the Christian
ministry must offer to any man whose heart is on fire with social
passion a great opportunity. But for the present let us note the fact
that upon those who are not to give their whole lives to the work of the
church, the church has a claim, which they ought seriously to consider.
Whatever their callings may be, in whatever fields they may be laboring,
the church will need their loyal service, and they will need its goodly
fellowships and its inspiring coöperation.
The church which ought to be, and must be, is not for some of us, but
for all of us. Even as the state is the political commonwealth to which
all citizens belong, so the church is the spiritual commonwealth in
which all souls should be included. The interests for which the church
provides are the common human interests; it never can be what it ought
to be, or do what it is called to do, until it gathers all the people
into its fellowship. And therefore these young men and women to whom the
future is intrusted must find their places in the church. The church
needs them; it cannot fulfill its function without them; and we have
seen that its function is a vital function; that it furnishes the bond
by which society is held together.
The church is God's agency for leavening society with Christian
influences; and these young men and women by whom the social order is to
be reconstructed will be in the church. Its leadership will be committed
to them. They will have the shaping of its life. Its life will need much
reshaping, and that will be their work. What will they make of it?
1. They will make it, what it has always been, a place of worship; the
shrine of the spirit; the home of Christian nurture; a school of
instruction; a fount of inspiration; a seminary of religion; the
meeting-place of man and God.
Attempts have been made in recent years to organize churches--or, at
least, associations which should take the place of churches--in which
religion should be dispensed with; in which there should be more or less
of ethical instruction and of charitable coöperation, but no recognition
of any connection between this world and any other. That is simply a
reform against nature, and it will never prosper. For, as Professor
William James has taught us, in a great inductive study, the sum of all
that is known about religion warrants us in saying:--
"(a) That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe, from
which it draws its chief significance;
"(b) That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our
true end;
"(c) That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof ... is a
process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and
produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal
world."[29]
These are the indubitable conclusions of modern science; and the
proposition to ignore the deepest fact of human experience will not be
entertained by the young men and women of the present day. The church,
under their leadership, will be a worshiping church, a praying church.
It will keep itself in close relations with that unseen universe from
which its help must come. It will be a channel through which the divine
grace will flow into the lives of men. And it will also be, what it has
always been, a school as well as a shrine, a place where the teacher
searches out and unfolds the truth and the prophet proclaims the message
that has been given him.
2. Under its new leadership the church will continue to be a minister to
human want and suffering. The charitable work which has always been
emphasized in its administration will not be neglected, but it will take
on a new character. There will be less almsgiving, and more of the kind
of help which saves manhood and womanhood. The young men and women who
are called to this leadership will understand the worth of souls--that
is, of men and women; and they will be careful lest, in their relief of
want, they undermine the character. Above all, they will feel that while
it is the business of the church to care for the poor, its first
business is to cure the conditions which breed poverty.
3. They will thoroughly democratize the life of the church, making it
the rallying place of a genuine Christian fraternity, in which men of
all ranks and stations meet on a common level, ignoring the distinctions
of rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, and emphasizing the fact of
Christian brotherhood. We have churches which profess democracy, but
there is reason to fear that many of them are little better than
oligarchies; that some of them come near to being monarchies. The new
leadership will discern the importance of making every member of the
brotherhood, no matter how humble, a partaker of its responsibilities,
and a helper in its services. They will know that the problem of church
administration is to make every man feel that he is needed. They will
grasp the significance of Paul's figure of the body and its members, and
will see that "those members of the body which seem to be more feeble
are necessary," and that "those parts of the body which are less
honorable" ought to receive "more abundant honor." They will have
workingmen in their vestries and their sessions and their boards of
trustees. They will show to all the world that they have accepted the
word of Jesus: "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren."
4. This means that the life of the church will not only be thoroughly
democratized, but greatly simplified. All its administration will take
on plainer and less luxurious forms. The splendors of architecture and
art, of upholstery and decoration, of ecclesiastical millinery and
music, with which we now so often seek to attract men to the house of
God, will be put aside; and the followers of Jesus Christ will get near
enough to him to have some sense of the fitness of things in the
ordering of the houses of worship where the Carpenter is the social
leader and where rich and poor meet as one brotherhood.
Instead, therefore, of permitting the church to be invaded and
vulgarized by the luxury and extravagance of the world, they will turn
the current in the other direction. The church, under the new
leadership, will not take its cue from the world; it will enforce its
own standards upon the world. "Out of Zion will go forth the law."
Bitter words were those spoken at a recent meeting of the Congregational
Union in England by one of the greatest of English preachers.[30] "The
common life of the home," he said, "is often a mere vulgar exhibition of
the means of living. We try to persuade ourselves that showy living is
essential life. In tens of thousands of English homes the mere show of
things is the goal of a restless and feverish ambition. Everywhere we
seem to be loitering and pottering about in the implement yard. Even in
our universities we must have showy buildings, though we starve the
chairs. All this peril becomes the more insidious when we pass into the
realm of the church of God. Why, the 'means of grace' are often
misinterpreted as grace itself. We are obtruding our badges and ribbons,
our soldier's dress without the soldier's spirit, our music, our
ministers even,--how they look, what they wear, what they do--they are
all part of the wretched vulgarity of the modern spirit."
The two things are rightly put together. The ostentation of the home,
the tawdry luxury and profusion of fashionable society, creep into the
church and set up their standards there, and the religion of Christ puts
on a costume in which its Founder would never recognize it.
We are dealing here with the very heart of the trouble in our national
life, and the problem is one which must be solved by the present
generation of our young men and women. The social conditions which are
depicted for us by close students of the life of our luxurious classes
are ominous in the extreme. The cynical dishonesties and the brutal
spoliations which have come to light in the realm of high finance and
big business are the natural fruit of such a manner of life as many of
our recent novelists have vividly portrayed. And the wanton extravagance
of the House of Mirth would not exist if the majority of the people did
not admire it. The outcry against it is oftener the voice of envy than
of moral revulsion. The cure for this evil, as of most others, is found
in public opinion; and the church must educate public opinion to reprove
it, and the leadership of the church will be in the hands of the young
men and women of this generation.
It will be evident to them that the place to begin is in the church
itself. The heartless luxury of the world will not be chastened into
simplicity by a church that surrounds itself with splendor and spends
money lavishly upon its pleasures. They will know that a church which
wishes to reprove the vanity and ostentation of the outside world must
order its own life in such a way that its word shall be with power.