BIBLIOGRAPHY PEABODY, The Approach to the Social Question. The Gospel and the Modern Man. New York, 1909. New York, 1910. ELY, Social Aspects of Christianity. New York, 1889. RAUSCHENBUSCH, Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York, 1907. CAMPBELL, Christianity and the Social Order. New York, 1907. STELZLE, The Church and Labor. Boston, 1910. Christianity's Storm Center: A Study of the Modern City. New York, 1906. BROWN, The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit. New York, 1906. HODGES AND REICHERT, The Administration of an Institutional Church. New York, 1906. THOMPSON, The Churches and the Wage Earners. New York, 1909. SPARGO, The Spiritual Significance of Modern Socialism. New York, 1908. XII THE ATTITUDE OF CHURCHES AND MINISTERS TO SOCIAL QUESTIONS So numerous are the programmes offered for the regeneration of society, so confusing in their contradictions of principle, and so irreconcilable in their details, that it often seems to the bewildered mind as if the safest thing would be to do nothing. But this is really the most dangerous thing of all. The Church that adopts the Fabian policy is lost; it is a maxim of war that a defensive campaign invariably ends in defeat. But action does not necessarily involve a choice between these conflicting proposals. On the contrary, effective action may be taken with a strong conviction that no programme, made in Germany or elsewhere, for the complete and immediate solution of the social problem, is worthy of a moment's serious consideration by a serious person. I What attitude, then, is the Christian Church to assume towards proposals for social regeneration? What is a preacher to do towards solving the social problems of his time? No questions could be more practical; few could be more urgent; and some would think, none can be more difficult. But really, nothing could be more simple, if we first have fully settled in our minds what is the mission of a Christian Church and a Christian preacher in this world. A Christian Church exists to hasten the coming of the kingdom of God among men, the development of that new social order that will inevitably result from the presence in the world of regenerated men, living in accordance with the rule of love that Jesus taught. The Church is not chiefly a hospital to which men are to take their spiritual diseases to be cured, though it must do a work of healing; nor is it simply a parlor to which people may resort to have their souls manicured, though spiritual culture is a part of its mission; it is first of all and last of all a propaganda of the kingdom idea and of the kingdom life. If it fails here, it fails altogether. The Church has no other legitimate purpose or aim than this. Whatever promises to promote the coming of the kingdom ought to have its sympathy, ought to be eagerly seized and made tributary to this single end. Whatever relates in no way to the progress of the kingdom, however desirable it may be in itself, is entirely outside the function of the Church. Here is a simple touchstone, by which every question of the duty of the Church may be tested; and the differences of opinion that will result from the honest application of this test will be both few and unimportant. How far are Churches to-day using their spiritual resources and their manifold opportunities to promote the coming of the kingdom? Are they not cumbered with too many cares regarding the building up of the Church itself, the maintaining and perpetuating of the mere organization, which has no value save as a means to the great end? Is there not far too much sectarian activity and sectarian jealousy, and far too little zeal for the kingdom? What Church, what denomination, can honestly say that it is free from this sin, and who will believe it if it does say so? May we not almost say that the Church, with its sacraments and its creeds and its liturgies, has done its utmost to shut out altogether the kingdom of God's love, to forget its divine mission to hasten the coming of the kingdom, and fallen to glorifying itself? That it has not quite succeeded is perhaps the most convincing proof that God's love is invincible and that the Church has a divine mission. President Hyde, of Bowdoin, not long ago said, "A Church that has been reduced to a mere preaching station, and a repository of traditions, a performer of rites and ceremonies, is not far from its inevitable extinction." And he might have added, if the Church has sunk to the level of a mere social club, its case is no better. Christianity has a message for the age, but for the most part the Church and the pulpit are not giving the age this message. The Church maintains a splendid ideal of the kingdom, but only as an ideal, something too spiritual to be expected in this life, a hope for the world to come, and as to this world it winks at all injustice and iniquity. To the demand for a practical Christianity, that will make a reality of the empty words "brotherhood" and "service," the Church still for the most part returns a dogged Non possumus. It will be vain for the Church to profess belief in the Jesus of the gospels, if by its conduct it continues to deny the gospel of Jesus. The piety that confesses Christ with the lips and crucifies him every day in the person of his "little ones" will be lightly esteemed by a cynical world. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" was the warning of Jesus to his disciples; and Phariseeism is to-day, as it was in the time of the great Teacher, his chief enemy and the unrelenting foe of |