COMPROMISE IS JUSTIFIABLE
The Crucifixion was but a few years old when those two old enemies whom Jesus had fought so persistently—creeds and ceremonies—began to be active among the early Christians. Right theological thinking began to assert its supremacy over the right practical living, taught by Jesus as the first essential of His professed followers. The outside of the cup was being carefully polished up, although the inside might be unclean. Paul, who had never had any personal intercourse with Jesus, was the protagonist of this retrograde movement. Zealous, energetic, a ready writer and a subtile dialectician, his numerous epistles furnished an arsenal of weapons for all future controversial theologians. His arrogance in defining the tenets of the rapidly growing Gentile Church was not one whit abated by the fact that he had never been in personal contact with Jesus, and that in his views he was opposed to those who had been the most intimate associates of Jesus during his entire prophetic career. Quite early in his ministration, Paul has a bitter quarrel with Peter, James, Cephas, John (the pillars) and other disciples of Jesus over some question of circumcision, and has no hesitation in telling Peter (the "rock" of the new Church) to his face that "he was to be blamed" for his views (Galatians II:11 et seq.).
It is not too much to say that he took the fair, smiling child of religion, as left by Jesus, and transformed it into a misshapen dwarf, with twisted and contorted limbs, and upon its face a frown of almost malevolent austerity.
When right theological thinking became established as the primary essential of a Christian, and especially when Christianity acquired temporal power, it was inevitable that there should be extracted from Paul's militant writings that most abominable doctrine of "No compromise with evil." In company with dogmatic distinctions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, it has inflicted its full quota of misery and suffering upon the human race. It formed the justification of the cruelties of the Inquisition, the religious persecutions and wars of the Middle Ages, the conversion of savages by fire and sword, the extermination of so-called witches, and the burning at the stake of countless advanced thinkers in science and religion, and other so-called heretics.
Probably the unrecorded suffering which the advocates of this doctrine have inflicted in the domestic and social sphere would equal that which is written in political history. The possession of, and disposition to put into practical operation, this dogma presupposes sublime egoism, coupled with a narrowness of mind easily running into extreme bigotry. For the slightest study of history will show that the error and evil of one age becomes the truth and good of a succeeding age. But the non-compromiser ignores any consideration of that sort. If he has decided that this and that are evil, they must necessarily be evil without argument or appeal. He is the legitimate descendant of the old inquisitors, and, if he had the temporal power, would today enforce his ideas as ruthlessly throughout the nation as they did in the Middle Ages. Confined to the narrower limits of the domestic and social circle, he plays the autocrat so far as he can. Without sympathy or toleration for differing opinions and tastes, as husband, father, priest, officer, or citizen, the non-compromiser seeks to fit every one to his own narrow Procrustean bed.
Closely allied to the non-compromisers are the sacro-sancts, or those who would be holier than Jesus.
This class is well illustrated in an incident taken from a recent novel. The heroine consults her married sister about the heroine's contemplated marriage with a man who has divorced his wife on the ground of her adultery. The sister declares that such a marriage would be no better than prostitution. "But he is legally divorced" says the heroine. "Yes, according to man's law, but not according to God's law," says the sister. Now, considering that divorce was permitted under God's law, as recorded in the Old Testament, that Matthew twice clearly and explicitly states that Jesus sanctioned divorce on the ground of adultery, and that John mentions no condemnation of divorce by Jesus, it would seem that there was at least a fair doubt as to whether the heroine's proposed marriage was contrary to God's law. But the sister, like other sacro-sancts and non-compromisers, arrogates to herself infallibility in interpreting the divine will, and will not admit argument as to her possible inaccuracy.
Other examples are those who would fear to contaminate their holiness by following their Master's example in eating and associating with publicans and sinners (Matt. IX:10); who would shudder at being anointed by a prostitute (Luke VII:37); who would think the Sabbath desecrated by pleasant walks in the fields, or by feasting and joyous meetings with one's friends (Matt. XII:1; Luke XIV:1), and who in general insist on the observance of religious rites and symbols, similar to those which Jesus condemned in the Pharisees.
One of the XXXIX Articles of the Protestant Episcopal Church takes a slap at these sacro-sancts (Book of Common Prayers, Article XIV). It condemns, as marks of "arrogancy and impiety," works of supererogation—that is, works over and above God's commandments. Undoubtedly the meaning here is, not to condemn excess in acts of mercy and charity, but excess in the same acts of ceremonial worship which Jesus condemned in the Pharisees: Long prayers, "standing in the synagogues" (churches), instead of in their "closet"; public fasting with "a sad countenance," so that they "disfigure their faces," instead of anointing their heads and washing their faces "that they appear not unto men to fast," making "broad their phylacteries" and giving ostentatiously their "tithe of mint and anise and cummin" (Matt. VI:1-7, 16, 17, 18; XXIII:4-7, 23).
The dogma of non-compromise finds no support in the teaching and practice of Jesus. He pictured the highest ideals for mankind. But He was no bigot in demanding that fallible human beings should live up to these ideals on pain of damnation. With His wonderful tolerance and broadminded sympathy, He recognized that the happiness and progress of the human race, in its present state of evolution, necessitated certain compromises with evil. "As between two evils, choose the less," would be much nearer His position than "no compromise with evil." A short study of some of the episodes of His life will place this beyond dispute.
Jesus undoubtedly considered that riches were an evil (Matt. XIX:23, 24; XIII:22; Mark X:23, 24; Luke XVIII:24, 25). He knows the "deceitfulness" of riches, and that the temptations attending the possession of wealth do not ordinarily make for righteousness. He advises that one should lay up treasure in heaven rather than on earth (Matt. VI:19, 20; Luke XII:33).
Riches, then, being an evil, the non-compromiser should logically regard the rich man as a persistent evil-doer. He should constantly denounce his evil ways, as those of any other malefactor. He should refuse him his public association and friendship, since thereby he would be gilding his misconduct with the gold of his own sanctity. If a priest, he should charge his congregation to abstain from those habits of thrift and economy which will result in bringing upon them this evil of wealth.
But Jesus was too sane and broad-minded not to see that the happiness of mankind demanded a compromise with this evil. While warning against the temptations of riches, He preached poverty, not as a necessity to salvation, but as an ideal, to be attained and practiced by but a few.
Thus, in the case of the young man with "great possessions," Jesus, according to Matthew prefaces His counsel to sell his goods and give to the poor with the significant condition, "if thou wilt be perfect" (Matt. XIX:21). To the same effect are the accounts of Mark and Luke. "One thing thou lackest," viz., in order to be perfect (Mark X:21; Luke XVIII:22). Evidently Jesus took the concrete case of the young man to impress on His hearers one of His ideals—the high standard He set for those who aspired to be His immediate followers and the ministers of His Word. In His instructions to the twelve and the seventy, He laid down rules of conduct which practically eliminated the acquisition or possession of wealth (Matt. X:2, 9, 10; Mark VI:8, 9; Luke IX: 3; X:4). But He set no such severe standard for the rank and file of His followers, nor did He withhold His favor and countenance from the possessors of riches, as though they were evil doers.
Nearly all the persons named in the Gospels as intimate friends and associates of Jesus (outside of the apostles) were, apparently, more or less prominent, and belonged at least to the well-to-do class. Joseph of Arimathæa, a disciple of Jesus, and one "waiting for the Kingdom of God," and who placed His body in the sepulchre, was a rich man (Matt. XXVII:57; Luke XXIII:50, 51). Nicodemus, who assisted Joseph in the burial, brought a hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes indicating that he was not a poor man (John XIX:39). According to John he was the man who came to Jesus by night and was a "ruler" of the Jews (John III:1, 2; VII:50). Lazarus, whom Jesus "loved" and with whose family He was very intimate (John XI:5; Luke X:38), could not have been a poor man, since his sister anointed Jesus with an ointment "very precious" and worth more than three hundred pence (Mark XIV:3, 4, 5).
On one occasion Jesus invites Himself to visit in the house of Zacchaeus, who was "chief among the publicans," rich, and a "sinner" (Luke XIX:1-7). Levi, the publican, gives a "great feast" for Jesus, which He approves by His presence (Luke V:29). On another occasion He goes to the house of one of the "chief Pharisees" to eat bread on the Sabbath day (Luke XIV:1).
Several times He commends the qualities of thrift and economy (Matt. XXV:21, 23; Luke XII:42-44; Matt. XXV:3, 4; XXIV:45, 46; Luke XIX:17, 19). He constantly extols charity—the generous giving to the poor—as one of the chief virtues, but the practice of this virtue on a considerable scale necessarily implies the prior accumulation of riches.
The evidence of the four Gospels proves that Jesus, without hesitation, compromised with the evil of riches. He praised voluntary poverty as an ideal for those who were supposing themselves to be already perfect, and, perhaps, demanded it of His apostles and those who assumed to be the ministers of His Word. But He imposed no such hard and fast rule for the rank and file of His followers. He did not go about fanatically denouncing the rich men as evil-doers and malefactors. On the contrary, He made them His friends, singled them out for special marks of His favor and regard, though constantly urging on them the deceitfulness of riches and the necessity of generous giving to the poor. His friendship for Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was so great that in her case He even condoned the use of the precious ointment for a purpose which He must have regarded as superfluous, instead of its being given to the poor (Matt. XXVI:6; Mark XIV:3; John XII:3).
Other instances illustrate the readiness of Jesus to compromise with evil—to choose the less of two evils—when the conditions of practical human life demanded it. A notable instance of this was in the matter of paying tribute to the Romans. Undoubtedly Jesus, like all the other Jews, regarded the imposition on them of Roman sovereignty as an injustice—as a very great evil. But, under existing conditions, resistance to the Roman power was hopeless. A refusal to pay tribute by the Jews would have brought on them imprisonment, death and countless sufferings, and, if persisted in, would have resulted in the enslavement or extermination of the race. In putting to Jesus the question: "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar or not?" the Pharisees thought they had framed a dilemma from which He could not escape. If He had been a fanatical non-compromiser, He could only have answered the question in the negative. The Pharisees would then have denounced Him to the Romans, and thereby compassed His immediate death before His mission was completed.
His answer, "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's"—is pregnant with meaning to all religious bigots and fanatics if they could only open their minds to its significance. This earth is not a heaven, and cannot be made one so long as human beings are fallible and imperfect. Concessions and compromises must be constantly made between the material necessities of the body and the ethical ideals of the spirit. The economic ideal of the "greatest good to the greatest number" can no more be ignored by the theologian of today in formulating rules of conduct for humanity, than it was by Jesus in His time. However wrong and unjust in theory it was for the Jews to be subject to an alien race, still in practice the Roman rule was reasonably mild and humane. As between resistance and obedience to this rule, the latter was much the less evil. Consequently, Jesus wisely and sanely compromised with this evil and both paid tribute Himself (Matt. XVII:24-27), and advised His disciples to do likewise (Matt. XXII:21; Mark XII:17; Luke XX:25).
Again, carrying out the same idea of compromising with the existing evils of government, Jesus commands His disciples to "observe and do" whatsoever is bidden by the scribes and Pharisees, who "sit in Moses' seat," at the same time warning them not to imitate or follow the Pharisees' "works" (Matt. XXIII:2, 3).
Undoubtedly Jesus considered it an evil "to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Matt. X:35). He could foresee that this evil would result from the preaching of His Gospel. But better this evil, even, if it sent a "sword" on earth, than the greater evil that His Gospel should not be preached.
Unchastity in a woman is surely a most grievous evil. To the non-compromiser, the "scarlet woman" is a symbol of the lowest depth of vice, and no condemnation is too severe for her. But, on two occasions, Jesus dismissed the erring woman with His forgiveness (John VIII:11; Luke VII:47).
In fact, the two utterances of Jesus—"he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John VIII:7), and "why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye" (Matt. VII:2)—cut at the very root of the non-compromiser's position. For, in carrying on his crusade against his pet evil-doers, it would be fatal to be obliged to stop to answer objections that he may not be infallible in deciding what is evil, and that he may himself have habits considered by others as evil as the one he is denouncing. For instance, many a prominent non-compromiser among the clergy is living in comparative ease, if not luxury. When he reads the standard of living set by Jesus for the ministers of His Word (Matt. X:9; Mark VI:8; Luke IX:3; X:4; XXII:35), he must admit that he is every day compromising with the ideals of Jesus—with the evil of riches.
Compromise is the rule of human life. Each individual, as he tries to follow the Socratic advice, "know thyself," finds that most of his actions are a compromise between his good impulses and his evil impulses. Few men are a Dr. Jekyll during the day and a Mr. Hyde during the night. Most men are partly Jekyls and partly Hydes all the time. As the individual makes his way in business and society, he learns more and more every day, if he has common sense, the wisdom and advisability of compromise. He that is always bent on "having his own way" will usually find that his way does not go far, and results in unhappiness for himself and others. Happy marriages are founded on a compromise of individual tastes, habits and opinions. Parents win and retain the affection of their children, not by imposing on them their own inflexible laws of right and wrong, but by modifying these laws to meet the different tastes, habits and opinions of the children. Success in business, in law, in politics, is usually associated with the faculty of making reasonable compromises. The wisest legislation is usually a compromise between conflicting interests and opinions.
It is not too much to say that compromise is the corner stone of every modern democratic society. It is a necessary consequence of the "rule of the majority," since the majority of today may be the minority of tomorrow. To find a society of his taste, the non-compromiser should seek some negro tribe in darkest Africa, where the witch-doctors permit no deviations from the prescribed theological cult. Or, in matters political, he might find much to admire in the administrative system of Louis the XIVth, with his famous aphorism, "L'Etat, C'est Moi."
In international affairs every treaty of peace, unless its terms are dictated by a strong power to a weak one, is a compromise between the opposing views of right and wrong held by the parties. Logically, the non-compromiser should be generally opposed to treaties, as involving necessarily some sacrifice of his principles of right to the demands of the other party. In the period from 1844 to 1846, we narrowly escaped war with England in the dispute over the boundary between ourselves and Canada, because a strong Jingo, non-compromising party started the popular cry of "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." This class of thinkers would undoubtedly have opposed the celebrated compromises of Henry Clay, which, whatever might have been said against them at the time, have, in the light of history, the incalculable merit of having postponed the inevitable conflict between the North and the South, until the former had so grown in population and resources that it could preserve the unity of the nation. Considering the hard, and sometimes doubtful struggle, which the North went through in winning victory in the sixties, there can be little doubt that the result would have been two divided nations if the issues between the two sections had been submitted to the arbitrament of arms in 1820, in 1832, or even in 1850.
As the intolerance of the non-compromisers will lead some of them to oppose treaties of peace, so the same quality in others will lead them to make nuisances of themselves in war.
During the Great War, the nations, especially England and the United States, had considerable trouble with the "conscientious objector," who is really a non-compromiser under a different name. Supposing him to be honest in his opinions (as some of them were), the logic of his position was unanswerable from the view-point of the non-compromiser. War is unquestionably a great evil, and most obnoxious to the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount. If there is to be no compromise with evil, then a Christian magistrate has no warrant to compel the conscientious objector to go out and slaughter, or give his help, directly or indirectly, towards the slaughter of his fellow Christians.
The true answer to this argument is, of course, obvious, although the magistrates, themselves infected with this pernicious, non-compromise doctrine, did not always make it.
In this fallible, imperfect human life, it is often necessary to compromise with evil—that is, as between two evils, to choose the less. Jesus both preached and practiced the doctrine of choosing the less evil, even in the extreme case of war. For He urged the spreading of His Gospel, although He foresaw that it would divide father from son and bring "fire" and a "sword" upon earth (Matt. X:34; Mark XIII:8; Luke XII:49). Now, in the case of this war, the vast majority of the nation has decided that it is a less evil to go to war than to be enslaved by Germany. So, war it is to be. But it is unjust—an evil of the greatest magnitude—that a few individuals should reap all the benefits of preserving the nation from German slavery, without bearing the corresponding burdens. Consequently, the conscientious objectors must either submit to the decision of the majority or seek some other country, following the example of the Puritans, Huguenots and other "conscientious objectors" of past times.
It is apparent that if the door is once opened to allow people to shirk the civil duties imposed upon them by the society in which they live, the exemption cannot be limited to the case of war alone on the ground of their conscientious convictions. In the Supreme Court records of one of our States (possibly in several), there will be found a case where a man and woman (apparently respectable and generally law-abiding citizens) suffered a criminal conviction, because they had "conscientious objections" to legalizing their union by a conventional marriage ceremony. It is easy to imagine a man having conscientious objections to jury duty—the condemning men to death or imprisonment, or the transferring of property from one to another on account of the "technicalities" of the law. Or, why should a man not have conscientious objections to paying his taxes if they are to be used, in part at least, for a purpose which he considers evil? Evidently the field for evasion is a large one, and the only protection for society is to rigidly insist that the "conscientious objector," whether the case in hand be war or something else, either submit himself to the will of the majority or seek some other country more congenial to his peculiar ideas.
At the risk of repetition, we will collect again some of the utterances of Jesus which seem irreconcilable with the narrow, intolerant ideas of the non-compromisers and the sacro-sancts: Judge not, that ye be not judged; he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her; how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye; blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God; whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, viz., Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself.
[HYPOCRISY OR TRUTH]
Hypocrisy did not die with the Pharisees. To an observer of modern life, it might seem as if it has as rank and luxuriant growth today as in the time of Jesus. The modern Christian must apparently keep up the hypocrisy that he is always following Jesus, when, as a matter of fact, he is every day making compromises with Jesus' ideals, in some instances deviating widely from His teachings, and, in others, going diametrically against them. The question is, if, in these points of divergence, it is not better to speak the plain truth than to indulge in the hypocrisy of "following Jesus." For instance, take the case of divorce laws. Jesus explicitly condemned all divorces, except possibly on the ground of adultery. His language is so definite, repeated in all three of the Synoptics, that no quibbling over words or casuistry of logic can escape the result. Consequently, when a Christian state authorizes divorce for desertion, cruelty, drunkenness, etc., it is not following Jesus, but going directly contrary to His laws. In this matter the Roman Catholics are the orthodox Christians and most of the Protestants are heterodox.
The point here made has nothing to do with the expediency of these divorce laws. The conditions of human life have so vastly changed—it is quite possible that Jesus, speaking today, might lay down much less stringent rules on this subject than He did two thousand years ago. The important fact is that we have here an undeniable instance of Christians, not only making a compromise with the acknowledged evil of divorce, but also completely ignoring the views of Jesus in making the compromise. Those who condone, or tacitly approve, these divorce laws (as do the great majority of the Protestants in the United States) should certainly be slow, in the matter of other evils, to urge "no compromise with evil," or bring forward some utterances of Jesus as the final argument on the subject. Let them first consider the beam in their own eye.
It would probably surprise the professed follower of Jesus in present times to realize in just how many matters he is not, in fact, following Jesus. It may be well to enumerate a few of these important matters. This is not done in a spirit of criticizing the weakness and shortcomings of Christians, but because some of the questions involved vitally affect the present and future welfare of society. In the discussion of these questions the name and authority of Jesus are frequently invoked, and very justly so. For, even those who do not concede His parentage by the Holy Ghost, admire and revere Him as the Greatest Teacher. His word or example on one side of a question is not lightly to be disregarded. But, if it is found that, in some matters, the followers of Jesus do compromise with, diverge from, or directly contradict Jesus' teachings, then the ultimate query, becomes, not whether Jesus said yes or no to the question in hand, but, conceding that He said yes or no, Is there sufficient justification for departing from His teaching in this matter, as has been done in other important matters? Without noticing individual short-comings, sins of omission, etc., which may be left to the individual conscience and its God, we will take up only questions of wide import, affecting the present and future welfare of societies and nations. Nor will we enter into the field of theological disputation over conflicting or ambiguous texts, but will cite no instance where Jesus has not made His position so clear that there can be no dispute over it.
The following are instances where modern Christian communities compromise with, diverge from, or go directly opposite to the teachings of Jesus.
(a) Wars between two Christian nations where each invokes the assistance of Jesus in the slaughtering of its enemies, and the victor thanks Jesus for its success in the blood-thirsty game.
(b) The substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh, as the Sabbath day.
(c) Divorces (at least for any cause except adultery).
(d) Public prayers and long prayers.
(e) Public fasting.
(f) Sunday Blue Laws.
(g) Prohibition as against Temperance.
(h) Creeds, articles of religion, pomp and ceremony in church services, and other observances, which Jesus included in the word "sacrifice," as opposed to "mercy."
[(a) WAR]
It is unnecessary to waste words in proving that war (at least between two Christian nations) is utterly irreconcilable with the Sermon on the Mount. But, as has been shown, it may, in any given case, be the less of two evils, and therefore, justifiable, as a compromise. As to a defensive war against a Moslem, Oriental or other infidel invasion, which seeks to uproot the Christian faith and subjugate a Christian nation, Jesus has apparently given His sanction to such a war (Matt. X:34, 35, 36; Luke XII:51, 52, 53). It might, perhaps, even be argued that this sanction covered an offensive war, the purpose of which was to establish Christianity among an infidel people.
But, beyond this, some wars must be justifiable, as the less of two evils, under Jesus' sane practice of compromising with evil. If the independence (the life) of a nation is attacked, there is no warrant in the four Gospels for supposing that Jesus would advise a policy of passive non-resistance. Just as when the life of the individual, or the life or honor of his mother, sister, or daughter are threatened by some beast in human form, he is justified in resistance, although the taking of human life results. A standard of ethics countenancing such a surrender of the primary instincts of self-preservation might be suited to a race of spineless invertebrates, but could never be accepted by human beings, who are the evolutionary product of countless ages of a struggle for existence.
But, conceding that some wars may be justifiable, the general rule holds good that wars are un-Christian. The exception must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. As between two Christian nations, the one attacked can usually plead self-defense in at least partial justification, but the aggressor must always have a difficult case to maintain before the judgment seat of Jesus.
Looking back over the wars of the United States, there are few that would stand the acid test of Jesus' judgment.
The war of the Revolution was due, in the last analysis, to the fact that there were a large number of prominent men in the colonies determined on independence at any cost. If war was a necessary means to attain that end, these leaders were for war, without shilly-shallying over the moral justification for the conflict. The men of that generation were rather fond of attitudinizing, and were prone to the use of high-sounding phrases like "no taxation without representation," "give me liberty or give me death," etc. The Declaration of Independence starts out with one of those phrases—"All men are created equal, and endowed with inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This was at that time such a palpable untruth and hypocrisy, that one wonders if our forefathers had no sense of humor. Of course, to be true, the sentence should have been added, "except certain persons of African descent, whom we hold and propose to hold as slaves."[56]
Stripping the grievances of the colonists of their heated and declamatory rhetoric, their real sufferings under the misrule of Great Britain were far less than those of the Jews under the Romans, when Jesus said, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." Many of the foremost statesmen in England supported the justness of the colonists' claims, and most of the obnoxious taxes were repealed before the Declaration of Independence. With time and patience the difficulties between the two countries could probably have been adjusted without war, as was the case with Canada, except for the underlying desire of the Americans for independence.
To avoid misunderstanding, it should be added, that, before the bar of Nature—under the laws of the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest—the colonies were fully justified in taking up arms when they did. The pigheaded obstinacy of George III in insisting on his "prerogatives," and the blind stupidity of his ministers in urging measures of little value to England, but irritating to the colonies, wounding their pride and making them apprehensive of future, more serious encroachments on their liberties, furnished ample warrant for ceasing longer to turn the other cheek.
Furthermore, before Nature's forum, the plea that the end justifies the means, is always of controlling force. History proves that the independence of the United States was sure to come sooner or later, and that it was better for both countries and for the world that the two nations should be under separate governments, and each work out its own destiny.
The war of 1812 was, before the bar of Jesus, without any excuse, and, like the Crimean war, was futile of results. The main questions at issue between the United States and England, and about which the war started, were not even mentioned in the final treaty of peace. The American grievances were real enough, but a very moderate exercise of Christian forbearance on England's part would have avoided any necessity of war. These grievances, bad as they were, had been endured by the United States for some twelve years, and a delay of some two years more would have brought a natural end to them with the fall of Napoleon. This war should never have occurred between two Christian peoples, and is unjustified by any good results that followed from it.
The war with Mexico in 1848 was simply an aggressive, land-grabbing, politicians' war, and will always be a blot on the Christianity of the United States. The lands of which Mexico was robbed were of course of great material value to the United States, but the less said about the justness of their acquisition the better.
The question of the Civil War is complicated by the moral issue of the abolition of slavery, underlying the political issue of the right of the South to secede, which was the ostensible cause of the war. Slavery in the United States was an evil, both ethically and economically, and, as its abolition was a result of the war, that war is justifiable both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. But that result was an incident of the war, and the North would never have taken up arms on the simple issue of forcing the abolition of slavery on the South.
On the ostensible, political issue which started the war—the right of the South to secede from the Union—there is room for much difference of opinion. Despite the technical and labored constitutional arguments of Von Holst and others, it is rather difficult to understand why, if the South believed that its happiness and prosperity were being imperiled by a further continuance of its union with the North, it had not the same right to break that union in 1861 as the colonies had the right to break their union with England in 1776. At the outbreak of the war, there were many in the North, beside Horace Greeley and Vallandingham, who thought it morally wrong to compel the South by force to remain in a union that had become hateful to it.
A great writer on American history (Sumner) has said that whenever some geographical section of our country becomes saturated with the idea that its material interests are being sacrificed to the interests of other parts of the country, and it sees no hope of redress, it will begin to talk secession. It was true of New England at the time of the Hartford Convention. It was true of the South in 1820, 1831 and 1860. It was true of the Pacific States shortly after the Civil War, when they feared that Congress would not pass their desired Chinese Exclusion Acts.
It would be difficult to justify the Spanish War of 1898, in the court of Jesus. It was mostly the work of the newspapers and politicians. Nine-tenths of the people of the United States were ignorant of suffering great grievances from Spain, until the Jingo journals demonstrated the fact to them. It is safe to say that this war would never have occurred if Spain had been a great naval power like Germany or Great Britain. The same assertion may be made of the war against Mexico in 1848. In studying the Jingo spirit which encourages wars, it will usually be found that the strength of this spirit varies in the inverse ratio to the supposed war-strength of the other party to the fight. Nations are much like school boys in this respect. It is quite probable that the war of 1812 would not have been brought on, except for the mistaken idea of Henry Clay and his hot-headed followers from the West that the United States could easily overrun Canada, and dictate peace to England in Halifax.
Our participation in the Great War of 1914 was forced upon us, and was amply justifiable, both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. When Germany sunk our ships on the high seas, it struck at our independence as a nation, as vitally as though it had invaded and seized a part of our territory. On this issue we had waged war with England in 1812, and with the Algerine pirates in 1815. To have yielded this point to Germany would have been the first step toward international slavery.
But the war itself was utterly unjustifiable. The fact that it could occur nearly 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, only illustrates how little actual progress the teachings of Jesus inculcating peace had made against the forces of nature urging nations into conflict with each other.
To the impartial student of our history, it must be apparent that the Sermon on the Mount, so far as preventing wars, has been practically a dead letter. The condemnation of war has been superficial and insincere—nothing better than simple hypocrisy. It has been a service of the lip and not of the heart. The outside of the cup has been kept clean with a great parade of noble humanitarian sentiments, but the inside has been full of corruption.
Except among some numerically small bodies like the Quakers and a few others, there has never been any strong living, effective public sentiment in the United States condemning wars as unrighteous, save as a last extremity. This is well illustrated by our two disputes with England over the Maine and Oregon boundaries. These boundary disputes were most intricate and complicated, the evidence was uncertain and conflicting, no question of principle was involved, and they were eminently matters to be settled by negotiation, mutual compromise, or arbitration. But in each case the Jingo clamor for war spread over the whole country. Polk's campaign cry in 1844 was, "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." But there was no organized, effective opposition on the ground that this war would be unrighteous and un-Christian. If England had been as weak as Mexico, or if Tyler and Polk had been "fire-eaters," like Andrew Jackson, we would, beyond doubt, have had war in each case, although there could have been no justification for it in the court of Jesus.
Every war, whether right or wrong, has been not merely condoned, but fully approved by the vast majority of the religious people of our country. Success in war has been the best stepping stone to the Presidency, as is shown by the instances of Jackson, Harrison, Taylor and Grant. There is no record of any Jingo statesman being punished by his constituents for precipitating the United States into unnecessary and unrighteous wars, and the supreme hypocrisy of all is, that, in every war, whether morally justifiable or not, the followers of Jesus crowd the churches to pray for His assistance, and to thank Him for victory when won, as though He were sanctioning these infractions of His Sermon on the Mount.
The late President Roosevelt has expressed his views on our wars, and he may certainly be taken as fairly representative of a large portion of the American people. He was a devout Christian, but singularly free from hypocrisy. He was given to "speakin' out in meetin'," on occasions with a frankness that was embarrassing to his followers, and even later to himself.[57]
In his life of Thomas H. Benton, American Statesmen Series, page 261, he says, in treating of this boundary dispute with Canada:
"The matter was sure to be decided in favor of the strongest; and, say what we will about the justice and right of the various claims, the honest truth is, that the comparative might of the different nations, and not the comparative righteousness of their several causes, was the determining factor in the settlement. Mexico lost her northern provinces by no law of right, but simply by the law of the longest sword—the same law that gave India to England."[58]
On page 262 he says: "It would be untrue to say that Nations have not at times proved themselves capable of acting with great disinterestedness and generosity towards other peoples; but such conduct is not very common at the best, and although it often may be desirable, it certainly is not always so. If the matter in dispute is of great importance, and if there is a doubt as to which side is right, then the strongest party to the controversy is pretty sure to give itself the benefit of that doubt; and international morality will have to take tremendous strides in advance before this ceases to be the case."[59]
On page 268 he says: "No foot of soil to which we had any title[60] in the Northwest should have been given up; we were the people who could use it best, and we ought to have taken it all. The prize was well worth winning, and would warrant a good deal of risk being run."
On page 289, in speaking of the final compromise and settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute, he says: "Yet as there was no particular reason why we should show any generosity in our diplomatic dealings with England, it may well be questioned whether it would not have been better to have left things as they were until we could have taken all. Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided, but they are far better than certain kinds of peace. Every war in which we have been engaged, except the one with Mexico, has been justifiable in its origin, and each one, without any exception whatever, has left us better off, taking both moral[61] and material considerations into account, than we should have been if we had not waged it."
These citations, reflecting, as they undoubtedly do, prevalent American sentiment in the past and present, establish the utter hypocrisy of any claim that the Sermon on the Mount has had any practical, effective power in determining the actions of our nation concerning wars, whether justifiable or not.
(b) SUNDAY AND THE SABBATH
It is uncertain just when Sunday (the first day of the week) began to be generally observed among Christians as a holy day. The early Gentile converts were naturally averse to all Jewish rites and ceremonies, including circumcision, Sabbath-day observances, etc. It would seem that, in St. Paul's time, more or less of them held the position that all days of the week were alike, and no one of them especially holy (Romans XIV:5, 6; Col. II:16, 17). But at least two or three centuries had elapsed after Jesus' death, before Sunday was established as a day holy to the Lord, and began to have attributed to it the sanctity with which the Jews surrounded their Mosaic Sabbath.
Jesus never sanctioned the observance of the first day of the week as a holy day. No text can be cited from the Old Testament, or the four Gospels, that gives even color of authority to this observance. Sunday is a purely human institution, established by the Christians of the first five centuries, to suit their own convenience, or satisfy their anti-Jewish prejudices. As a Biblical festival, it is no more sacred than Monday or Tuesday, or any other day.
This matter is not commented on because of its practical importance, since it would now be inadvisable to change our legal day of rest to correspond with the Biblical Sabbath. But it affords a fair illustration of the prevalent cant and hypocrisy of the day. How frequently do the modern Pharisees denounce the man, who, for instance, goes fishing or hunting on Sunday, instead of going to church, as a contemner of Jesus, a violator of God's holy laws, etc., when in fact they have not the slightest authority from Jesus to do so. Would it not be well for them to consider the beam in their own eye? On this point, the Seventh-day Baptists and others like them are the consistent followers of Jesus, and not the Roman Catholics and the great bulk of the Protestants.
(c) THE HYPOCRISY OF DIVORCE
Under the Mosaic law a husband, dissatisfied with his wife, could "write her a bill of a divorcement" if he had found "some uncleanness in her" (Deut. XXIV:1; Matt. XIX:7).
According to Matthew, Jesus condemned divorce except for the cause of "fornication" (Matt. V:32; XIX:9).
According to Mark and Luke, He condemned divorce for any cause (Mark X:11; Luke XVI:18).
All the States of our Union, except New York and South Carolina, authorize divorce on other grounds than adultery. In New York divorces are granted only on the ground of adultery, and in South Carolina no divorces are granted. (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 369-371.)
In 1916, there were 1,040,778 marriages and 112,036 divorces in the United States, of which about 11 per cent were on the ground of "unfaithful." (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 151-152.)
But the marriages of the Roman Catholics, about 1-7 of our population (World's Almanac, p. 484), should fairly be excluded, since divorce is practically non-existent among them. This would leave 890,000 marriages to 112,000 divorces.
There was then, in 1916, something more than one divorce to every ten marriages among our total population, or, excluding Roman Catholics, something more than one divorce to every eight marriages.
In the face of these figures, it must be conceded that this prohibition of Jesus has become practically a dead letter among the Protestant Christians of the United States.
To the innocent party to a divorce, little, if any, stigma attaches either in business, social or religious circles, and nothing but a temporary condemnation is visited on the guilty party. The plain truth is, that divorce has become a matter of everyday life, regrettable but not sinful, and that, on this point, the followers of Jesus (excepting the Roman Catholics) have simply substituted their ideas of right and wrong for His.
It should be added again, to avoid misunderstanding, that it is not the intention hereby to condemn our present divorce laws. On the contrary, it is quite probable that, if Jesus were legislating for the complex societies of today, instead of for the comparatively simpler civilization of His day, He would materially modify His stringent views on divorce, in a sane concession to the weakness and frailty of human nature. Certainly, to one who has seen many ill-mated couples seeking relief in the divorce courts, and subsequently making happy marriages, to the mutual benefit of themselves, their children, their friends and society in general, divorce laws cannot seem all evil. The children, if there are any, are the main factor to be considered, and no conditions of life are likely to be much worse for them than to be brought up by two mutually unloving, unsympathetic parents, and, as usually happens, in an atmosphere of continual bickering and quarreling.
(d) THE HYPOCRISY OF PRAYER
This subject has already been treated under [Note 22], supra, page 23, and it has been shown that Jesus clearly condemned public prayers, long prayers and frequent prayers (Matt. VI: 5, 8).
The evils of the prayer-habit (as a public ceremony) are many and obvious.
(1) It is a useless waste of time and energy that had better be expended on works of mercy. God already knows what things we need, and will grant them, if advisable, without prayer (Matt. VI:8). For instance, how much time has been spent by the human race in praying for things which subsequent events proved were, or would have been, injurious instead of beneficial? How many there are, who, in looking back over their lives, can see that the realization of one of their (at the time) dearest wishes turned out later to be the most unfortunate thing that ever happened to them.
(2) It encourages the formation of a low and unworthy conception of God as a being to be propitiated and placated, like the deities of barbarous peoples. Insensibly the idea grows that the more frequent and the more zealous the prayers, the more likely they are to be granted. An instance of this will be found in the custom started during the Great War of every one on the streets and everywhere, praying exactly at noon for the success of our armies. The idea underlying this was apparently that of "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together," although the latter requirement was hardly fulfilled, since the prayers in New York were several hours old before those in San Francisco were begun. Nothing could be imagined much more inconsistent with Jesus' regulations on the subject of prayer.
Furthermore, the prayer-habit begets a sickening tone of servility in the worshipper, coupled with the ascription to the Deity of an equally sickening love of adulation. In many prayer meetings the speakers seem to vie with each other in seeking terms of humility and self abasement for themselves (miserable worms being rather a favorite) and the most exaggerated titles of honor for the Deity. One would think they were a lot of grovelling slaves, prostrating themselves before the throne of some barbaric despot. Take the "Te Deum," which is a prayer in the form of a hymn. Can it be supposed that the fulsome adulation with which it is filled can be pleasing to the God of the universe? And yet, why is it sung, except on that supposition? What respect would we have for an earthly father who delighted in having his children assemble every morning, and chant their praises of his goodness, his excellence, his power, etc.? And yet should not the ideal of the heavenly Father be higher than that of the earthly father?
(3) The prayer-habit tends to emasculate the moral strength of its devotees. It is much easier to pray to God for help and, so to speak, shift the responsibility on Him, than to work out one's own troubles by one-self. There is an old saying—Pray, but with thy hand on the plough. Too much praying tends towards neglect of the plough, or, to use Cromwell's phrase, the keeping one's powder dry.
(4) Another evil is that it tends to encourage a self-righteousness on the part of its devotees (Luke XVIII:11). When prayer is regarded as a duty, the sequel to a prayer-meeting is a feeling of satisfaction in duty well performed. God has not only been well pleased by a display of humility on the part of His worshippers, but has also been intelligently advised on a variety of subjects, about which He may have been in uncertainty.
Compare the prayer meeting of today with one according to Jesus' precepts. There would be no long prayers (Matt. XXIII:14; Luke XX:47). The meeting would open with the Lord's Prayer. Then, as each one thought over his various sins of omission and commission, and repented of them, he would arise and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke XVIII:13). The peace and silent meditation of such a gathering would tend to produce the humble and contrite heart, which is the offering pleasing to God.
(5) But the worst evil, as pointed out by Jesus, is that of substituting a false standard of righteousness, words for acts, sacrifice for mercy (Matt. XII:7). When prayers are regarded as a duty and their performance a meritorious act, their devotees are quite apt to become like the Pharisees, who paid "tithe of mint, anise and cummin," but neglected "judgment, mercy and faith" (Matt. XXIII:23).
The average, easy-going Christian can without difficulty square his account with God through numerous prayers, or even rest easy in his conscience with a slight balance in his favor. But it must be almost impossible for the believer in, and faithful adherent of, prayer-meetings to rise to the sublime conception of the Almighty, voiced not only by Jesus, but by the later prophets of the Old Testament.
"Bring no more vain oblations (prayers or fasting): incense (prayers and fasting) is an abomination to me. The new moons and Sabbaths (ceremonial church services), the calling of assemblies (prayer-meetings), I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."
"Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah I:13, 14, 17).
"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah VI:8).
(e) THE HYPOCRISY OF FASTING
This subject also, has already been discussed under [note 20], supra, but for convenience, reference is again made to the passages in which Jesus condemns public fasting, or fasting as a ceremony (Matt. VI:16, 17, 18; Matt. IX:14; Mark II:18; Luke V:33; Luke X:7).
Nearly everything which has been said under the last subhead concerning public prayers applies with equal force to ceremonial fasting, and need not be repeated here.
(f) SUNDAY BLUE LAWS
Assuming there is to be ascribed to the modern Sunday the same sanctity as a holy day that should be accorded to the Sabbath which Jesus observed, His views on the proper observance of the day are summed up in the one sentence: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark II:27).
The basic idea of the old Puritan Sunday was the direct opposite of that of Jesus. Following the old Mosaic law, which Jesus combatted, the Puritans planned their celebration of the day for the "honor and glory" of God, and not for the benefit of man. Conceiving this God, not as a loving Father, but as a stern, austere Judge, who, according to Jonathan Edwards, had reserved the bulk of mankind for burning, who demanded "sacrifice" and not "mercy," and was therefore to be propitiated and placated, the Puritan ministers succeeded, while they had the power, in imposing on their congregations a most atrocious travesty of the Sabbath of Jesus. Religious services were piled up like Pelion on Ossa, and every movement of the day was marked by gloom and austerity. No wonder that William Lloyd Garrison said of the observance of Sunday at a much later date: "The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of priest-craft and superstition, and the stronghold of merely ceremonial religion."
Jesus did not object to the Jewish observance of the Sabbath on the ground that it was too "lax" (to use a modern term), but on just the opposite ground—that certain of their restrictions on man's freedom of action on that day were unnecessary. But the Sabbath of that time, as the Jews celebrated it, and as, from all the accounts in the four Gospels, Jesus celebrated it, was a day of joyous rest and recreation, and in no sense a day of spiritual maceration.
"The same character of cheerfulness, of happy rest from the toil and turmoil of the world's business; of quiet and peaceful return unto one's self; of joyous communion with friends and kindred over good cheer—in short, of mental and bodily relaxation and recreation that strengthens, braces, pacifies, and maketh the heart glad, while the sublime ideas which it symbolizes are recalled to the memory at every step and turn seems to have prevailed at all times down to our own, among the Jews."
"Suffice it to reiterate that in every class, every age and every variety of Jews, from first to last, the Sabbath has been absolutely a day of joy and happiness, nay, of dancing, of singing, of eating and drinking, and of luxury."
International Cyclopædia, Sabbath, Vol. XII, p. 857.
This is the kind of a Sabbath which the Gospels picture Jesus as celebrating, attending feasts in the houses of His friends, walking in the fields with His disciples, or meeting with them in public places, and healing the sick when occasion offered (Matt. XII:1; Mark II:23; Luke VI:1; Luke XIV:1; John V:1, 2, 9; IX:1, 14).
Hard as it may be for Anglo-Saxon prejudice to admit, yet it seems to be true, that the Spanish Sunday—mass in the morning and a bull-fight in the afternoon—is nearer than the Puritan Sunday to Jesus' ideas of the proper observance of the day, although He would probably approve, as little as we do, that particular form of amusement.
There is at the present time a strong and perhaps growing tendency towards enacting Sunday Blue Laws. By this is meant legislation restricting man's freedom of action on that day, which is based, not on any benefit to the individual or society, but on the old Mosaic idea of the supposed sanctity of the day—that it is holy to the Lord and He will be pleased by a ceremonial observance of it, different from other days.
Insofar as the professed followers of Jesus urge the enactment of such Blue Laws, it seems clear that they are not following Jesus, but going contrary to His precept and example.
(g) TEMPERANCE vs. PROHIBITION
There can be no possible doubt as to the position of Jesus on this question.
At the outset of His prophetic career, He drew the line sharply between Himself and John the Baptist in this matter.
John drank no wine and practiced fasting.
Jesus drank wine and condemned ceremonial fasting.
Each by word and example inculcated these different ideas on his respective followers (Matt. XI:18, 19; Luke V:33).[62]
At the marriage in Cana, He furnishes wine for the guests when the supply runs out (John II:1, 2). In His instructions to His apostles He tells them to eat and drink such things as are set before them (Luke X:7). He uses wine in the celebration of the Last Supper, and promises His apostles to drink with them of the "fruit of the vine" in heaven (Matt. XXVI:29; Mark XIV:25; Luke XXII:18, 30).
When Mahomet appeared, he followed the example of John the Baptist, and prohibited the drinking of wine. Since his time, on two points the line has always been sharply drawn between the Gospel of Jesus and that of Mahomet. The orthodox Christian could eat pork and drink wine, while the orthodox Mohammedan could do neither.
The majority of professed Christians have presumably supported the recent prohibition legislation in the United States. In so doing, they are not following Jesus, but going directly contrary to His precept and example. They are in effect saying that, on this point, Mahomet knew better than Jesus what was for the best good of the human race.
(h) SACRIFICE vs. MERCY
Under the term "sacrifice," Jesus included all ceremonial religious worship, and tried constantly to impress on His followers that this was not the offering pleasing to God, but, rather, deeds of mercy (Matt. IX:13; XXIII:23).
Realizing how strong is the tendency in human nature to impute to itself righteousness on account of its "tithes of mint and anise and cummin," He carried His condemnation of ceremonies into the smallest details. This is well illustrated by His enjoining His apostles not to wash before eating (Matt. XV:1, 2 and 20; Luke XI:37, 38). As He states, His objection was not to washing in itself, but because the Pharisees had made a religious ceremony of it.
Simplicity is the marked characteristic of all Jesus' acts of devotion. While it was His custom to preach in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, yet, so far as appears in the four Gospels, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, Luke's Sermon on the Plain, the Lord's Prayer, and most of Jesus' important discourses were delivered, not in the synagogue and on the Sabbath day, but wherever time and place suited His convenience—from a ship, on a mountain, on a plain, in His own house, etc. (Matt. V:1; X:1; XII:2; XVIII:1; XXIII:1; XXIV:3; Mark IV:1; X:1; Luke V:3; VI:17; X:1; XI:1; XII:1; John III:2; IX:40; XII:22, 23; XIV; XV; XVI; XVII).
To demonstrate how far modern Christianity has traveled from the ideas of Jesus, it is only necessary to attend some ceremonial service in an Episcopalian or Catholic Cathedral, or some protracted prayer meeting of one of the Evangelical denominations.
Out of the fruitful field of Pauline theology, there sprang, even within a few centuries after the Crucifixion, a plentiful crop of the direst evils that have ever afflicted mankind—creeds and definitions of belief. Fortunately, disputatious theologians are now limited to the weapons of pen and ink, but in the Middle Ages oceans of blood were spilt over these religious quarrels.
If we could suppose the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Augsburg Confession to be submitted to Jesus for His approval, it is easy to imagine the substance of His answer: "I don't know what all this stuff means. I do not understand your terms—pre-destination, fore-ordination, trans-substantiation, infant damnation, etc. There is nothing here that I ever preached. I have given you a simple standard of righteousness, which every one can understand and follow, viz., right living. Have you forgotten my saying, that 'all the law and the prophets were contained in the two commandments to 'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' and to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' (Matt. XXII:37-40). These creeds of yours may be true, or partly true, or wholly false. But the important fact for you to remember is, that they are unnecessary to salvation—are non-essentials. If this sort of logomachy pleases you as an intellectual exercise, well and good, if it goes no further. But, beware that, in following this ignis fatuus, you do not neglect the only one main essential to God's favor—'to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'"