Christianity and Ethics: A Handbook of Christian Ethics

by Archibald B. D. Alexander

(3) The special work of the Church to which it is constrained by the express terms of its Master's commission, is to preach the Gospel to every creature and to bring all men into obedience to Christ. A distinction is commonly made between Home and Foreign Missions. While the distinction is useful, it is scarcely valid. The work of the Church at home and abroad is one. The claims of the ignorant and hapless of our own land do not exempt us from responsibilities to the heathen world. The Lord's Prayer for the coming of the Kingdom requires of Christian men that they shall consecrate their gifts along every line of effort to the fulfilment of the divine will upon the earth.

3. While all sections of the Church are convinced that {239} an honest application of the principles of Jesus to the practical affairs of life would speedily transform society, there is considerable diversity of opinion as to the proper attitude of Christianity to social problems. The outward reconstruction of social order was not, it must be admitted, the primary aim of Jesus: it was rather the spiritual regeneration of the individual. But such could only become a reality as it transformed the entire fabric of life. (1) Christ's teaching could not but affect the organisation of industry as well as every other section of the social structure. Though Jesus has many warnings as to the perils of riches, there is no depreciation of wealth (in its truest sense). It is true He refuses to interfere in a dispute between two brothers as to worldly property, and repudiates generally the office of arbiter. It is true also that He warns His disciples against covetousness, and lays down the principle that 'a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.' But these sayings, so far from implying disapproval of earthly possessions, imply rather that property and trading are the indispensable basis upon which the outward fabric of the social order is built. Christ does not counsel withdrawal from the activities of the world. He honours work. He recognises the legitimacy of trading. Many of His parables would have no meaning if His attitude to the industrial system of His day had been one of uncompromising hostility. He has no grudge against riches in themselves. In the parable of the talents it is the comparatively poor man who is censured while the rich is commended. To sum up what Jesus thought about wealth is not easy. Many have thought that He condemned the holding of property altogether. But such a conclusion cannot be drawn from His teaching. Possessions, both outward and inward, are rather to be brought to the test of His judgment. His influence would rather bring property and commerce under the control of righteousness and brotherhood. His ideal of life is to be attained through learning the right use of wealth rather than through the abolition of it. Wealth {240} can be used for the kingdom of God, and it is a necessary instrument in the Church's work. It may be consecrated like every other gift to the service of Christ. But there are mighty forces enlisted against its best usefulness, and only through the fullness of Christian grace can its good work be done. What Jesus does condemn however is the predatory instinct, that greed of gain which embodies itself everywhere in the spirit of plunder, exploitation, and the impulse to gambling. He can have nothing but condemnation for that great wave of money-love which has swept over Christendom in our time, affecting all classes. It has fostered self-indulgence, stimulated depraved appetites, corrupted business and politics, oppressed the poor, materialised our ideals, and weakened religious influences. 'From this craze of the love of money the voice of Jesus calls the people back to the sane life in Ethics and religion in which He is leader.'[26] What then ought to be the attitude of the Church to the industrial questions of our day? While some contend that the social question is really a religious question, and that the Church is untrue to its mission when it holds itself aloof from the economical problems which are agitating men's minds, others view with suspicion, if not with hostility, the deflection of religion from its traditional path of worship, and deem it a mistake for the Church to interfere in industrial movements.

A recent writer[27] narrates that in his boyhood he actually heard an old minister of the Church of Scotland declare in the General Assembly, 'We are not here to make the world better: we have only to pass through it on the way to glory.' 'No grosser travesty,' adds the author, 'was ever uttered. We are here to make the world better. We have a commission to stamp out evil and to prevent men from falling into it. If this is not Christian work, what is?'

At the same time a portion of the clergy have gone to the opposite extreme, identifying the kingdom of God with social propaganda, and thus losing sight of its spiritual {241} and eternal, as well as its personal, significance. There has been moreover a tendency on the part of some to associate themselves with a political party, and to claim for the Church the office of judge and arbitrator in industrial strife. But surely it is one thing to degrade the Church to the level of a secular society, and another, by witness and by effort, to make the law of Christ dominant over all the relationships of life. Men are impatiently asking, 'Has the Church no message to the new demands of the age? Are Christians to stand apart from the coming battle, and preach only the great salvation to individual souls? That the Christian minister must never cease to do; but the Gospel, if it is to meet the needs of men, must be read in the light of history and experience, and interpreted by the signs of the times.

(2) The ground idea of Jesus' teaching was, as Troeltsch has pointed out,[28] the declaration of the kingdom of God. Everything indeed is relative to union with God, but in God man's earthly life is involved. Two notes were therefore struck by Jesus, a note of individualism and a note of universalism—love to God and love to man. These notes do not really conflict, but they became the two opposite voices of the Church, and gave rise to different ethical tendencies. The first religious communities consisted of the poor and the enslaved. It never occurred to them that they had civic rights: all they desired was freedom to worship Christ. Not how to transform the social world, but how to maintain their own religious faith without molestation in the world of unbelief and evil was their problem.

(3) In the early Catholic Church the spirit of individualism ruled. With the Reformation a new type of life was developed, and a new attitude to the social world was established. But while Lutheranism sought to exercise its influence upon social life through state regulation, Calvinism was more individualistic, and sought rather to {242} enforce its teaching by means of the personal life. The attitude of the various sects—Baptists, Pietists, Puritans—has been largely individualistic, and instead of endeavouring to rectify the abuses of industrial life they have been disposed rather to suffer the ills of this evil world, finding in faith alone their compensation and solace.

In modern times the tendency of the Church, Romanist and Protestant alike, has been toward social regeneration; and a form of Christian Socialism has even appeared which however lacks unity of principle and uniformity of action. The mediaeval idea of a Holy Roman Empire, in which all nations and classes were to be consolidated, is now admitted to be a dream incapable of realisation, partly because the idea itself is illusory, but principally because the hold of the Papacy upon the people has been weakened. The agitation, 'Los von Rom' on the one hand, and the 'Modernist' movement on the other, have tended to dissipate the unity and energy of Catholicism. Nevertheless the Church, which is really the society of Christian people, is coming to see that it cannot close its eyes to questions which concern the daily life of man, nor hold aloof from efforts which are working for the social betterment of the world. To bring in the kingdom of God is the Church's work, and it is becoming increasingly evident that the kingdom, if it is to come in any real and living sense, must come where Jesus Himself founded it—upon the plane of this present life.

There are two considerations which make this work on the part of the Church at once imperative and hopeful. The first is that the Church is specially called upon by the command and example of its Founder to range itself on the side of the weak and helpless. It is commanded to bring the principles of brotherly love to bear upon the conditions of life which press most heavily upon the handicapped. It is called on in the spirit of its Master to rebuke the greed of gain and the callous selfishness which uses the toil, and even the degradation of others, for its own personal enjoyment. The Church only fulfils its function when {243} it is not only the consoler of the suffering but also the champion of the oppressed. And the other consideration is that in virtue of its nature and charter the Church is enabled to appeal to motives which the State cannot supply. It brings all social obligation under the comprehensive law of love. It exalts the principle of brotherhood. It lifts up the sacrifice of Christ, and seeks to make it potent over the hearts of men. It preaches the doctrine of humanity, and strives to win a response in all who are willing to acknowledge their common kinship and equality before God. It appeals to masters and servants, to employers and labourers, to rich and poor, and bids them remember that they are sharers alike of the Divine Mercy, pensioners together upon their Heavenly Father's love.

4. Whatever shape the obligation of the Church may take in regard to the social problems of the homeland, the duty of Christianity to the larger world of Humanity admits of no question. The ethical significance of the missionary movement of last century has been pronounced by Wundt,[29] the distinguished historian of morals, as the mightiest factor in modern civilisation. Speaking of humanity in its highest sense as having been brought into the world by Christianity, he mentions as its first manifestation the care of the sick, and then adds, 'the second great expression of Christian humanity is the establishment of missions.' It is unnecessary to dwell upon this modern form of unselfish enthusiasm. It has its roots in the simple necessity, on the part of the morally awakened, of sharing their best with other people. 'Man grows with the greatness of his purposes,' and no greater ideal task has ever presented itself to the imagination of man than this mighty attempt to conquer the world for Christ, and give to his brother men throughout the earth that which has raised and enriched himself.[30]

'The two great forming agencies in the world's history,' says a prominent political economist, 'have been the {244} religious and the economic.'[31] On the one hand the economic is required as the basis of civilisation, but on the other the supreme factor is religion. The commercial impulse, carried on independently of any higher motive than self-interest, has however not infrequently reacted favourably on the moral life of the race. Mutual understanding, the sense of a common humanity, the virtues of honesty, fairness, and confidence upon which all legitimate commerce is founded, have paved the way in no small degree for the message of brotherhood and mercy. The present hour is the Church's opportunity. Already the world has been opened up, the nations of the earth are awakening to the greatness of life's possibilities. The danger is that the Oriental peoples should become satisfied with the mere externals of civilisation, and miss that which will assure their complete emancipation. Christianity was born in the East, though it has become the inheritance of the West. It is adapted by its genius to all men. And undoubtedly the West has no better boon to confer on the East than that on which its own life and hope are founded—the religion of Jesus Christ. If we do not give that, we are unfaithful to our Master's call; we falsify our own history, and wholly miss the purpose for which we have been entrusted with divine enlightenment and power.