A history of social thought

by Emory S. Bogardus

Another difficulty is found in the fact that business methods and the principles of Christianity have always been at strife.[XXVI-32] Individuals are struggling to get the better of their fellows. This tendency has been institutionalized in the form of business enterprise. Private persons have been permitted “to put their thumbs where they can constrict the life blood of the nation at will.”[XXVI-33] Christianity, on the other hand, lauds the principle of unselfish service, and of ranking the individual as the greatest who gives most. Christianity is awakening to its gigantic task of stopping the nation on “its headlong ride on the road of covetousness.”

It is in this connection that Professor Rauschenbusch has made famous the phrase, “Christianizing the social order.” This term means “bringing the social order into harmony with the ethical convictions which are identified with Christ.”[XXVI-35] Such a program involves attacking “the last intrenchment of autocracy,” namely, in business,—and Christianizing business. The struggle is already on. In many of the phases of the conflict, capitalism is swallowing up Christianity. The church becomes traditional, narrowly ecclesiastical, dogmatic, opposing science and democracy. Where capitalism is strongest, the churches as virile social forces are weakest.[XXVI-34]

In reply to the often repeated charge that socialized Christianity is no Christianity at all, Professor Rauschenbusch shows that personal religion, instead of being defeated by a socialized religion, will gain strength and be able to present a much stronger appeal than it now does. The advocate of the social teachings of Jesus is not attacking personal religion, but rather endeavoring to give personal religion a new dynamic, especially in those phases of modern life where personal religion has lost most of its appeal. The opponents of social Christianity cannot afford to neglect the fact that the often one-sided, mechanical, and superficial gospel and methods of evangelism have created a religious apathy, if not a definite reaction against religion.[XXVI-36] It is blind foolishness to try to fence out the new social spirit from Christianity instead of letting it fuse with the older religious faith and “create a new total that will be completer and more Christian than the old religious individualism at its best.”[XXVI-37]

Dr. Rauschenbusch insisted that there must be a Christianizing of international relations, that individuals must be taught to see the sinfulness of the present social order, and that the popular conception of God must be democratized.[XXVI-39] He reinterpreted the organic unity of human society,—asserting that when one man sins, other men suffer; and that when one class sins, other classes bear a part of the suffering.

In 1908, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America was organized at Philadelphia. The Council adopted with slight modifications the resolutions which some months earlier had been accepted by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North), and which Rev. Harry F. Ward and others had drawn up.

This Bill of Rights, as the Resolutions have been called, imposed upon the members of the more than thirty Protestant denominations the duty of obtaining industrial justice for the cause of labor. It spoke for (1) the principle of arbitration in industrial dissensions, (2) the adequate protection of workers in hazardous trades, (3) the abolition of child labor, (4) the safeguarding of physical and moral health of women in industry, (5) the suppression of the “sweating system,” (6) the reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, (7) a living wage in all industries, (8) one day of rest in seven for all workers, (9) the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised, (10) suitable provisions for old age or disability of workers, and (11) the abatement of poverty.

At the meeting of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America at a special meeting held at Cleveland, Ohio, May 6–8, 1919, the foregoing platform was re-affirmed; and in addition, as a means of meeting the needs of the reconstruction days following the World War, the following notable resolutions were adopted. The Council declared not only that labor is entitled to an equitable share in the profits of industry, but took the new step of expressing the belief that labor is entitled also to an equitable share in the management of industry. “The sharing of shop control and management is an inevitable step” in the attainment of an ordered and constructive democracy in industry. The Council asserted that the first charge upon industry should be wages sufficient to support an American standard of living.

In 1919, the Committee on Special War Activities of the National Catholic War Council published a brief but important document on social reconstruction. In this pamphlet the defects of the capitalistic system of industry are declared to be: “Enormous inefficiency and waste in the production and distribution of commodities; insufficient incomes for the great majority of wage-earners; and unnecessarily large incomes for a small minority of privileged capitalists.”[XXVI-40] The Committee urged that employees shall exercise a reasonable share in the management of industrial enterprises, and that the State should inaugurate comprehensive provisions for health insurance and old age insurance. It recognized that the true line of progress is in the direction of co-operative production and of co-partnership arrangements. “In the former, the workers own and manage the industries themselves; in the latter, they own a substantial part of the corporate stock and exercise a reasonable share in the management.”[XXVI-41] The Catholic pronunciamento demands that the spirit of both labor and capital be reformed. The laborer must give up the desire of a maximum of return for a minimum of service; he must remember that he owes society an honest day’s work for a fair wage. On the other hand the capitalist must learn that wealth is not possession but stewardship, and that “profit-making is not the basic justification of business enterprise.”[XXVI-42]

Inasmuch as the Rev. Harry F. Ward has written more extensively on social Christianity than any other person, save Rauschenbusch, and has created widespread and heart-searching discussions, his contributions to socio-religious thought will be considered next. Dr. Ward does not believe in social service as a bait for drawing people into the church. He objects to bribing people in order to get them into an evangelistic meeting. To him social service is a natural phase of religion, expressing itself freely and without sinuous designs. In his estimation, soup kitchens are not to be established as a means of enticing the laboring man inside the church walls, but as an unselfish expression of the Christian’s desire to be true to the Christ spirit. Social service is not a selfish program, on the part of the church, for increasing its membership. It is as natural to Christianity as personal evangelism, and equally intrinsic and vital. It has won more than national recognition. While it is radical in the eyes of the conservative, it contains an analysis of social conditions that many of its critics have not appreciated. It breathes a sincerity and a straightforwardness that compels the fair-minded reader to give heed.

Slavery was rejected as the economic basis of civilization, and monarchy has recently been rejected as the political basis. In each instance the world came to a junction where idealistic impulse overthrew entrenched power. It is Dr. Ward’s contention that the world is now reaching a similar junction point, a point where idealistic impulse will dethrone the autocracy in capitalism. The idealistic impulse, to which reference has been made in the foregoing lines, is germinal in the teachings of Jesus.