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Page 38
But the Kingdom of God is no mere protest; it is a _program_ of social
redemption. Some thinkers flatly deny that Christianity can provide a
constructive plan for society. Mr. Lowes Dickinson makes his imaginary
Chinese official write of the social teachings of Jesus: "Enunciated
centuries ago, by a mild Oriental enthusiast, unlettered, untravelled,
inexperienced, they are remarkable not more for their tender and
touching appeal to brotherly love, than for their aversion or
indifference to all other elements of human excellence. The subject of
Augustus and Tiberius lived and died unaware of the history and
destinies of imperial Rome; the contemporary of Virgil and of Livy could
not read the language in which they wrote. Provincial by birth, mechanic
by trade, by temperament a poet and a mystic, he enjoyed in the course
of his brief life few opportunities, and he evinced little inclination,
to become acquainted with the rudiments of the science whose end is the
prosperity of the state. The production and distribution of wealth, the
disposition of power, the laws that regulate labor, property, trade,
these were matters as remote from his interests, as they were beyond his
comprehension. Never was man better equipped to inspire a religious
sect; never one worse to found and direct a commonwealth."
Jesus' teaching concerning the Kingdom of God is contained in a handful
of parables and picturesque sayings. It attempts no detailed account of
a Utopia; it lays down no laws; it offers the world a spirit, which in
every age must find a body of its own. But this indefiniteness does not
fit it the less, but the better, as the inspiration to social
reconstruction. It affords scope for variety and endless progress. It
can take up the social ideals of other ages and of other civilizations,
and incorporate whatever in them is congruous with the Christian social
order. The ideals of Greece and Medieval Europe and of our present
commercialism, and the ideals of China, India and Japan, are not to be
thrown aside as rubbish, but reshaped and "fulfilled" by Christlike
love. It does not stultify human development by establishing a rigid
system; but entrusts to thoughtful and conscientious children of God the
duty of constantly readjusting social relations, so that they are
adequate expressions of their Father's Spirit. In every age Christians
are compelled not only to voice their protest against the existing
order, but to point out precisely what the Spirit of Christ demands, and
try practically to embody it. The fact that our directions are not
explicit is proof that God deals with us not as little children but as
sons and daughters, not as servants but as friends. We have to think out
for ourselves the economic system, the policies of government, the
disciplinary methods, the educational ideals, that will incarnate the
Spirit of our Father. The all-sufficient answer to the charge of the
inadequacy of Jesus as a guide to social welfare is the fact, that only
in so far as we are able to express His mind in our social relations, do
they satisfy us. The advances made in our generation are conspicuous
instances of progress not away from, but up to Him. The crash of our
present commercial order in industrial strife, now scarcely heard in the
greater confusion of a world at war, gives us the chance to come forward
with the principles of Jesus, and ask that they be given a trial in
business enterprises that are based on co�peration, the joy of service
as the incentive to toil, responsible trusteeship of that which each
controls for the benefit of all the rest; in international relations
where every nation comes not to be ministered unto but to minister, and
loves its neighbors as itself--to ask that we seriously try the social
order of love. John Bright, unveiling the statue to Cobden in the
Bradford Exchange, said, "We tried to put Holy Writ into an act of
Parliament." We want the mind of Christ put into commerce, laws,
pleasures and the whole of human life.
And we come forward with confidence, because the Kingdom we advocate is
not merely a protest and a program, but also a divine _promise_. The
ideal of the Kingdom of heaven to which our consciences respond is for
us a religious inspiration, and has behind it a faithful God who would
not deceitfully lure us to follow an illusive phantom. "According to His
promise we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness." The city of our hope has not been designed by us, but
has been already thought out in God's mind and comes down out of heaven.
In our attack upon existing injustices and follies we raise again the
believing watchword of the Crusaders, "_Deus vult_" In our attempt to
rear the order of love, which cynics pronounce unpractical, we fortify
ourselves in the assurance that it is God's plan for His world, and that
we shall discover a pre�stablished harmony between the Kingdom of heaven
and the earth which we with Him must conform to it. We encourage
ourselves by recalling that, in the hearts of men everywhere and in the
very fabric and structure of things, we have countless confederates.
On one of Motley's most glowing pages, we are told how, after the
frightful siege and fall of Haarlem, and with Alkmaar closely invested
by the Duke of Alva, when the cause of the Netherlands seemed in direst
straits, Diedrich Sonoy, the lieutenant governor of North Holland, wrote
the Prince of Orange, inquiring whether he had arranged some foreign
alliance, and received the reply: "You ask if I have entered into a firm
treaty with any great king or potentate; to which I answer, that before
I ever took up the cause of the oppressed Christians in these provinces,
I had entered into a close alliance with the King of kings; and I am
firmly convinced that all who put their trust in Him shall be saved by
His almighty hand. The God of armies will raise up armies for us to do
battle with our enemies and His own." And the opening of the dykes
brought the very sea itself to the assistance of the brave contestants
for truth and liberty.
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