Part II. The Social Ideal Of Jesus
Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values
The Right Social Order is the Highest Good for All
The first three chapters dealt with simple human principles which are common and instinctive with all real men. Jesus simply expanded the range of their application, clarified our comprehension of them, placed them in the very center of religious duty, and so lifted them to the high level of great social and religious principles.
In the next three chapters we shall take up a conception which is not universally human, but which Jesus derived from the historic life of the Hebrew people—the idea of the “Kingdom of God.” A better translation would be “the Reign of God.” This conception embodied the social ideal and purpose of the best minds of one of the few creative nations of history.
How did Jesus interpret this inherited social ideal? What did the Kingdom of God seem to him to offer men? What did it demand of them? What immediate ethical duty did this social ideal involve? Our inquiry will move along these lines in the next three chapters.
Daily Readings
First Day: The Main Chance
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls: and having [pg 050] found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.—Matt. 13:44-46.
When war was common, property insecure, and safe deposit vaults were scarce, it was common for men to bury treasure in time of trouble and to forget it when they were dead. Whoever accidentally found it “struck pay dirt” and hastened to locate his claim. An extraordinary jewel, too, was a bonanza. The infant capitalists of that day were wise enough to liquidate their other holdings and invest everything in the main chance. Jesus calls for the application of the same method on the higher level. The Kingdom of God is the highest good of all; why not stake all on the chance of that? These parables were spoken out of his own experience. He was gladly surrendering home, comfort, public approval, and life itself to realize the Reign of God in humanity.
Imagine that Jesus had surrendered his religious idealism, had gained wealth and official standing, and died of old age. Would he have gained? What would the world have lost?
Second Day: The Master Fact
The Kingdom of God is a master fact. It takes control. When the Kingdom becomes a reality to us, we can not live on in the old way. We must repent, begin over, overhaul the values of life and put them down at their true price, and so readjust our fundamental directions. The conduct of the individual must rise in response to higher conceptions of the meaning and possibilities of the life of humanity. Tolstoi has described his conversion in the simplest terms in the introduction to “My Religion:”
Some seek religion to escape hell and attain heaven; some to attain a perfect personality; some to bring in the Reign of God. Give cases. Estimate the relative religious and social significance of these different spiritual experiences.
Third Day: Baptism and the New Order
John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the country of Judæa, and all they of Jerusalem; and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leathern girdle about his loins, and did eat [pg 052] locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit.—Mark 1:2-8.
The men who were baptized by John were not looking forward to death and to salvation after death, but to the coming of the Kingdom of God and of his Messiah. They repented and accepted the badge of baptism in order to have a share in the blessings of the Kingdom and to escape the imminent judgment of the Messiah. Baptism was then the mark of a national and social movement toward a new era, and was a personal dedication to a righteous social order. This original idea of baptism was practically lost to the Christian consciousness in later times. Every man who today realizes the Kingdom of God as the supreme good, can reaffirm his own baptism as a dedication to the social ideal and to the leadership of Jesus who initiated it. Such a social interpretation of our personal discipleship will bring us into closer spiritual agreement with the original aim of Christianity.
Has our baptism ever had a social significance to us?
Fourth Day: The Way to Happiness
This is a song of divine carelessness; not the recklessness of a tramp who has lost his self-respect and his capacity for long outlooks, but the carelessness of an aristocratic spirit, conscious of his high human dignity. God has given us life; will he not give what life needs? If the birds and the lilies can make a living, can not we? It is pagan and low-bred to wear out our souls with worry about minor needs.
The key to this passage lies in the words “your Father,” and “his Kingdom.” Man is a child of God, and that dignity gives some calm and assurance amid the worries of life. If we set our life toward the Kingdom as the supreme aim, all the lesser interests will drop to their proper place. In the measure in which the will of God is done and his righteousness practiced among men, the satisfaction of the main material wants will be easy. The Kingdom, the true social order, is the highest good; all other good things are contained in it.
To worry or not to worry, that is the question. Have we ever tried the adoption of a high aim as the way to happiness?
Fifth Day: Sunny Religion
Fasting was an important part of piety with strict Jews. It was an expression of religious sorrow and self-abasement. Afflicting the body intensified this spiritual emotion. The disciples of the Pharisees and of John were surprised and shocked by the fact that Jesus and his group disregarded this custom. The reply of Jesus shows the religious temper of Jesus in a new light. He says his disciples were happy, like guests at a wedding; why should they act as if they were mournful? Fasting was alien to the spirit which ruled in his company. It would be just as inappropriate as to patch a piece of unshrunken stuff on an old garment, or to put fermenting wine in old and brittle skin bottles. The religion of Jesus, then, was distinguished from other earnest religion by its happy and sunny character. See also the sharp distinction he makes between the ascetic life of John and his own enjoyment of social life (Matt. 11:16-19). Yet Jesus was a homeless man, moving toward death.
There seems to be a difference between the self-denial of ascetic religion, and the surrender of self to the Kingdom of God. What is it?
Sixth Day: The Poise of Expectancy
The Lord was to return soon and consummate the establishment of his Kingdom. The first two generations of Christians took this hope very seriously. Expectancy was the true pose of Christians. Under the conditions of that time this was their way of declaring that the Kingdom of God is the highest good and that all our life should be concentrated on it. If Jesus lived today he could find even more effective exhortations to look sharp and not get left. But is the constant expectation of a divine catastrophe from heaven possible for modern minds? Must we translate that expectation into the hope of moral and social development? By doing so, can we still have a religious sense of a great and divine future overhanging humanity which will give to our life the same value and solemnity which the first generation felt?
Explain what a strong social hope and faith would contribute to a person's life in the course of years.
How do faith and practical social effort react on each other?
Seventh Day: The Coming Joys
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus formally outlined his conceptions of ethical and religious life as distinguished from those then current. It was the platform of the Kingdom of God. We might expect it to begin with denunciation. Instead it opens with a spontaneous burst of joy. A great good was coming. It would bring a store of blessings to all who had the inward qualifications to receive them. All who felt the divine dissatisfaction with themselves and the craving for social justice and righteousness, would get their satisfaction (v. 3, 4, 6). The higher social virtues, gentleness, purity of heart, peaceableness, would get recognition and gain ascendancy (v. 5, 7, 8, 9). But the climax of praise and promise is for those who propagated righteousness where it was not wanted, and suffered for it (v. 10-12). “These words belong to the greatest ever uttered” (Hegel). They are pure religion, and they were called forth by religious faith in a social ideal.
Have we known men and women who had some of these qualities, who lived within the Kingdom of God, and who enjoyed its blessings? If they have ennobled our life, let us think of them a moment with a silent benediction.
Study for the Week
We see from the passages we have studied that the mind of Jesus was centered on a great hope which was just ahead. It was so beautiful that even in anticipation it was filling his soul with joy and he knew it would bless all who shared in it. It seemed to him so valuable and engrossing that a man ought to stake his whole life on attaining it, and subordinate all other aims to this dominant desire.
I
He spoke of this great good as “the Kingdom of God.” Even a superficial reading of the first three Gospels shows that this was the pivot of his teaching. Yet he nowhere defines the phrase. He took an understanding of it for granted with his hearers, and simply announced that it was now close at hand, and they must act accordingly. What did the words mean to them? The idea covered by the phrase was an historic product of the Jewish people, and we shall have to understand it as such.
The Hebrew prophets had concentrated their incomparable religious energy on the simple demand for righteousness, especially in social and national life. The actual life of the nation, especially of its ruling classes, of course never squared with the religious ideal. The injustice and oppression around them seemed intolerable to the prophets, just because the ethical imperative within them was so strong. So their unsatisfied desire for righteousness took the form of an ardent expectation of a coming day when things would be as they ought to be. God would make bare his holy arm to punish the wicked, to sift the good, to establish his law, and to vindicate the rights of the oppressed. This great “day of Jehovah” would inaugurate a new age, the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God. The phrase, then, embodies the social ideal of the finest religious minds of a unique people. The essential thing in it is the projection into the future of the demand for a just social order. The prophets looked to a [pg 058] direct miraculous act of God to realize their vision, but they were in close touch with the facts of political life and always demanded social action on the human side.
Plato's Republic and More's Utopia are intellectual productions which have appealed to single idealistic minds. The Hebrew prophets succeeded in socializing their ideal. By the force of religion they wrought the conception of the Kingdom of God into the common mind of a nation as a traditional conviction which was assimilated by every new generation.
But when a great idea is appropriated by the masses, it is sure to become cruder to suit their intellect and their need; and when a national ideal is handed on for centuries, it will change with the changing fortunes of the people that holds it. When the Hebrew nation came under the foreign rule of the Assyrians, Persians, and finally the Romans, its freedom and chance for political action were lost, and its political ideals, too, deteriorated. The Kingdom hope became theological, artificial, a scheme of epochs of predetermined length and of marvelous stage settings. Yet, even in this form, it was a splendid hope of emancipation, of national greatness, and of future justice and fraternity, and it helped to keep the nation's soul alive amid crushing sorrows.
The people at the time of Jesus in the main held this apocalyptic conception of the Kingdom. It was to come as a divine catastrophe, beginning with an act of judgment and resulting in a glorious Jewish imperialism. Jesus shared the substance of the expectation, but as a true spiritual leader he reconstructed, clarified, and elevated the hope of the masses. He would have nothing to do with any plans involving blood-shed and force revolution. The Hebrew Jehovah became "our Father in heaven" and this democratized the Reign of Jehovah. The pious Jew expected God to enforce the ceremonial laws; Jesus had little to say about religious ceremonial, and a great deal about righteousness and love. Under his hands the Jewish imperialistic dream changed into a call for universal human fraternity. He repeatedly and emphatically explained the coming of the Kingdom in terms taken [pg 059] from biological growth, and his thoughts seem to have verged away from the popular catastrophic ideas toward ideas of organic development. These changes—if we have correctly interpreted them—represent Jesus' own contribution to the history of the Kingdom ideal, and they are all in the same direction in which the modern mind has moved. (For a fuller statement of these modifications see Rauschenbusch, “Christianizing the Social Order,” p. 48-68.)
II
So much by way of historical information. Now let us emphasize again that this social ideal seemed to Jesus so fair and fine that he gave his whole soul to it. Naturally he would. Since he loved men and believed in their solidarity, the conception of a God-filled humanity living in a righteous social order, which would give free play to love and would bind all in close ties, would be the only satisfying outlook for him. He promised that all who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be satisfied in the Kingdom, and he was himself the chief of these. The Kingdom of God was his fatherland, in which his spirit lived with God; and with that vision of perfect humanity before him, he kept its calm and tranquillity amid the enmity of men as he sought to win men to its better ways.
The Kingdom of God is the highest good. The idea of God is the highest and most comprehensive conception in philosophy; the idea of the Kingdom of God is the highest and broadest idea in sociology and ethics. It is so high and broad that many find it hard even to grasp the idea. Just as a barbaric tribe of hunters or fishermen would find it impossible to comprehend the social coherence and the patriotism of a nation of a hundred millions; just as the narrow nationalist of today falls down intellectually and morally when he confronts world-forces and relations: so we who are trained to think in terms of family and State, give out when we are to treat the Kingdom of God as a reality. It takes faith of the [pg 060] intellect to comprehend a stage of evolution before it is reached. It takes faith of character to launch yourself toward a great moral goal before its tangible and profitable elements are within reach. It takes more moral daring today than for a century past to believe in the reemergence and final victory of God's social order. But this is the time for all true believers to square their shoulders and say with Galileo, “And yet it moves.”
Any man whose soul is kindled by the conception of the Kingdom of God is a real man. Whoever loves the idea, must turn it into reality as far as life lets him. Whoever tries it, will suffer. But even if he suffers, he will be more blessed and more truly a man than he would be if he did not try. In seeking the Kingdom he realizes himself. “He that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it.”
III
Jesus bade us “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and he obeyed his own call. The main object of his life was the ideal social order and the perfect ethic. Now if Jesus is our ideal of human goodness, is any goodness good unless it works in the same direction? If a man is of flawless private life, but is indifferent to any social ideal, or even hostile to all attempts at better justice and greater fraternity, is he really good? Even a strong desire for personal perfection, if there is no desire for a regeneration of society in it, must be rated as sub-Christian because it is lacking in the sense of solidarity and may be lacking in love.
Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
I. The Power of a Great Idea
1. Did the idea of the Kingdom of God ever play a part in your religious education?
2. Did you feel any response to it in studying this lesson? Does it have reality?
[pg 061]3. Suppose an entire study group should fail to see anything in it, would that prove it valueless?
II. Historical Changes in the Kingdom Ideal
1. How did the Kingdom ideal take shape in the minds of the Hebrew prophets?
2. Explain the nature of the apocalyptic hope and its divergence from the prophetic ideal.
3. What passages seem to throw the most light on Jesus' conception of it, and his feeling about it? What do you think about the Beatitudes from this point of view?
4. At what points did Jesus clarify and elevate the hereditary hope of his nation? Summarize the conception of the Kingdom as it lay in the mind of Jesus.
III. Present Possibilities of the Kingdom Idea
1. What value would the preaching of the Kingdom of God have in evangelistic work today?
2. How would it affect religious education and the moral outlook of the young?
3. How would the possession of the Kingdom faith equip the Church for leadership in an age of social movements and unrest?
4. How does the Kingdom hope add to the joyousness of the Christian life?
5. How does Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God connect with the great social and national hopes of today?
IV. For Special Discussion
1. How does a man realize himself in seeking the Kingdom? How does a man realize the Kingdom in developing himself?
2. Does the idea seem to offer a religious vehicle for conceptions you have derived from sociological work?
3. Does a social concept like the “Kingdom of God” gain [pg 062] anything for its practical efficiency today from being ancient, and from being religious?
4. Will such a concept ever be effective with the masses unless it is essentially religious?
Chapter V. The Kingdom Of God: Its Tasks
The Right Social Order is the Supreme Task for Each
The perfect social order is the highest good. In so far as it is a gift of God, offered to the individual like the fertile earth and the oxygen of the air, we must appropriate it and enjoy every approximation to the perfect society. But what is the responsibility of the individual toward the achievement of the ideal social order? What task does it lay on him? How did Jesus see this problem? It is finely stated in the words with which Émile de Laveleye closes his book “Sur la propriété”: “There is a social order which is the best. Necessarily it is not always the present order. Else why should we seek to change the latter? But it is that order which ought to exist to realize the greatest good for humanity. God knows it and wills it. It is for man to discover and establish it.”
What, then, is the responsibility of the individual with regard to the achievement of this highest good?
Daily Readings
First Day: The Kingdom of Hard Work
Evidently the sympathy of Jesus was with the two men who hustled, and not with the fellow who took it out in growling and blaming the boss. Jesus would have agreed [pg 065] to the proposition that to live an unproductive life is one of the cardinal sins. Evolution and Christianity agree on that. This exhortation to do good work was given when Jesus was looking forward to his death and his absence. He would leave the Kingdom of God as an unfinished task. He wanted his disciples to carry forward their Master's business under their own initiative when he was not there to direct them. The new conditions would throw even heavier responsibilities on them.
Can you translate this parable into terms of college life and sketch three college students as companion pieces to the three business men?
Second Day: The Call to Action
And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after him.—Mark 1:16-20.
And as Jesus passed by from thence, he saw a man, called Matthew, sitting at the place of toll: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.—Matt. 9:9.
And as they went on the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. [pg 066] But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And another also said, I will follow thee, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.—Luke 9:57-62.
The way in which Jesus called his disciples shows that he felt he had a big business in hand. It was a call to action, to conflict and loss, and there was snap in it. Leaving their boats and nets doubtless seemed a big proposition to these four fishermen; but they did it. Matthew had to give up a government job with pickings. These five rose to their chance with courageous decision, and their names are still borne by millions of boys today. The names of the other three are lost to fame. One of them gushed and Jesus cooled off his emotions. The second and third wanted to procrastinate and hid behind social obligations. Note that epigram about the ploughman. It is a splendid expression of intelligent and concentrated energy. You can't drive a straight furrow while you “rubber.” You've got to “tend to your job.”
Four of the first five are said to have died a violent death. Would they have been wiser if they had looked out for Number One?
Third Day: The Futility of Talk
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Every one therefore that heareth these words of [pg 067] mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.—Matt. 7:21-27.
Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much of the religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that case it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God among men.
How about our own religious talk?
Would it be better, then, to give up preaching and public prayer?
What has the utterance of religion done for us?
Fourth Day: This Camel Passed Through
Zacchæus was engaged in the profitable but shady business of farming the Roman taxing system in one of the richest districts of Palestine. He was a politician and business man combined, and the kind of man that is “bound to land.” Being only five feet one he had no chance amid a crowd in a narrow street watching a procession. So he climbed a tree. Imagine a corporation president climbing a telegraph post to see Jesus! This spirit of determination appealed to Jesus and he promptly made friends with him, though he well knew he would lose some more of his reputation by identifying himself with a publican. Zacchæus proved his fitness for the Kingdom of God by parting with his accumulated graft at a single sweep. Fifty per cent of his property given away outright; the balance used to make restitution at the rate of four hundred per cent—how much was left? Here a camel passed through the needle's eye, and Jesus stood and cheered.
At what points is the moral energy of college men and women most severely tested? Where do they meet their great spiritual decisions?
Fifth Day: Will in Prayer
In most of his sayings on prayer Jesus either objected to the wordiness of prayers (Matt. 6:5-13), or he demanded more will and persistence. In the story of the widow and the judge the odds were against the widow. Being only a widow she had no pull and no vote. The judge was frankly a tough case, untouched by religion and conscience, and thick-skinned as to public opinion. Yet the widow won out by sheer doggedness. Surely the mind that sketched the reiterating widow and the collapsing politician had an admiring eye for energy of action. Jesus wanted that spirit and determination put into prayer. But note that he was thinking, not of personal edification, nor of private benefits to be obtained, but of the “avenging of God's elect”; that is, of straightening out the affairs of the world so that the wrongs of the righteous would be redressed. A keen social consciousness about the condition of God's people, coupled with “hunger and thirst for justice,” can turn prayer into action.
Have we any experience of prayer concentrated on great public evils? How does that differ from prayers centering about our own interests? (See Fosdick, “The Meaning of Prayer,” Chapter X.)
Sixth Day: Twelve against the Field
This whole chapter expresses with immense vitality the heroic spirit called forth by the Kingdom propaganda. Jesus sent these twelve men through the villages of Galilee to duplicate and multiply what he was doing. The natural leaders of society, the able, the educated, the powerful, were concerned in setting up their own kingdom and enslaving their fellows to serve them. So Jesus took what material he had, peasants and fishermen, and created a new leadership. He flung them against existing society, knowing well that they would have to face opposition. In fact, they were destined, one by one, to go to death for their cause. He tells them not to mind a little thing like death, but to do their work and rally the people around the idea of the Reign of God.
Can the men and women who are today trying to rebuild human society on a basis of social justice and fraternity claim any right of succession in the sending of the Twelve?
Seventh Day: Doing All, and Then Some
Jesus often boldly took his illustrations from the facts of life even when they were repellent to him. Here he holds up the joyless life of a Syrian agricultural laborer. After plodding all day in the field, this man comes home, tired and hungry. Is he promptly cared for? No, he must first cook and serve his master's meal. Then he can eat what's left. Does he get any thanks for working overtime? Not a thank. Now, says Jesus, what this man does under the hard coercion of his lot, you and I must do of our own free will. After we have done a man's work, let us go and do some more for the sake of the cause, and disclaim praise. That spirit of utter service is, in fact, the spirit in which men work when the Kingdom vision gets hold of them. They become greedy for work and can not satisfy themselves. The strong and inspired men always feel at the end that they have not done half they ought to have done. The last words of Martin Luther, scribbled on a scrap of paper, were: “We are beggars. That's true.”
What would Jesus say to a college student who is chronically tired and who feels that he is laying his professors and his father under heavy obligation by working at all?
Study for the Week
Is it not a strange fate that down to the most recent times art has pictured Jesus all meek and gentle, and theology has emphasized his passive suffering? Yet he was high-power energy. His epigrams and hyperboles crack like a whip-lash. He was up before dawn. He always rose to the [pg 072] sight of human need. To do the will of his Father was meat and drink to him. His life was a combat. He faced opposition without flinching and “stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem” when he knew it meant death. Even when he stood silent before the court and when he hung nailed to the gallows, he was a spiritual force in action and men were disturbed and afraid before him.
I
He communicated energy to others. He hated mere talk and discouraged fruitless theorizing. He praised energetic action when he found it, as in the case of Zacchæus, and of the men who climbed the roof with a paralytic man and dug up the roofing to let him down to Jesus. He called that sort of thing “faith.” Faith, in Jesus' use of the word, did not mean shutting your eyes and folding your hands. He said it was an explosive that could remove mountains. He gave three of his disciples nicknames, and they were all given to express forcefulness; Simon he called Peter, the Rock; and James and John he called Boanerges, the sons of thunder. He sent his disciples open-eyed to face trouble; he told them the wolves were waiting for them, but to rejoice and be exceeding glad for the chance of lining up against them. Let us clear our minds forever of the idea that Jesus was a mild and innocuous person who parted his hair and beard in the middle, and turned his disciples into mollycoddles. Away with it!
Though the spirit of Jesus has never had more than half a chance in historic Christianity, yet it is demonstrable that the total efficiency of humanity, the bulk of work done, and the capacity for heroic tension of energies have been greatly increased by it. Taking it on the smallest scale—every real conversion means a break with debasing habits, with alcoholism, with the waste of sexual energies; it means more self-control, more responsiveness to duty, more capacity to take a long outlook, and consequently better work. We can [pg 073] observe this in ourselves and others. We still need the coercion of stern necessity and of public opinion to keep us straight, but an inward compulsion is added. A Christian carries his policeman around inside of him. Where Christianity gets a really firm hold on men or women, especially if there is a basis of natural ability, it pushes them on to lead in moral movements and they break away for human progress.
When Christianity multiplies such cases, and makes soberness, duty, and hard work the habit of entire communities, we have a social fact of first-class importance; for the human animal is naturally lazy, sluggish, and inclined to live for today. The capacity to subordinate immediate gratification for a future good is scarce; the capacity to subordinate selfish advantage to a great common and moral good is scarcer still.
We can see this force working on a larger scale on the foreign mission field where Christianity is a new social energy. There it is easier to disentangle it from other social forces. What are the comparative results when it gets a lodgment in a single social class or tribal group? This question will bear watching during the next fifty years. The full social results of Christianity will not show till the third generation.
We get another demonstration of increased working efficiency in humanity wherever Christianity has passed through an internal purification which has set free more of its spiritual energies. What, for instance, has been the historic connection between the development of capitalistic industry in Holland, England, and France, and the sober and frugal piety and patient laboriousness created in the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans of England, and the Huguenots of France?
II
The contributions made by Christianity to the working efficiency and the constructive social abilities of humanity in the past have been mainly indirect. The main aim set before [pg 074] Christians was to save their souls from eternal woe, to have communion with God now and hereafter, and to live God-fearing lives. It was individualistic religion, concentrated on the life to come. Its social effectiveness was largely a by-product. What, now, would have been the result if Christianity had placed an equally strong emphasis on the Kingdom of God, the ideal social order? Other things being equal, a Christian father and mother are better parents than others because they have more sense of duty, more love, and a higher valuation of spiritual things. But if, in addition, they have a religious desire for a higher social order and realize that noble children are a splendid contribution to it, how will that affect their parenthood? A teacher, artist, or scientist who is also a religious man, will do conscientious work if he works under the motives of individualistic religion. But if he has a vision of the Kingdom of God on earth and sees the contributions he can make to it, will not that raise the character of his output? A business man of strong Christian character will work hard, keep his word in business, and deal fairly with employes and customers. But would not a new direction be given to his moral energies if his religion taught him that he must help to shape the workings of industry and trade so that hereafter there will be no fundamental clash between business and the morals of Christianity?
What the world of Christian men and women needs is to have a great social objective set before them and laid on their conscience with the authority of religion. Then religion would get behind social evolution in earnest.
This would be no new and foreign element imported into our religion. It would be a modern revival of the doctrine of Jesus himself, which has been too long submerged and neglected. One chief reason why it was side-tracked is that no despotic State and no society dominated by a predatory class ever wanted religion applied to a reconstruction of the social order. The idea of the Kingdom of God reawoke with the rise of modern democracy. Now is the time for it.
III
The idea of the Kingdom of God is not identified with any special social theory. It means justice, freedom, fraternity, labor, joy. Let each social system and movement show us what it can contribute and we will weigh its claims. We want the old ideal defined in modern terms, in the terms of modern democracy, of the power machine, of international peace, and of evolutionary science. But we want to embrace it with the old religious faith and ardor, so that we can pray over it.
This great task of establishing a righteous social life on earth embraces all minor tasks in so far as they are good. The mother who tries to make a good home, the farmer who feeds the people, the teacher who trains them, the scientist who gets the facts for all, the merchant, the workingman, the artist, the leader in play—they are all contributing to the Kingdom, provided they view their work so, and are trying to put an evolutionary plus into it which will lift the total nearer to the divine will. The Kingdom is the supreme task, and all small tasks are part of it. That gives every man a place in it who works—where is the idler's place in it?—and it hallows all good work with religious glory.
It may seem as if this social aim of religion may depreciate the aim of developing our own personality and of saving our souls. It ought not. Sometimes it does for a time. But we are each so enormously important to ourselves that we are not likely to forget ourselves, and the practical struggle with temptation and sorrow will teach us to seek strength for our personal needs from Christ. In time we shall learn to say with Jesus, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified.” In time surrender to the Kingdom ideal, toil for it, self-denial for it, cooperation with others for it, will have the strongest kind of reactions on ourselves and our moral fiber. Gymnasium work is all right, but real work in the open is better. We are most durably saved by putting in hard work for the Kingdom of God.
[pg 076]In every great task a religious man is consciously thrown back on the aid of God—most of all in the greatest task of all. Eternal powers are cooperating with our puny efforts. That alone guarantees that our work is not wasted. We plant and water, but unless God's sun shines upon it, our work is nothing. He is a fool that is not reverent and humble. We sorely need this faith in the collaboration and patience of God today when so much of the best spiritual achievement of mankind is swept away, and we seem far away from a kingdom of love. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
IV
Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. A collective moral ideal is a necessity for the individual and the race. Every man must have a conscious determination to help in his own place to work out a righteous social order for and with God. The race must increasingly turn its own evolution into a conscious process. It owes that duty to itself and to God who seeks an habitation in it. It must seek to realize its divine destiny. “Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!” This is the conscious evolutionary program of Jesus. It combines religion, social science, and ethical action in a perfect synthesis.
What has this to say to students? Everything, it seems.
First, whatever is to be our particular job, we must relate it to the supreme common task at which God and all good men are working. Unless we see and assert that relation, we are mere day-laborers or slaves, with neither intelligence nor enthusiasm.
Second, anyone who, instead of loyally relating his life-work to God's work, pursues his own ambition at the expense of the Kingdom and damages it to make profit for himself, is like a man who takes pay to damage his country. He [pg 077] makes the work harder for all who are more faithful than he, and their blood will be upon him.
Third, “noblesse oblige.” If we belong to the republic of learning and education, something extra is justly due from us. Here, for instance, is the evangelization of the world in this generation. An organization has been created to accomplish it. Heroic pioneers have died, preparing the way for larger forces. Is our life fit and good enough to put into that? Here is the Christianization of the social order in the next two generations. What have all our social studies been for in the design of God? To fit ourselves for exploiting our fellows or to show them the way to the Kingdom of God?
Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
I. Our Untapped Reserves
1. How far is a person who produces nothing, of use to the community? Is increase of productive efficiency the test of progress?
2. Does religion help to call out reserves of energy in human nature?
II. The Energy of Jesus
1. How far did Jesus give evidence of audacity and high power energy? Has the Christian Church realized this? How about the portrayals of him in art?
2. Furnish evidence that Jesus demanded sincere work. How was this connected with the Kingdom of God in his mind?
3. Give proof that he demanded heroism of his followers as a commonplace thing.
4. How did this temper affect his view of prayer?
III. Christianity and Work
1. Has Christianity ever promoted idleness? If so, what type of Christianity was it?
[pg 078]2. Taken as a whole has Christianity increased the amount of work done, or lessened it? Give historical proof.
3. Would it raise the economic efficiency of an African tribe to become Christians? Would it raise the efficiency of the Mexican people if they adopted a purer type of Christianity? How?
4. Where is the idler's place in the Kingdom of God?
IV. The Reenforcement of Christianity by the Kingdom Ideal
1. Is a call to be converted a call to enjoy spiritual peace or to exert spiritual energy?
2. How has the idea arisen that Christianity is a "dope" to make people contented amid wrong conditions?
3. How would the Kingdom faith give religious quality to the plain man's job?
4. Other things being equal, has a religious man more or less fighting energy against wrong than a non-religious man?
5. If a man passes from an individualistic to a social conception of religion, what change will it make in moral action?
6. To what extent is the enterprise of the Kingdom of God a dynamic expression of accepted sociological principles?
7. What is the special obligation of college men and women to the Kingdom of God?
V. For Special Discussion
1. Is the Kingdom of God to be brought about by an act of God in the future or by the work of men in the present? Does the one exclude the other?
2. Does our social order call out the full energy and intelligence of the working people?
3. Can an overworked and underpaid workman feel that he is working for the Kingdom of God?
[pg 079]4. Does the Kingdom of God necessarily involve elements of social readjustment and change?
5. Would a predatory governing class in the past have allowed the preaching of a social conception of the Kingdom of God?