Some Christian Convictions / A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking

e born of the bodies of others, as our minds are formed from the mental heritage of the race, our faith is the offsp

stre for want of intellectual companionship. "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." A Christian's religious experience requires fellowsh

ishing-houses and campaigns of lectures. A learned man may do something by himself for his children or his friends; but he can do incomparably more for a larger public if he is associated with other learned men in a faculty, assisted by the publications of the press, and receives pupils already prepared by other teachers to appreciate his particular contribution. An earnest believer can accomplish something by himself for the immediate circle

Church, in the sense of the spiritual community, which shares the life of Christ with God and man, as there is an unorganized intellectual community of more or less educated persons who possess the mental acquisitions of the race. But

aw and doctrine, with its synagogues with their worship and instruction in every town and a ministry of trained scribes, and with a wider missionary undertaking that was spreading the Jewish faith through the Roman world. It was a community with its sectarian divisions of Sadducees, Ph

services were crude and dull, but He entered into their worship that He might share with fellow believers His expression of trust in His and their God. He did not invent a new theology, but used the old terms to voice His fuller life with God. He was primarily interested in the religious experience that lay back of gove

corporate feeling that separated them from their fellow Jews, a corporate feeling Jesus had to rebuke because of its exclusiveness: "Master, we saw one casting out demons in Thy name; and we forbade him because he followed not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us." On the eve of His death He kept a Supper with them, which pictured to them

ers of the supreme worth of Jesus. We get at what they think of themselves by the names they use: they are "disciples," pupils of the Divine Teacher; "believers," trusting His God; "brethren," embodying His spirit toward each other; "saints," men and women set apart to the one purpose of forwarding the Kingdom; "of the Way," with a distinctive mode of life in the unseen and the seen, following Jesus, the Way. They called themselves the Ecclesia-the called out

spiritual lives to him. And beside this informal leadership of gifted individuals, a more formal chosen leadership came into existence. God's Spirit used the materials at hand; and Christians in various parts of the Roman world had been accustomed to different types of organization in their respective localities, and these types suggested similar offices in the Church. Some had been accustomed to the town government of a Palestinian village by seven village elders; and this may have suggested "the Seven" chosen in Jerusalem to care for the poor. Some were brought up with the Oriental idea of succession through the next oldest brother, and this may account for the position of eminence held by James, "the brother of the Lord." Some in Gentile cities had been members of artisan societies, guilds with benefits in case of sickness or death, not unlike lodg

ings for mutual inspiration. "What is it then, brethren: When ye come together, each one hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, h

they are possessed and controlled by the one Spirit of love; they are confident in a victorious hope; they draw inspiration from the historic facts of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection. But they interpret their inspirations in f

ish Church, and became the Church of Christ, dominated by His living Spirit and organizing itsel

tention to forms of organization and doctrine that would last but a few years. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that forms which were suited to little groups of people meeting in somebody's house, waiting for their Lord's return, will answer for great bodies of Christians organizing themselves to Christianize the world. No institution can remain changeless in a changing world. "The one immutable factor in institutions," writes Professor Pollard, "is

Spirit maintains the identity of the Body of Christ. We must carry forward the Spirit of Christ, and keep unbroken the apostolic succession of spiritual men and women, all of whom are divinely appointed priests unto God. We must realize that, as members in the Body of Christ, each of us must fulfil some function for the Kingdom, or we are not living members, but paralyzed or atrophied. There is a continuity of life in the Church that cannot be interrupted; we must inherit this life from the past, and we must pass it on to those who come after us. Just as the first Christians felt themsel

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rst days has been breathed on us, through the long line of apostolic-spirited men and women who reach back to Jesus, and lives and rules in us. We must keep the unity of the Spirit with the believers of the past, and with all who are Spirit-led in the world today; and we must remember that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." We

ably used. The practical problem in Church reorganization is identical with that which confronts society in politics and in industry-how to secure efficient administration while safeguarding liberty, how to combine the solidarity of the group with the full expression of its members' individualities. To be effective the Church must work as a compactly ordered whole. Individuals must surrender personal preferences in order that the Church may have collective force. Teamwork often demands the suppression of individuality. There will have to be sufficient authority lodged in those who exercise oversight to enable them to lead the Christian forces and administer their resources. But we dare not curtail the freedom of conscience, or impede liberty of prophesying, or turn flexibility of organiza

of the existing churches. A Christian should enroll himself either in that communion in which he was born and to which he owes his spiritual vitality, or else in

to the endlessly diverse temperaments of men and women. We are not seeking for the maximum common denominator, and insisting that every communion shall give up all its distinctive doctrines, ritual, customs and activities. We do not want any communion to be "unclothed," but "clothed upon," that what is partial may be swallowed up of fuller life. Dogmatists, be they radicals or conservatives, who insist on a particular interpretation of Christianity, ecclesiastics who arrogantly consider their "o

ng force those who possess the Spirit of Christ, and so are divinely called into the Church and divinely endowed for service. We must make our own communion as inclusive

Church, and that his own direct ecclesiastical forbears freely used a liturgy, and even composed some of the most beautiful parts of the Book of Common Prayer; and an Episcopalian will not cultivate the gift of expressing himself in prayer in words of his own because this is the practice of other communions. As every communion employs in its hymnal the compositions of men and women

of the tenements. Class lines are as apparent, and almost as divisive, in our churches as anywhere else. The Church of Christ under such circumstances ceases to be a unifying factor in society; its teaching of brotherhood becomes a mockery. In every community there will be found some entirely unchurched social group; and the churches themselves will be impoverished by the absence of the spiritual appreciations to be found most developed in persons of that stratum. Our denominational divisions tend

ut in the Holy Spirit." A second is filial trust in God: "Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." A third is self-devoting love akin to that shown on Calvary: "The fruit of the Spirit is love;" "By this shall all

ne sufficiency. We confront the indifference, the worldliness, the wickedness of men; we face an earth hideous with war and hateful with selfishness. We think of the Church's often absurdly needless divisions, the backwardness of its thought, the coldness of its devotion, the inefficiency of many of its methods, the want of consecration in a host of its members, the imperfections and

y renders itself less and less necessary. It has to lose itself in sacrificial service in order to save itself. It must never ask itself, "Will the community support me?" but "Can I inspire the community?" As it seeks to do God's will, it can count on Him for daily bread; a more luxurious diet would not be wholesome for its spiritual life. I