Religion and the War Part 9

Although the idea of constructive work entered the minds of these pioneers, the contributors were interested chiefly in the relief of want.

It soon became evident that this want was the result of certain well-defined causes. Sickness, unemployment, intemperance and child labor were recognized as the causes of misery and the extent of these causes was studied by societies which worked for their removal. These activities soon brought the realization that many of these causes were social rather than individual. Sickness is sometimes caused by individual excesses, but it is also caused by unhealthful occupations and life in miserable tenements. We had held property rights as sacred, but when greed brought a train of social evils we directed our attention to regulation. It may be meritorious to help a widow whose husband has been killed at a machine, but it is equally meritorious to safeguard the machine that it may cease to be the cause of widowhood in the future. It is good philanthropy to a.s.sist those afflicted with tuberculosis, but it is better to remove the disease-breeding "lung blocks" from our communities.

This brought the realization that these are community problems which must be met by community action. The state legislatures were appealed to with ever increasing success, but Federal action was difficult to obtain. The war has made us impatient with half-measures. The exigency demanded immediate and drastic action. Things have been done to obtain efficiency which we would have considered impossible five years ago.

The rights of private property have had to give way before community need. We have begun to deal on a larger scale with ultimate causes and less with the relief of apparent effects. This movement may receive a temporary setback at the close of the war, but as a community we have learned what is possible and this lesson will not be lost.

Certain social reforms are being hastened by the war. We have long felt that certain practices were harmful or wasteful, but in our easy-going manner had kept putting the matter off in the hope that the evil would cure itself. The necessity of waging successful war has compelled the immediate elimination of this waste. Take one or two instances only.

For a long time we have been more or less familiar with the financial, physical and spiritual waste resulting from the consumption of intoxicants in this country. We have been interested in this problem for a half century and various attempts have been made to eliminate the most serious evils connected with excessive drinking without interfering with a moderate use of alcohol. Our half-hearted attempts were not very successful and finally, after we had experienced a coal shortage, and had accepted wheatless and meatless days, the country at last made up its mind that intoxicants must go and the liquor traffic in this country appears to be doomed. It might have come sooner or later in any case, but the war has hastened the day.

For a long time penologists have realized that it was poor economy to shut prisoners into dark and dismal cells, giving them but scant exercise with little or no employment and then to expect them, at the expiration of their terms, to be returned ready to take their proper places in society. We have realized that out-door labor on farms was one of the best things for this cla.s.s because in this way the prisoners could be built up in health and be made more or less self-supporting while serving their terms. But we had the jails on hand and it was perhaps the easiest plan to lock the prisoners in their cells with the a.s.surance that they could be found when wanted.

The demand for farm labor has finally forced our jails and penitentiaries to give up the labor so sorely needed on the farms. It is probable that during the coming summer a million acres of land in this country will be tilled by those undergoing sentence.

We had recognized for years the ravages of venereal disease upon our manhood and womanhood, and a national society and a large number of state societies had been organized to combat the evil. But when the figures began to be published showing the incidence of these diseases among our troops the public awoke to the seriousness of the situation.

The Federal Government has taken steps to remove diseased women from the neighborhood of the army cantonments and naval bases. The Government is footing the bills for the treatment of these women in state inst.i.tutions, where such exist, and is providing suitable facilities for their care in the states where no such opportunity for treatment existed. After the war the lesson we have learned in this way is not likely to be forgotten. Another lesson we have learned from the war has been that a considerable proportion of our young men are physically below par. Poor care of the teeth and body, improper or insufficient food, lack of proper exercise, unhygienic methods of living, and various forms of excesses have produced a generation of young men many of whom are physically unfit for active military service. The importance of this fact has now been driven home, and although much had been said and written upon this subject in recent years, it will have added emphasis in the future.

We have always had a democratic form of government, and have in a way considered this country an asylum for the oppressed of all nations.

For several years previous to the outbreak of the war in Europe, we had been receiving into this country immigrants at the rate of about a million a year. We had gradually increased the number of restrictions until most of the undesirable types were excluded. We had made the process of naturalization comparatively easy and had left it to the individual immigrant to decide whether or not he would become a citizen. We had recognized the desirability of Americanizing these immigrants as soon as possible, but had proceeded about the proposition in a more or less half-hearted way. The Y. M. C. A., through its industrial department, and through the industrial service work in connection with the colleges, had done considerable to teach English and civics to the non-English-speaking foreigners. Several other organizations, some of them national in scope, had interested themselves in this problem, but our country seemed slow to appreciate the necessity of making true Americans from these various racial groups at the earliest possible moment. The war has brought home to us the fact that we have alien enemies in our midst and from this time we may expect to make a much more thoroughgoing attempt to Americanize these groups. The National Council of Defense is investigating this question at present and we may with confidence look to a well-considered plan of campaign from this body.

The very fact that we were receiving from the Old World annually a gift of a million foreign-born, most of whom were in the active ages, has led us to think that the supply of labor for this country was a.s.sured. We were receiving from Europe all of the natural increase from a population half as large as our own. The ships that brought these hopeful workers to this country took back many who had been maimed in our industries. We had paid too little attention to this problem since the source of this supply of cheap labor seemed inexhaustible. Upon the declaration of hostilities in Europe, the stream of labor to this country suddenly ceased and it is a serious question whether it will ever again reach its former proportion. Most of the European countries are going to be so drained of their young men that a large emigration from them is not to be expected for a long time to come. The demands for raw material and finished products from certain of the European countries has increased tremendously and a shortage of labor in this country has been the result. Concerns have bid against one another to secure sufficient labor and for the first time in years we have a condition in which the demand for labor of all kinds exceeds the supply. With the impossibility of securing this needed labor from abroad, we have realized the necessity of conserving the supply in this country. Every effort must be made to reduce the toll from accident and injury and to decrease the amount of sickness in the country. We may expect an increase in compensation insurance and in health insurance among the states. This summer we are having a campaign to save the lives of a hundred thousand children. This movement for the conservation of life would undoubtedly have come in time but has been hastened by the war. Thousands of our young men will be returned to us from overseas more or less crippled and steps are already being taken to give them expert training to fit them for some useful occupation. It is only a step to provide the same sort of training for those who are maimed in our industries.

No matter what may be the waste in life and property resulting from such a conflict, if the people of this country can preserve in their purity the ideals with which they have entered upon this crusade, social workers may face the future with confidence.

IX

THE WAR AND CHURCH UNITY

WILLISTON WALKER

The great war has been conspicuously one of alliances. For its successful accomplishment cooperation and individual subordination have been manifested in military, political and economic fields in heretofore unexampled fulness. Liberties, the result of long struggles, and deeply cherished, have been laid aside, for the time, that larger efficiency may be accomplished. Individual opinions strongly held have been subordinated to a common purpose. The time has witnessed a reappreciation of values in many realms. Much that in days of peace has seemed of importance, has appeared in the fierce light of war of relatively minor significance. A change of perspective has been the consequence. Has this result, so apparent in most realms of activity and of ordinary life, been manifest in the realm of religion?

Are the same forces at work there also? An answer to these questions cannot as yet be fully formulated; but it is at least possible to indicate certain influences which are at work.

The entry of the United States into the world-war has been in a degree unexampled in the history of this country a response to the appeal of righteousness. No action in which the nation has ever engaged has been so unselfish. We have taken our part in the struggle without hate, and with full consciousness of the prospective cost in life and treasure, that certain principles of justice may prevail, and that despotism, brutality and falsehood may not dominate the civilized world. We look for no indemnities, no annexations, and no pecuniary rewards. The American people has never more fully exhibited that idealism which, in spite of frequent misapprehension by those unacquainted with the real national spirit, is its fundamental characteristic. The consonance of this att.i.tude with some primary teachings of religion is apparent.

Self-sacrifice that the weak may be helped, that wrong may be resisted, and that a truer and juster order may be established among the nations, are aims that are closely akin to those of the Christian faith in its aspect of love to one's neighbor. Nor is it without evidential value to the essentially religious quality of American life that no enterprise has ever so united the people, and that Americans, whether so by long inheritance or immigrants who have more recently caught the national spirit, have never before been so at one in a common endeavor. Nothing less n.o.ble, less idealistic, less in a true sense religious could so have fused them into one.

The war, furthermore, has been a revelation of the fundamental purposefulness of the rising generation. The years immediately antecedent to the struggle saw not a little shaking of older heads over what were called the irresponsibility and pleasure-seeking of our young people. The call to arms has shown them as patriotic, as whole-hearted in devotion, as sacrificial as ever their elders were.

They need bow in reverence to none who have gone before them. The cheerfulness with which a selective draft has been accepted, and in thousands of cases antic.i.p.ated, has shown the readiness of youthful response to high appeal. This demonstration of the soundness, the earnestness and the unselfishness of those who are soon to be the leaders of the national life is full of religious encouragement.

Equally heartening has been the cheerful and effective answer of the responsible population of America to limitations in food and drink that the needs of the Allies should be met and the national resources conserved. Doubtless other nations in the world-struggle have made larger sacrifices and endured far severer privations; but the impressive quality of what America has done is that it has been so largely self-imposed, a voluntary sacrifice, in which suggestion rather than compulsion has been the task of its leaders. Strikingly impressive, also, has been the outpouring of wealth and effort to relieve human suffering through the Red Cross and kindred agencies, not only for the alleviation of the miseries of our own sons, but of the martyred population of Belgium, of France, of Poland and of Syria.

No village has been too small, no community too remote or too rural, to have a share in this altruistic endeavor. Its spirit is in a true sense that of religion. More openly and professedly religious has been the marvelous work of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation and of the Knights of Columbus. No previous war has seen anything comparable in extent of effort or scope of plan. The aim, and to a great extent the accomplishment, has been to cast Christian sympathy and brotherly helpfulness around the soldier and sailor in every camp at home and abroad, in the trenches, the hospitals, the battleships, the transports, and in the cities where his furlough is spent and his ideals so easily forgotten. These agencies have not labored for our own sons alone, but for those of France and Italy also. Even more impressive than the vast sums of money contributed from all over the United States for this cause have been the numbers and the quality of the men and women who have given themselves freely and in Christian consecration to this service. The Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation and the Knights of Columbus have been in truth the right arm of American Christianity stretched out to shelter, to hearten and to aid.

They have been the agents of the churches in their ministry. Without them the contribution of organized American Christianity would have been relatively ineffective. Through them that Christianity has exhibited itself in practical and achieving power as never before.

The outstanding feature of these conspicuous manifestations of American religious life is that they have been absolutely undogmatic.

Their type of Christianity has been broadly inclusive of what may be called universally accepted doctrine. Chaplains from most various denominational antecedents have labored together in a spirit of Christian comradeship, bearing only the sign of the cross. The workers, ministerial and lay, recruited by the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation have been drawn from all shades of American Evangelicalism and have wrought not only harmoniously one with another, but with the Knights of Columbus and with the representatives of Jewish faith. In common efforts to reach common needs, differences which loomed large at home have been laid aside. The requirements and experiences of our soldiers and sailors have been elemental, and these agencies have sought to meet them with a simple, earnest, uncontroversial Gospel,--the common denominator, if it may so be called, of our American Christianity. They have presented G.o.d, sin, salvation, faith in Christ, purity of life, brotherly helpfulness; and to this presentation the young manhood of our armies and navies has been quick to respond. These young men have cared little as to the particular denominational label which these messengers may have worn at home.

Spoken with manliness, sincerity and sympathy, the message has won their hearts.

These experiences have inevitably raised the question more insistently, which had already before the war been sounded increasingly loudly in our home churches, whether the divided state of American Christianity is to continue. It has long been deplored. Can it not be in a measure abated? A disposition to believe that it can is increasingly evident. The enlarging support given to the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ since the beginning of the war is significant of a growing conviction that at least a larger federal cooperation is not merely desirable but feasible. The much-divided Lutheran body has taken steps which promise its union in one fold. The last General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States has empowered a committee to issue a call for a Council to meet before the close of the present year by which practical action may be initiated looking towards the organic union of all American Evangelical Christianity. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States still urges its ambitious and remote plan of a World Conference on Faith and Order, aiming at a general reunion of Christendom; though in this case the war seems to have delayed rather than furthered the project. In the local field, the scarcity of fuel during the recent winter led to hundreds of instances of temporary combinations of congregations representative of different denominations throughout the northern portion of the United States.

Not only has no evil been the consequence, but better acquaintance and larger Christian sympathy have resulted. In some places, as in New Brunswick, N. J., these temporary unions have led to efforts to make these combinations permanent. It is evident that the possibility of a larger unity is being discussed as never before, and in a spirit which more than at any previous time tends to emphasize the great truths in which Christians are agreed and to minimize their differences.

Will anything permanently effective come out of this widely diffused desire? Shall we be satisfied with the remarkable exhibitions of Christian cooperation in our army and navy, shall we entertain a pious wish that something similar may be achieved at home, and will the end of the war find us, nevertheless, in our present divided state? The answer will depend on the sacrificial willingness of our American Christianity. Is it ready to pay the cost? That is a far-reaching question any answer to which is at present impossible, for the difficulties in the path of a larger union are enormous. Such a greater unity can be achieved only as several barriers of great strength are overthrown.

One such barrier is the inertia of local organizations. Few American communities are not confessedly overchurched, as far as the Protestant population is concerned. The spectacle of eight or ten relatively feeble churches ministering to needs which two or three larger bodies could much more effectively meet is one exhibited in hundreds of communities. Yet effective consolidation is opposed by serious obstacles. Long custom, ancient disputes, denominational loyalties, keep these relatively feeble bodies asunder. These prejudices are hard to overcome. "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain," is a feeling not peculiar to Samaria. Much of this local loyalty is not without its commendable qualities. It is bound up with traditions of parental piety, of devotion to a particular house of worship and to a congregation of believers in which one has grown up in the Christian life. These feelings are very real. Yet it is only as the advantages of a larger local unity become evident that our churches can rise to a greater consolidation and more effectively meet the local situation.

Only the larger good can drive out the lesser goods.

A further barrier, and one of no inconsiderable magnitude, which renders local union difficult is that our local churches are parts of large organic wholes for the advancement of the Kingdom of G.o.d at home and abroad. By their gifts, their sons and daughters and their prayers, the missionary societies are supported, by which the outreaching work of the Kingdom of Christ is carried forward. These societies are now denominational. If two local churches are to become one, where will their joint contributions go? One has aided one group of missionary societies. .h.i.therto, the other another. Shall the new union divide its gifts? If it does, will they be as extensive or the interest as great as formerly? These are practical questions for the missionary societies. The only final solution of such a situation would seem to be an extensive consolidation of the missionary societies themselves, so that they might become more representative of American Christianity, at least of American Evangelical Christianity, as a whole, rather than simply the organs of particular denominations.

A third barrier of difficulty barring the pathway of local consolidation is that of ministerial and ecclesiastical responsibility. Each of the various denominations now has its definite method of entrance on its ministry, and of responsibility for the character and standing of those in its pastorates. Each holds itself bound to aid its feebler churches in their pecuniary necessities. If a new congregation results from the union of two or more existing bodies representative of different denominations, where is the test of ministerial fitness, and the guarantee of continued ministerial standing to be found, and who is to aid such a church if financially feeble? These are the problems which are often raised by the so-called "community church." Of course these difficulties are often met by the united organization attaching itself to the denomination originally represented by one of its component parts; but this solution, though effective, makes so large demands on Christian self-denial as often to be impracticable in the present still comparatively feebly developed desire for unity.

A still further barrier to unity, both on the local field and on the larger national scale, is the fact, often overlooked, that the separations of American Christianity are really due quite as much to differences of taste as to divergencies of doctrines or of polity.

There is an Episcopal, a Presbyterian or a Methodist way of doing things that really differentiates these great families of believers quite as fully as their more generally acknowledged divergencies. They view the Christian life, they look upon worship, they express their deeper feelings, in unlike ways. The variety is not so much a diversity of belief as a contrast of temperaments. Being so, it is not susceptible to argument, or to adjustment by conventions or creedal agreements. It is to be met, if met at all, by the increasing spirit of democracy, which the war has done so much to foster. In proportion as the fundamental Christian democracy of America becomes a real consciousness these temperamental unlikenesses will tend to be subordinated to a larger unity of spirit. They will continue. Men are not all made in the same mould. But, it may be believed that they may be overcome by a growing recognition of unity in variety.

Moreover, in spite of an increasing longing that the mult.i.tudinous subdivisions of American Christianity be merged in a larger whole, much tenacious holding of peculiar denominational tenets will have to be overcome. The simplicity of the great truths which Christians hold in common will need to be more fully realized. Most American Evangelical denominations are now willing freely to admit that the essential verities of Christianity are held by their a.s.sociated communions, and that a true Christian life is possible in each of them. The evident working of the spirit of G.o.d makes a denial impossible. But while each denomination is thus willing to recognize a real, if grudgingly admitted, sisterhood as the share of the others, each regards its peculiarities of belief or practice as of extreme importance, if not to the being, at least to the well-being of the church, so that effective inter-communion seems impossible. An interesting ill.u.s.tration of this spirit has recently been shown in a discussion involving a communion which professes, one cannot doubt with sincerity, a desire for a reunion of Christendom. A proposition was made to it by a number of representatives of other communions, urging that the unity of American Christianity be ill.u.s.trated by joint ordinations of chaplains for service with the army and navy. That proposal, which involved no question of ministerial status in the home churches, was declined by its highest authorities. It is not conceivable that those who thus refused it believed that chaplains went forth to their arduous task in the name of Christ from other communions without the blessing of G.o.d; but such differences of apprehension as may still coexist with obedience to the one Master are evidently yet deemed too great to permit mutual Christian authorization for service. Doubtless many similar instances could be found, but as long as they characterize American Christianity at all they reveal the persistence of a spirit which exalts denominational peculiarities above the full recognition of common Christian discipleship.

These barriers have been thus frankly stated because they are very real, and while the impulse toward Christian unity now flows in increasing strength from the experiences of the great war, the movement in that direction must acquire far greater momentum before its work can be accomplished. Christian unity was never so fully before the thought of the American churches as now. Never were so many sincerely desirous of it. Never was its need so obvious as in these days when the church faces the tremendous problem of the reconstruction on a Christian basis of a shattered social order. It is a task which demands all the forces of an undivided Christianity. Yet desirable as the goal of unity is, it will never be reached save through the strenuous cooperant effort of all who long for it. That effort must be greater than any heretofore made. It must be patient and persistent and in full faith that the Master's prayer for his disciples demands their utmost endeavor.

Three steps are certainly needful for effective progress towards a larger unity:

There must be a clearer recognition of the things in the Christian faith which are of vital significance. The really great truths must be seen in their proper perspective. The simplicity of the Gospel must be increasingly recognized. We have too often elevated relatively subordinate convictions to an equality with the fundamentals of the faith. In this clearer perception of proportions the experiences of the religious work of the war is greatly aiding. We are seeing that in the Christian life we need not so many things as much.

No less necessary is it that a spirit ready to sacrifice the important, but relatively subordinate, be developed. No denomination is called upon to sacrifice alone. If unity is to be achieved, each must feel a willingness to subordinate that which though precious by custom or antiquity or cherished possession is yet divisive.

Even more imperative is it that American religious bodies know each other better. Existing side by side, laboring in the same communities, it is amazing how little real comprehension of each other's spiritual life now exists. In mutual acquaintance by common a.s.sociation, wherever such intercourse can be brought about, lies the corrective of much present misunderstanding that separates us. All that aids a common acquaintance is an aid to ultimate unity.

The consideration just mentioned makes it probable that the most promising present step is in the direction of federal cooperation.

Religious bodies that are far from willing to sink their present differences may yet work in harmony, and by working together increase that mutual understanding and thereby confidence in each other's Christian spirit which is so essential a preliminary to unity. That is what makes the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ and similar movements eminently worthy of support. They are not ends in themselves. They are means of utmost significance to a larger end.

The war is showing a vision of our need and of the goal of our effort.

That the road to a larger and more effective unity of the religious forces of America is full of difficulties is no reason why a Christian man should hesitate to tread it. It is as true now as when the Master said it, that "with G.o.d all things are possible."

X

THE RELIGIOUS BASIS OF WORLD RE-ORGANIZATION[1]

E. HERSHEY SNEATH

When we reflect upon the situation of the race today, with the leading nations in the throes of a war of unparalleled dimensions and destructiveness, we are appalled at the impotency of those forces that heretofore have tended toward world-organization. Time was when international treaties and laws seemed to have at least a semblance of inhibiting sanct.i.ty, but in recent years they are regarded in certain quarters as mere "sc.r.a.ps of paper," and the supposed "rights" of nations are treated with scorn and contempt. The black flag of piracy, hitherto regarded as the symbol of international outlawry, floats on the high seas, and the a.s.sa.s.sination of neutrals and noncombatants is regarded by some as a national virtue. For centuries humane considerations obtained with reference to prisoners of war and to partially conquered nations. Now, certain nations have subst.i.tuted for such humanitarianism, outrage, brutality and enforced slavery. In short, international pact and law seem to have broken down. Their restraints have yielded to the unbridled force of national greed and l.u.s.t for power.

Again, in the past, the moral imperatives, independent of political treaties and laws, have exercised a wholesome constraining and restraining influence on the relations of different peoples, and have made for fraternal world-organization. Man is const.i.tutionally a moral being, and is, to a certain extent, governed by sentiments of justice and benevolence. These moral elements of our nature have led us to have regard for man as man, rather than for men as members of particular nations and races. Hence, in our interaction there has been a tendency to recognize and respect what we have been wont to call human rights as growing out of the essential const.i.tution of personality. The same tendency has characterized our att.i.tude toward men organized under political government. But alas! these fundamental moral claims are now flagrantly violated. The morally right has, with some nations, degenerated into the right of might.

Again, in the past, art has made for the unification of the race. The aesthetic consciousness is on the side of harmony. It hates chaos and loves order. It functions in the social and political spheres and tends toward unity rather than anarchy--toward peace rather than war.

"Art binds together and unites the members of the nation; nay, all the members of a sphere of civilization; all those who have the same faith and the same ideals. Opinions and interests differ and produce discord; art presents in sensuous symbols the ideals which are cherished by all, and so arouses the feeling that all are, in the last a.n.a.lysis, of the same mind, that all recognize and adore the same ultimate and highest things."[2] When we deal with the ideal we are dealing with the universal. Thus art transcends both individualism and nationalism. It contributes toward international good will. But how ineffective it has proven along these lines during the last few tragic years. One of the first great outrages of the war was the wanton bombardment of the beautiful Rheims cathedral. The world protested against this iconoclasm, but it continued. Vandalism and robbing nations of their art treasures are features of _Kultur_; so the breach between nations widens despite the supposed unifying power of art. The nation of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Wagner grips with mailed fist the throat of the nation of Michelangelo, t.i.tian, Da Vinci, Correggio and Raphael, and tries to strangle the nation of David, Delacroix and Millet. The nation of Lessing, Goethe and Schiller schools its children in a gospel of hate toward the nation of Shakespeare and Milton and a long line of glorious poets from Chaucer to Browning. The refining and organizing influences of art have given way to the brutal instincts of malevolence and greed, and a lofty idealism that bound the nations together in a golden chain of beauty finds the precious chain rudely broken. Art, like the other binding forces, has apparently failed in its work of unification.