The Agony of the Church (1917) Part 4

The Churches of the different countries adopted the standpoint of those countries which governed them. What is the consequence if a Christian Church adopts the standpoint of a worldly Government as the true one? It means practically nothing else but that the said Church recognises that standpoint as the Christian one.

Now, if the German policy is right, the German Church is right, and consequently, the Russian Church is wrong; and, on the other hand, if the Russian policy is right the Russian Church is right, and, consequently, the German Church is wrong. The same, if the Serbian Patriotism, which dictates the Serbian policy, is right, then the Serbian Church, too, is right; and if the Austro-German Imperialism is right, then the Austro-German Churches are right, and the Church in Serbia wrong. Of course the same could be said for other belligerent Churches, i.e., the justice or injustice of the Church of England depended on the justice or injustice of the English Government, and the same about the French, Belgian, and Italian Churches, which are dependent on the justice or injustice of their respective Governments.

The same is true not only of the so-called established Churches, but of the Disestablished as well. The great fact remains: no Church whatever did protest against the War action taken by the respective Governments; no Church whatever refused to do the War work she was asked to do, and, finally, no Church whatever opposed her views to the views of the Governments. In one word, no Christian Church now existing has declined to be the very obedient servant either of Patriotism or Imperialism.

Future generations will be, I hope, more truly Christian than we have been--they will be shocked to read in the history of the greatest and bloodiest conflict in the world's history, that the worldly Governments, and not the Christian Church, formulated the truth; in other words, that the politicians and soldiers were bearers and formulators of the truth, and that the Church was only a follower and supporter of that truth, this truth having to wage War in consequence, i.e. the disobedience of all G.o.d's ten Commandments--not to speak of the New Testament--which truth must be condemned by the Church as untrue. Following to the extreme the ideals of Patriotism and Imperialism, the Churches partially did not shrink even from preaching War as a legal thing. The court preacher of the Kaiser, preaching in the Domchurch at Berlin after the Allie's refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Germany, said: "We have spoken to our enemies (read, the enemies of German Imperialism), and they did not listen to our words; well, let our guns talk now until our enemies are compelled to listen to us!" That is the voice of a great Church. Yet this voice has not remained unaccompanied with similar warlike and unchristian voices from other great and small Churches.

THE LITTLE ISLANDS AMIDST THE OCEAN

Why did not the Church--the educator of Europe for the s.p.a.ce of nineteen hundred years--why did she not protest against this War?

Because she was too weak everywhere; and, even if she had protested, her voice would not have been listened to.

But why was the Church so weak as to be silent at a most fatal moment in history, and to have to listen to the Foreign and War Offices to know what the truth was?

Because she was not a united, universal Church, like a lofty mountainous continent despising all the storms of an angry ocean around. She was weak, because she was cut in pieces and had become like an archipelago of small islands in a stormy ocean.

The Churches were not prepared to protest, they were prepared only to surrender to any temporal power. Therefore, they surrendered altogether, without making any effort, to Patriotism and Imperialism.

But what led to the Churches' surrender? It was through their internal quarrels; through their fruitless controversies and paralysing mutual accusations and self-sufficiency.

For instance:

The Eastern Church proudly insisted on her superiority over all other Churches, because she preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most ancient traditions of Christianity, and because she had an episcopal decentralised system of Church administration, which has been capable of adapting itself to all political and social situations. She reserved perfection only for herself, and was prodigious in criticising other Christian communities. She became an isolated island.

The Roman Church has had nothing to do with any other Church, living in her isolation and raising higher and higher the walls which separated her from other Churches. She has a wonderful record of missionary work in Europe and outside; she has a minutely organised centralisation, with an infallible autocrat at the head; and she has an enlarged dogmatic system, larger than any other Church. She pointed out again and again her superiority to all other Christian communities, and claimed for herself the exclusive right to speak in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus she became an isolated island.

The Anglican Church repudiated the papal authority. She repudiated as well the Eastern worship of the saints and use of ikons on the one side, and on the other she repudiated all the extremes of Protestantism in teaching, worship and administration. She thought in that way to be the absolutely true Christian organism, incomparably better than any other all around. Thus the Anglican Church became an isolated island too.

The Protestants of the Continent, and of England and Scotland, thought to save the Christian religion in its integrity by bringing it back to its primitive simplicity. By repudiating the Pope and the Bishops, by shortening the Christian dogmatic, and by reducing worship to a minimum, they boasted of restoring the true Church of Christ and His Apostles.

Everything which was an addition to their simplicity was regarded by them either as unnecessary, or even as idolatrous and false. Thus the Presbyterian and Protestant Nonconformist Churches became isolated islands.

But the more the morselling of Christianity went on, the more dangerous became the raging ocean around it, so that now the Christian Archipelago seems to be quite covered with the stormy waves. The Church, therefore, is in an agony everywhere. Even if the Church had no responsibility upon her shoulders for the present bloodshed in Europe, she would be in agony, just because the whole Christian world is in agony, but much more so because a great deal of responsibility for it must rest on her shoulders.

SELF-CASTIGATION

The Christian monks of old used to castigate themselves when a great plague came over the world. They used to consider themselves as the real cause of the plague, and did not accuse anybody else. Well, this extreme method ought to be used now by the Churches, for the good of mankind and for their own good. It would be quite enough to bring the dawning of a new day for Christianity if this self-castigation of the Churches were only a self-criticism.

If, for instance, the Eastern Church would say: Although I have preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most ancient traditions of Christianity, still I have many faults and insufficiencies. I have much to learn from the Roman Church, how to bring all my sections, all my national and provincial branches into closer touch; and from Anglicanism I have to learn the wonderful spirit of piety, expressed not only in old times, but even in quite modern times through new prayers, new hymns, new Psalms, added to the old ones; and from Protestantism I have to learn the courage to look every day to the very heart of religion in its simplest and most common expressions.

Or, if the Roman Church would use this self-criticism, saying: My concentration is my strength and my weakness. Perhaps, after all, my Pope is more a Caesaristic than a Christian Inst.i.tution, making more for worldly Imperialism than for the Spirituality of the world. I have to learn from the Christian East more humility, and from Anglicanism more respect for human freedom and social democracy, and from Protestantism a more just appreciation of human efforts and results in science and civilisation generally.

Or, if the Anglican Church would use self-criticism like this, and say, I am, of course, an Apostolic Church, but I am not the only Church. I have to learn from the Eastern Church something, and from the Church of Rome something, but, above all, I have to learn that they are the Apostolic Churches as well as I, and that I am, without them, too small an island, and unable to resist alone the flood of patriotic and imperialistic tendencies. And from the Protestants I have to learn to put the living Christ above all doctrinal statements and liturgical mysteries.

Or, if the Protestants of all cla.s.ses would abandon their contemptuous att.i.tude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and human words. Our worship is bare of every thing but the poor human tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of G.o.d than men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the Church, but now we see that the episcopal system is a golden midway between the papal and our extremes. Besides, we have gone too far in our criticism of the Church tradition and of the Holy Scriptures. We have to learn to abstain from calling the Eastern Church idolatrous and the Roman Church tyrannical, and the Episcopal Church inconsistent. We have our own idolatries (our idols are: individualism, human reason, and the human word); and we have our own tyranny (the tyranny of criticism and pride); and we have--thank G.o.d--our own inconsistencies.

Such a self-criticism would mean really a painful self-castigation, because it would mean a reaction from a policy of criticism and self-sufficiency which has lasted a thousand years, ever since the 16th July 1054--the very fatal date when the Pope's delegates put an Excommunication Bull on the altar of St Sophia's in Constantinople. The primitive monks, who practised self-castigation because of the world-evil, experienced a wonderful purification of soul, a new vision of G.o.d, and an extraordinary sense of unity with all men, living and dead. Well, that is just what the Church needs at present; a purification, a new vision of G.o.d, and a sense of unity.

A COMMON ILLUSION

The present agony of the Church has resulted from an illusion which has been common to all the Churches, i.e. that one of the Churches could be saved without all other Churches. It is, in fact, only the enlarged Protestant theory of individualism, which found its expression, especially in Germany, in the famous formula: "Thou, man, and thy G.o.d!"

It is an anti-social and anti-Christian formula too, quite opposed to the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father," which is in the plural and not in the singular possessive. This prayer is a symbol of our salvation: we can be saved only in the plural, not in the singular; only collectively, not as individuals: i.e. we can be saved, but I cannot be saved. I cannot be saved without thee, and thou canst not be saved without me. For if thou art in need I can be saved only by helping thee; and vice versa, if I am in need, thou canst save thyself only by saving me. And we all, and always, are in need of each other. Peter could not be saved without Andrew, and John and James, nor could the others be saved without Peter.

That is why Christ brought them all together, and educated them to live and pray together, and spoke to them in a.s.sembly as to one being. If Christ's method were like the German Protestant method, "Thou, man, and thy G.o.d!" He would really never have gathered the disciples together, but He would have gone to Andrew and saved Andrew first; and then to Peter and saved Peter; and then to John and James and the others, and saved them individually, one by one. That is just what He did not--because He could not do it. He knew, and He said (speaking of the two Commandments), that G.o.d is only one const.i.tuent of our salvation, and that the other const.i.tuent is our neighbours. What does that mean, but that I cannot be saved without G.o.d and my neighbours? And my neighbours! The whole of mankind must become the mystical body of Christ before any one of us is saved. If ninety nine of us think we are saved, still we must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one lost sheep is found and brought in; the door of Heaven does not open for one person only. And speaking in larger circles we may say: If ninety-nine Churches think they are saved, still they must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one retrograde Church has become the member of the mystical body of Christ. The door of Heaven is open for Christ only and for n.o.body else. And the mystical Christ does not mean one righteous man only, or two, or twelve, or one Church denomination, or one generation--no. It means milliards and milliards of human beings. All the Churches are inbuilt into His body. This building is yet far from being finished, still it is much larger and more magnificent than we think. It is larger than a denomination, it is loftier than our nation, or our race, or our Empire; yea, it is stronger than Europe.

Consequently, the Church of England cannot be saved without the Church of the East, nor the Church of Rome without Protestantism; nor can England be saved without Serbia, nor Europe without China, nor America without Africa, nor this generation without the generations past and those to come. We are all one life, one organism. If one part of this organism is sick, all other parts should be suffering. Therefore let the healthy parts of the Church take care of the sick ones. Self-sufficiency means the postponement of the end of the world and the prolongation of human sufferings. It is of no use to change Churches and go from one Church to another seeking salvation: salvation is in every Church as long as a Church thinks and cares in sisterly love for all other Churches, looking upon them as parts of the same body, or there is salvation in no Church so long as a Church thinks and cares only for herself, contemptuously denying the rights, beauty, truth and merits of all other Churches. It is a great thing to love one's Church, as it is a great thing to love one's country, but it is much better to love other Churches and other countries too. Now, in this time, when the whole Christian world is in a convulsive struggle one part against the other, now or never the consciousness of the desire for one Church of Christ on earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never should the appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of this one Church of Christ on earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never should the appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of this one Church begin in our hearts.

Stick to your Church: it is a beautiful and a holy Church, but, nevertheless, break up every sort of disgraceful exclusiveness from other Churches. That is the way to bring the Church out of the present agony and weakness. That is the best way for you to serve your own Church and your own nation. And the Crucified does not ask any other service from your Church in the present world agony.

CHAPTER IV

THE VICTORY OF THE CHURCH

WHAT IS THE CHURCH?

What is the Church, psychologically viewed?

The Church is:

1. A school of the Christian spirit. That is her first task in the world.

2. She is the Body of Christ. That is her official and physical determination--her firm, her name.

3. She is the living Christ Himself, i.e. Christ's body (consisting of all the human bodies inside the Church organisation), and Christ's spirit (filling all the human bodies inside the Church). That is her ideal, her end, her h.o.r.eb.

What is the Church, sociologically viewed?

The Church is:

1. A Theocracy. That is her general virtue, which she shares with all the religions in history.

2. She is a Christocracy. G.o.d is the abstract Ruler of Humanity, but Christ is the pragmatic G.o.d, leading, enlightening, encouraging and inspiring Humanity. That is the Church's special charter, special way, different from the charters and ways of other religions.

She is a Sanctocracy. The saints ought to lead mankind--not the great men of the world, but the saints. But when all men become saintly, no special leaders will be needed: no authority, no state, no law, no punishment. All men will do their over-duty, and all will be happy in their neighbour's happiness. The fight for right is an inferior stage in human history. It is a savage fight. But there will come a fight for over-duty. It will be a smiling, pleasant fight.