The Social Principles of Jesus Part 16

Jesus did not demand self-effacement and the suppression of ability. He welcomed evidences of n.o.ble self-a.s.sertion. His own Messianic call was a summons to the highest leadership. His temptations were the settlement of leadership problems. His final lament over the city of Jerusalem was a burst of sorrow because he had failed to win his people to follow him.

Now, in moving about among men to win them for the Kingdom, Jesus encountered the leaders who were on deck before he came-the wealthy men who controlled the economic outfit; the official groups who held what political power was left to the Jews; and the lawyers, theologians, priests, and zealots who dominated the religious life of a very religious people. These cla.s.ses overlapped; together they const.i.tuted the oligarchy of his nation. Both sides soon realized that there were fundamental antagonisms between them. The conflict grew acute, until it headed up in the great duel of the last days at Jerusalem. His experiences in this conflict with hostile leadership are recorded in the pa.s.sages which we have studied and others like them.

II

In the fundamental reply to James and John he formulated his observations in a great political generalization: "Ye know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them and their great men hold down the rest by force." In its earlier and cruder forms, the State is a contrivance of a victorious group to hold down the conquered, and exploit them. If anyone has not yet read political history as an account of systematic exploitation of nation by nation and cla.s.s by cla.s.s, he has some education still coming to him.

Even where political leadership has not been plainly predatory but rested on real service, humanity has often had a heavy price to pay for it.

Successful military leaders were able to perpetuate a royal dynasty and perhaps fasten a race of hereditary incapables on a nation, to be maintained in royal splendor. The feudal n.o.bility performed useful work in the earlier, turbulent times, but it continued to take rent and tribute for centuries after its useful functions had lapsed. Modern business men who have organized public service corporations have often served the nation well, but they now own the highways and fundamental outfit of the nation, and if their descendants or a.s.signees collect tribute, perhaps on inflated capitalization, for generations to come, it looks like rather costly service. The obligations of power have a curious way of getting lost in the shuffle of time, but t.i.tles, rank, legal privileges, rent, and interest are carefully groomed. If one man loses them, some other man nurses them, and the people always pay.

The Kingdom of G.o.d sets a fraternal and righteous social order against the predatory and unrighteous order which humanity has inherited from the past. The new order must have a new dynasty of leaders, for every social order has its own kind of aristocracy. Jesus does not propose to abolish leadership, but he proposes a new basis for greatness which is sharply opposed to the old: "Whoever has ambition to be a great man among you, let him be your servant; and whoever is ambitious to rank first among you, let him be your bondservant. Just as the Son of Man did not come to have others serve him, but to render service and to give his life as a ransom for many." Ability and ambition are still to lead, but they are to be yoked to the service of all. Not he who kills and subjugates, but he who makes life safe and happy, shall have the statue set up in his honor. Not the great warrior and killer, but the great healer and the man who multiplies the blades of gra.s.s and the ears of wheat and the size of potatoes shall be the great names treasured. The higher the honor craved, the more strenuous must be the service; if a man wants first prize, he must get down to voluntary slavery. The old way to leadership was to knock others down and climb up on them; the new way is to get underneath and boost.

III

Jesus put himself under this law of leadership. We see from his words that the cross was the outcome of a consistent principle adopted by him. The rules he laid down for his apostolate were meant to bar out selfish acquisition: "Freely ye received, freely give. Get you no gold, nor silver, nor bra.s.s in your purses; no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff; for the laborer is worthy of his food." It is a significant fact that again and again religious leaders who really cared for the condition of the people, have tried to create a genuine leadership for them along the same lines; Francis of a.s.sisi gathered his "little brothers"; Peter Waldus his Bible teachers; Wycliffe his "poor preachers"; John Wesley his local preachers and itinerants; William Booth his ensigns and captains with the big ba.s.s drum; and the entire foreign mission propaganda calls for leaders who will go to the people and offers them nothing but enough to live in health. Today practically the entire Christian ministry, one of the most important bodies of men, has come under the law of leadership for service. It was once, at least in its upper-cla.s.s sections, rich with unearned incomes, pervaded by graft, and domineering in spirit; it is now a clean and plain-living profession; whatever its shortcomings, graft and extortion are not of them.

The question is now, whether other professions will go through the same historical process of cleansing. The religious spirit has pioneering qualities; under its impulse men blaze the trail which broad social movements or historical developments follow later. Greedy leadership first seemed intolerable in the Church; after a time it may become intolerable in politics and business. The trend of civilization is toward intelligent service on plain pay. Educators, judges, scientists, doctors are on that basis now. It has become dishonorable for them to use their positions for a holdup. The great discoverers in the line of sero-therapy might have taken toll in golden streams, but they did not. It would have been contrary to the ethics of their profession. That means that their profession is on a Christian basis. Where graft is taken out of politics, officials become devoted public servants. The reproach has been made against a man of great ability that at the end of his life his name is not connected with any great cause or measure for the welfare of the people.

Whether the judgment was just or not, that point of view is the one to take.

Can business be brought under the law of service? Or is commerce const.i.tutionally incapable of it? There are many indications that a conscious spiritual change is coming over those men in business who have enough intellect and character to look beyond immediate needs. The type of business leadership which took millions out of filthy factory towns, wore out women and took the youth out of children, cleared twelve per cent from slum tenements, kept men and women from marriage by underpayment, and kept the cradle empty by high prices and fear of the future-this type of leadership is antiquated. It belongs to a pre-Christian and pagan age. It is only a question whether business leaders will voluntarily turn their back on such misuse of power or have a change forced on them. Those who mark time on the old methods will become moral derelicts, and their wealth will not forever screen their moral obtuseness.

The nation needs leaders who will persuade conservative farmers to use scientific methods; who will teach our wasteful people the value of self-restraint, and the beauty of cooperative buying and selling; who will teach our communities that it is a sin to rob our own children by leaving soil, water, and forests poorer than we found them; who will give the people good housing without taking the unearned increment; who will organize the dangerous industries for safety; who will place the relations of leaders and workers in industry on a basis of justice and goodwill so that industrial peace can be attained. Is such an object satisfying to a young man of business capacity, or does he want to build a million dollar house and populate it with one child? It is confessed that civilization has been succeeding on the technical side and failing on the ethical. The more the machinery of life is concentrated in the hands of a limited group of business leaders, the more important does the social enlightenment and moral objective of these leaders become to society. To which of the two types do we belong?

IV

Will a life of service satisfy the capable and call out their best powers for the service of humanity? Men will play the game according to the rules of the game. If humanity changes the rules, its strong men will still let out their energies, because they can not help it, and they will like themselves all the better for being on the side of their fellow-men. There is no pleasure in being isolated, eyed with resentment, and conscious of hardness. If ten per cent net means long hours, low wages, and repression, and if six per cent would mean good will and contentment, it might pay the leaders of industry to take less in dividends and take it out in the higher satisfactions.

For men of great ability this is the chance for enduring fame. Who will remember the men that did nothing but ama.s.s wealth? Who of our presidents are remembered and loved? Those who suffered with and for the people.

The leadership of service validates its rightness by its intellectual results. Predatory and parasitic cla.s.ses become intellectually sterile and ignorant of real life. A man who wants to serve men, must get close to them. If we carry a load uphill, we have to choose our footing, and will perforce become intimately acquainted with the law of gravitation. Nothing develops the intellect like heading a just cause and fighting for it.

Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. The ambition of the strong must be yoked to the service of society. Power and honor must be earned by distinguished and costly service. Progress along this direction marks the progress of the Kingdom of G.o.d. Extortionate and domineering leadership must be superseded where the Kingdom of G.o.d moves forward.

V

Does the life of our colleges and universities square with this principle?

College men and women crave honor from their fellows, or their fraternities crave it for them vicariously. How do the "big men" in college win it? Do they win it by raising the standards of intellectual work for all? By making fun clean and honorable through the power of a clean public opinion? By creating a college spirit which will put manhood into every generation of Freshmen that plunges into it? Or do they win honor by organizing parties, by intoxicating themselves and others with frothy "social" successes, by acting for the gallery to see and applaud, and by wasting the dynamics of youth on shooting rockets that look like stars and come down like sticks? Such men are essentially selfish; even their service is self-seeking and deserves no honor from others. The more talented and attractive they are, the more damage do they do. They perpetuate their kind. If fraternities or honorary societies honor and reward that sort of leadership, they force individuals into futility, and reenforce the natural temptation to shallow work and display by the powerful pressure of socialized public opinion.

What has just been said applies to the inner life of the college group during its brief command over young men and women. But meanwhile the outside life is waiting for them. Society creates and finances the colleges and universities from the social fund created by those who work.

A college man who toys with his work and fights those who want to make him work, ought to be demoted and his chance given to some workingman who has intellectual hunger and would use it. But even of the able and efficient college men society has a right to inquire whether it is training enemies and exploiters or friends and leaders. This question will be asked more and more insistently by democracy as it becomes intelligent. Christianity antic.i.p.ates this inquiry by its appeal to the individual conscience. Every college man and woman should choose the principle on which he proposes to exercise leadership in case he wins it. Are we willing to gain wealth by impoverishing others? Are we willing to get pleasure by degrading others?

Are we willing to gain power and freedom for ourselves by making others powerless and unfree? Jesus distinguishes three kinds of men who are interested in the sheep-the robber, the hireling, and the shepherd. You can tell the presence of the robber by the death of the sheep; the hireling by his cowardice; the true leader by his valor and love.

A special word should be said to college women. In her book on "Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner has pointed out that as families rise to wealth, the women slip into parasitism more readily than the men. They cease to do productive work, accept the luxuries of life as their right, and fall in with upper-cla.s.s pretensions. The means of leadership-time, wealth, social resources-are at their command. How will they use them? The number of women with unearned incomes is increasing rapidly in America. Now, if much is given them, much will be required. Can they produce enough social values to justify what they consume? The least we can do is to give as much as we get. Anything less is immoral.

What kind of influence do college girls exert on able young men who turn toward them in love? Nothing will shrivel the idealistic conceptions of life in a young man as thoroughly as love for a selfish woman. The world is full of eyeless Samsons, grinding the money-mills, and whipped to a quicker pace by smiling grafters-who would not recognize this description of them if they saw it.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Need of Leadership_

1. Does the need of leadership diminish with the spread of democracy? With the growth of education?

2. Do we need leadership more or less in America today than fifty years ago?

II. _Jesus on the Problems of Leadership_

1. Give proof that Jesus consciously confronted the problem of social leadership.

2. What elements did he condemn in the old leadership of his nation?

3. What principle of leadership did he lay down for the new social order?

4. What body of leaders did he create, and what standards of special honor did he impose on them?

5. What do we think of the historic effectiveness of the leadership he created? What is the true interpretation of Judas Iscariot?

6. What evidences are there in Jesus' career that he was true to his ideals of leadership?

III. _The Problem of Leadership in History_

1. How have the great leaders in the field of religion attacked the problem of leadership in the Church? What does the Protestant Reformation signify from this point of view?

2. How have the landed aristocrats of the past met the Christian test of leadership?

3. Give examples from history and from modern life of men who exercised power in the way Christ condemned. Give examples of others who exercised it according to Christ's law.

IV. _The Problem of Leadership in Modern Life_

1. In what professions is ambition now securely tied up with service, so that a man must serve well in order to rise?

2. In what positions can a man still gain power and wealth by exploiting society?

3. Is the consciousness that they are public servants spreading among business men? If so, to what is this due?

4. Is society paying too big a price for the leadership of the industrial aristocracy today?

5. When the interests of the stockholders are set over against the health of women and children, and the safety of employes, which consideration determines the wages paid?