The Social Principles of Jesus Part 2

IV

Doubtless the objection has arisen in our minds that it is not in the interest of the future of the race that religious pity shall coddle and multiply the weak, or put them in control of society.

But did Jesus want the weak to stay weak? Was his social feeling ever maudlin? He was himself a powerful and free personality, who refused to be suppressed or conformed to the dominant type. He challenged the existing authorities, one against the field. Even in the slender record we have of him we can see him running the gamut of emotions from wrath and invective to tenderness and humor. It was precisely his own powerful individuality which made him demand for others the right to become free and strong souls. Other powerful individuals have used up the rest as means to their end. What human life or character did Jesus weaken or break down? He was an emanc.i.p.ator, a creator of strong men. His followers in later times did lay a new yoke on the spirits of men and denied them the right to think their own thoughts and be themselves. But the spirit of Jesus is an awakening force. Even the down-and-out brace up when they come in contact with him, and feel that they are still good for something.

"Jesus Christ was the first to bring the value of every human soul to light, and what he did no one can any more undo" (Harnack). But it remains for every individual to accept and reaffirm that religious faith as his own guiding principle according to which he proposes to live. We shall be at one with the spirit of Christianity and of modern civilization if we approach all men with the expectation of finding beneath commonplace, sordid, or even repulsive externals some qualities of love, loyalty, heroism, aspiration, or repentance, which prove the divine in man. Kant expressed that reverence for personality in his doctrine that we must never treat a man as a means only, but always as an end in himself. So far as our civilization treats men merely as labor force, fit to produce wealth for the few, it is not yet Christian. Any man who treats his fellows in that way, blunts his higher nature; as Fichte says, whoever treats another as a slave, becomes a slave. We might add, whoever treats him as a child of G.o.d, becomes a child of G.o.d and learns to know G.o.d.

"The principle of reverence for personality is the ruling principle in ethics, and in religion; it const.i.tutes, therefore, the truest and highest test of either an individual or a civilization; it has been, even unconsciously, the guiding and determining principle in all human progress; and in its religious interpretation, it is, indeed, the one faith that keeps meaning and value for life" (President Henry C. King).

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Ordinary Estimate of Men_

1. How much do we care for a man if he is of no practical use to us?

2. On what basis do we ordinarily value men?

II. _Jesus' Estimate of Men_

1. Which source pa.s.sages in the daily readings seemed to put the feeling of Jesus in the clearest light?

2. How did the religious insight of Jesus reenforce his social feeling?

3. To what extent is it possible to duplicate his sense of humanity without his consciousness of G.o.d?

III. _The Valuation of the Individual in Modern Life_

1. List the evidences that modern society values men as such apart from economic utility or standing, or show that it does not so value them.

2. Is the tendency in modern life toward a lower or higher valuation of the individual? To what extent is this due to the influence of Christianity?

3. How do the statistics of industrial accidents agree with our Christian valuation of life?

IV. _The Test of History_

1. What widespread and successful movements for social justice have there been outside the territory influenced by Christianity?

2. How do modern missions serve as an experiment station for the problem of this chapter?

3. What connection was there between the Wesleyan revival and the rise of the trade union movement in England?

V. _For Special Discussion_

1. Do permanent cla.s.s differences necessarily result in a slighter social feeling for the inferior cla.s.s?

2. Describe the cla.s.s lines drawn in your home town.

3. Did you feel these lines more or less when you entered college?

4. Does college life tend to make us callous or sympathetic?

5. Does life in social settlements seem to increase or decrease respect for human nature in college men and women?

6. How would you preserve your self-respect if you were a working man placed in degrading labor conditions?

7. Does an honor system build up self-respect?

8. Have your scientific studies, and especially evolutionary teachings, increased your regard for humanity in the ma.s.s?

9. According to your observation, does religion make a man a stronger or weaker personality?

Chapter II. The Solidarity Of The Human Family

Every man has worth and sacredness as a man. We fixed on that as the simplest and most fundamental social principle of Jesus. The second question is, What relation do men bear to each other?

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Social Impulse and the Law of Christ

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.-Matt. 22:35-40.

Which among the mult.i.tudinous prescriptions of the Jewish law ought to take precedence of the rest? It was a fine academic question for church lawyers to discuss. Jesus pa.s.sed by all ceremonial and ecclesiastical requirements, and put his hand on love as the central law of life, both in religion and ethics. It was a great simplification and spiritualization of religion. But love is the social instinct which binds man and man together and makes them indispensable to one another. Whoever demands love, demands solidarity. Whoever sets love first, sets fellowship high.

_When Jesus speaks of love, what more than mere emotion does he mean?_

_Is love really the highest thing?_

_What do you think of the epigram of Augustine:_ AMA ET FAC QUOD VIS?

Second Day: Jesus Craving Friendship

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray.

And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and sore troubled. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and watch with me. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pa.s.s away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.