“Christian Citizenship” Again
By L. A. S.
A WRITER in Collier’s Weekly (New York) says that the greatest issue before the country is that of Christian citizenship. Such a thing as Christian citizenship does not exist now, he affirms, but it could be quite easily created. It would simply mean, he says, that all Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, and if they would do that, he is confident they could carry every election with ease. He reasons on the subject like this:—
It will be conceded that every man’s first duty is to God; it will also be conceded, and with strong emphasis, that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his first duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man. Whenever a Christian votes, he votes against God or for him, and he knows this quite well. God is an issue in every election; he is the candidate in the person of every clean nominee on the ticket; his purity and his approval are there, to be voted for or against, and no fealty to party can absolve his servant from his higher and more exacting fealty to him. He takes precedence of party; duty to him is above every claim. It is the Christian congregations that are responsible for the filling of our public offices with criminals, for the reason that they could prevent it if they chose to do it. . . . They could accomplish it by each individual resolving to vote for God at the polls; that is to say, vote for the candidate whom God would approve. This writer is sure that this would save the country, and that without it the country is surely going to moral destruction. Advocates of this and similar plans for saving the nation do not usually give much attention to the practical details of their scheme, but deal in general statements which clothe it with an appearance of plausibility. When we come to consider its practical working, some difficult questions arise. How is the voter to know, for example, whether it is the clean Democratic nominee, or the clean Republican candidate, who represents God in an election? Or whether God is represented in the person of some other candidate for the office — Populist, Prohibition, etc.? Or do all clean opposing candidates represent God, and so make God divided against himself in the election? And what could the clean officials accomplish without the support of clean public sentiment? It is well known that public sentiment is the force on which the efficiency of the laws depends. And where sinners are in the majority, how are they to be outvoted by the saints? There is, unfortunately, conclusive evidence that this world is mostly given over to the control of the former class, whose spiritual ruler is designated as “the prince of this world.” The real problem therefore becomes that of the conversion of sinners into righteous men, and this takes the matter out of politics and into the realm of that upon which alone men depend for conversion — Christianity. These various schemes of “Christian citizenship” and for effecting the moral salvation of the nation through politics have one vital fault; they operate upon the supposition that God is to become a partner in the political schemes of men. God himself has not so designed it. He will let men into partnership with him in his purposes, but he does not become a partner with men in man’s purposes. The plans and the wisdom by which they are executed, must be all of God. But as these things are now managed, men organize a political party, draw up the platform, nominate the candidates for office, and then it is expected that the Almighty will join himself to their organization. The Omnipotent does not work on that plan. He has an organization in the earth of his own devising; he has framed its platform; he has established agencies by which its work is to be accomplished, and its work is that of saving individuals from sin, and thus promoting righteousness in the earth. The organization, the principles and platform, the plans of work, and the agencies, the wisdom and the means, are all of God; and he invites all men to co-operate with him in the work. That organization is the Christian church. This is why it is that history shows no instance where the moral regeneration of a nation was accomplished through politics, notwithstanding almost innumerable attempts of the kind, and why any hope of saving the country by such means to-day is absolutely futile.