Present-Day Church Decadence Explained
By L. A. S.
The danger of mistaking humanitarianism for Christianity,—of making more of the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” than of the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” etc.—was pointed out recently by a well-known American layman, Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, as being one, and perhaps the chief, reason of the present decadent state of the Christian church. In a paper on “The Apparent Decadence of the Church’s Influence,” read at a meeting of the Church Club, of New York City, Captain Mahan said:— In my judgment, the church of to-day, laity and clergy, have made the capital mistake in generalship of reversing the two great commandments of the law,—the two fundamental principles of her war, established by Christ himself. Practically, as I observe, the laity hold, and the clergy teach, that the first and great commandment is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Incidentally thereto, it is admitted, “Thou shouldest love the Lord thy God.” It is of course too egregious an absurdity openly to call that the second commandment. It is simply quietly relegated to a secondary place. You may perhaps dispute this deduction as a matter of fact, or may remind me of St. John’s words, “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, can not love God whom he hath not seen.” It is evident, however, on reflection, that St. John is in no sense inverting our Lord’s order. He simply appeals to evidence. This man says that he loves God. Very well, where is the proof of it? Does he love his brother? If not, he certainly does not love God, for the love of the brethren is the sure, inevitable fruit of loving God. In fact, the whole missionary spirit, and much that is not narrowly missionary, involves love for brethren whom we have no more seen than we have seen God. The love of God is the one sure motive and source of the love for man. The love of God, and that only, is Christianity; and he who does not put this “first and great commandment” first, will not observe the second, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” There can of course be really no such thing as putting the second commandment above the first; for he who does not observe the first will not observe either one; but there can be, and is, as Captain Mahan points out, a substitution of certain forms of regard for the welfare of one’s neighbor for the duties owed both to God and to man, a confounding of Christianity with philanthropy, of the external results of the life with the life itself. Christianity is a life, and the manifestation of that life is seen in acts of benevolence; but the essential thing is the life, and not the outward results. For these outward acts of benevolence, considered by themselves, are often misleading. A man, or a church, may be outwardly benevolent without being Christian at all. A verse in the well-known thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians speaks on this point: “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity [love], it profiteth me nothing.” Of a man’s primary duty to save his own soul, Captain Mahan observes:— Is not the judgment of the world expressed, and is it not a true judgment, in the words of indifferent contempt for a man who is trying to save his own soul—his miserable soul, as I have sometimes read? And yet what is a man’s soul? It is the one thing inexpressibly dear to God, for which, if there had been but one, he was content to give his Son, and this he has intrusted to the man as his own particular charge; I do not say his only charge, but the one clearly and solely committed to him to make the most of. It is the talent which he is to multiply by diligent care; not that he may delight in it himself, but that he may present it to God through Jesus Christ. . . . Because care of one’s own soul, by internal effort and discipline, seemed selfish, men have rushed to the extreme of finding in external action, in organized benevolence, in philanthropic effort, in the love of the neighbor—and particularly of the neighbor’s body, for the neighbor’s soul was naturally of not more account than one’s own—not merely the fruit of Christian life, but the Christian life itself. That the kingdom of God is within you, an individual matter primarily and in essence, and only in consequence, and incidentally external, as all activity is but a manifestation of life, and not life itself,—all this was forgotten. This I conceive to be the state of the church now—I mean as an organization. As a remedy, and the only remedy that will avail, there must be, the captain says, a restoration of personal religion—“the direct relation of the individual soul to God—to that primary place in the Christian scheme which it has momentarily lost.” This is true, and it means a restoration of individualism, as against the fast-prevailing doctrine that the individual must sink himself in the mass, that human welfare is to be promoted by the rule of “the greatest good to the greatest number”—the majority against the minority. In Christianity the principle of majority rule has no place. Christianity concerns a relationship between two parties only,—the individual and his Creator. Individual accountability, individual faith, are fundamental in its teachings. Individual faith means individual thinking and acting for one’s self in the sphere of religion; and this demands also the separation of the church from the state, with the recognition of individual rights, both religious and civil. All this has been worked out in human history since the day when the keynote of the Reformation was struck in the preaching of the doctrine of salvation by faith. An uplifting process which broke the fetters of civil and religious slavery, followed from that preaching, and out of it has come the blessings of freedom which we enjoy to-day . But there has come a turn in the tide, a backward flow toward papal doctrines and principles, which ere long will bring into conflict with the powers of this world those who hold to their Christian individualism. There will never come in or through the churches that restoration of “personal religion,” “the direct relation of the individual soul to God,” which Captain Mahan sees to be necessary, for the churches are fast drifting away from Protestantism; but Christianity still remains the bulwark of individualism, and each individual who would seize the prize which Christianity offers must restore and maintain personal religion in his own experience. It is to this that each one is called by the proclamation of God’s message for this day, which is to separate a people from the world, and prepare them for that kingdom which will sweep aside all man-made sovereignties, and restore on earth the perfect government of God.
L. A. S.