Christian internationalism

Front matter

Cornell University Library

The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Function of Christianity in the

World i

Chapter II The Old Testament And Internationalism

Christians base their faith upon the Bible. They profess to regard it as the rule of their faith and conduct. It becomes then a matter of real importance that any movement or cause claiming the interest and support of Christian people should be able to justify itself on scriptural grounds, or at least to show that it is in general harmony with the teachings of the Bible rather than antagonistic to them.

What is the attitude of the Old Testament toward internationalism? One might be a reasonably careful reader of the Old Testament books, or even a student of them, and come upon little or nothing on which to base the theory or practice of godly internationalism.

There have been few books so openly and intensely nationalistic as the Old Testament writings. There have been few races so vividly conscious of being different from other people, having a holy mission, few people so certain that the purposes of God were wrapped up in them, as the ancient Hebrews were. In fact the remark has been common of late that the God of Germany is in reality the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the God of a chosen people, Who sends out His people with a passion and a program and a sword, to make the world serve that one chosen nation. There has been a distinct reaction against the Old Testament, on the ground that there is so much in it which seems to harmonize with that intensely nationalistic temper of which Germany is the chief exponent. Irving Bacheller, in his little book, " Keeping up with William," says that it is time the Old Testament was " divested of its odor of sanctity," for much of it " reads like a report of the German General Staff."

There is much to warrant the impression that internationalism finds little recognition in the Old Testament. We see God choosing one man, and then the descendants of that one man, as His peculiar people. He gives His law to them; He makes His revelations through them ; He protects and guides them ; He sends them to dispossess and kill off and subjugate other races. Their heroes are intense nationalists, — Moses, abandoning Egypt, demanding the right of way through territories belonging to other races, leading a war of extermination against the Amalekites because of some ancient injury Israel had suffered at their hands; Joshua, refusing to make any covenant or agreement with the people of Canaan, killing men, women, children, and cattle when a town was captured; David, setting Israel high above the surrounding nations; Ezra and Nehemiah, with their strict prohibition of inter-marriage, and their rigid refusal to come to any friendly relations with the Samaritans; the Maccabees, nationalists to the last degree. It might well seem that the first thing for the internationalist to do, if he would have a Bible that would sanction his aims and hopes, would be to throw out from his Bible the entire Old Testament.

But closer and deeper study reveals certain facts, in the light of which our estimate must be revised. Here are certain conclusions which become clear to the honest and thoughtful student :

First, we must admit the presence, in the Old Testament, of an outgrown element of aggressive nationalism, and must beware of counting it still authoritative or admirable.

Christ did come to fulfill the law, to do away with much of the old thought and practice of the people of God. The Old Testament is rightly bound in with the New as one volume of the Word of God; our Bible would be seriously impaired were the Old Testament to be dropped from it; for it shows the growth of our faith. Christianit7 cannot be rightly seen in a static condition. It must be seen living, growing, changing, to be seen at all as it is. Growth and change are essential to it. Christianity cannot be set forth in a set of slides, each complete in itself. It must be seen as a moving picture, where one scene melts into another, and the true impression comes from the movement of the whole, rather than from the separate parts. The Bible is the record of how Christianity came to be what it is.

That necessarily involves the inclusion, in the earlier portions of the Bible, of much which now is obsolete, and which we must frankly admit to be outworn or outgrown. We may then, and we should, accept the fact of the presence, here and there through the Old Testament, of a bitter, sectional, nationalistic tone, — the temper we associate with the word " jingo." The Book of Esther glories in the exaltation of the Jew, in the misfortunes that come upon his enemies, in the glory of his victory over them. Luther heartily disliked Esther, calling it a " heathen " book. Ezra and Nehemiah set forth a policy of race exclusiveness, which makes it clear to us that the feud between the Jews and the Samaritans was not all the fault of the Samaritans. Certain of the Psalms and of the prophecies reflect this temper, with their intensely nationalistic spirit, their glorification of the

Hebrew race. We are shown, as the Ideal ruler, one who shall rule the other nations with a rod of iron, and " dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." The Messiah, riding forth at the head of his troops, will smite the foe so vehemently that the ravines will be filled with corpses.

The plain, crude, original meaning of many of these Old Testament passages has been softened and obscured by a process of spiritualization, a reinterpretation in the light of Christian thoughts and emotions. We read the 63rd chapter of Isaiah, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah," and we see Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, " marching in the greatness of his strength," " treading the winepress alone," " bringing salvation." The blood we see is His own blood, shed to redeem men. We need not quarrel with those who can thus take that passage. But it is beyond all question that no such vision was in the mind of the original writer. He saw a conqueror, a War-Lord, returning from a bloody campaign against Edom, the enemy of Israel; He has trampled the people in his fury, and it is their blood that is sprinkled on his garments. It is a cry of satisfied vengeance, of exultation almost savage over punishment meted out to men of another, an alien, race.

In our attitude toward the presence of such passages in the Bible, we are helped very greatly by the newer light on the Bible and on the doctrine of its inspiration. A half century ago or less many were seriously troubled over the divine approval of the slaughter of the Canaanites, and the unchristian spirit of certain Psalms. I remember the way in which my boyish protests were met, with reference to the slaughter of the Canaanites. I was told that the Canaanites were the worst of all people, brutal and beastly folk, who had to be exterminated as a jungle full of wild beasts might be. But better acquaintance with the facts showed me, later, that there was no foundation for the claim that the Canaanites were the wickedest of all men. The argument ran merrily 'round in a circle, as many another has done : The Israelites killed the Canaanites because they were so wicked. How do we know they were so wicked? Why, they must have been, or God's people wouldn't have killed them. It is a characteristic bit of squirrelcage theology.

The sane, true explanation is in terms of growth. These parts of the Old Testament are valuable still as showing us that out of which we have grown, the crude, early stages of that development of the knowledge and service of God which comes to us purified by the handling of Jesus Christ. They are in the Bible as warnings to us, not as examples, not as justification for a similar spirit on our part. He who uses the nationalistic temper of the Old Testament to justify a narrow jingo spirit to-day shows that he has not grasped the very heart-significance of the Bible as a revelation of God and of religion; for that heart-significance lies in growth, movement, religious development which is ever leaving " its low-vaulted past."

The Word of God is our light. All along the coast line of our country are light-houses. Many of them are set to indicate where safe harbors lie. They say to the mariner, " Come; here is safety." But many more of them are set to warn the mariner away from dangers. They say, " Beware; come not here; a ship was wrecked here." Who would say that the lights that warn are not as useful as the lights that beckon? Much that we find in the Old Testament the Spirit of God has set there for warning, to show us where the people of God made false steps, thought wrong thoughts, followed wrong lines that led to disaster. And the Bible is never more truly a " light to our way " than when it thus shows us the mistakes of the people of God, that we may not fall into the same errors.

This then is the first fact to remember in estimating the relation between the Old Testament and internationalism, — that much of the Bible is outgrown, to be frankly set aside as possessing no authority over us to-day.

The second great fact to be kept in mind is the fact that these very parts of the Old Testament, and this entire policy of exclusiveness and narrow nationalism, were necessary at the time that men might be carried on through them into broader and more generous views and practices.

So far as we can see, it was necessary that God, in leading men on to the full truth, should set apart one people, and train them, with an exclusiveness almost rigid, in order to the ultimate good and blessedness of mankind. This is not to justify all their exclusiveness and narrowness. When God allows an inch, men take a yard, particularly when it is in the direction of their natural instincts.

But that method of restricted, intensive cultivation is the method of nature, and that means that it is the method of God. When Luther Burbank undertakes to produce a plant of a certain variety superior to any now to be found, his ultimate hope and aim is to have that plant cultivated everywhere, proving a blessing to all men. But he begins by carefully isolating certain plants for experimentation; he guards them jealously from influences surrounding them, until he has produced the superior plant.

There never was a religious leader so concerned for all humanity, so free from racial or class particularity, as Jesus. Yet Jesus deliberately chose twelve men and gave the major part of His attention to them. His aim was the reaching of all men; but His method wa s the m ethod of restricted an d intensive cultivation. -■—-- ^

An example from political evolution is right at hand. America began as an experiment in democracy. Our first President warned us, in a phrase still harped upon, to beware of " entangling alliances." It was wise and necessary advice. Until we had established our government, confirmed our strength, tested our principles, achieved a real and thorough unity — and we had to fight a great war before all that was won — it was the part of wisdom to avoid entanglements, to pursue a policy of comparative isolation. But now we are beginning to lift our eyes to a wider horizon, to see that " what God has given us, He has given us for all mankind," to see, as President Wilson so forcibly said in his address at Mount Vernon on July 4th last, that Washington and his fellows were doing something of vital concern to all the world of mankind, and not for one people only.

So in the outworking of the true religion, that restriction which marked the earlier stages was in order to future growth, to universal blessing. We can see that it may have been necessary, perhaps it was the only way, to keep the people aloof, to guard them jealously from inter-mixture of race or of thought, to cultivate in them an intense nationalism. We may well remind ourselves also that " internationalism," in the modern sense of that word, was outside the range of the mind of Old Testament times. The only world-unity men then saw as possible was an imperial unity, in which one power should dominate the whole world. There was little in such a vision to arouse the enthusiasm of believers in God and in justice and freedom.

We can clearly see then that the intense nationalism of the Old Testament was in part due to the crude, defective, primitive stage of thought and feeling at which the people of God stood; and in part also may be justified as necessary in the progress of mankind toward larger views and more humane and brotherly practices.

A third fact we should keep in mind is the presence in the Old Testament of a surprisingly large amoujit of material which counteracts and protests against the narrow and exclusive nationalism which some thoughtlessly take as characteristic of the entire Old Testament.

In the original word to Abraham, calling him to be the chosen man of God, it is distinctly stated, " in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Very often we come upon a realization, clear or vague, that the real end of Israel's exclusiveness is universal brotherhood.

We do find Ezra and Nehemiah holding up as worthy of the approval of God and of all right men their rigid policy of non-intercourse between Israel and other peoples. But we find also a book, coming probably from that very period, which quietly but effectively puts forth the other side, — all the more effectively for setting it in story-form. The book of Ruth takes a Moabitess as its heroine, and makes her shine forth as one of the great and true women of God, a better wife, a better daughter, than her Hebrew contemporaries. What an effective thrust at the narrow policy of isolation, to show that David, hero of the Jewish heart, was the fruit of a mixed marriage I It is a marvel to find in the Old Testament so liberal a book, one with so broad and generous a view. It shows us the Spirit of the God of Brotherliness at work in the midst of the spirit of exclusiveness and race prejudice.

The book of Esther does exhibit a spirit of intense nationalism which is quite unchristian. But over against it we may set another Old Testament writing, — the book of Jonah, — like Ruth the more effective for being in story form. We see the Hebrew prophet contrasted unfavorably with the heathen seamen, their simple piety more true than his, for all his superior enlightenment. We see the people of Nineveh, — that hated, heathen city, ready to repent, and, through their penitence, winning favor from God. (How quick was our Lord to see and set forth the significance of that scene!) Above all we see the prophet, type of that very nationalism so strong in the Old Testament, reluctant to go to Nineveh and preach, because in his heart he suspected that God had wider sympathies than the prophet's theology allowed Him, — we see the prophet rebuked and shamed by the revelation of the love of God for other men and other races, a love that cares for men as men, for children, even for the beasts. The spirit of internationalism comes to fine flower in the book of Jonah.

Some of the prophets are uncompromising in their sense that Israel has a monopoly of the favor of God. But one clear note of protest sounds from the last chapter of Amos, in which the man of God tells Israel that they are not the only people God cares for and favors. Even as He brought up Israel from Egypt, so has He brought up the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir. The nation that is truly God's Chosen is the righteous nation. How sturdy in its sense of a universal reign of law is the opening sermon of Amos, where, after denouncing the sins of the surrounding nations, the prophet declares that Israel and Judah shall be judged exactly as Edom and Moab and Ammon are to be judged.

The 63rd chapter of Isaiah may show us a nationalistic hero, red with the blood of other peoples, justly slain that Israel may be set on high above them; but the 42nd chapter of Isaiah, and the other great " Servant " passages show us a great, world-wide, humane destiny for the chosen people. They are to be " a light to the nations," and " a salvation to the ends of the earth." There is one inspired bit in which the prophet foresees a day in which Egypt and Assyria, the two great dread enemies of Israel, shall no longer be looked on as the enemies of God, but God is represci ted as saying, " Israel shall be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for that Jehovah of Hosts hath blessed them, saying. Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance."

The last book in the Old Testament strikes a clear and high note. The prophet represents Jehovah as protesting that He is not dependent on Israel for worship; " for from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the nations; and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure offering."

So, here and there in the Old Testament, far more frequently than we sometimes note, shines forth a faith in universal brotherhood, a light of true internationalism.

The fourth fact we should hold in mind is that in the Old Testament prophets we find the roots of our universal religion, and of our faith in the possibility and desirability of internationalism.

It should be to us a cause of profound encouragement, that it was in a time like that in which we are living that the foundations of faith in the one and only God were laid. A ruthless empire was over-running the earth, devouring small nations, breaking covenants, compelling the peaceloving to fight for life and freedom. And it was just then that, under the pressure of the world-situation, the great prophets of the eighth century before Christ awoke to the mighty truth that there is but One God for all the earth and all the races upon it. He it is Who calls and commands, uses, and throws aside, the mightiest monarchs and empires. He rules in heaven and earth. Such a faith in the One God lies at the basis of all our religion, and all our faith in the possibility of international law and order.

The first commandment reflects the earlier conception : " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It is not a declaration that there is no other God, not even a demand that Israel shall acknowledge no other God as real and existent. It is a command to Israel not to set other gods in Jehovah's presence. " Though there be gods many, yet for us there is but one God " ; that was Israel's attitude. But Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah laid the granite foundations of ethical and universal religion when they proclaimed that in all the universe there is no God but Jehovah. Faith in the one God of all humanity is the very basis of true internationalism. The question which compels all trufc men who face it to answer in terms of internationalism is the great query of Malachi; " Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? "

So, even in the Old Testament, is found the conception of internationalism, clear evidehce that God's aim was to make a people who should be servants of humanity, that all men might come at last to a unity of faith in the one God, their Father. Seldom, or never, reaching the height of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, mingled with reactionary statements and impulses of exclusive patriotism, realized by only a few who climbed to the heights while the mass lingered in the low places, this conception of the unity of the race nevertheless haunted the consciousness of the Hebrew seers, who saw in the world's life a movement toward a goal set forth in the words of a gifted soul, " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea."

Under the inspiration of this prophetic vision, Judaism had become to a limited extent, even before Christ came, a missionary religion, with a desire to bring all sorts and races of men together. Too often its missionary zeal was fierce, crude, intolerant, stained with an offensive sense of superiority. Yet some there were who saw the glory of the wider view, like Philo who tried to combine the Old Testament with Plato's dialogues, that men might have one great fountain of inspiration for their thought and worship of God.

In making ready for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament made ready for the coming of universal religion, of international goodwill, of the fellowship of nations, of the brotherhood of man.

And all along the way, the greatest influence of the Old Testament toward internationalism was in its clear consciousness that God is fundamentally a God of principles rather than of people, a God of justice, righteousness, freedom, and law, rather than a God tied to the fortunes of one race, regardless of the moral and religious character of that race. Such a faith made for a sane internationalism a foundation of God that cannot- be moved, but abideth forever.

Chapter III The New Testament And Internationalism

One might expect, in passing from the Old Testament to the New, to come out of the twilight into the clear day, to find full and unequivocal support for the cause of internationalism in the Gospel and the literature which grew from it.

But this is not the case. Jesus gives us not a word of clear, specific teaching about international relationships. Just as the ardent internationalist is tempted to throw over the Old Testament because a rampant nationalism Is so patent on the surface of much of it, so he is tempted to turn from the New Testament because it is so individualistic in tone and view.

In fact there are three characteristics of the teachings of Christ which repel some thoughtful socially-minded folk, and fortify some of the reactionary and unprogressive elements in the church.

The first of these is what we may call the conservatism of Jesus. He seems so content with things as they are. He makes attack upon so few political abuses or social evils. The tyranny of Rome was a very real and very oppressive fact for the mass of men; but He never denounces it; He discourages rather than foments revolt against it. He is put to death at last as a disturber of the peace, an enemy of the existing order; but the flimsy and false charge breaks down. In fact there has scarcely been, in all the riot of misinterpretation of Jesus, a conception of Him more out of touch with the facts as we know them, than the representation of Him as a social reformer, an agitator, a rebel against the existing order. Those who present Christ in this garb are reading their own thoughts and beliefs and hopes back into Him, and making Him their incarnation, just as truly and as absolutely as is the veriest mystic who depicts Jesus as always crowned with a halo of heavenliness. His words and acts were marked with a strong conservatism.

The second characteristic we note is the limited range of His directions and principles. If, as we profess to believe, He came to be our guide, He left many paths uncharted. Nothing is easier, in principle, than to conduct one's life on the basis of " In His Steps," asking " what would Jesus do ? " Nothing is harder than to discover what Jesus would do, in those wide ranges of modern thought and conduct which He never entered. So many questions that are real and vital to us seem out of His range. The nearest approach He made to the problem of the relation of a godly man to political and governmental action was in the counsel, " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"; illuminating, abiding, in its insight; but vague as a definite direction ; for it leaves entirely untouched the really bothersome question, " What really is Cassar's, and what really is God's? "

How many and how grave are the practical matters on which we go in vain to the specific statements of the Gospel for guidance 1 Child labor, the rights of women, democracy in industry, the limits of patriotism, the use of force, the right to go to war, — these are a few of the questions which sometimes seem to us matters wellnigh of life and death; and on them He is silent. He set up few guide-posts.

Many have raised the question of late. What would the Good Samaritan have done had he come upon the scene a little earlier, while the thieves were assaulting the traveler? Would Jesus have made the hero of the parable join in the fight, use force to rescue the victim? The pacifist is sure He would not; the mass of Christians believe He would. Many of us find ourselves wishing that the Master, here and elsewhere, had made the way of practical godliness a little more plain before our feet.

The third marked characteristic of His teaching which sometimes disconcerts us, which will surely mislead us unless we are on guard, is the individualism of it. Jesus deals with men one by one, as if each man stood alone with God. He is very sensitive to human relations, very clear that godliness must and will work out good social values; but He seems scarcely conscious of the network of social forces and movements which at times make us feel as if we could hardly call ourselves individuals.

When we grasp these characteristics of the thought and conduct of Jesus, and see their immense significance for our modern lives, we wonder if we can hold that the New Testament has any vital connection with social progress, and the movement toward international order. We remember how Bismarck said, " If I were not a Christian, I would be a republican " ; and we wonder whether there may not be some fact-basis for the feeling that the religion of the New Testament and the social-democratic movement have little in common.

The Christian, whose rule of life is to follow Christ, must face these facts honestly. After all, that is the very primary clement in following

Christ, to face facts honestly. How shall we meet the difficulties created by these facts? We meet them by the frank admission that Christ was not, is not, and never meant to be, a giver of rules, a law-maker, an instructor in the details of life's technique. His method and aim were quite different.

First, we can see very readily certain conditions which necessitated some limitation of the range and the specific guiding value of His teachings :

Patriotism, for example, was an impossibility in His day. He could not approach the subject without at once endangering His life and work. It was only by extreme caution that He was able to keep three years clear for His work.

Again, there is a very real sense in which He was limited by His time. Had He spoken words specifically applicable to the conditions of modern' industry, or of modern social development, such words would have thrown Him out of gear with His own time, would have made Him a portent, a thing of magic. One of His chief glories is the perfect naturalness with which He fits into history.

On the other hand, the limitation we note in His teachings and in His attitude toward specific questions is. due in part to the fact that He was for all time, and all conditions, and therefore could not attend with too great particularity to those conditions which were peculiar to His own day and place. When He did come close to the peculiar thoughts and theories of His day, as, for example, in the " little apocalypse " recorded in the 24th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, misunderstanding has arisen, and literalists have been all too ready to take the transient form of His teaching for its inner meaning. He was for the ages, and a certain measure of detachment from the concerns of any particular age was vital to the success of His eternal mission.

But the reason for the limited range of His practical guidance and example lies deeper than these explanations. When we come to a true view of Jesus and His teaching, we see clearly that His method and His aim were such as to forbid dealing overmuch with specific details.