Jesus Christ and the social question; an examination of the teaching of Jesus in its relation to some of the problems of modern social life

Front matter

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^-— UBRART

ST. MICHAELS COLLEGE

Chapter I The Comprehensiveness Of The Teaching Of

JESUS

There are many periods in history which, as one looks back on them, seem marked by distinct and central problems or achievements, as if to each such time there had been committed a special work to do. Their characteristics stand out clearly against the past, as a distant range of mountains stands out against an evening sky. We speak with confidence of the mission of Greece to civilization, of the place of Rome in history, of the vocation of the Hebrews, of the period of the Reformation, of the epoch of Napoleon. By one lesson at a time, — through types of beauty or strength or righteousness, through instructions in intellectual liberty, or warnings of the lust for power, — the Master of the ages seems to have directed the education of the human race. Sometimes this mission of an age or race is recognized by those who are

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J> fulfilling it ; sometimes it is discerned when one stands at a distance, where the crowded details of life melt into a general view. The Hebrews, on the one hand, were sustained throughout their history by the conviction of their sacred and special calling, and that conviction gave to their career its sombre, strenuous, self-examining character; in Greek life, on the other hand, it was the very unconsciousness of a didactic mission which made possible the prevailing serenity and charm. If Greek art had stood consciously before the glass of the future, it might have been the teacher, but could not have been the joy, of the world.

The present age belongs, without question, to the former class. There is not only given to it a mission, but there is added a distinct consciousness of that mission. We do not have to wait for the philosophical historian of some remote future to discern the characteristic problem of the present time. Behind all the extraordinary achievements of modern civilization, its transformations of business methods, its miracles of scientific discovery, its mighty combinations of political forces, there lies at the heart of the present time a burdening sense of social mal-adjustment which creates what we call the social question. "The social question," remarks Professor Wagner, ** comes of the consciousness of a contradiction between economic development and the social ideal of liberty and equality which ^ r being realized in political life." ^ This is what gives its fundamental character to the present age. The consciousness of contradiction between economic progress and spiritual ideals may use the language of social philosophy, or may take the form of social service, or may be organized in social legislation, or may simply utter itself in the passionate cry of indignation or hate which comes from the hungry or despairing, or from those who sympathize with them. In all these varied, and often unreasonable or extravagant, ways the characteristic emotion of the time expresses itself. It is the age of the social question. Never were so many people, learned and ignorant, rich and poor, philosophers and agitators, men and women, so stirred by this recognition of inequality in social opportunity, by the call to social service, by dreams of a better social world.

There is, of course, a huge, inert mass of unobservant humanity, with no perception of this new region of hope and faith into which the present generation is entering. These persons live their lives of business or of pleasure, as Jesus, with splendid satire, said of such persons in his own age, with just enough power of observation to tell the signs of to-morrow's weather, but without the

^ A. Wagner, " Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie," 2. Aufl., 1876, s. 36. So also Bebel, «' Die Frau und der Sozialismus," 10. Aufl., 1 89 1, s. 240: "Society, in its form of wealth, has grown far more aristocratic than in any earlier age, ... in its ideals and its legislation it has grown far more democratic."

J capacity to discern the signs of their own times.* No one, however, who lifts his eyes from his own private life can mistake these signs of the times. The literature of the present age is saturated with the desire for social amelioration or social revolution ; workmen with grimy hands and women with eager eyes are turning the pages of the economists in search of practical guidance ; social panaceas are confidently offered on every hand ; organization on an unprecedented scale is consolidating the fighting force of the hand-working class ; legislation is freely advocated which practically revolutionizes the earlier conception of the function of government ; and, finally, the party of revolution, with its millions of voters in European countries, officially announces that all other issues are to be subordinated to the social question, and that all other parties are to be regarded as "a mere reactionary mass."^ It is the age of the social question; and to pretend that social life is undisturbed, or is but superficially agitated, is simply to confess that one has been caught in an eddy of the age and does not feel the sweep of its main current.

It is, however, not enough to say that among human interests the social question is just now

iMatt. xvi. 2, 3; Luke xii. 54-56.

central and commanding. There are, it must be added, two characteristics of the modern temper which make of the social question of the present time something quite different from the economic and social agitations of the past. In the first place, we are now confronted by a degree of radicalism and a scope of reconstructive purpose which practically create a new situation. Social and industrial reforms in the past have been for the most part ameliorative or philanthropic measures, accepting the existing order of things, and mitigating its harsher effects. Now and then a sudden wave of indignation has risen out of the depths of human nature and has swept away some special abuse like American slavery, or some special form of social relationship like the ancien regime of France ; but for the most part the desire to relieve the unfortunate and improve the condition of the hand-worker has satisfied itself with deeds of charity and with industrial expedients which calm the surface of social life. A wholly different state of mind prevails to-day. Beneath all the tranquillizing arrangements of philanthropy or industry which are being applied to social disorder, there is a vast and rising tide of discontent, stirring to its very bottom the stream of social life. The social question of the present age is not a question of mitigating the evils of the existing order, but a question whether the existing order itself shall last. It is not so much a problem of social amelioration

J which occupies the modern mind, as a problem of social transformation and reconstruction. The new social interest is concerned not so much with effects as causes ; not with social therapeutics, but with social bacteriology and social hygiene. Indeed, in this frame of mind there is often to be discerned a violent reaction from traditional ways of charity and from moderate measures of reform. The time is wasted, it is urged, which is given to lopping off occasional branches of social wrong, when the real social question cuts at the root from which these branches grow. Instead of inquiring what ways of charity are wise, let us rather, it is urged, inquire why charity is necessary and why poverty exists. Instead of reforming the adjustments of industry, let us rather ask why the effects of industry are so cruel, debasing, and unjust. Not a merciful use of things as they are, but a state of things where mercy will not be necessary; not patronage, but justice; not the generous distribution of superfluous wealth, but the righteous restitution of wealth to those who have created it, — such are the demands to which our ears have of late become accustomed, and which indicate the character of the modern social question. " The number of relief- and charity-panaceas for poverty," said an English agitator, " are of na more value than a poultice to a wooden leg. What we want is economic revolution, and not pious and heroic resolutions."^

1 Ben Tillett, in London Times, January I, 1895.

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This unflinching radicalism proceeds to examine the very pillars of social life, and to consider whether they are worth what it costs to buttress and maintain them. Three such social institutions appear to support the fabric of modern civilization — the family, private property, and the State ; and there is not one of these institutions whose continued existence in its present form is not now a matter of active discussion, or whose abolition is not confidently prophesied. Is not the institution of the family to be regarded as a passing incident in the course of social evolution, the end of whose social service has nearly arrived ? Is not the institution of private property a mere symbol of social oppression, so that, as the earlier revolutionists cried, " Property is robbery," their modern followers may now add, ** It is right to rob the robbers " .'' Is not the institution of the State, in its present form, a mere instrument of the privileged class, and must it not be supplanted by a cooperative commonwealth of collective ownership ? Questions like these, freely agitated in our day by all sorts and conditions of people, indicate how fundamental and thoroughgoing the social problem of which they are a part must be. They propose a revolution, not only in the outward conditions of social life, but in the very instincts and habits of mind which adjust themselves to the present social order.

Such possibilities of social change are viewed by many persons with grave apprehension, and by many with jubilant hope. To one class of observ. ers, we appear to be threatened by social disaster, industrial chaos, a new slavery ; to the opposite class, we appear to be at the dawn of a happy era of brotherhood and justice, and Mr. William Morris sings: —

" Come hither, lads, and hearken, for there is a tale to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming when all shall be better than well."i

From either point of view, however, the social question is seen to have a quality of comprehensiveness and radicalism which makes it practically a new issue, and it is important at the outset of the present inquiry to recognize how large a question it is with which we have to do. A generation ago Mr. Lowell touched the note of the social question of his time in his ''Vision of Sir Launfal." Social duty seemed then fulfilled in deeds of benevolence and self-sacrificing love ; and a whole generation learned to repeat his lines as the summan' of social service : —

" Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare. Who giveth himself with his alms feeds three, — Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."

The temper of the present age is no longer com. prehended by such a statement of the social question. Instead of generosity, men ask for justice ; instead of alms, they demand work. Thus the le-

1" Chants for Socialists," London, 1885.

gend of the search for holiness, if written for present-day readers, must be translated from the language of charity into the language of industrial life, and the new Sir Launfal finds his Holy Grail through productive labor rather than through pitying love.

" They who tread the path of labor, follow where Christ's feet have trod, They who work without complaining, do the holy will of God. Where the weary toil together, there am I among my own. Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with him alone.

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This is the Gospel of labor — ring it, ye bells of the kirk. The Lord of Love came down from above to live with the men who work." ^

A second characteristic of the modern social question is quite as unmistakable and significant. Whatever aspect of it we approach, we find the discussion and agitation of the present time turning in a quite unprecedented degree to moral issues, and using the language and weapons of a moral reform. The social question of the present time is an ethical question. Selfishness enough exists, it is true, among advocates of social change; class hatred is also there, and the lust for power, and the primitive instincts which, as Hobbes said, make each man a wolf to his neighbor; but the power and the pathos of the modern social movement reside in the passionate demand, now heard

I Henry Van Dyke, "The Toiling of Felix," 1898.

lO JESUS CHRIST AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION

on every hand, for justice, brotherhood, liberty, the chance for a human way of Hfe. In his " Progress and Poverty " Mr. Henry George remarks, '* If our inquiry into the cause which makes low wages and pauperism the accompaniments of material progress has any value, it will bear translation from the language of economics into that of ethics, and, as the source of social evils, show a wrong." ^ That is the note of the present situation. The social question, which on its surface is an economic question, issues in reality from a sense of wrong. This ethical note is struck by the new philanthropy, in its unprecedented sense of social obligation, its call for personal devotion, its demand for self-discipline and wisdom ; and the same note is heard in the harsher tone of the labor agitation, declaring against the iniquity of the emplo3^er and the inconsistency of private ownership with the brotherhood of man. Behind many an economic fallacy which would seem to have no right to permanent influence lies this force of moral feeling, which supports the irrational creed, as a building supports the scaffolding which leans against it.

Here is a quality of the modern social question which one immediately perceives to be a sign of promise. Misdirected, passionate, inarticulate, the cry for social righteousness may be; but after all

1" Progress and Poverty," Book VII, Ch. I. See also, Preface to fourth edition : " The inquiry passes into the field of ethics. ... It also identifies the law of social life with the great moral law of justice."

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COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE TEACHING II

it is an unmistakable sign of social progress, when millions of people, in all lands and of all conditions, are trying, however blindly, to discover what is right and what is wrong in social conduct, and to reach some consistency between their social condition and their social ideals. " The real solution of this problem," said Professor Ingram to a Trades- Union Congress in Dublin, ** can be effected only by such reorganization of ideas and renovation of sentiment as will rise to the dimensions of an intellectual and moral reform." ^ It is not by accident, then, that the social question is most conspicuous in the most prosperous and best educated countries. It is one expression of prosperity and education. There is no social question in Turkey or Egypt. The problem of social justice does not grow out of the worst social conditions, but out of the best. It is not a mark of social decadence, but of social vitality. It is one expression of popular education, intellectual liberty, and quickened sentiments of sympathy and love, and there can be nothing but good in the end to come of an agitation which fundamentally represents a renaissance of moral responsibility.

It is its ethical quality, moreover, which gives to the social question of the present day its commanding interest for generous minds. Great numbers of men and women are lavishing their time and thought on social service, without precisely defining to themselves why such occupations

^Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 1888, p. 12.

open, as they are pursued, into a peculiar peace and joy. There is nothing intrinsically picturesque or noble about the poor or degraded ; there is little romance in the administration of details in industrial or social life. Why is it, then, that time, ability, money, and sympathy are in such abundance offered for such service ? It is because, through these channels of activity, the moral life of the time finds its natural outlet. It is a great source of happiness to be associated with people who are trying, however imperfectly, to make a better world. Many a life emerges through such association from an experience of narrowness and emptiness into one of breadth, fulness, and satisfaction. It is like a journey from one's own village to a foreign land, from which one returns with a new sense of human kinship, a more comprehensive sympathy, and a profounder gratitude for his own blessings. The advent of the social question in its present form has brought with it a great and happy revival of ethical confidence. The older ethics was individual, introspective, self-examining, and its stream grew narrow and uninviting and dry ; but into its bed there has broken this new flood of social interests, like a spring freshet filling the channel to its banks ; and now a score of outlets can hardly contain the stream of philanthropic service which sweeps on to the refreshing of the world.^

1 The ethical character of the social question is observed not by the social reformers only, but by the philosophers of history : Th.

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In the light, then, of these two characteristics of the modern social question, its radical intention and its ethical passion, a further quality which one observes in the present situation may appear at first sight surprising. It would seem as if there were an obvious kinship between the spirit of this

Ziegler, "Die soziale Frage eine sittliche Frage," 1891, a stirring attempt " to examine critically the conditions which exist, and to consider how they may be brought to an issue in which our highest good shall not be lost," s. 8. See also : Jodl, " Volkswirtschaftslehre und Ethik, Deutsche Zeit- und Streitfragen," 1886; F. Hasler (from the Roman Catholic standpoint), "Ueber das Verhaltniss der Volkswirtschaft und Moral," 1887; Bonar, " Philosophy and Political Economy in some of their Relations," 1893, Bk. V; International Journal of Ethics, January, 1897, ?• ^9^» C- S- Devas, ** The Restoration of Economics to Ethics," " All [these sciences] move in an ethical atmosphere; ... all have principally to do with what is right and wrong " ; L. Ragaz, " Evangelium und Moderne Moral," 1898; and for the history of this " socialization of ideals," Stein, '* Die soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic," 1897, especially s. 660 ff., " Die Sozialisierung der Religion." Compare also the evidence of the economists : A. T. Hadley, "Economics," p. 23, "The modern economist . . . would say that nothing was economically beneficent which was ethically bad ; he would insist with equal force that nothing could be ethically good which was economically disastrous "; C. D. Wright, " The Relation of Political Economy to the Labor Question," 1882 ; F. A. Lange, " Die Arbeitcrfrage," 1879. Note also the remarkable expansion of systematic ethics into the sphere of the social question : Wundt, "Ethik," 1886, ss. 159 ff., 498 ff., 529 ff.; Paulsen, "System der Ethik," 1889, s. 698 ff.; and his paper before the loter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1899, s. 95, " Wandlungen des Bildungsideals in ihrein Zusammenhang mit der sozialen Entwickelung " ; Runze, " Praktische Ethik," 1891, s. 65 ff., with much bibliographical material ; H. S. Nash, " Genesis of the Social Conscience," 1897, P* 223 ff. ; Newman Smyth, "Christian Ethics," Ch. IV; "The Social Prob* lem and Christian Duties."

new philanthropy and the spirit of the Christian veligion. In both there is the same sense of value in the humblest human soul, the same desire for a spiritual democracy, the same call for self-sacrifice, the same readiness to overthrow existing traditions and institutions for the sake of righteousness. The social question, one might anticipate, would be at heart not only an ethical question but a religious question also. " The religious element," said Mazzini, " is universal, immortal. . . . Every great revolution has borne its stamp and revealed it in its origin or in its aim. . . . The instinctive philosophy of the people is faith in God." ^ ** Socialism," it has been remarked, "in its most explicit and absolute form, has a great attraction for the masses, by reason of that quality which it possesses in common with the gospels. ... It is this factor which has lent to those who profess and propagate it the illusion of an apostolate, and has inspired in those who are its objects an enthusiasm extending to fanaticism, to crime devoid of personal motive, to the scaffold itself." ^ Yet, nothing is in fact more conspicuous than the lack of practical cooperation, and in many instances the distrust and hostility, which prevail between these two ways of social service. Sometimes there is a candid dread of theological complications, as when scientific charity lays down the

1 " Faith and the Future," 1835.

principle of abstinence from proselytizing. Some times there is a sheer disappointment with thi^ social effectiveness of the Christian Church, such as forced one of the most judicious labor leaders in England to say that he saw no place for religion in the working-man's programme. Sometimes, again, there is a genuine reproduction of Christian principles of conduct without formal recognition of the Christian Church, as in the extraordinary growth of the cooperative system in Great Britain. In many such ways of social activity the instincts which in other centuries would have drawn people toward religion are finding their satisfaction without religion ; or, rather, are finding in philanthropy or labor unions or cooperative societies or kindred social interests practical equivalents for religion, satisfying hearts with generous emotions and offering strong persuasions to loyalty and fellowship. When, further, we turn to the more radical expressions of social discontent, the prevailing attitude toward religion becomes even less friendly. It is not necessary to notice the merely vulgar talk of agitators who make it a part of their stock in trade to ridicule and vilify the religious life.^ It should also be observed that in

^ A collection of such coarser utterances may be found in Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 1888, Ch, IX; and in profusion in Kohler, " Sozialistische Irrlehren von der Entstehung des Christentums," 1899, s. 21 ff. "To suppress religion which provides an illusory happiness is to establish the claim of real happiness," " Nouveau Parti," 1884 (Kaufmann, p. 195). "The cross, once a symbol of suffering, is now a symbol of slavery," T^-day, January, the official programmes of social revolution religion is, as a rule, declared to be a matter of personal decision, as though neutrality toward it were proposed.^ The expositors of revolutionary principles, however, maintain no such reserve. They do not scruple to affirm that among the pillars of the present social order, which must be overthrown if the better social order is to prevail, are the institutions and habits of the Christian religion. "The revolution," said Bebel, "differs from all its predecessors in this, that it does not seek for new forms of religion, but denies religion altogether." 2 " The first word of religion," wrote Friedrich Engels, "is a lie." "The idea of God," said Marx, " must be destroyed ; it is the keystone of a perverted civilization." " It is useless," adds Mr. Belfort Bax, " blinking the fact that the Christian doctrine is more revolting to the higher moral sense of to-day than the Saturnalia of the cult of Proserpina could have been to the conscience of the early Christians ; " ^ and in another place he says : " In what sense socialism

1894 (Kaufmann, p. 3). "We are all, I take it, disciples of the materialist philosophy of history derived from Marx," Remarks at Stuttgart Congress (Kohler, s. 7).

^ " Erklarung der Religion zur Privatsache," Programm der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands. See also, Nation^ Nov. 12, 1891, "German Socialists in Council," an account of the Erfurt Congress of 1891, F. G. Peabody.

2 " Die wahre Gestalt des Christentums," 2. Aufl., 1887, quoted by Herrmann ; " Religion und Sozialdemokratie," 2ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, s. 13.

IS not religion will be now clear. It utterly despises * the other world,' with all its stage properties, — that is, the present objects of religion. In what sense it is not irreligious will be also, I think, tolerably clear; it brings back religion from heaven to earth. . . ." ** It is in the hope and struggle for the higher social life that . . . the socialist finds his ideal, his religion." " The socialist requires no transformed Christian rites to aid him in keeping his ideal before him. . . ." "It is only natural that the socialist should resent with some indignation the continual reference of ideal perfection to a semi-mythical Syrian of the first century, when he sees higher types even in some men walking this upper earth." ^ In short, as the eloquent Pastor Naumann concludes, " Social democracy turns against Christ and the Church because it sees in them only the means of providing a rehgious foundation for the existing economic order." ^

1 Bax, "The Religion of Socialism," 1886, pp. 52, 96.

^ F. Naumann, " Das soziale Programm der cvangelischen Kirche," 1891, s. 49. The attitude of scientific socialism to the Christian religion is sufficiently indicated by : " Geschichte des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen," 1895, 3^^^ Band, F. Mehring, " Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie," 1897, ^ter Teil, s. 387 ff.. Die Christlich-soziale Agitation; Engels, " Zur Geschichte des Urchristentums, Neue Zeit," 1894-1895; Lutgenau, " Natiirliche und sozialistische Religion," 1894; Stein, "Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie," s. 660 ff., " Die Sozialisierung der Religion." The popular acceptance of this view is illustrated by Rade, " Die sittlich-religiose Gedankenwelt unserer Industriearbeiter," 9tet Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1898, s. 66; and by P. Gohre, "Drei Monate c

T8 JESUS CHRIST AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION

Here we come upon one of the most curious and important facts of the revolutionary movement At first sight it is difficult to understand why a movement which appears to propose simply an economic change should be colored by this antipathy to spiritual ideals. The truth is, however, that this characteristic of social radicalism proceeds, in the main, not from an economic necessity, but from the philosophy of history with which the German school of scientific socialism happens to be associated. Marx and Lassalle, the apostles of the German socialist gospel, though of very different types of character, were both of Jewish extraction, and both had been swept into the current of the Hegelian philosophy, in its more radical interpretation. To this way of thought the universe presented itself as a self-unfolding process of material forces, one result of which was expressed in the shifting opinions and beliefs of men. These doctrines and ideals were, to the left wing of Hegelianism, not glimpses of reality, but effects of social conditions. Spiritual ideals were the result of

Fabrikarbeiter," 1891, s. 142 fF. Adequate criticism of this position is offered by : Herrmann, " Religion und Sozialdemokratie," 2ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1891; A. Wagner, "Das neue sozialdemokratische Programm," 3ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1892. See also the less important discussion in Flint, "Socialism," 1894, Ch. IX^ ** Socialism and Religion." The whole subject is treated in elaborate detail by H. Kohler (op. cit.). So Uhland: —

•economic circumstances, not revelations of absolute truth. Given a certain range of economic condition, and there would ensue a certain quality of spiritual belief or of religious fellowship. " Every man," said Bebel, " is a product of his time and an instrument of circumstances. Christianity, then, the prevailing spiritual expression of the present economic order, must pass away as a better social order arrives. Indeed, the wise reformer should apply himself to economic revolution exclusively, because he is sure that the evanescent imaginations which capitalism has suggested will disappear like dew when the morning of socialism arrives." It would not at first seem as if such a philosophy of the universe could have had great significance for a parliamentary party of plain working-people ; yet the fact is that it tinges a great portion of the talk of labor agitators, falls in with many lower impulses, becomes the justification of many natural prejudices, and contributes greatly to the consolidation of the working-class against the privileged and the pious. It is not enough to say that the socialist programme is indifferent to religion. It undertakes to provide a substitute for religion. It is a religion, so far as religion is represented by a philosophy of life, to which men give themselves with passionate attachment. It sets itself against Christianity because, as Liebknecht said, " That is the religion of private property and of the respectable classes." It offers itself as an alternative to the Christian religion.

It is, as a distinguished critic has remarked, not merely a new economic and social programme, but proposes to compete with Christianity in offering a comprehensive creed.^

We find, then, a gulf of alienation and misinterpretation lying between the social movement and the Christian reHgion, — a gulf so wide and deep as to recall the judgment of Schopenhauer, that Christianity, in its real attitude toward the world, is absolutely remote from the spirit of the modern age. Yet, from the time when the social question began to take its present form, there have not failed to be heard a series of protests against this alienation of the new movement from the organization of the Christian life. To any one, indeed, who has once recognized the ethical quality of the modern social question, the interpretation of it in terms of sheer philosophical materialism must appear a perversion of its characteristic aim, which can have occurred only through an unfortunate historical accident. What reason has the Christian Church for existing, many persons are now asking, if it is not to have a part in that shaping of a better world which at the same time is the aim of the social movement ? What was the gospel of Jesus if it was not, as he himself called it, a gospel for the poor, the blind,