International aspects of Christianity

Foreword

The following fifteen Studies are designed to present in as many forms the international aspects of the Christian religion. They are prepared in the spirit of most loyal patriotism. True internationalism is the final bulwark and warrant of national loyalty. The writers believe that no adequate or permanent patriotism is possible unless it lives within the range of international sympathy and service.

These Studies are intended to quicken and fortify those who use them to a profounder appreciation of the meaning of democracy. We believe that the noblest expression of democracy is to be found in the Christian religion. To stimulate the study of this as it manifests itself in many ways a manual is needed. We hope that such a guide may be found in the following pages.

O. S. D.

G. T. D.

Chicago, December I, 1918.

i

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Foreword . vii

I. Prophet Patriots . i

Chapter I Prophet Patriots

The foregleams of our present ideals and standards of righteousness are to be found in the Old Testament. As we study the prophets and their message we become aware that in this gray awakening of a spiritual dawn there are wonderful hints of the great truths that break forth in splendor with the coming of Christ.

There is a freshness and beauty about these morning utterances of the prophets not found in the familiar noon¬ tide assurances of later preachers. All great truths, when first proclaimed, seem miraculous. A great man appears; he utters the word; a hidden truth becomes manifest. It is a miracle! So it was with the prophets.

They wrote and spoke in the ages when every nation lived unto itself. Everyone outside a man’s own country was to him either an enemy to be feared or a despised being fit only for bondage. A god, whether Baal or Moloch, was god only for a particular place.

It was an era of pitiful limitations and consequent suf¬ fering. Only a few great souls—we call them prophets— were able to understand just how sordid it was and to bring a new vision to their time. We study some of these this week.

First Week, First Day: The Omnipotent God

Ah, the uproar of many peoples, that roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of na¬ tions, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!

The nations shall rush like the rushing of many

I

[I-i] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY

waters: but he shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.—Isa. 17: 12, 13.

The people of Palestine were surrounded by enemies. In addition to the great empires of Assyria and Egypt, there were other, smaller, hostile, neighboring nations, which often proved a most serious menace. One of the most powerful of these was Syria, with its proud and wealthy capital, Damascus.

The Syrians did not worship the God of Israel; but they were apparently conquering. The children of Israel were consumed until only a few were left, just as corn is gath¬ ered ear by ear by the reaper, or like ripe olives when only two or three are left on the top of the uppermost bough.

But when they had suffered to this limit, Israel, the prophet said, would look to God, as people are always likely to do in time of trouble. “Their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 17:7). And when the people shall have come to such a feeling of reverence— then, behold! God will manifest himself' with mighty power. Then men shall know that his power is over all the world alike.

Omnipotence! The word is only an empty shell if God is not supreme in all the universe, Lord of all the nations. And the time shall come when his power shall be ex¬ pressed: the peoples shall “be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind.”

It is the greatness and power of God that warrant our faith in a world that is united in a common nature and destiny. Isaiah understood this and announced the great truth with majestic insistence. His words are like the rush of a great tempest, lashing the waves into fury. “At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are not” (Isa. 17: 14).

PROPHET PATRIOTS [ 1 - 2 ]

But it is the power of God also that brings peace, and at last the calm of the Omnipotent descends upon the nations, like the peace of sunlit, quiet seas after a great tempest has passed away. And so the universe rests within the compass of the almighty power of God.

First Week, Second Day: The All-Approachable God

Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly ex¬ ecute justice between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow . . . then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore.—Jer. 7 : 4 - 7 -

When our theologically inclined ancestors were assem¬ bling their Latinized list of divine attributes beginning with omni they should have added one more—owm-approachable. Israel had the notion that to them had been given the only system of religious etiquette by which a human being could venture to approach to the Divine. Only one who had sacrificed in the temple at Jerusalem could be a recipient of favor in the royal court of heaven. Cere¬ monies came to possess almost a magical power.

But Jeremiah—poor, baited, imprisoned, wise, unshak¬ able Jeremiah—declared that this was not so. He had had sufficient experience with the corruption that honey¬ combed the royal court life at Jerusalem. He knew the hypocrisy of the temple worship; and he declared that true loyalty of heart and the doing of justice between men is worth more than all sacrifices and ceremonies. He told the people that they could come to God without turning toward Jerusalem or assuming any especial posture.

[1-3]

“They kneel who pray: how may I kneel Who face to ceiling lie,

Shut out by all that man has made From God who made the sky? . . .

I look into the face of God,

They say bends over me;

I search the dark, dark face of God—

O what is it I see ?

I see—who lie fast bound, who may Not kneel, who can but seek—

I see mine own face over me,

With tears upon its cheek.” 1

Nearer than our own face God waits, ever close to hear the faintest whisper of the soul.

First Week, Third Day: The All-Beneficent God

Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith Jehovah. Have not 1 brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir ?—Amos g : 7.

Over and over again the Israelites rehearsed in their songs and narrated in their histories the story of their wonderful deliverance from Egypt. It was visible proof to them that they were peculiarly dear to God, his children in a sense in which no others could claim that right. As the darlings of the Almighty they were the masters of spiritual privileges that the other races did not possess.

But the prophet Amos had another conception of the matter. He saw in his mind the Israelites escaping from their captivity; but he saw also those who pursued after them, the children of Egypt. They, too, are the children of God.

1 Grace Fallow Norton, " Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph’s."

PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-4]

And then he recalled the neighboring nations also, who had come from other homes to occupy their present lands. The Philistines had come from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir. Is not their present territory a promised land to them also, even as Palestine is to the Hebrews ?

Amos fairly thundered his reply. The Lord God of Hosts is Lord over all people, beneficent toward every nation, leading each by his divine love and wisdom to its own appointed dwelling-place on earth.

Hebrew, Philistine, and Syrian; French, Russian, Pole, and Armenian—'there is a promised land intended by the Lord God for each of them. Again and again one race has enslaved another, one nation has encroached upon the rights of another. But this is the work of men and not the will of God. This does not indicate any unkindness in the purpose of the God of the nations. It is the desire of the All-Beneficent that each nation shall dwell in peace with all the others on the good earth that he has made; that each shall have its part in the treasure of mines or fertile fields, forests or prairies. God means that the nations, thus sharing and exchanging these good gifts of earth with one another, may live in mutual helpfulness, all of them at peace and each enjoying the common bless¬ ings of its God-given land “flowing with milk and honey.” If they do not do this, it is not the will of the God who is good to all.

First Week, Fourth Day: The All-Just God

Yea, he scofifeth at kings, and princes are a de¬ rision unto him; he derideth every stronghold; for he heapeth up dust, and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over, and be guilty, even he whose might is his god. . . .

For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie:

[I- 4 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY

though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the righteous shall live by his faith.—Hab. i: io, n; 2:3, 4.

Does might make right? The same old question burned for reply back in the days of Habakkuk. It was about the year 600 B. C. and the Chaldeans had left the valley of the Tigris-Euphrates, carrying out their plan to conquer the world. What a terrifying experience it must have been to live in one of the cities of Palestine during these years and watch the oncoming of the Chaldean terror, realizing that each day it was drawing nearer to one’s beloved home!

Nothing seemed able to stop the enemy. “Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen press proudly on: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour” (Hab. 1:8). This is a picture of the invasion of cavalry that cannot be surpassed by any modern narrative from Belgium or Russia.

And was his might the sign of his right? Was his strength and success indeed the proof of divine coopera¬ tion? Habakkuk answered the question with an imme¬ diate negative. “We must be patient,” he said; “the enemy may be proud and lifted up, but he is not right; though the vision tarry, wait for it.” “The righteous shall live by his faith,” and at last “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2: 14).

This is a great sentence, filled with truth for our time, “The righteous shall live by his faith.” In their relation¬ ships nations as well as individuals must also live by their righteousness and faith. Brute force never has finally determined right and it never can; on the other hand, the only kind of might that finally prevails is the right.

PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-5]

Thus the integrity of a nation is more important than its physical power or material wealth.

The only faith that will carry our nation through the perils of war and the tasks of reconstruction is the un¬ swerving confidence of the people in righteousness. Right cannot be worsted and wrong cannot triumph in the end.

First Week, Fifth Day: One Lord and One Temple

And Jehovah shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall Jehovah be one, and his name one. . . . And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to wor¬ ship the King, Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.—Zech. 14:9, 16.

The prophet Zechariah belonged to the priestly family of Iddo; therefore he was trained in all the details of the laws and ceremonies of religion. At the same time he had a wide acquaintance with men, for probably he had lived many years in exile and had acquired an intimate knowledge of the commercial life of Babylon during that time.

He saw that the only religion that can satisfy the soul permanently and endure is one that includes all men. As a priest, he naturally thought that this universality must find expression in the common worship of mankind in one temple. He saw but dimly the full meaning of his vision. It was necessary for Jesus to release it into the true realm of universal validity, as he did when he said:

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor¬ shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshipers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23, 24).

It was, however, a great step in advance of his age for

Zechariah to assert that any foreigners, Gentiles, should ultimately have a part in the temple worship. Perhaps he saw in imagination some of his old Babylon friends beside him, celebrating joyfully the feast of tabernacles and acknowledging with him the same Lord as God.

It is impossible for us, if we come personally to know and love men of other races, not to crave unity in faith and adoration for the perfection of our friendship. For we know that the complete unification of humanity de¬ mands the fusion of a common religion. The God we adore, the friend we love—side by side we must worship and thus be made one in the highest act of life! Happy are we all, if we only can realize that, continents apart, in temple or in busy street, God is equally near to us both, and that, turning to him, whether in formal phrase or in silent thought, we may be one in God, we in him and he in us. Nothing less than this will make wars cease and bring the golden age to men.

First Week, Sixth Day: The All-Merciful God

Now the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. . . . And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not.—Jonah i: i, 2;

3: 10.

The call to missionary service came to Jonah directly from God himself. Many Hebrew prophets had been sent to their own people to utter the warnings of the Lord; but none had been thus sent to the enemy’s city itself. No wonder that Jonah shrank from his task, thinking of all foreigners as the Jews of his time did!

PROPHET PATRIOTS [ 1 - 6 ]

But when he had given his warning and the people had repented and the All-Merciful God had forgiven them their sins, Jonah was angry at this apparent over-indul¬ gence of Jehovah. God set forth the reason in the wonderful argument of the gourd:

“Thou hast had regard for the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern be¬ tween their right hand and their left; and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10, 11).

The book of Jonah, with its symbolism, so strange to our Occidental minds, contains one of the noblest lessons in the Old Testament. It is tragic that this truth is so obscured because men fret over the precise literary forms in which it is expressed. This story of the pitying, merci¬ ful God forgiving the sinning heathen city shows us how God’s mercy is all-embracing because he loves all the children of earth.

It is quite probable that the book was written not far from the time of Ezra, and it may have been a protest against the narrowness and bigotry of the age. At the very time when the people were being warned against foreign marriages and when the emphasis upon national interests was stressed to the utmost, one man dared to write the story of the foreign missionary, Jonah, and the way in which he was forced to understand the truth of the love of God for all mankind. So the book becomes a prelude, crude and almost grotesque in parts, as it seems to us, of that great motif of the New Testament, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jonah is a fore-gleam of the universal Gospel of Christ.

First Week, Seventh Day: The All-Satisfying God

For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offer¬ ing: for my name shall be great among the Gen¬ tiles, saith Jehovah of hosts.—Mai. I: II.

In the words of this last prophet of the Old Testament we find the most broad-minded, generous outlook upon the whole wide world. Jehovah is not a jealous divinity, busied with the interests and successes of one little nation in Palestine. From the farthest East to the farthest West all nations are to worship him upon a multitude of altars.

And all the nations will finally acknowledge his sway, not because they have been crushed into an unwilling sub¬ jection, but because they have found him to be the perfect object of their reverence and love. The warring nations had worshiped Moloch. The mystery-loving Egyptians had erected temples whose hidden inner courts veiled the rites of Astarte. There were a Venus and an Apollo for the beauty-loving Greeks, and a Mars and a Jupiter for the Roman legions; but God, the Lord of all, is the All- Sufficient in the beauty and glory of his majesty to meet the desires of all the nations.

The artist may find in him the creator of the rose and of the mountain ranges in their grandeur; the Puritan may find in him justice and truth; the mother knows him to be the gentle and loving Father of all; the sinner dis¬ covers in him a merciful and pitying Redeemer.

In giving his lectures to the people of India, Rev. John Henry Barrows said,

“The Christian faith is the outgrowth and culmination of Judaism; its doctrine of a universal divine kingdom

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PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-c]

is a republication of the teachings of Israel’s greater prophets.” 2

We have studied certain of these great statements, con¬ nected with the fact of God. How true it is! All the best hopes that we cherish for the final unity of humanity are foreshadowed in these great yearnings of the seers of long ago.

The reason why we wait with confidence for the final drawing together of all the children of men is that God is the one Creator and Lord. And in the end there will be a pure offering of love and service, because all races shall find that God is worthy of their reverence and adora¬ tion.

Let us hear one more voice from the prophet patriots that sums up the impressions that we have been gather¬ ing during the daily studies this week. It comes from one of the greatest of these heralds of the dawn.

In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians.

In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for that Je¬ hovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.—Isa. 19: 23-25.

This is an amazing statement when we think of the age when it was uttered and the type of mind to which it was spoken. The last phrase was familiar and welcome. The Israelites understood perfectly that they were the inher¬ itance of Jehovah and they were forever boasting about it.

2 “ Christianity the World Religion,” p. 49.

II fl-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY

But now comes a man who dares to associate the names of Egypt and Assyria with the name of Israel. He even dares to go on and call Egypt the people of Jehovah and Assyria the work of Jehovah’s hands.

Let us think of this for a moment! It is as if in one of the most partisan periods of the life of any nation, when the people were at war with a nation of foes, struggling for life, a preacher or poet should have the audacity to tell them that God is the Father of their foes and that he has a purpose of good for the world that is some time to be worked out together by those who just now are seek¬ ing each other’s destruction. In such a situation only a bold man dares to speak. Only a truth that has utter reality in it can stand the strain of such a situation. But thus Isaiah spoke and the truth which he told his people is slowly coming to be realized as the only final and vic¬ torious principle to guide human life into permanent polit¬ ical and social forms of expression.

The great truths that we have thus studied were not de¬ clared in their fullness at first. It could not have been otherwise. Zechariah had a limited conception of the pos¬ sibility of a unified worship. The story of the great mis¬ sionary to Nineveh is marred by incidents that provoke so much discussion that they obscure the lesson of the book. But the men whom we have studied rise, in their insight into the deepest meaning of life, like mountain peaks above their contemporary levels.

They define the ranges and lay the foundations for those fundamental principles which we shall study in the com¬ ing weeks. These principles are connected with the nature and the will of God. If God is the Creator and Lord of all life, then man’s relationships to man, and nation’s relationships to nation, must be estimated and determined according to the character and purpose of God. We never can understand our full duty toward our neighbor until

PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-c]

we realize that we owe our existence alike to God and think out clearly the attitude of the heavenly Father to us both. This is the practical meaning of those aspects of God which we have brought forward: his limitless power, his unfailing kindness, his impartial justice, his all-embracing mercy, and his desire that all men should wor¬ ship him truly.

To these foundation principles we shall turn again and again as we proceed to study their fuller expression and fruitage in the ever-broadening Christian life in the world. We may come to see that the statesman Isaiah was the forerunner of our John Hay. The inspiration of the book of Jonah helped to make possible the lives of David Liv¬ ingstone and Dan Crawford. The visions of Ezekiel and Malachi were among the dim and ancient causes of the ecstasies of St. Francis of Assisi.

This means, in short, that the only real foundation for an international conception of life is religion. And there are always forces at work in religion to make it narrow and seclusive. Religious agents are conservative. Reli¬ gious beliefs tend to become exclusive. There is grave peril in this; it ought to be seen and guarded against. We do no service to our cause by covering up the perils in¬ volved in the tendency to pharisaism in our presentday Christianity. We may be misunderstood, but in the end it will be best to speak plainly. There is a tendency to inter¬ pret life in the terms of universal good will among earnest and thoughtful people today. Will religion share in this movement ? The situation has been stated in this way:

“It is to be remembered that it is dangerous to become international in these other relationships if we do not at the same time make our religion international.” 3

The Prussian idea has shown us what a narrow and

8 J. Lovell Murray, “ The Call of a World Task,” p. 52.

[I-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY

scornful nationalism can do in the world in the way of mischief. But the parallel of the Prussian idea in politics is the exclusive sectarian idea in religion. It calls the stranger a pagan and prides itself that it never has eaten anything common or unclean.

But now we may hope that we are passing from the period of parochial, partisan, sectarian life and thought into a new era. As President Charles Cuthbert Hall said:

“As they [the sectarian forms of Christianity] them¬ selves were born in the turmoil of a great age of religious emancipation, so it may be that they shall give place to some yet more magnificent reinterpretation of the ideal of Christ, born in the travail of the momentous time that lies before us.” 4

If, therefore, we may look ahead to some nobler recon¬ struction of the forms of the Christian faith in the time immediately ahead of us, it is necessary that we under¬ stand these first foreshadowings of those guiding prin¬ ciples that must shape the new order. Vaguely formulated, dimly perceived by the masses of men, these shadows of mighty truths appear athwart the consciousness of man¬ kind in the far-off past, the dim definition of those regnant principles which were to be revealed in the light of Jesus Christ. Gradually the gray of the dawning revelation brightened until the morning broke with the song of good will to all the nations; we live in the hour of high noon, when we must walk in the light of this truth.

4 “ Universal Elements of the Christian Religion,” p. 9.

Chapter II The Master Describing His Mission

As we begin the closer study of the international aspects of Christianity we must first of all see how the Master himself thought of his work and of the Cause which he left for his friends to carry on. Jesus never went into elaborate descriptions of his mission; he spoke in familiar figures regarding himself and his work. These are more satisfactory than detailed definitions would have been. As we study them we are impressed first of all with their range and inclusiveness. Jesus never gives us an analogy without enlarging our conception of the universal values in his nature and mission. Only seven of these have been chosen; but they are enough to show us that Jesus inter¬ preted his own life in the terms of international good will.

Second Week, First Day: The Good Shepherd

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep. . . . I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine o\yn know me, even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.—John io: n, 14-16.

It is a pity that we do not know more about the life and work of a shepherd, in order that we might understand, as did the men and women to whom Jesus spoke, the wonder-

[II-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY

ful tenderness and beauty of this figure. While of course the strict interpretation of the illustration points only to the responsibility of the shepherd for an individual flock, the end of the quotation is a vivid picture of the many flocks folded in one place and in the care of the one great shepherd of them all. The figure as it is developed strikes straight at the heart of all little notions of the particular flock, and defines the meaning of life in the terms of the fold.

This does not exclude the difference in the separate flocks that are folded in; it only includes the various groups in the larger unity. And it gives us a glimpse of the shepherd as caring for the individual needs of many sheep while at the same time he plans for the welfare of the whole fold. It is another example of that unity in variety which makes up the true group everywhere.

Second Week, Second Day: The Bread of Life

Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye have seen me, and yet believe not. All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.—John 6: 35-37.