01.13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER VII. THE DIVINE COWORKER

I HAVE called this chapter the "coworker" because I wish to linger for a little around the claim that the deepest companionship between God and men comes at last to a working together. There is scant warrant in the scriptural representations of God for the notion that men are always to regard themselves as children of God in what might be called a nursery significance. There do, indeed, come moments when we feel as weak as infants before the mysteries of the universe. In such moments we need the assurance that underneath us are the everlasting arms. Sonship, however, is more than this. In a home at all approximating the ideal, children do not cease to be interesting when they become adult. The ideal is more nearly realized in a home where the love between father and sons deepens as they all work together in a common task.

Christianity is a religion of activity. There is no profounder characterization in the New Testament of the intimacy between Jesus and the Father in heaven than the declaration, "The Father worketh hitherto and I work." The final Christian intimacy between God and men is an intimacy of laboring together. The conclusion at which I think the Christian revelation arrives is that the friendship of men and God arises not out of direct contemplation of God by men, but out of inner understanding attained by men as they labor for the objects of concern to God.

Far be it from me even to guess at the chief objects of the Divine Purpose, but look at the possibility of coming to a realization of the divine nearness in what seems to be Civilization’s supreme task at the present hour. Religion has long been regarded as the province of the individual soul in its relation to God. This has been preached so persistently and so long that the responsibility for making all the social relations Christian has been thrust to one side. Suppose that all men everywhere, in what we call the individual relation to God, could be converted to the service of God. Would that solve all our problems? It would not. If the more social obligations, of the kind I now have in mind, could be accepted by everybody as of sole importance, would all our problems be solved? Certainly not. As historic fact, however, the emphasis has been laid so exclusively on the inner, subjective, individual phases of religion that all civilization is now in peril because of the un-Christianized contacts between groups. So well have the teachers of the limitation of religion to the personal wrought, that one who tries to get any emphasis on the larger duties between men is often charged with preaching a so-called social gospel of doubtful standing, emphasizing "environmental" rather than spiritual factors.

If we are to have a pod at all, we may as well have one of the widest interests. The idea that the Holy Spirit wells up in the individual consciousness, doing the essential work there, and then by an after-thought tying individuals together, has incredibly slight basis in the Scriptures. I have been trying to say all along that society exists only in the persons that compose it; but, for the sake of the persons themselves, the movement must be from the circumference toward the center, as well as from within outward. The most is made of the individual when we think of him as essential in a system. Men arrive at their best as individuals through the social contacts. So that the time has come to preach the conversion of the wider relationships between men, or, if that sounds impersonal, the conversion of individuals in their social relationships of the wider order, all for the welfare of the individuals themselves.

It may be well for the ardent Protestant in particular to remind himself that the work of Protestantism is not yet complete. Protestantism has not yet supplied effective substitutes for some agencies it destroyed. In those Middle Ages which we now see were not Dark Ages by any means, the church brought all social relations under its sway. The church intervened between warring nations and quarreling nobles, between feudal lords and serfs, between employers and employed, between wrangling individuals. That the church was herself at times part and parcel of an oppressive rule, that she fell far, far short of her opportunities no one doubts; but nevertheless the ideal of the church was evident. It was to touch all phases of life with a redeeming impulse. Protestantism was a justified revolt against an ecclesiasticism which tried to redeem men by fiat, by arbitrary official authority, by force. When Protestantism, however, laid stress exclusively on justification by faith it opened the door to an extreme individualism which neglected the social contacts. While the Protestant leaders have tried to correct this tendency in the name of infallibilities of one sort and another quite as rigorous as infallibility of the church, the tendency still persists, to the abandonment of vast spaces of social life to secularism. The field of international contacts has become secularized to such an extent that only by the accident of a Christian’s now and again seeking on his own account as a statesman to guide a nation toward justice, have there been any notable attempts to make international dealings Christian. Only recently has there been any strenuous effort to create an international public opinion definitely and avowedly based on Christian principles. Lowes Dickinson is probably correct in his judgment that the conduct of all the nations alike in the quarter-century preceding the Great War was not conduct at all, but a drift toward international anarchy. The international relations have been a no man’s land.

How much effort has there been, or is there now in this day of assumption of Nordic superiority, to make Christian the racial contacts? Say all we please about the duty of converting individuals to the kingdom of God, the obvious fact is that the color of the skin of millions of persons on earth at the present hour prevents their getting a chance to hear any effective preaching of the gospel. When we come to industrial relationships we hear that the church has no right even to an opinion as to economic righteousness. Now, if we stop an instant to ask how much preaching of the purely individualistic gospel it will take to offset wars between nations and clashes between races and quarrels between industrial groups, the reply is that no amount of such preaching will avail, for the individualistic message does not get to grips with these issues. It does not even come within sight of the issues. The task before Protestantism is to replace the old-time authority of the Roman Church over all phases of human conduct with a spiritual influence which will touch all the phases. The time is not likely soon to come when this social emphasis will be overdone. When such a day does come, enough discerning spirits will be on hand to restore the balance. At the present moment the supreme Christian need is an emphasis on the wide circumference from which one should look in toward the lives of individuals. We do not make the most of the conception of a moral universe otherwise, for a moral universe is a morally organized system.

I have singled out this one task for its own surpassing importance and also for illustrative purpose. If God is like Christ, if men are sons of God, what could possibly be the desire of such a God for his children except that they join with him in the world-wide redemptive task? What better basis can there be for companionship than laboring together? No doubt if we are to look upon God just as an efficient worker, managing the universe, we can easily ask ourselves why he should choose to work through poor tools like men. If, however, we think of God as a Father, we can well ask ourselves as to what better medium of communion there could possibly be than copartnership in the tasks supreme in the sight of God. In any working together of God and men it is to be taken for granted that men will strive increasingly to lift themselves up to the divine expectation. That goes without saying. It ought also to go without saying that God will accommodate himself to the speed of men. He will not forget his obligation to adjust his stride to man’s stride. When, however, these mutual adjustments have been made it is to be expected that God and men together will find their thought and their strength absorbed in the task which confronts them together. In our remaining pages we shall consider the Christlike God as the Friend of men. The friendship which amounts to most is the friendship born of a labor in a common task. Friendship which comes out of direct gaze of men toward one another is not so deep or so worthy as that which spontaneously arises through working together in a noble duty.