Hypocrisy did not die with the Pharisees. To an observer of modern life, it might seem as if it has as rank and luxuriant growth today as in the time of Jesus. The modern Christian must apparently keep up the hypocrisy that he is always following Jesus, when, as a matter of fact, he is every day making compromises with Jesus' ideals, in some instances deviating widely from His teachings, and, in others, going diametrically against them. The question is, if, in these points of divergence, it is not better to speak the plain truth than to indulge in the hypocrisy of "following Jesus." For instance, take the case of divorce laws. Jesus explicitly condemned all divorces, except possibly on the ground of adultery. His language is so definite, repeated in all three of the Synoptics, that no quibbling over words or casuistry of logic can escape the result. Consequently, when a Christian state authorizes divorce for desertion, cruelty, drunkenness, etc., it is not following Jesus, but going directly contrary to His laws. In this matter the Roman Catholics are the orthodox Christians and most of the Protestants are heterodox.
The point here made has nothing to do with the expediency of these divorce laws. The conditions of human life have so vastly changed—it is quite possible that Jesus, speaking today, might lay down much less stringent rules on this subject than He did two thousand years ago. The important fact is that we have here an undeniable instance of Christians, not only making a compromise with the acknowledged evil of divorce, but also completely ignoring the views of Jesus in making the compromise. Those who condone, or tacitly approve, these divorce laws (as do the great majority of the Protestants in the United States) should certainly be slow, in the matter of other evils, to urge "no compromise with evil," or bring forward some utterances of Jesus as the final argument on the subject. Let them first consider the beam in their own eye.
It would probably surprise the professed follower of Jesus in present times to realize in just how many matters he is not, in fact, following Jesus. It may be well to enumerate a few of these important matters. This is not done in a spirit of criticizing the weakness and shortcomings of Christians, but because some of the questions involved vitally affect the present and future welfare of society. In the discussion of these questions the name and authority of Jesus are frequently invoked, and very justly so. For, even those who do not concede His parentage by the Holy Ghost, admire and revere Him as the Greatest Teacher. Hisword or example on one side of a question is not lightly to be disregarded. But, if it is found that, in some matters, the followers of Jesus do compromise with, diverge from, or directly contradict Jesus' teachings, then the ultimate query, becomes, not whether Jesus said yes or no to the question in hand, but, conceding that He said yes or no, Is there sufficient justification for departing from His teaching in this matter, as has been done in other important matters? Without noticing individual short-comings, sins of omission, etc., which may be left to the individual conscience and its God, we will take up only questions of wide import, affecting the present and future welfare of societies and nations. Nor will we enter into the field of theological disputation over conflicting or ambiguous texts, but will cite no instance where Jesus has not made His position so clear that there can be no dispute over it.
The following are instances where modern Christian communities compromise with, diverge from, or go directly opposite to the teachings of Jesus.
(a) Wars between two Christian nations where each invokes the assistance of Jesus in the slaughtering of its enemies, and the victor thanks Jesus for its success in the blood-thirsty game.
(b) The substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh, as the Sabbath day.
(c) Divorces (at least for any cause except adultery).
(d) Public prayers and long prayers.
(e) Public fasting.
(f) Sunday Blue Laws.
(g) Prohibition as against Temperance.
(h) Creeds, articles of religion, pomp and ceremony in church services, and other observances, which Jesus included in the word "sacrifice," as opposed to "mercy."
It is unnecessary to waste words in proving that war (at least between two Christian nations) is utterly irreconcilable with the Sermon on the Mount. But, as has been shown, it may, in any given case, be the less of two evils, and therefore, justifiable, as a compromise. As to a defensive war against a Moslem, Oriental or other infidel invasion, which seeks to uproot the Christian faith and subjugate a Christian nation, Jesus has apparently given His sanction to such a war (Matt. X:34, 35, 36; Luke XII:51, 52, 53). It might, perhaps, even be argued that this sanction covered an offensive war, the purpose of which was to establish Christianity among an infidel people.
But, beyond this, some wars must be justifiable, as the less of two evils, under Jesus' sane practice of compromising with evil. If the independence (the life) of a nation is attacked, there is no warrant in the four Gospels for supposing that Jesus would advise a policy of passive non-resistance. Just as when the life of the individual, or the life or honor of his mother, sister, or daughter are threatened by some beast in human form, he is justified in resistance, although the taking of human life results. A standard of ethics countenancing such a surrender of the primary instincts of self-preservation might be suited to a race of spineless invertebrates, but could never be accepted by human beings, who are the evolutionary product of countless ages of a struggle for existence.
But, conceding that some wars may be justifiable, the general rule holds good that wars are un-Christian. The exception must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. As between two Christian nations, the one attacked can usually plead self-defense in at least partial justification, but the aggressor must always have a difficult case to maintain before the judgment seat of Jesus.
Looking back over the wars of the United States, there are few that would stand the acid test of Jesus' judgment.
The war of the Revolution was due, in the last analysis, to the fact that there were a large number of prominent men in the colonies determined on independence at any cost. If war was a necessary means to attain that end, these leaders were for war, without shilly-shallying over the moral justification for the conflict. The men of that generation were rather fond of attitudinizing, and were prone to the use of high-sounding phrases like "no taxation without representation," "give me liberty or give me death," etc. The Declaration of Independence starts out with one of those phrases—"All men are created equal, and endowed with inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This was at that time such a palpable untruth and hypocrisy, that one wonders if our forefathers had no sense of humor. Of course, to be true, the sentence should have been added, "except certain persons of African descent, whom we hold and propose to hold as slaves."[56]
Stripping the grievances of the colonists of their heated and declamatory rhetoric, their real sufferings under the misrule of Great Britain were far less than those of the Jews under the Romans, when Jesus said, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." Many of the foremost statesmen in England supported the justness of the colonists' claims, and most of the obnoxious taxes were repealed before the Declaration of Independence. With time and patience the difficulties between the two countries could probably have been adjusted without war, as was the case with Canada, except for the underlying desire of the Americans for independence.
To avoid misunderstanding, it should be added, that, before the bar of Nature—under the laws of the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest—the colonies were fully justified in taking up arms when they did. The pigheaded obstinacy of George III in insisting on his "prerogatives," and the blind stupidity of his ministers in urging measures of little value to England, but irritating to the colonies, wounding their pride and making them apprehensive of future, more serious encroachments on their liberties, furnished ample warrant for ceasing longer to turn the other cheek.
Furthermore, before Nature's forum, the plea that the end justifies the means, is always of controlling force. History proves that the independence of the United States was sure to come sooner or later, and that it was better for both countries and for the world that the two nations should be under separate governments, and each work out its own destiny.
The war of 1812 was, before the bar of Jesus, without any excuse, and, like the Crimean war, was futile of results. The main questions at issue between the United States and England, and about which the war started, were not even mentioned in the final treaty of peace. The American grievances were real enough, but a very moderate exercise of Christian forbearance on England's part would have avoided any necessity of war. These grievances, bad as they were, had been endured by the United States for some twelve years, and a delay of some two years more would have brought a natural end to them with the fall of Napoleon. This war should never have occurred between two Christian peoples, and is unjustified by any good results that followed from it.
The war with Mexico in 1848 was simply an aggressive, land-grabbing, politicians' war, and will always be a blot on the Christianity of the United States. The lands of which Mexico was robbed were of course of great material value to the United States, but the less said about the justness of their acquisition the better.
The question of the Civil War is complicated by the moral issue of the abolition of slavery, underlying the political issue of the right of the South to secede, which was the ostensible cause of the war. Slavery in the United States was an evil, both ethically and economically, and, as its abolition was a result of the war, that war is justifiable both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. But that result was an incident of the war, and the North would never have taken up arms on the simple issue of forcing the abolition of slavery on the South.
On the ostensible, political issue which started the war—the right of the South to secede from the Union—there is room for much difference of opinion. Despite the technical and labored constitutional arguments of Von Holst and others, it is rather difficult to understand why, if the South believed that its happiness and prosperity were being imperiled by a further continuance of its union with the North, it had not the same right to break that union in 1861 as the colonies had the right to break their union with England in 1776. At the outbreak of the war, there were many in the North, beside Horace Greeley and Vallandingham, who thought it morally wrong to compel the South by force to remain in a union that had become hateful to it.
A great writer on American history (Sumner) has said that whenever some geographical section of our country becomes saturated with the idea that its material interests are being sacrificed to the interests of other parts of the country, and it sees no hope of redress, it will begin to talk secession. It was true of New England at the time of the Hartford Convention. It was true of the South in 1820, 1831 and 1860. It was true of the Pacific States shortly after the Civil War, when they feared that Congress would not pass their desired Chinese Exclusion Acts.
It would be difficult to justify the Spanish War of 1898, in the court of Jesus. It was mostly the work of the newspapers and politicians. Nine-tenths of the people of the United States were ignorant of suffering great grievances from Spain, until the Jingo journals demonstrated the fact to them. It is safe to say that this war would never have occurred if Spain had been a great naval power like Germany or Great Britain. The same assertion may be made of the war against Mexico in 1848. In studying the Jingo spirit which encourages wars, it will usually be found that the strength of this spirit varies in the inverse ratio to the supposed war-strength of the other party to the fight. Nations are much like school boys in this respect. It is quite probable that the war of 1812 would not have been brought on, except forthe mistaken idea of Henry Clay and his hot-headed followers from the West that the United States could easily overrun Canada, and dictate peace to England in Halifax.
Our participation in the Great War of 1914 was forced upon us, and was amply justifiable, both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. When Germany sunk our ships on the high seas, it struck at our independence as a nation, as vitally as though it had invaded and seized a part of our territory. On this issue we had waged war with England in 1812, and with the Algerine pirates in 1815. To have yielded this point to Germany would have been the first step toward international slavery.
But the war itself was utterly unjustifiable. The fact that it could occur nearly 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, only illustrates how little actual progress the teachings of Jesus inculcating peace had made against the forces of nature urging nations into conflict with each other.
To the impartial student of our history, it must be apparent that the Sermon on the Mount, so far as preventing wars, has been practically a dead letter. The condemnation of war has been superficial and insincere—nothing better than simple hypocrisy. It has been a service of the lip and not of the heart. The outside of the cup has been kept clean with a great parade of noble humanitarian sentiments, but the inside has been full of corruption.
Except among some numerically small bodies like the Quakers and a few others, there has never been any strong living, effective public sentiment in the United States condemning wars as unrighteous, save as a last extremity. This is well illustrated by our two disputes with England over the Maine and Oregon boundaries. These boundary disputes were most intricate and complicated, the evidence was uncertain and conflicting, no question of principle was involved, and they were eminently matters to be settled by negotiation, mutual compromise, or arbitration. But in each case the Jingo clamor for war spread over the whole country. Polk's campaign cry in 1844 was, "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." But there was no organized, effective opposition on the ground that this war would be unrighteous and un-Christian. If England had been as weak as Mexico, or if Tyler and Polk had been "fire-eaters," like Andrew Jackson, we would, beyond doubt, have had war in each case, although there could have been no justification for it in the court of Jesus.
Every war, whether right or wrong, has been not merely condoned, but fully approved by the vast majority of the religious people of our country. Success in war has been the best stepping stone to the Presidency, as is shown by the instances of Jackson,Harrison, Taylor and Grant. There is no record of any Jingo statesman being punished by his constituents for precipitating the United States into unnecessary and unrighteous wars, and the supreme hypocrisy of all is, that, in every war, whether morally justifiable or not, the followers of Jesus crowd the churches to pray for His assistance, and to thank Him for victory when won, as though He were sanctioning these infractions of His Sermon on the Mount.
The late President Roosevelt has expressed his views on our wars, and he may certainly be taken as fairly representative of a large portion of the American people. He was a devout Christian, but singularly free from hypocrisy. He was given to "speakin' out in meetin'," on occasions with a frankness that was embarrassing to his followers, and even later to himself.[57]
In his life of Thomas H. Benton, American Statesmen Series, page 261, he says, in treating of this boundary dispute with Canada:
"The matter was sure to be decided in favor of the strongest; and, say what we will about the justice and right of the various claims,the honest truthis, that the comparativemightof the different nations, and not the comparativerighteousnessof their several causes, was the determining factor in the settlement. Mexico lost her northern provinces by no law of right, but simply by the law of the longest sword—the same law that gave India to England."[58]
On page 262 he says: "It would be untrue to say that Nations have not at times proved themselves capable of acting with great disinterestedness and generosity towards other peoples; but such conduct is not very common at the best, and although it often may be desirable,it certainly is not always so. If the matter in dispute is ofgreat importance, and if there is adoubtas to which side is right, then the strongest party to the controversy is pretty sure to give itself the benefit of that doubt; and international morality will have to take tremendous strides in advance before this ceases to be the case."[59]
On page 268 he says: "No foot of soil to which we had any title[60]in the Northwest should have been given up; we were the people who could use it best, andwe ought to have taken it all. The prize was well worth winning, and would warrant a good deal of risk being run."
On page 289, in speaking of the final compromise and settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute, he says: "Yet as there was no particular reason why we should show any generosity in our diplomatic dealings with England, it may well be questioned whether it would not have been better to have left things as they were until we could have taken all. Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided, but they are far better than certain kinds of peace. Every war in which we have been engaged, except the one with Mexico, has been justifiable in its origin, and each one, without any exception whatever, has left us better off, taking both moral[61]and material considerations into account, than we should have been if we had not waged it."
These citations, reflecting, as they undoubtedly do, prevalent American sentiment in the past and present, establish the utter hypocrisy of any claim that the Sermon on the Mount has had any practical, effective power in determining the actions of our nation concerning wars, whether justifiable or not.
It is uncertain just when Sunday (the first day of the week) began to be generally observed among Christians as a holy day. The early Gentile converts were naturally averse to all Jewish rites and ceremonies, including circumcision, Sabbath-day observances, etc. It would seem that, in St. Paul's time, more or less of them held the position that all days of the week were alike, and no one of them especially holy (Romans XIV:5, 6; Col. II:16, 17). But at least two or three centuries had elapsed after Jesus' death, before Sunday was established as a day holy to the Lord, and began to have attributed to it the sanctity with which the Jews surrounded their Mosaic Sabbath.
Jesus never sanctioned the observance of the first day of the week as a holy day. No text can be cited from the Old Testament,or the four Gospels, that gives even color of authority to this observance. Sunday is a purely human institution, established by the Christians of the first five centuries, to suit their own convenience, or satisfy their anti-Jewish prejudices. As a Biblical festival, it is no more sacred than Monday or Tuesday, or any other day.
This matter is not commented on because of its practical importance, since it would now be inadvisable to change our legal day of rest to correspond with the Biblical Sabbath. But it affords a fair illustration of the prevalent cant and hypocrisy of the day. How frequently do the modern Pharisees denounce the man, who, for instance, goes fishing or hunting on Sunday, instead of going to church, as a contemner of Jesus, a violator of God's holy laws, etc., when in fact they have not the slightest authority from Jesus to do so. Would it not be well for them to consider the beam in their own eye? On this point, the Seventh-day Baptists and others like them are the consistent followers of Jesus, and not the Roman Catholics and the great bulk of the Protestants.
Under the Mosaic law a husband, dissatisfied with his wife, could "write her a bill of a divorcement" if he had found "some uncleanness in her" (Deut. XXIV:1; Matt. XIX:7).
According to Matthew, Jesus condemned divorce except for the cause of "fornication" (Matt. V:32; XIX:9).
According to Mark and Luke, He condemned divorce for any cause (Mark X:11; Luke XVI:18).
All the States of our Union, except New York and South Carolina, authorize divorce on other grounds than adultery. In New York divorces are granted only on the ground of adultery, and in South Carolina no divorces are granted. (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 369-371.)
In 1916, there were 1,040,778 marriages and 112,036 divorces in the United States, of which about 11 per cent were on the ground of "unfaithful." (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 151-152.)
But the marriages of the Roman Catholics, about 1-7 of our population (World's Almanac, p. 484), should fairly be excluded, since divorce is practically non-existent among them. This would leave 890,000 marriages to 112,000 divorces.
There was then, in 1916, something more than one divorce to every ten marriages among our total population, or, excluding Roman Catholics, something more than one divorce to every eight marriages.
In the face of these figures, it must be conceded that this prohibition of Jesus has become practically a dead letter among the Protestant Christians of the United States.
To the innocent party to a divorce, little, if any, stigma attaches either in business, social or religious circles, and nothing but a temporary condemnation is visited on the guilty party. The plain truth is, that divorce has become a matter of everyday life, regrettable but not sinful, and that, on this point, the followers of Jesus (excepting the Roman Catholics) have simply substituted their ideas of right and wrong for His.
It should be added again, to avoid misunderstanding, that it is not the intention hereby to condemn our present divorce laws. On the contrary, it is quite probable that, if Jesus were legislating for the complex societies of today, instead of for the comparatively simpler civilization of His day, He would materially modify His stringent views on divorce, in a sane concession to the weakness and frailty of human nature. Certainly, to one who has seen many ill-mated couples seeking relief in the divorce courts, and subsequently making happy marriages, to the mutual benefit of themselves, their children, their friends and society in general, divorce laws cannot seem all evil. The children, if there are any, are the main factor to be considered, and no conditions of life are likely to be much worse for them than to be brought up by two mutually unloving, unsympathetic parents, and, as usually happens, in an atmosphere of continual bickering and quarreling.
This subject has already been treated underNote 22,supra, page 23, and it has been shown that Jesus clearly condemned public prayers, long prayers and frequent prayers (Matt. VI: 5, 8).
The evils of the prayer-habit (as a public ceremony) are many and obvious.
(1) It is a useless waste of time and energy that had better be expended on works of mercy. God already knows what things we need, and will grant them, if advisable, without prayer (Matt. VI:8). For instance, how much time has been spent by the human race in praying for things which subsequent events proved were, or would have been, injurious instead of beneficial? How many there are, who, in looking back over their lives, can see that the realization of one of their (at the time) dearest wishes turned out later to be the most unfortunate thing that ever happened to them.
(2) It encourages the formation of a low and unworthy conception of God as a being to be propitiated and placated, like the deities of barbarous peoples. Insensibly the idea grows that the more frequent and the more zealous the prayers, the more likely they are to be granted. An instance of this will be found in the custom started during the Great War of every one on the streets and everywhere, praying exactly at noon for the success of our armies. The idea underlying this was apparently that of "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together," although the latter requirement was hardly fulfilled, since the prayers in New York were several hours old before those in San Francisco were begun. Nothing could be imagined much more inconsistent with Jesus' regulations on the subject of prayer.
Furthermore, the prayer-habit begets a sickening tone of servility in the worshipper, coupled with the ascription to the Deity of an equally sickening love of adulation. In many prayer meetings the speakers seem to vie with each other in seeking terms of humility and self abasement for themselves (miserable worms being rather a favorite) and the most exaggerated titles of honor for the Deity. One would think they were a lot of grovelling slaves, prostrating themselves before the throne of some barbaric despot. Take the "Te Deum," which is a prayer in the form of a hymn. Can it be supposed that the fulsome adulation with which it is filled can be pleasing to the God of the universe? And yet, why is it sung, except on that supposition? What respect would we have for an earthly father who delighted in having his children assemble every morning, and chant their praises of his goodness, his excellence, his power, etc.? And yet should not the ideal of the heavenly Father be higher than that of the earthly father?
(3) The prayer-habit tends to emasculate the moral strength of its devotees. It is much easier to pray to God for help and, so to speak, shift the responsibility on Him, than to work out one's own troubles by one-self. There is an old saying—Pray, but with thy hand on the plough. Too much praying tends towards neglect of the plough, or, to use Cromwell's phrase, the keeping one's powder dry.
(4) Another evil is that it tends to encourage a self-righteousness on the part of its devotees (Luke XVIII:11). When prayer is regarded as a duty, the sequel to a prayer-meeting is a feeling of satisfaction in duty well performed. God has not only been well pleased by a display of humility on the part of His worshippers, but has also been intelligently advised on a variety of subjects, about which He may have been in uncertainty.
Compare the prayer meeting of today with one according to Jesus' precepts. There would be no long prayers (Matt. XXIII:14; Luke XX:47). The meeting would open with the Lord's Prayer. Then, as each one thought over his various sins of omission and commission, and repented of them, he would arise and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke XVIII:13). The peace and silent meditation of such a gathering would tend to produce the humble and contrite heart, which is the offering pleasing to God.
(5) But the worst evil, as pointed out by Jesus, is that of substituting a false standard of righteousness, words for acts, sacrifice for mercy (Matt. XII:7). When prayers are regarded as a duty and their performance a meritorious act, their devotees are quite apt to become like the Pharisees, who paid "tithe of mint, anise and cummin," but neglected "judgment, mercy and faith" (Matt. XXIII:23).
The average, easy-going Christian can without difficulty square his account with God through numerous prayers, or even rest easy in his conscience with a slight balance in his favor. But it must be almost impossible for the believer in, and faithful adherent of, prayer-meetings to rise to the sublime conception of the Almighty, voiced not only by Jesus, but by the later prophets of the Old Testament.
"Bring no more vain oblations (prayers or fasting): incense (prayers and fasting) is an abomination to me. The new moons and Sabbaths (ceremonial church services), the calling of assemblies (prayer-meetings), I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."
"Learn todowell; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah I:13, 14, 17).
"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah VI:8).
This subject also, has already been discussed undernote 20,supra, but for convenience, reference is again made to the passages in which Jesus condemns public fasting, or fasting as a ceremony (Matt. VI:16, 17, 18; Matt. IX:14; Mark II:18; Luke V:33; Luke X:7).
Nearly everything which has been said under the last subhead concerning public prayers applies with equal force to ceremonial fasting, and need not be repeated here.
Assuming there is to be ascribed to the modern Sunday the same sanctity as a holy day that should be accorded to the Sabbath which Jesus observed, His views on the proper observance of the day are summed up in the one sentence: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark II:27).
The basic idea of the old Puritan Sunday was the direct opposite of that of Jesus. Following the old Mosaic law, which Jesus combatted, the Puritans planned their celebration of the day for the "honor and glory" of God, and not for the benefit of man. Conceiving thisGod, not as a loving Father, but as a stern, austere Judge, who, according to Jonathan Edwards, had reserved the bulk of mankind for burning, who demanded "sacrifice" and not "mercy," and was therefore to be propitiated and placated, the Puritan ministers succeeded, while they had the power, in imposing on their congregations a most atrocious travesty of the Sabbath of Jesus. Religious services were piled up like Pelion on Ossa, and every movement of the day was marked by gloom and austerity. No wonder that William Lloyd Garrison said of the observance of Sunday at a much later date: "The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of priest-craft and superstition, and the stronghold of merely ceremonial religion."
Jesus did not object to the Jewish observance of the Sabbath on the ground that it was too "lax" (to use a modern term), but on just the opposite ground—that certain of their restrictions on man's freedom of action on that day were unnecessary. But the Sabbath of that time, as the Jews celebrated it, and as, from all the accounts in the four Gospels, Jesus celebrated it, was a day of joyous rest and recreation, and in no sense a day of spiritual maceration.
"The same character of cheerfulness, of happy rest from the toil and turmoil of the world's business; of quiet and peaceful return unto one's self; of joyous communion with friends and kindred over good cheer—in short, of mental and bodily relaxation and recreation that strengthens, braces, pacifies, and maketh the heart glad, while the sublime ideas which it symbolizes are recalled to the memory at every step and turn seems to have prevailed at all times down to our own, among the Jews."
"Suffice it to reiterate that in every class, every age and every variety of Jews, from first to last, the Sabbath has been absolutely a day of joy and happiness, nay, of dancing, of singing, of eating and drinking, and of luxury."
International Cyclopædia, Sabbath, Vol. XII, p. 857.
This is the kind of a Sabbath which the Gospels picture Jesus as celebrating, attending feasts in the houses of His friends, walking in the fields with His disciples, or meeting with them in public places, and healing the sick when occasion offered (Matt. XII:1; Mark II:23; Luke VI:1; Luke XIV:1; John V:1, 2, 9; IX:1, 14).
Hard as it may be for Anglo-Saxon prejudice to admit, yet it seems to be true, that the Spanish Sunday—mass in the morning and a bull-fight in the afternoon—is nearer than the Puritan Sunday to Jesus' ideas of the proper observance of the day, although He would probably approve, as little as we do, that particular form of amusement.
There is at the present time a strong and perhaps growing tendency towards enacting Sunday Blue Laws. By this is meant legislation restricting man's freedom of action on that day, which is based, not on any benefit to the individual or society, but on the old Mosaic idea of the supposed sanctity of the day—that it is holy to the Lord and He will be pleased by a ceremonial observance of it, different from other days.
Insofar as the professed followers of Jesus urge the enactment of such Blue Laws, it seems clear that they are not following Jesus, but going contrary to His precept and example.
There can be no possible doubt as to the position of Jesus on this question.
At the outset of His prophetic career, He drew the line sharply between Himself and John the Baptist in this matter.
John drank no wine and practiced fasting.
Jesus drank wine and condemned ceremonial fasting.
Each by word and example inculcated these different ideas on his respective followers (Matt. XI:18, 19; Luke V:33).[62]
At the marriage in Cana, He furnishes wine for the guests when the supply runs out (John II:1, 2). In His instructions to His apostles He tells them to eat anddrinksuch things as are set before them (Luke X:7). He uses wine in the celebration of the Last Supper, and promises His apostles to drink with them of the "fruit of the vine" in heaven (Matt. XXVI:29; Mark XIV:25; Luke XXII:18, 30).
When Mahomet appeared, he followed the example of John the Baptist, and prohibited the drinking of wine. Since his time, on two points the line has always been sharply drawn between the Gospel of Jesus and that of Mahomet. The orthodox Christian could eat pork and drink wine, while the orthodox Mohammedan could do neither.
The majority of professed Christians have presumably supported the recent prohibition legislation in the United States. In so doing, they are not following Jesus, but going directly contrary to His precept and example. They are in effect saying that, on this point, Mahomet knew better than Jesus what was for the best good of the human race.
Under the term "sacrifice," Jesus included all ceremonial religious worship, and tried constantly to impress on His followers that this was not the offering pleasing to God, but, rather, deeds of mercy (Matt. IX:13; XXIII:23).
Realizing how strong is the tendency in human nature to impute to itself righteousness on account of its "tithes of mint and anise and cummin," He carried His condemnation of ceremonies into the smallest details. This is well illustrated by His enjoining His apostles not to wash before eating (Matt. XV:1, 2 and 20; Luke XI:37, 38). As He states, His objection was not to washing in itself, but because the Pharisees had made a religious ceremony of it.
Simplicity is the marked characteristic of all Jesus' acts of devotion. While it was His custom to preach in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, yet, so far as appears in the four Gospels, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, Luke's Sermon on the Plain, the Lord's Prayer, and most of Jesus' important discourses were delivered, not in the synagogue and on the Sabbath day, but wherever time and place suited His convenience—from a ship, on a mountain, on a plain, in His own house, etc. (Matt. V:1; X:1; XII:2; XVIII:1; XXIII:1; XXIV:3; Mark IV:1; X:1; Luke V:3; VI:17; X:1; XI:1; XII:1; John III:2; IX:40; XII:22, 23; XIV; XV; XVI; XVII).
To demonstrate how far modern Christianity has traveled from the ideas of Jesus, it is only necessary to attend some ceremonial service in an Episcopalian or Catholic Cathedral, or some protracted prayer meeting of one of the Evangelical denominations.
Out of the fruitful field of Pauline theology, there sprang, even within a few centuries after the Crucifixion, a plentiful crop of the direst evils that have ever afflicted mankind—creeds and definitions of belief. Fortunately, disputatious theologians are now limited to the weapons of pen and ink, but in the Middle Ages oceans of blood were spilt over these religious quarrels.
If we could suppose the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Augsburg Confession to be submitted to Jesus for His approval, it is easy to imagine the substance of His answer: "I don't know what all this stuff means. I do not understand your terms—pre-destination, fore-ordination, trans-substantiation, infant damnation, etc. There is nothing here that I ever preached. I have given you a simple standard of righteousness, which every one can understand and follow, viz., right living. Have you forgotten my saying, that 'all the law and the prophets were contained in the two commandments to 'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' and to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' (Matt. XXII:37-40). These creeds of yours may be true, or partly true, or wholly false. But the important fact for you to remember is, that they are unnecessary to salvation—are non-essentials. If this sort of logomachy pleases you as an intellectual exercise, well and good, if it goes no further. But, beware that, in following thisignis fatuus, you do not neglect the only one main essential to God's favor—'to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'"
The Great War has brought about a wondrous upheaval in the society of the world. Nearly every phase of mental and physical activity in man is in a process of transformation. Government, religion, labor, pleasure, business, finance, international relations—all are on a shifting basis, seeking readjustment to new ideas and new conditions. To cling to worn-out conceptions of life—to worn-out ideas and phrases is mere folly. These new problems can only be met and settled with a "tabula rasa." We must wipe out the old prejudices, the old accepted canons, and above all the old hypocrisies and cant.
If Christianity is to be a living, efficient force in the coming readjustment, it must cleanse itself of some of these old barnacles of hypocrisy now clinging to it. Not that hypocrisy will be lessprevalent under the new regime than under the old. Human nature will remain essentially the same, but it will demand new forms of hypocrisy. The specious, shallow reasoning of the charlatan, the fulsome adulation and extravagant promises of the demagogue, and other forms of humbuggery will still attract their thousands. Patient merit will still suffer its many spurns from the unworthy. But the followers of Jesus, if they will throw overboard their useless ecclesiastical and theological lumber, and return to the simple teachings and example of the Great Teacher, are sure to win.
The first and most important matter is to get rid of the hypocrisy of war. War is the most direful menace to the happiness and prosperity of mankind and, notwithstanding the bitter lessons of the Great War, little progress has been made towards averting it in the future.
And no permanent progress in that direction will be made until the Christian peoples of the world reject, root and branch, such views of national wars as are expressed by the late President Roosevelt in the quotations from his works already given (see(a) War,supra). The underlying principle of this war philosophy is the same as that of the modern Germans, Treitschke, Nietzsche and Bernhardi, except that they express themselves with more brutal frankness. It was preached long ago by Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Eichte, Hegel and others. It is in substance that the State, although all its component units are sincere followers of Jesus, should not be governed by any moral laws in its dealings with other States. The State can do no wrong. It should pursue its ends with utter, callous selfishness, and its only law is that might makes right.
President Roosevelt has been quoted, because, in his views, he unquestionably voiced the sentiments of the great majority of past and present Americans. If this be true, should we not look for the beam in our own eye, before we criticize Germany for starting the Great War? She was simply applying the law that might makes right, except that she underestimated the might of the enemies she was arraying against herself. If she had been successful (as she probably would have been except for the unexpected valor and self-sacrifice of the Belgians), would she have been any worse sinner (barring some barbarous details of her warfare) than the United States with its condonation and approval of the Mexican and Spanish wars? Both of these were wars of aggression against weaker nations, and the Mexican war, at least, is admitted on all hands to have been morally unjustifiable, even by such stalwart Americans as President Roosevelt. More than ahundred years ago, a distinguished admiral of the United States Navy is reported to have said: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Now, this is a high-sounding phrase and is a great refuge for Jingo politicians when they have precipitated the country into an unrighteous war. But before the bar of Jesus it is the veriest clap-trap. The sincere follower of Jesus should insist that we be sure we are right in the first instance, and, if it is discovered that we have been misled into a by-way of wrong and injustice, that we get back at once to the straight and narrow way of right and justice.
Our churches must denounce these Rooseveltian doctrines early and late, as a perversion of Jesus' laws. They must insist that opposition to wars becomes a service of the heart and not of the lip. They must mould us into a nation of sincere "conscientious objectors," condemning all wars as un-Christian, judging every aggressive war asprima facieunjustifiable, and insisting that the advocates of any war prove the justness of their cause beyond a reasonable doubt. Let our politicians and leaders understand that if they plunge us into an unjust war, they are to be punished, and not rewarded by the Presidency, as was Roosevelt after the Spanish war, and Taylor after the Mexican war. How many of our wars would have lacked advocates, if they had been obliged to plead their cause under the principles of the Sermon on the Mount?
As long as the people of the United States are animated by, and their conduct based on, the war philosophy of Roosevelt, it is hard to see how any League of Nations could be anything but a farce—a mere "scrap of paper." On the other hand, if all the Christian nations were sincere, ardent "conscientious objectors," wars would be avoided without the need of any League of Nations. If the Christian people of Germany had been "conscientious objectors" in this sense, there would not have been a Great War. But unfortunately they were of a different faith, and according to German writers still cling to that faith, after all their bitter experiences. (Germany since the Revolution. Yale Review, Jan., 1921). Nor may we flatter ourselves that we are free from the same views. For instance, there is apparently, at the present time (as there was before the Spanish war) a Jingo junto of politicians and newspapers who seize every opportunity to stir up prejudice and hostility against Japan, although it has always acted towards us as a peace-loving, neighborly nation. If it were as vulnerable to our attack as Mexico or Spain, these Hotspursmight quite likely drag us into a war, but the uncertainty of the contest in this case must give them pause.
Another field for church action is in working towards making Sunday like the Sabbath of Jesus' time—a day of joyous relaxation and recreation, but always remembering that deeds of mercy and the promotion of the happiness of others, are to feature the day, as the offering acceptable to God. One of the marked features of the time is the growing spirit of unrest and discontent among the mass of the people. This spirit of unrest manifests itself, in part, by an increasing appetite for amusement. While this outlet for people's uneasiness may perhaps not be of the highest, it is much preferable to others, to which their discontent might turn. The churches should recognize this present need of man, realize the truth of Jesus saying that the Sabbath was made for man, oppose all new Sunday Blue Laws, and seek the repeal of those now existing. Instead of putting the ban of the church on all Sunday amusements, it should encourage such harmless recreations as it can well sanction under the example of Jesus. There should be meetings in the churches, as in the synagogue in Jesus' time, but as an incident, and not the chief end, of the day.
In the matter of temperance vs. prohibition, a great Christian nation has, for the first time in history, recently inaugurated the experiment of a general prohibition law. What the results of this policy may be, remains an uncertain question for the future to decide. Certain it is that the Anglo-Saxon race has reached its present stage of progress and civilization under a regime of practically unrestricted use of alcoholic drinks. Of the eminent names in its history—in government, war, literature, arts, sciences, industrial work and invention—the percentage of those who all their lives have been consistent abstainers from liquor must be exceedingly small. The prohibitionist will say that all this progress has been made in spite of the evils of drink. But that can only be proved by generations of experience under prohibition laws. The other hypothesis is,prima facie, equally tenable, that this progress has been due in part to the stimulus which the temperate use of liquor undoubtedly does, at least temporarily, give to the physical and mental activity of man. The thirteen centuries of experience of the followers of Mahomet demonstrate that prohibition does not of itself produce great men, or general virtue, progress or prosperity.
Theoretically the success of prohibition is handicapped by the fact that it is opposed to the evolutionary processes of nature. The basic idea of prohibition is to improve man by removing the cause of evil. For no one can deny that excess of drinking isan evil, just as is excess of eating, of fasting, of prayer, or any other form of human activity. Even excess of charity may be an evil, if it results in impoverishing one's family. But nature works on the contrary idea. It develops its highest types by exposing them to evil, and teaching them to conquer it. Take the matter of climate, for instance.A priorione might have reasoned that a mild, equable climate, like that of the South Sea Islands, where the means of subsistence are easily obtained, would be the best for the human race. It could plausibly be argued that man would have more time and energy for his intellectual development if he were not absorbed in a continuous, laborious struggle for his physical existence. But experience has shown that just this contest with the extremes of heat and cold—this continual battle for subsistence under uncongenial conditions—has produced not only the most efficient workers in material progress, but also the highest types of intellectual development. Whether the prohibition theory of wrapping men in lamb's wool, instead of putting them out to fight the battle of life, will not produce more evil than good, is at least uncertain. It may be that, after some time of experimenting, men may come back to the idea that Jesus was right in thinking that temperance is better for the human race than prohibition.
Furthermore, prohibition, besides being opposed both to the laws of Jesus and the laws of nature, has the essential weakness, as a remedy for intemperance, that it attacks the means or rather one of the means, of intemperance, and not the cause—thecausa efficiens, as the logicians would say. The Anglo-Saxons have for centuries been meat-eaters and liquor-drinkers. What end they would have attained on a diet of vegetables and cold water, we can only guess, but all science is wrong if it would not have been some end quite different. Now, this appetite for stimulants—the growth of centuries—is not to be eradicated by prohibiting the use of alcoholic drinks, any more than the appetite for fornication can be eradicated by the suppression of houses of prostitution. In spite of all the prohibition laws in the world, the appetite for stimulants will continue to exist in the Anglo-Saxon race, and will seek its gratification in one way, if not in another. Whether these substitutes may not be worse in the end than alcohol, remains to be seen. Suppose, for instance, that accustomed liquor-drinkers should now substitute, as their stimulant, large quantities of strong tea or coffee, or, possibly, some concentrated product of one or the other of those plants. Probably nine-tenths of our medical authorities would agree that the change would be, generally speaking, undoubtedly for the worse.
It is to be observed that never in the United States has therebeen made any general systematic effort towards temperance, such as is now being made towards prohibition. No greater hypocrisy has ever been worked off on the American people than that under the name of "Temperance." Societies have labeled themselves with that name, orators and prominent leaders have paraded under that name, when, in fact, it was a mere subterfuge, and the bearers of it were really prohibitionists. Probably no one who has ever worked for real temperance measures in any of our large cities but would testify that his work has been seriously hampered by the entire lack of interest, if not by the actual hostility, of these so-called temperance reformers and societies. In fact, many of them would make no scruple in openly avowing that they were opposed to any practical temperance measure, because it would retard the coming prohibition. With the hearty support of the prohibitionists, there is no reason today why scientific temperance measures should not be put in force throughout the United States, that would do away with at least seventy-five per cent of the evils of drunkenness.
Our present Federal prohibition law is still on trial. It never would have been enacted unless we had been precipitated into the Great War. It has never been submitted to a plebiscite of the people. In one respect, it has done much evil in increasing the unrest and discontent of a large part of our population, who regard malt liquors as comparatively innocuous, and as necessary to their comfort and health, and who regard the deprivation of them as an invasion of their personal liberty. When Rome was threatened, as we are now, by a rising tide of unrest and discontent, the rulers of that day advised "panem et circenses"—food and amusement. Many of the thinkers of today neglect this sage, old maxim in depriving the people of their beer, in urging more stringent Sunday Blue Laws, and, generally, in restricting or prohibiting popular amusements, on one pretext or the other. In reading some of the proposed restrictions on minors, one sometimes wonders how it is supposed that stalwart, young lads from sixteen to twenty-one are to spend their evenings. They most assuredly will not spend them at home reading the Bible.
In the future consideration of temperance vs. prohibition, it will be well for the followers of Jesus to weigh maturely His position on the question. His precept and example are not lightly to be disregarded, especially where, as here, they harmonize with the laws of nature, instead of, as in the case of war, being opposed to them. If all hypocrisy were eliminated, and the non-compromisers and sacro-sancts kept out of the discussion, there is no reason why the opposing forces of temperance and prohibitioncould not arrive at a compromise, which would reduce the evil of drunkenness to a minimum, and, at the same time, not rob life of the joy and good cheer that comes from a temperate enjoyment of the "fruit of the vine." If it is to be a part of the heavenly life (Matt. XXVI:29; Mark XIV:25; Luke XXII:30), let it be also a part of the earthly life.
In the matters of prayer, fasting and ceremonial worship, the churches must make radical changes in their practice, if they are to win back their influence over the masses of the people—an influence which, it is generally admitted, has been on the wane during the past few decades. The contrast is altogether too glaring between the simple form of worship, practiced and preached by Jesus, and that of most of our modern religious denominations. The luxury of modern living is a favorite subject of invective by essayists and philosophical writers. But it is little wonder that the layman runs to this extreme, when he has before him the example set by many of the successors of Jesus' apostles—popes, bishops, cardinals, ministers of wealthy parishes, etc. And, in saying this, the fact is not overlooked that many ministers of the Gospel are worthy, self-denying, conscientious followers of Jesus in these matters, but the exceptions are too numerous. The conduct of a class is usually judged by that of its most prominent representatives.
As to creeds, theological disputes and sectarian differences, the common people are more and more acting on the lines of Pope's couplet: