Transcript

I do not think it an accident that the Dark Ages came during the Christian era. Aloof from life and little concerned with the affairs of men, with all their potentialities for significant advance, the Church in this tragic period chartered a course whose end was for generations inevitable darkness. The Dark Ages came as the natural fruitage of a Church unrelated to the life of the world. The genius to understand, to liberate, to command and lead is one with the Spirit of Christ. This exalted privilege belongs uniquely to the Church. Other groups or another spirit may seek to lead and may even lead for a while, but they cannot understand, they cannot liberate, they cannot command a confidence born of abiding faith and clothed with power. I cannot think of a greater spiritual tragedy that would come today with the Church of Christ amidst a bewildered people in an intricately bewildered world, clustering itself apart from human interests, unconcerned with knowing and seeking to solve the world's involved complexities. The Church was founded to be the force subduing the kingdom's opposing interests. The battles of the Church are fought and won in the world. To begin with, an informed Church must know its world. Any view of the world with its problems of people and society, any view of the world filled with people groping for light, demands that if it is to come to effective rescue, the Church must be informed. It must know the world in which its destiny is cast. Pious phrases, outworn theological statements, ineffective technique, creedal symbolists do not command the attention or win the devotion bewildered men are of tottering civilizations. Such activities do not send shafts of light athwart the darkest scenes. The Church must know its world, its field of battle, its enemy's strength and resources. It is always interesting to remember that scouting opponents' play is a very important part of successful gridiron strategy. The great teams are familiar with the style of play they will meet in the game. For the Church to win in a sorely beset world, wherein human beings are struggling to rise above their dead selves to higher things, is a conflict in which no quarter is given. To be successful, the Church must know well its field of action. Again, an informed Church must know our cultural inheritance. The place for the Church is out in front, says Bishop McConnell. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was in the foreground with its art, its cathedrals, its literature, its saints. It was in the front with Luther, Knox, Huss, Savonarola, and Calvin. It has been there with the growth of democracy in America, proclaiming the dignity of the individual, assuring man of freedom in all its forms, while they sought truth in the many fields of research. The Church is the fostering mother of all those values most cherished among civilized people. Certainly now, in the present crisis in human affairs, in a peculiar sense, her place is out front, protecting her own, reinterpreting old things, and welcoming the new. In times of upheaval, society is plastic. It can be shaped. Then it becomes rigid again. The opportunity now is for the Church to work while its work can be made most effective. And above all, it must know better than any other institution knows the material in which it is working. Yet again, an informed Church must have and know its program and mission. Sometimes it is said that the best offense is a defense. Within reasonable limits, and as a temporary measure, this can, in some situations, conceivably be true. The Church must have available a program of defensive action. But a Church bent on conquering the world and bringing in the kingdom is already defeated if it fails to have an aggressive program. When Christ sent his disciples forth, he said it was for whatsoever things I command you. His policy was not one of watchful waiting or of inactive expectancy. Go, he said. Go beyond the utmost boundaries. Bring them in. Preach, teach, heal. Words like these do not sound like defensive strategy. They are words of one confident of winning the world. But in a very significant and real sense, the program of the Church is the furthering of the word of salvation. There can be no equivocation here. Various prevailing political ideas, even with heavily armed might behind them, offer certain kinds of solidarity. But with all their vainglory, do not pretend to give men spiritual redemption. Modern states, with far-reaching assumptions of power, claim to give men employment and implements of livelihood. But even these conceited states do not promise growth and development for the dear concerns of the human heart. In a war-menaced world, the informed Church needs to listen again for the voice of its founder, saying, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Can you look into any organized body of life and find anywhere so comprehensive a program of human betterment as that offered by the Church? It has been its outline from the publicly announced platform of the Master who stood in the synagogue and read, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and the recovery of sight to the blind. Hospitals have been built and operated by the Church in the name of the Great Physician. Schools have been founded and maintained by the Church in the name of the Master Teacher. Churches have been built with our spires pointing heavenward, wherein are spoken beautiful words of life in the name of one who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. You cannot name a human institution in this or any other age whose comprehensive program touches so closely the areas of human need as does the program of the Informed Church. The Informed Church looks within, discovers its source of power, rejoices in its mission, takes the world for its parish, sends its light afar, and to that mission must remain steadfastly true. Yet once again the Informed Church must know its Lord. It must ever be in company with its Master. There is in the story of his earthly life no record of his having failed one person who came to him. If he was met alone at the well, or if he was pressed against by the thronging crowd, or he was taking his journey, all who came, either in groups or as persons, seeking his favor, found him unique in understanding and in the power to bless. Even in the breaking of bread, they recognized him. To the early Church, Christ was the dominant personality, the empowering spirit. Under his dominion, inner clashes, and every manner of possible disunity broke down, and the compelling reason for the success of that little company at first despairing because he went away is that they knew him. A beautiful story is given us from the long-lasting westward journey of Lord Nelson with his fleet. Sir Robert Stopford wrote home, We are half starved since we've been so long out of port, but our reward is we are with Nelson. Nelson's men knew him as their invincible leader. This exchange of understanding and confidence made them the success together that the world knew them to have been. It would be an unholy vanity to believe the revelation ended with the first century. Christ gave to his Church in that early day its message and its mission. But there has never been a time since then when he did not speak to his listening Church. And as he speaks, his voice is both imperative and imperial. No other voice bids for the heart of the world. No other voice demands so much of its followers. Seek, he keeps saying. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, he keeps appealing. Knock, and it shall be open unto you. Come and follow me. These are not words of an opportunist capitalizing for personal aims, the exigencies of the hour. They are commanding words spoken by an imperial voice whose kingdom is without frontiers. We take up Jesus' own words to ourselves and hear him saying, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. His sheep hear his voice and follow him. But a stranger will they not follow because they know not the voice of strangers. An informed Church in our often frustrated life needs to know well its Lord. And so when I think about our darkened and weary world with its lowering clouds, its hates, its fears, its bitterness, I think also of its hopes and its dreams. Contemporary circumstance cannot thwart their fulfillment. The badness of our day without the Church adds but fury to its own fire. But an informed Church, knowing its world, its inherited culture, its mission, and its Lord can bring a realization of our dreams and God's dreams as well. Ours is not a despairing cry. Ours is not a defeated leader. We're not afraid to know our world, to enter into its life with a life of our own in spirit and in conquering power superior to it. We want to understand its problem, its personal disappointments, its social misdirections. Ours is not a confused and frustrated mission. We know we have the word of life. Great as are the evils of our time, we know that desperate tides of the world's great anguish are forced through the channels of a single heart. Against high of a darker background then, the Church of the living God, alive, eager, and well knowing its God and its powers, cries in the face of every evil power, they shall not pass. And to faces uplifted, as if in prayer, sings triumphantly, Jesus shall reign and claim his holy church to be his bride, for he is the spiritual radium of eternity. Before closing, may I give a practical example of what I have been saying. The primary emphasis of the crusade for Christ for the year 1947 is Christian stewardship. Information on this Christian doctrine is essential. Pat Abernathy of the Virginia Conference puts it this way. Inform the Church and the Church will be reformed by the people. Christian stewardship is an acknowledgement in honor that all things belong to God and we are entrusted with them to use for him. This makes every job a divine mission. It is not so much concerned with contribution as it is with commitment. One who is after subscriptions is intent on the contribution, but one who is after stewardship is intent on the commitment. When one makes a contribution, one gives of what one has, but when one makes a commitment, what one has, one gives. The one is judged by size, the other by spirit. To use stewardship to get funds we need rather than to get the religion we need is to make the word of God to non-effect through our position. The steward must express. He administers because he embodies. It is impossible for a person in whom Christ dwells to do anything other than to use what he has for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. If you have him, you have it. The adoption of a sound scriptural principle of stewardship is an imperative need of the Church today and the foundation of stewardship must be correct thinking about God. Our whole life must be a partnership with him, a partnership whose important concern is the making of a new and better world. It's splendid to hear of a man who definitely sets himself to make money for God, but there is a still higher ideal, and that is so to work and conduct industry that it will express the righteousness of God and the brotherhood of man. The whole of life is a Christian stewardship. Thus love becomes alive. Information becomes incorporated in action. Material has a spiritual value. Property assists in our praying. Wealth utters God. Personality is given primary over property. All because we are God. A Christian steward says with Paul, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.