Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 50:199 (Jul 1893)
Article: The Relation Of The Church To Social Reform
Author: David Kinley

BSac 50:199 (July 1893) p. 377

The Relation Of The Church To Social Reform

Mr. David Kinley

Ever since her establishment the Church of Christ has been an object of attack either in the realm of the credibility of her doctrines or in that of the character of her practices. A generation ago the battle raged furiously in the former region; to-day the latter is the basis of a wide-spread criticism. The present article is concerned with only one phase of the discussion,—the alleged failure of the Church to do her duty in matters of practical concern in the life of society, and the alleged consequent alienation of the masses from her. The article does not, therefore, enter the field of discussion with those who, in a spirit of hostility to the Church as an institution, declare that in her long career she has done more harm to the world in the physical and moral life of men than she has done good in the spiritual life; but the paper confines itself to a consideration of the position of those friends of the Church who think that she is not making the most of present opportunities, and that she fails in her duty in participating so slightly in direct measures of social reform. There is a feeling abroad, that if Christianity be

BSac 50:199 (July 1893) p. 378

what it claims to be it should justify its pretensions by bringing about the social regeneration for which the world is working. It is alleged that, in consequence of its failure to do so, it is losing its “hold” on the masses of the people, and that the alienation of the masses from the Church is at once the sign and the expression of the decay of the Christian religion.

The claim that the Church is losing her hold on the people at large is not new. Many years ago John Stuart Mill wrote that it was at least doubtful whether any church except the Roman Catholic retained great authoritative influence over its communicants or among the people at large. More recently the great German Economist, Roscher, has declared that the alienation of the masses from the Church is one of the five main causes of the social discontent and of the strength and progress of socialistic schemes. “When,” he says, “every one regards wealth as a sacred trust or office coming from God, and poverty as a divine dispensation intended to educate and develop those afflicted thereby, and considers all men as brothers, and this earthly life only as a preparation for eternity, even extreme differences of property lose their irritating and demoralizing power. On the other hand, the atheist and materialist becomes only too readily a mammonist, and the poor mammonist falls only too easily into that despair which would gladly kindle a universal conflagration, in order either to plunder or to lose his own life.” The thought to which these eminent...