With many minds the difficulty of achieving an idea of God adequate for
our new universe will not be met by any such intellectual shift of
emphasis as we have suggested. Not anthropomorphic theology so much as
ecclesiasticism is the major burden on their thinking about deity. Two
conceptions of the Church are in conflict to-day in modern
Protestantism, and one of the most crucial problems of America's
religious life in this next generation is the decision as to which of
these two ideas of the Church shall triumph. We may call one the
exclusive and the other the inclusive conception of the Church. The
exclusive conception of the Church lies along lines like these: that we
are the true Church; that we have the true doctrines and the true
practices as no other Church possesses them; that we are constituted as
a Church just because we have these uniquely true opinions and
practices; that all we in the Church agree about these opinions and
that when we joined the Church we gave allegiance to them; that nobody
has any business to belong to our Church unless he agrees with us; that
if there are people outside the Church who disagree, they ought to be
kept outside and if there are people in the Church who come to
disagree, they ought to be put outside. That is the exclusive idea of
the Church, and there are many who need no further description of it
for they were brought up in it and all their youthful religious life
was surrounded by its rigid sectarianism.
Over against this conception is the inclusive idea of the Church, which
runs along lines like these: that the Christian Church ought to be the
organizing center for all the Christian life of a community; that a
Church is not based upon theological uniformity but upon devotion to
the Lord Jesus, to the life with God and man for which he stood, and to
the work which he gave us to do; that wherever there are people who
have that spiritual devotion, who possess that love, who want more of
it, who desire to work and worship with those of kindred Christian
aspirations, they belong inside the family of the Christian Church.
The inclusive idea of the Church looks out upon our American
communities and sees there, with all their sin, spiritual life
unexpressed and unorganized, good-will and aspiration and moral power
unharnessed and going to waste, and it longs to cry so that the whole
community can hear it. Come, all men of Christian good-will, let us
work together for the Lord of all good life! That is the inclusive
idea of the Church. It desires to be the point of incandescence where,
regardless of denominationalism or theology, the Christian life of the
community bursts into flame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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