It is only a clear recognition of the crucial importance of man's
inward transformation which can prepare us for a proper appreciation of
the social movement's meaning. For one point of contact between
religion's approach to the human problem from within out and
reformation's approach from without in lies here: to change social
environments which oppress and dwarf and defile the lives of men is one
way of giving the transforming Spirit a fair chance to reach and redeem
them. All too slowly does the truth lay hold upon the Church that our
very personalities themselves are social products, that we are born out
of society and live in it and are molded by it, that without society we
should not be human at all, and that the influences which play upon our
lives, whether redeeming or degrading, are socially mediated. A man
who says that he believes in the ineffable value of human personalities
and who professes to desire their transformation and yet who has no
desire to give them better homes, better cities, better family
relationships, better health, better economic resources, better
recreations, better books and better schools, is either an ignoramus
who does not see what these things mean in the growth of souls, or else
an unconscious hypocrite who does not really care so much about the
souls of men as he says he does.
An illuminating illustration of this fact is to be seen in the
expanding ideals of missionary work. When the missionaries first went
to the ends of the earth they went to save souls one by one. They went
out generally with a distinctly, often narrowly, individualistic
motive. They were trying to gather into the ark a few redeemed spirits
out of the wreck of a perishing world; they were not thinking primarily
of building a kingdom of social righteousness in the earth. Consider,
then, the fascinating story of the way the missionaries, whatever may
have been the motives with which they started, have become social
reformers. If the missionaries were to take the Gospel to the people,
they had to get to the people. So they became the explorers of the
world. It was the missionaries who opened up Asia and Africa. Was
there ever a more stirring story of adventure than is given us in the
life of David Livingstone? Then when the missionaries had reached the
people to give them the Gospel, they had to give them the Bible. So
they became the philologists and translators of the world. They built
the lexicons and grammars. They translated the Bible into more than a
hundred languages on the continent of Africa alone. Carey and his
followers did the same for over a score of languages in India. The
Bible to-day is available in over six hundred living languages.
Everywhere this prodigious literary labour has been breaking down the
barriers of speech and thought between the peoples. If ever we do get
a decent internationalism, how much of it will rest back upon this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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