Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15Temple, William
Religion
Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15
Temple, William
Church and state
If it is true that the method of Christ is to appeal to the free
personality of the man, so that he obeys out of love and devotion and
not from fear of penalty nor hope of reward, other than the reward of
realising the love of the Master, then surely it is in the true line of
development towards the perfected Christian civilisation if we demand
that these opportunities for the development of free personality shall
be afforded. No doubt it must be done with wisdom. Rough and ready
methods, however well-meant, might do far more harm than good, and leave
us in a situation even worse than that which we know. But the Church
has paid scarcely any attention to those things in England. It is very
difficult to persuade Church-people that, because they are followers of
Christ, and therefore might be assumed to recognise that they are
"members one of another" with all these others, they are therefore bound
(for example) in investing their money to find out the conditions under
which their dividends are going to be earned. In almost every
department of life we have left such things alone. Under the stress of
war, we have suddenly become acutely conscious of the drink evil. It
was there before; and we have been content that the great majority of
our fellow citizens should have no opportunity for gratifying those
instincts of social life and merriment, which are the birthright of all
God’s children, except in places where the influence of alcohol was
supreme. We have been content with that. We have not thought it was our
duty to find a means of supplying them with other places of recreation
and amusement; we have saved our money. And then we have the
impertinent audacity to claim our own redemption by the blood of Christ.
One can go on with one evil after another in the same way. This is what
makes the Church weak. It is no sort of use for us to say that Christ
is the Redeemer of the world, and the Revealer of the way of life, if
with regard to just those evils which press most heavily on men we have
to say that for them He has unfortunately not supplied a remedy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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