Christian sociology; Labor -- United States; Labor movement -- United States; Working class -- United States
=The Church and Other Organizations.= Instead of institutional
churches, however, we are substituting the socialized church, and it is
not what the church is doing as an institution but what it is inspiring
others to do in the community that counts most. When the church cannot
get any one else to do a certain task, then the church must shoulder
the responsibility itself. The church ought to cooperate with the
united charities of the community. It will not be enough for it to
have merely a member or two on the boards of these organizations; the
church as an organization must be in close touch with them, furnishing
money and workers, and helping to plan and carry out the plans of the
organization. Above all, it must supply the proper spirit of love which
will offset that professionalism which is to-day a growing evil in all
charitable effort.
=The Church and the Outcasts.= The church ought to be organized so
that the sick and the poor, the unfortunate and the people out of
work, would find it a friend and champion. There was a preacher in
one of our churches in a certain city who was greatly disliked by
all the so-called “respectable” people who knew him. As one man put
it, “He has long hair, a long tongue, and is a trouble-maker.” But
among the outcasts in the city he was known as the “Chaplain for the
nobody-knows-who.” By this term those who loved him meant that he was
a friend of the neglected people of the great city. After he died men
who had no use for him before began to tell of little illuminating
incidents in his life, and thousands of people testified to the fact
that he had been an inspiration and a help.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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