Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day ThinkingCoffin, Henry Sloane
Religion
Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking
Coffin, Henry Sloane
Christianity -- 20th century; Theology, Doctrinal -- Popular works
We must set our faces against allowing congregations to embrace but one
social class, or several easily combined social strata in the community.
In our American towns the Protestant communions are separated more by
social caste than by religious conviction. People attend the church
where they find "their kind." Poor people do not feel themselves at
home, even spiritually, among the well-to-do, and the children of
comfortable homes are not permitted to go to the same Sunday School with
the children of the tenements. Class lines are as apparent, and almost
as divisive, in our churches as anywhere else. The Church of Christ
under such circumstances ceases to be a unifying factor in society; its
teaching of brotherhood becomes a mockery. In every community there will
be found some entirely unchurched social group; and the churches
themselves will be impoverished by the absence of the spiritual
appreciations to be found most developed in persons of that stratum. Our
denominational divisions tend to accentuate our social divisions. Church
unity, lessening the number of congregations in a locality, would help
to make the churches that remained more socially inclusive. Meanwhile
the "one class church," in any but the very rare homogeneous community,
ought to realize that, whatever Christian service it may render, it is
all the while doing the cause of Christ a great disservice, and is in
need of a radical reorganization and an equally radical spiritual
renewal into its Lord's wider sympathies.
Personally we must rigidly examine ourselves and test our right to be
considered members of the Body of Christ. There are some New Testament
evidences of the Spirit that we must still demand of ourselves. One is
loyal obedience to Jesus: "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the
Holy Spirit." A second is filial trust in God: "Because ye are sons, God
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
A third is self-devoting love akin to that shown on Calvary: "The fruit
of the Spirit is love;" "By this shall all men know that ye are My
disciples, if ye have love one to another." And if the Spirit is within
us, He is eager to work through us. We may be quenching Him by laziness,
by timidity, by preoccupation. We are of the Body of Christ only as we
are "members each in his part."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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