4. What is meant by evil being socialized? In what ways does this increase the ability of evil to defend and propagate itself? 5. What are the most dangerous forms of organized evil today? How do they work? 6. What are the most disastrous “stumbling blocks” today for working people? For business men? For students? 7. The Church sings many militant hymns. Is the Church as a whole a fighting force today? IV. _For Special Discussion_ 1. How should an individual go about it to fight concrete and socialized evils in a community? 2. How can a church get into the fight? Should the Church go into politics? Why, or why not? 3. Would Christianity be just as influential as a social power of salvation if the Christian Church did not exist? 4. Will the fight against evil ever be won? If not, is it worth fighting? Chapter XI. The Cross As A Social Principle _Social Redemption is Wrought by Vicarious Suffering_ DAILY READINGS First Day: The Prophetic Succession And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he sent another; and him they killed: and many others; beating some, and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.—Mark 12:1-9. The vineyard parable was meant as an epitome of Jewish history. By the servants who came to summon the nation to obedience, Jesus meant the prophets. The history of the Hebrew people was marked by a unique succession of men who had experienced God, who lived in the consciousness of the Eternal, who judged the national life by the standard of divine righteousness, and who spoke to their generation as representatives of God.(6) The spirit of these men and the indirect permanent influence they gained in their nation give the Old Testament its incomparable power to impel and inspire us. They were the moving force in the spiritual progress of their nation. Yet Jesus here sketches their fate as one of suffering and rejection. Have other nations had a succession of men corresponding to the Hebrew prophets? Are there any in our own national history? Second Day: The Suffering Servant of Jehovah