The ship in which Paul sailed toward Rome can be taken as a
cross-section of society—then or now. The capitalistic owner and galley slaves.
Sailors and land lubbers. Prisoners and police. Soldiers and civilians. A
minister of the gospel, a writer, a physician—all sorts and conditions of men.
The Morro Castle disaster apparently is not the first time
when sailors showed the “white feather.” Under pretext of putting out an
anchor, the sailors on the SS “Castor and Pollux” sought to escape in the one
remaining lifeboat. Paul’s word to the Centurion, “Except these abide in the
ship, ye cannot be saved,” is a good word for each individual and group in our
divided society, today. Each needs the other. It is impossible for the nation
to come to its best or to go forward in any marked way, without the
contribution that each group can make. There must be some common denominator.
This is equally true for all groups. The Catholic has
something to add to our national life. We deeply sympathize with his insistence
that religion enter into the education of children and if, by constitutional
means, he can secure public funds, as good citizens and believers in democracy,
I suppose, we will submit. On the other hand, we will make a vigorous fight to
prevent this very thing, believing that our best contribution will be in
support of a non-sectarian school system. The trouble with this situation is
that most Protestants are anti-Catholic rather than pro-Protestant. For
traditional and real causes they will fight Catholics, but when it comes to a
positive support of their own churches, they are sadly lacking. Witness the
attendance at worship in this church this morning, or in any other Protestant
church in the city, unless it happens to be some anniversary or special
occasion. A Protestantism that represents only animus toward other groups is
entirely beside the point and unworthy.
I am ashamed to make any reference to my next point. It
seems so obvious that denominational bounds within Protestantism are outgrown
and “out-moded,” and yet we are farther away from any kind of coherent church
unity than we were when I began my ministry, twenty-five years ago. The “world”
outside, that incidentally contains many discerning people of good will, has
little sympathy with our “unhealthy divisions.” They are a crying shame to
heaven.
The first step toward a larger unity has been made in the
Federal Council, which has had widely representative and capable leadership. No
man today speaks with more spiritual authority and keen intelligence than
Bishop McConnell, who speaks in our city next Sunday night. He has been one of
the guiding spirits of the Federal Council.
The report on the steel situation fifteen years ago,
violently opposed at the time, is now recognized as a masterly document that
solved a problem in the field of labor that the government in Washington had
failed to adjust. This report is an ample vindication of the Council and of
future efforts in that direction from the same source, provided they be guided
by the principle, which I would call Bishop McConnell’s “Principle of
Prophesy,” which briefly is this: On the basis of the best information
available, unprejudiced and gathered by experts from all sources, let the
Church, in the name of justice and good will, indicate to economic and
industrial groups the just policy,
and you will have a prophetic voice speaking in no uncertain tones along lines
that can be profitably followed. Put human interests ahead of property
interests, with all the sanity and knowledge available! Apply the basic
principles of the Gospel and the Church can still exercise its prophetic
function. That endowment of power in other days came upon individuals, and that
may happen again. But, more likely, it is destined in the future to speak
through the combined intelligence of the Group.
Yes, we need each other. The Pacifist, in this present evil
world, still needs the Militarist. Somewhere, between the two extremes, the
public course must be charted. There are too many dangers for complete
disarmament. On the other hand, all the enthusiasm of the sincere lovers of
peace, all the good sense of statesmen, is needed to prevent the recurrence of
war. It is an open question whether war ever accomplished any good commensurate
with its awful cost. Nine-tenths of all our present day poverty, moral and
economic alike, the world around, can be charged up the Great War. On this I
feel strongly and would defend the right of any lover of peace, no matter how extreme,
to have his say. But I am enough of a realist to know that in order to make
substantial progress, any program, whether it be promoted by churchmen or
politicians, must give the assurance of national security to citizens of my
country in order to gain their support, tacit or enthusiastic. But more of this
next Sunday, which happens to be Armistice Day.
In the present county elections the ugly form of Nazism
rears its head. We owe a great debt to our Jewish citizens. In the city they
are among our most intelligent and generous philanthropists. This has been true
for nearly a century. In the religious field, they have been given a surprising
number of outstanding leaders in our city. Culturally and economically they
have been a great asset. In the last decade they have proved stalwart
supporters, and furnished striking leadership for, the desperate political
situation of this municipality. But, I predict that the election next Tuesday
will temporarily eliminate some of our most useful public servants simply
because they are Jews, for an over-seas hatred, due to historical and racial
reasons, finds a strong reflection in “Zinzinnati.” “My beloved brethren, these
things ought not so to be” . . . . “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot
be saved.”
Now I ask you, as I ask myself, what are the forces that
cohere? What are the things that bind us together? This multitude of all sorts,
who travel in the same ship of state. [With us, as of old, there are prisoners,
and the problems of the under-world and the gangsters are forced home upon us
every day. What have we to offset this and the hundred other ills that afflict
us?
This was a food ship, in which St. Paul traveled, carrying
to Rome the wheat for the daily dole. Our relief situation is nothing new. Make
it acute enough however, and you have the seeds of revolution sprouting fast.]
I should say that very likely in American life the thing
that most nearly binds us together into anything like a common unity is the
Public School, which is worthy of our support in the present or any other tax
levy; not for the mere learning of the Three R’s, but enough money available
for adequate equipment and a well-paid teaching staff that has had access to
all the educational and cultural advantages of our time, that they may pass
these on, consciously and unconsciously, to our children. Not a stereotyped,
inflexible system that teaches by rote the ‘Law of the Twelve Tables’ or an
interpretation of the Constitution sanctioned by the Sons of the Revolution—or
the Daughters, but an intelligent, constructive educational policy that teaches
the value of all that is good in the past and yet recognizes the inevitability
of change. Over every public school might be written into the motto: “Prove all
things; hold fast that which is good.”
Organizations like the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the
present non-sectarian policies of the Y.M. and Y.M.C.A; these, and any other
groups for young people or adults, that give them a cross-section of the
community, that force people of all sorts and conditions to mix and to
mingle—as they must have done on the little ship that sailed to Rome, these
“two hundred, three score and sixteen souls,” learning to dislike each other
and, in emergencies, to admire each other and depend upon each other for mutual
help and support; all the things in our common life that acquaint us with each
other, our strong cohesive forces.
And, the religion of Christ, by all means, ought to be one
of these unifying factors. If Protestantism has been divisive, let us change its
character. Paul said that Christ came to break down “a middle wall of
partition” and that without this the Cross of Christ would become of no effect.
Whatever the first century Christians may have done in this regard (there are
the marks and wounds of strife in the Book of Acts), whatever they may have
done or failed to do, our present interpretation of Christianity in Protestant
circles is far from “breaking down” any walls. We have as many prejudices as
have our Catholic neighbors, only theirs take a different form. Their united
front and policy, of opposition to all who do not agree with them in theory, of
course, is the very antithesis of the Gospel. Let it be a lesson to us.
Like these ancient mariners, we have thrown overboard much
of the tackling of the ship. There is not much water between our keel and the
rocks. Shipwreck may be ahead. If all abide in the ship, if there is a unified
purpose of good will, all will come safe to land, though it may be on broken
pieces of the ship.
No one is wise enough to predict the future. There are
certain great and abiding principles that ought, however, to direct our life,
individual and social. These have been defied; that is our trouble today.
Old-fashioned honesty, a simple faith in action; these have been largely
lacking in the setup of the last twenty years. We have become too
sophisticated. There are many new helps to navigation, thanks to Lord Kelvin
and a hundred others, but none of them can afford to neglect the stars. Like
these ancient sailors, “we have cast our anchors out of the stern and long for
the day.” Serious thought has been forced upon us and as we revamp our plans
for the future, in the Spirit of Christ, regardless of what our traditional
religious prejudices have indicated, we ought to go forward with our main
reliance on the Ethical Gospel of our Lord. There is salvation in no other
Name; and that, in the barest terms, He said, was to love God with heart, soul
and mind and ones neighbor as one’s self.
We need a new infusion of the fear of the Lord, reverence
for the Highest and Best, a new appreciation of good will and brotherhood, a
baptism of the spirit of love that suffers long and is kind, that never fails
and cannot fail.
No comments:
Post a Comment