Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — April 1913, Seite 165

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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Moderner Unglaube in der Generalsynode. 165
Welt schreie jetzt nach Realisierung des sozial⸗ philosophischen Ideals,
welches bestehe in der größtmöglichen persönlichen Freiheit des einzel⸗
nen, verbunden mit dem gleichen Anteil und Genuß aller an dem Roh⸗
material der Erde und an der Frucht ihrer gemeinsamen Arbeit. Die
große, dringende Aufgabe des Christentums sei es nun, dies Verlangen
der Welt zu befriedigen und zur Verwirklichung dieses sozialen und
ökonomischen Zieles die Kräfte und Methoden zu liefern, wozu sie auch
imstande sei vermöge des „Evangeliums“, wie es Harnack wieder in
seiner Reinheit dargestellt habe. Delk schreibt: „As in each and every
age the open-eyed disciples of the Master responded to the world's
dominant er* for aid in the solution of common problems, so the
leaders of our faith have beéen quick to set forth those prineiples
and that spirit of Jesus which aré for theé heéaling and inspiration
of the social movement. In our age the éethics of Jesus have been
recovered. He (Harnack) has worked back to, and laid bare,
„The Gospel.' „We have seen bo aid of the history of doctrines
that the pure Word has béeen subjeéct to philosophie and dogmatic
forms of expréssion Wwhich havé taken out of the reahn of effective
theology and preaching the original doctrines which express the per-
manent truths of apostolic davs. The present age's call and dilemma
arée not theological but social. and woe be to the Church if she fails
now to make application of the spirit and prineiples of Jesus Christ
to modern industrial and social problems. The menace of Mor-
monism, the strife between labor and capital, the congested eity
with its poverty and vice and drunkenness, the false ethies of our
Nietzsches and Schopenhauers, the half-baked schemés of a materi⸗
alistic socialism, the exaspérating ostentation and power of plu-
tocracy, legislative corruption, and deadening secularism must be
faced and conqueéred by a new race of Christian prophets and saints.
We must not only proclaim the kingdom of God, but must insist
upon the application of the tenets of that kingdom. The kingdom
of heaven must first of all be within our leaders, but they must
hasten also to actualize in an objective society — in commerce, in
industry, in politics, in social life — the law of justice, love, and
brotherhood. The new democracy can only be made possible through
education — à Christian education which has the personal, dynamie
Christ of history and life as the transforming agent. No mere vision
of truth in nature and man, or in Biblical studies, no contribution
of Christian consciousness or comparative religion, no social theory
or humanitarian devotion, alone or combineéd, work the miracle of
a kingdom of heaven. Only the spirit and sacrificial life of Jesus
Christ shining in the heart and guiding the battle for righteousness
can or will usher in that age of equity, comfort, peace, and joy
Fhich now fascinates the brain and faith of God's noblemen. The
Church is not fully alive to this social service. Many men once satis-

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