tit-1
. . LIBRARY . .
Connecticut
Agricultural College.
CLASS NO ^XD --/"I
/ 48
COST
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DATE
Oct. xa. 19V0
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BOOK 220. H74 c. 1
HOLT # BIBLE AS COMMUNITY BOOK
3 1153 000bSM7E S
\
I
This book may be kept out^ '
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OCT 1 3 19^3
THE BIBLE AS A
COMMUNITY BOOK
BY
ARTHUR E. HOLT
Secretary for the Social Service Department
Congregational Education Society
THE WOMANS PRESS
NEW YORK
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
THE NATIONAL BOARD OF THE
YOUNG WOMENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NEW YORK
I fc "7 1 7-
The Bible text ueed in this book is taken from the American Standard Edition of the
Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission.
A Study Outline to be used in connection with the book may be ordered separately
from The Womans Pres3, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York. Price, 25 cents.
TO MY FATHER
WHO HAS MADE HIS BIBLE
A COMMUNITY BUILDING BOOK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Parable op No-Man's Land .' 7
II. A Clan Established in Justice and Faith 11
III. Faith Destroyers 28
IV. The Fight for Justice and Social Faith 37
V. Sacrificing a Nation in the Name of a Community of
Justice 48
VI. First Attempts at Building the Community of Justice 55
VII. The Founder of the Universal Community 63
VIII. The Growth of the Community Founded by Jesus .... 74
IX. The Universal Community Founded on Justice in the
Life of To-Day 83
THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
CHAPTER I
A PARABLE OF NO-MAN'S LAND
Away out on the edge of civilization where Sage Brush Mesa
joins on to Sucker Flats lies the frontier region of No-Man's
Land. Its inhabitants first came in search of
Setting Up an isolation and in the hope that they might escape
Man's Land ^e Pr°blems of living together which confronted
them in the more thickly settled communities.
The first person to offer a solution of the problem was Dead-
Eye Dick, the crack shot of all this district. He sought to
build a community based on fear of himself. He acquired an
authority which few dared to dispute. Armed to the teeth with
the latest man-killing instruments, he ruled over the length and
breadth of No-Man's Land.
But Dead-Eye Dick came to grief because while it is always
possible for one man to be stronger than another man it is very
hard for one man to be stronger than two men. One night in a
saloon, led by a fellow called Combination Bill, a gang fell upon
Dead-Eye Dick, and his authority was at an end. Because this
gang had learned the secret of strength in combination, for a
long time they held sway over the district between Sage Brush
Mesa and Sucker Flats. But their secret was soon discovered
and other gangs were formed who disputed their authority, and
there was war incessant. Murder and bitterness absorbed the
7
8 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
thought and attention of the people. They neither tended the
flocks and herds nor cultivated the soil. The heart of every man
was full of suspicion and the hand of every man was against his
neighbor.
The next person to try his hand at helping conditions was
Peaceful Jud. Peaceful Jud saw that the whole country was
being depopulated and that the people were facing starvation.
He attributed this condition to two causes : first, that the people
carried guns, and second, that there were no law courts. He
succeeded in getting the people to throw away their guns and to
establish law courts. But matters did not greatly improve.
The law courts went unused because there was no one who really
believed in them. The strong said that they did not need them
and the weak were afraid that they were controlled by the
strong. Although the people had no guns, they poisoned the
springs and hung each other to trees with lariat ropes. Men
became as excited when they saw an enemy near a spring or
carrying a lariat rope as they formerly did when they saw an
enemy with a gun. Even Peaceful Jud soon found it impossible
to take himself seriously.
The last person to try his hand at community uplift was
Parson John. They called him Parson because on occasions he
called the people together and talked to them about what they
ought and ought not to do. He did not begin by finding fault
with all that had been done before. He was broad in his
appreciation and even partially approved of what Dead-Eye
Dick had tried to do. He saw that community life based on
fear was often man's first attempt at community living and
would probably always be tried where no better plan was offered.
He did not begin by threatening the people with eternal punish-
ment if they did not reform for he saw in this only another
appeal to selfishness based on fear. He saw that a society based
A PARABLE OF NO-MAN'S LAND 9
on fear would always disintegrate. His only criticism of Peace-
ful Jud was that he began with results rather than causes.
Parson John maintained that the only permanent community
life must be based on faith and trust.
He knew that there had never been any power under Heaven
devised for holding people together who feared and hated each
other. Murder was always bred in hate. He knew that the
only way you could get people to trust each other was to estab-
lish justice and do away with injustice. Since all of the people
were full of suspicion, someone had to begin the process of giving
justice if distrust was to be dispelled. Parson John decided to
begin with himself. For the sake of bringing faith back into
the community he was willing to give justice and to give it first
and thus be worthy of trust. The result was that people rallied
around him with a feeling different from that they had ever
had for any other man. Men gave him what they had never
given before. They gave him trust and loyalty. Because he
had the loyalty of men he became powerful.
It was not long before he had the largest following of any
man in the community. He had learned the secret of strength
based on confidence. In order that there might be more people
who loved to do justice he called the people together and they
formed an association to study the meaning of justice, and dedi-
cated themselves to the doing of it. As the number of people
multiplied who were willing to give justice, community faith de-
veloped. In the interest of justice law courts were established
which had as their purpose the promotion of public justice.
Law and order was thus established. The community had
solved the problem of living together through the efforts of one
who was willing to give justice and give it first.
Like a surge of the tide the convictions of men are set toward
freedom and away from autocratic compulsion. It is not at all
10 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
impossible that community life in our day, intoxicated with a
passion for freedom and impatient of all authority, may degen-
erate into social anarchy through the misguided
The Advance efforts of those who seek freedom. Just at pres-
?on\*?° ,*, n ent the world is rent with class strug erle. Mutual
to a World ... .
Order Built on suspicion characterizes all social groups. Our
Justice papers are records of daily wars between contend-
ing factions. This struggle may develop into a
social anarchy which will prove destructive of the good which
society has already achieved. Our difficulty seems to lie in the
fact that men and women do not realize the price which must be
paid for freedom of association in community life. The most
pressing moral problem which thinking people face is the count-
ing of the cost of the free community life they profess to be
seeking.
CHAPTER II
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH
The culmination of the social thought and experience of the
Hebrews is found in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
But the thought of Jesus was the ripe fruitage of
The Hebrew twelve hundred and fifty years of social experi-
Coinmunity as ence jn ^he great laboratory of the Hebrew com-
Laboratorv munity. Hebrew social life had been lived under
the guidance of an ideal. Successes and fail-
ures had both been of value. The experience had been inter-
preted by men of great insight who had meditated upon it and
had helped to separate the chaff from the wheat.
The story of Hebrew life starts with the founding of a com-
munity by a great-souled man who makes the clan the object
of his love and enthusiasm :
Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show
thee : and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and
make thy name great ; and be thou a blessing : and I will bless them that
bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse : and in thee shall all
the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram went, as Jehovah had
spoken unto him ; and Lot went with him : and Abram was seventy
and five years old when he departed out of Haran.1
The holy fire for the building of Israel is handed down from
generation to generation. These men are the keepers of the
Covenant. The builders of the Hebrew community are set over
against its destroyers. Experience reveals those who are build-
1 Genesis 12 :l-4.
11
12 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
ing and those who are destroying. Gradually it is seen that
certain men have a mind for the welfare of Israel. These men
possess certain virtues and programs of action which build the
community. Others possess attitudes of mind which destroy
the community. Both types of men are revealed in the testing
fires of experience.
One of the most important facts to remember about this
community is that it starts as a family and is not just a
geographical group. It is a nomadic clan, bound together by the
ties of blood, by a common memory, a common experience and
a common purpose. It is a clan which holds its property as
such. The people have not yet, as individuals, been taught to
say "yours and mine" in the possession of private land, and con-
sequently are not divided in their sense of solidarity. They
have no settled abode and are consequently called by their family
name and not by their geographical name, which always tends
to obscure a sense of brotherliness. The primary question with
the clan did not have to do with those things which pertain to
the physical life of the community, but with the maintaining of
its solidarity as a clan ; for it had to be a success as a clan before
it could be a success in making a living. The important question
for the Hebrew was not the relating of men to the world of
things but the relating of men to each other. In the building
of the Hebrew community they never lose sight of this. For
them the conquering of their desert world depended on the main-
taining of the solidarity and efficiency of their clan strength.
If they became weak and disintegrated, they could not maintain
themselves in competition with unfriendly desert competitors.
Better business for the Hebrews awaited the solution of a better
relationship of men to each other. Any breaking up of a true
clan relationship was ultimately poor business. Hebrew com-
munity thought specialized on human relationships. Other ages
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 13
have been able to contribute more to the problem of how a com-
munity makes its living, how it goes to market, how it should
maintain its health, but the contribution of the Hebrew was the
moral contribution of how men can live together in permanent
human relationships. Experience of the present seems to indi-
cate that an age which knows more about production, more about
distribution, and more about sanitation than any previous age,
needs to go back and learn what are the conditions of brother-
hood.
The Hebrew community starts with three hundred years of
simple tribal life. During that period, from being slaves under
Pharaoh in Egypt, the Hebrews rose under great leadership to
the place where they were the dominating force in Western Asia.
It was a simple rural civilization, without luxury, with a great
deal of hardship, and with a rugged courage and high idealism.
Three great personalities stand out as leaders who lay the
foundation of Hebrew freedom in justice, faith and loyalty.
If any large group of people were asked what is the most
wonderful thing about Egypt, that group would be almost unani-
mous in naming the pyramids. The pyramids,
Moses, Who however, stand in many ways as monuments of
ays e oun- naftonaj disgrace. They were made possible by a
Hebrew Free- system of human slavery whereby it was easy
dom and Law for one man to command the services of thou-
sands of human beings, who were living a life
without rights and without privileges. Man-power was cheap
in Egypt. A vainglorious ruler could command the cheap labor
to erect monuments which gratified his own vanity. The Book
of Genesis, in chapters 41 to 47, tells us of the way in which a
gigantic national monopoly was established by the then ruling
Pharaoh. It is a country where years of plenty are succeeded
by years of drought and poverty. At the suggestion of one
14 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
Joseph, Pharaoh was encouraged to store up in national gran-
aries the surplus products of the years of plenty. When famine
again swept the land, the national government was in shape to
supply the needs of the people and, incidentally, gain control
over them. The story relates how the famine was very sore in
the land of Egypt and the people gave first their money in ex-
change for grain, and then their cattle, and then their horses,
and then their flocks, then sold their land, and thus at the end of
the seventh year the land belonged to the ruler, and all the people
were working the land on shares. The monopoly was established
as a piece of national benevolence :
Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set
him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint
overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt
in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of these
good years that come, and lay up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for
food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store
to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land
of Egypt ; that the land perish not through the famine.1
And there was no bread in all the land ; for the famine was very sore,
so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the
famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the
land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they
bought : and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when
the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan,
all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread : for why
should we die in thy presence? for our money faileth. And Joseph said,
Give your cattle ; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. And
they brought their cattle unto Joseph ; and Joseph gave them bread in
exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the
asses : and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that
year. And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second
year, and said unto him, We will not hide from my lord, now that our
money is all spent ; and the herds of cattle are my lord's ; there is nought
left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: wherefore
should we die before thine eye, both we and our land? buy us and our
1 Genesis 41 :33-36.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 15
land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh : and
give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land may be
not desolate.
So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh ; for the Egyptians
sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them : and the
land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to the
cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof.
Only the land of the priests bought he not : for the priests had a portion
from Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them ;
wherefore they sold not their land. Then Joseph said unto the people,
Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here
is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass at
the ingatherings, that ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh, and four parts
shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them
of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said,
Thou hast saved our lives : let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and
we will be Pharaoh's servants. And Joseph made it a statute concerning
the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth ;
only the land of the priests alone became not Pharaoh's.1
The general poverty which extended also over the land of
Canaan brought the Hebrew tribes down into Egypt and they
found themselves a part of this gigantic system of oppression.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. And
he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are
more and mightier than we : Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest
they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falletih out any war,
they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get
them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters
to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-
cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more
they multiplied and the 'more they spread abroad. And they were grieved
because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children
of Israel to serve with rigor: and they made their lives bitter with hard
service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field,
all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor.2
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born
ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.3
1 Genesis 47 :13-26. 8 Exodus 1 : 22.
'Exodus 1:8-14.
16 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
It is at this point in the story that we are introduced to one
whose part it was to help loosen the grip of this gigantic
monopoly and to instill in the Hebrew brotherhood a conscious-
ness of freedom and also a regard for self-control based on law.
The second chapter of Exodus tells of the birth of a Hebrew
boy whose mother, in an endeavor to save him, hid him by the
Eiver Nile. Pharaoh's daughter, finding him there, caused him
to be adopted into the royal household. The best training which
was then possible for a growing youth was at his disposal.
Tradition tells us that he was given a training in the University
of Egypt and also that he received a military education. We are
told that very early in life he led a military expedition in
southern Egypt and came back crowned with military honors.
The best that the nation had to give could have been his. Honor
and the life of ease were his for the asking. He was a member
of the dominant class, a class which had power and wealth. Had
he identified himself with this class he could have forced thou-
sands of men to live for him and to do his bidding.
But all men are not so constructed that such a life appeals to
them. Moses could not forget that his welfare lay with the
people of his own race :
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he
went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he saw
an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this
way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote
the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second
day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together : and he
said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And
he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? thinkest thou to
kill me, as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said.
Surely the thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he
sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and
dwelt in the land of Midian : and he sat down by a well.1
1 Exodus 2 :11-15.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 17
It was a spontaneous outburst of a true feeling of indignation.
We need to estimate it at its rightful value. Subsequent events
proved that he was not right in taking the law into his own
hands. Private vengeance defeats itself as an instrument of
justice. Moses fled to the wilderness because he had substituted
violence for the processes of established law.
Moses* flight led to the land of Midian, and there he took
up the life of a sheep herder in the family of Jethro. His life
as a plainsman gave him time for meditation and left his heart
open to the revelations of God. One day the voice of God laid
upon him the task of leading his brethren out of Egypt in a
great freedom movement, to a land flowing with milk and honey
where they could work out their own tribal life and have oppor-
tunity to worship Jehovah.
And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people that
are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters ;
for I know their sorrows ; and I am come down to deliver them out of
the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto
a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.1
Moses returned to Egypt and with the help of Aaron, his
brother, he set to work at his task. His problem is fourfold.
He must first arouse the desire for freedom in a people whose
will had long been weakened by slavery. He must with the help
of God break the will of Pharaoh to dominate and to enslave.
He must then organize the will of the people to be free in unified
action looking toward freedom. The exodus out of Egypt must
be planned and executed. His fourth task is to substitute for
control by Pharaoh national self-control based on law and
through the machinery of lawfulness. Let us follow him as
he works at his task. We find him first seeking to arouse in the
people the will to be free.
Exodus 3 : 7-8.
18 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the
children of Israel : and Aaron spake all the words which Jehovah had
spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the
people believed.1
Slavery had almost destroyed the instinct for freedom in this
Hebrew cla-n. They were developing the enslaved mind along
with their enslaved bodies. Action looking toward freedom
awaited the kindling of the desire for freedom. Moses and
Aaron gathered together all the children of Israel and told them
that Jehovah had seen their afflictions and that they were to go
out into the wilderness and to a land flowing with milk and
honey. The people listened and seemed to believe it, but they
were yet to learn the difference between saying it and achieving
it.
When Pharaoh saw what Moses was doing, he increased the
burdens of the children of Israel, and their will for freedom
was tested as to whether or not they were willing to pay the price
of freedom. Many of them who had thought that freedom was
to be had by the saying now turned against Moses as their chief
enemy.
The king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron,
loose the -people from their works? get you unto your burdens. And
Pharaoh said, Behold, the -people of the land are now many, and ye make
them rest from their burdens. And the same day Pharaoh commanded
the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more
give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore : let them go and
gather straw for themselves. And the number of the bricks, which they
did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them ; ye shall not diminish aught
thereof : for they are idle ; therefore they cry, saying. Let us go and
sacrifice to our God. Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they
may labor therein ; and let them not regard lying words.
And the taskmasters of the people went out. and their officers, and
they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you
straw. Go yourselves, get you straw where ye can find it ; for naught of
1 Exodus 4:29-31.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 19
your work shall be diminished. So the people were scattered abroad
throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. And the
taskmasters were urgent, saying, Fulfill your works, your daily tasks,
as when there was straw. And the officers of the children of Israel,
whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and
demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both yesterday and
to-day, in making brick as heretofore?
Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh,
saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? There is no
straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick : and,
behold, thy servants are beaten ; but the fault is in thine own people.
But be said, Ye are idle, ye are idle : therefore ye say, Let us go and
sacrifice to Jehovah. Go therefore now, and work ; for there shall no
straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the number of bricks. And the
officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, when
it was said, Ye shall not diminish aught from your bricks, your daily
tasks. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they
came forth from Pharaoh : and they said unto them, Jehovah look upon
you, and judge ; because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the
eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their
hand to slay us.
And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou
dealt ill with this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For
since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath dealt ill with
this people ; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.1
Again and again through the long years that were ahead this
experience was repeated. The children of Israel lost their will
for freedom and turned on the man who was trying to lead them
out of bondage. Only as he fed his own spirit from the inex-
haustible sources of power which he found in communion with
his God, did Moses maintain his own spirit and thus retain his
active power and ability to kindle esprit de corps in the lives
of the people.
His second task was to break Pharaoh's will to enslave them.
The Egyptian machinery of slavery was the expression of some-
thing more fundamental ; namely, the will of Pharaoh to enslave.
1 Exodus 5 :4-23.
20 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
In the breaking of this will, Moses had the help of God. Great
calamities which brmg disease, poverty, and death to the Egyp-
tian households and even to the court of the king so weakened
the morale of the Egyptian people and of Pharaoh that Moses
was finally able to repeat to a sympathetic ear his message :
Let my people go.1
The will to be free was met by the desire that they should be
free. The children of Israel led by the high hand of Almighty
God and by Moses march out from the bondage of ancient Egypt.
It was always a day of great significance in the history of the
Hebrew people, a day remembered in worship and festival and
song, a day at which the Hebrew spirit always kindled as it was
brought back to memory.
But escape from Egypt is not the whole problem of freedom.
The children of Israel had been controlled by Pharaoh. No
nation can live without some kind of control. Moses did not
allow them to drift into anarchy when they had escaped autoc-
racy. Law courts and law became a necessity.
The path out of Egj'pt leads straight to Srnai. There Moses
lays the foundation for their brotherhood life in certain great
principles of human morality. They are enjoined ever to keep
alive in their hearts a reverent worship for the one true God,
to keep the Sabbath day, to honor father and mother, to respect
human life, the rights of property, human chastity, not to bear
false witness, and not to be covetous of each other's earthly
goods. Along with these general principles, Moses draws some
very definite conclusions to govern their simple life as herdsmen
and neighbors, and establishes law courts as a part of the
machinery of justice. Thus the foundation for their life in
freedom is laid in great ethical principles. Moses has built
1 Exodus 9 :1.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 21
the tribe by establishing it from within, and the people have
learned independence through self-control.
When the Hebrews settled in the hill-country beyond Jordan,
they were faced by new problems in community living.
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which
was right in his own eyes.1
It is an excellent statement of a community organized on the
"every man for himself" basis. Kings stand for organization.
The reason for kings lies not in the kings
c i <nrt. themselves but in the necessity which the com-
Samuel, Who J
Organized the munity has for unified organized effort. At
Community for certain stages of the growth of a community,
Self-Protection the kingg c(mld get along without tne con>
munity better than the community could get
along without the kings. There are better ways of organiz-
ing people than under the kings. But it is better to be
organized under kings than not to be organized at all. A people
among whom every man does that which is right in his own
eyes has little chance in competition with the community where
every man does that which is right from the standpoint of the
good of all. This the Hebrew people were finding out through
painful experience. After entering the promised land, they
settled in scattered groups among the uplands of Palestine.
And Jehovah was with Judah ; and he drove out the inhabitants of the
hill-country ; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley,
because they had chariots of iron. And they gave Hebron unto Caleb,
as Moses had spoken : and he drove out thence the three sons of Anak.
And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that
inhabited Jerusalem ; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of
Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day.2
Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its
1 Judges 21 :25.
"Judges 1:19-21.
22 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
towns, nor of Taanach and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and
its towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, nor the inhab-
itants of Megiddo and its towns ; but the Canaanites would dwell in
that land. And it came to pass, when Israel was waxed strong, that
they put the Canaanites to task work and did not utterly drive them
out. . . .
Naphtali drove not out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, nor the
inhabitants of Beth-anath ; but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the
inhabitants of the land : nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh
and of Beth-anath became subject to taskwork.
And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill-country ; for
they would not suffer them to come down to the valley ; but the Amorites
would dwell in mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim : yet the hand of
the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to taskwork.
And the border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from
the rock and upward.1
Isolation caused the disintegration of tribal spirit. Not only
did every man do that which was right in his own eyes, but every
man had a tendency to give his attention only to that which was
in front of his own eyes. There was no cooperation on the
country-sides of this rural civilization. The Canaanites held
the cities. They were the traders and the traffickers and the
commercially minded men of the time. The Philistines oc-
cupied the coastlands. They too were organized under a king.
A people, then, where every man did that which was right in his
own eyes found itself face to face with nations which found it
easy to put forth unified effort either because they lived in cities
or were organized under kings. The result was that often when
the Hebrews planted crops, others harvested them. The
Hebrews had been compelled to disarm. "We are told,
There was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel ; for the
Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears: but
all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his
share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock ; yet they had a file
for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes,
1 Judges 1 : 27-36.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 23
and to set the goads. So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there
was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people
that were with Saul and Jonathan : but with Saul and with Jonathan his
son was there found.1
Consequently many of the people hid themselves among the
rocks to escape the tyranny of the nation's enemies.
When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people
were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in
thickets, and in rocks, and in coverts, and in ipits. Now some of the
Hebrews had gone over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead ; but
as for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him
trembling. And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that
Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people
were scattered from him.2
Individualism and pacifism did not seem to be a success in
the experiences of this ancient rural people. A great nationaliz-
ation program was the demand of the hour.
Among the Hebrews was a circuit judge who held court every
year in the circuit which included Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah.
He had a reputation for prayerfulness, piety, and public spirit, a
reputation which extended from Dan to Beersheba. He pos-
sessed along with rare qualities of leadership a deep insight into
the social problems of his time. He saw the dangers of a
military life for his people. He saw the danger of organizing
them under a kingship. It invited all the evil which cursed
the lives of the nations round about them. In most cases the
kingship had become an elaborate system which had enslaved the
people. Not once did Samuel lose sight of the tragedy which
he might be inviting if he organized the people under a king.
Nevertheless he saw the absolute necessity that the people should
organize in some kind of an effective manner to meet organized
*I Samuel 13:19-22.
8 1 Samuel 13:6-8. Judges 5:1-31.
24 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
exploitations which were being inflicted npon them from nations
and tribes without. He finally decided that the people had to
have a king.
Among the young men of Israel who came to ask the advice
of Judge Samuel was one by the name of Saul. Saul's father
was a prosperous farmer and his son was following in his
father's footsteps. The young man was of great physical
strength. He was of commanding appearance, standing head
and shoulders above the other men of his time, just the kind
of a man who would appeal to the popular imagination of the
people.
Samuel with deep seriousness laid upon him his commission.
He showed him the scattered country folk, preyed upon and
exploited by the Canaanitish dwellers in the city and the sur-
rounding nations. Saul was timid and shrank from the pub-
licity of the public coronation. The people were all assembled,
ready for the public ceremony, and Saul was missing. They
searched for him and found him hiding among the baggage.
But timid as he was in matters of ceremony, he was not timid in
times of danger.
A few days later, Nahash, the Ammonite, made a raid on the
children of Israel and offered them peace on the condition that
all of them should have their right eyes put out. This threat-
ened atrocity struck terror to the hearts of the unarmed herds-
men. Saul, who was plowing in the field, heard the weeping
of the people. When he was told the cause, he acted with
lightning-like rapidity. Slaying his team of oxen, he cut them
up and sent a bleeding piece of flesh by the hands of messengers
through the clans of the hill-country with the message:
Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it
be done unto his oxen.1
lI Samuel 11:7.
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 25
This was the message by which he summoned the clansmen.
The call for mobilization was effective. Three hundred thousand
men rallied to his support. Dividing his army into two com-
panies, he swept down upon the camp of the Ammonites in the
morning watch and smote them until the heat of the day. And
they were scattered so that no two of them were left together.
Saul as a king always remained a man of the people. His
farm was his castle and his armies went back to their farms as
soon as the immediate occasion which brought them together had
passed. No elaborate court was established and the people were
loyal. Saul himself, however, never measured up in character
and spirit to the promise of his great physical stature. He had
given to the people military mobilization but this is based on
fear and breaks up as easily as it comes. Jealousy and prejudice,
which are often the curse of widely separated rural communities,
gradually took possession of Saul and his life finally became the
moral and social tragedy of a sulk.1 Instead of giving himself
to the building up of his people, he became insanely jealous of a
promising young warrior, named David, who had shown great
ability and had a popular following throughout the country.
The closing years of Saul's life were marred by this turning
aside from his great task of national leadership to the petty task
of persecuting a rival.
Samuel had still a mind for the unification of the people even
though he had been disappointed in one king. He decided to
choose another, and this time the experience of the past led him
to put less emphasis on physique and more on the spiritual
qualities which are known as qualities of the heart. Israel must
be integrated from within.
This time Samuel went to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, and sum-
moned the sons of Jesse to pass before him for inspection. One
1 Samuel 22 : 6-10.
26 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
by one they were rejected because this time Samuel had decided
to look not on the outward appearance. His attention was finally
arrested by the youngest of the sons, who was ruddy and of a
beautiful countenance but above all else a lad of intrepid spirit,
blessed with those social qualities which invariably knit men to
one another in unbreakable loyalty.
In David, Samuel found ideal material for the kingship. He
was a man of the people. God found him a keeper of sheep and
made him a shepherd of his people, Israel. He had the dashing
courage which captured the popular imagination. He was loyal
and aroused in the people the spirit of loyalty.
David did for Israel what Samuel had hoped to see accom-
plished. He unified the scattered clansmen and organized them
into efficient military units. In his controversy with Goliath,
David proved that spiritual courage is greater than physical
strength. He refused to succeed to the kingship through the
murder of Saul, and thus showed his reverence for a great
national institution. He showed the capacity for friendship in
his love for Jonathan of which Saul had never been capable.
He placed religion as a central unifying factor in the nation's
life by locating the ark at Jerusalem, which he made the capital
of the kingdom.
David furnished a spiritual leadership which gave to the
nation something more than military mobilization. It was a
real spiritual integration which then took place in Hebrew life.
David made western Asia safe for Hebrew ideals. No longer
did the Hebrew plant crops and the Philistines gather them.
No longer were the people hiding in fear, afraid to go on the
great highways. The Hebrew could look in the face of the
Ammonite, the Canaanite, and the Philistine, and be unafraid.
The people had risen from the stage where every man did that
which was right in his own eyes, to the place where every man
A CLAN ESTABLISHED IN JUSTICE AND FAITH 27
could act in cooperation with the others for the good of all Israel.
Petty tribal jealousies gave way to national loyalties.
The three hundred years we have been reviewing have been
years in which the Hebrew community, led by great justice-loving
personalities, has grown in social faith and loyalty and become a
power in western Asia. The community has been founded by
men who propose to establish a family which shall be a
blessing. It had been the simple group with no settled abode, no
private lands, no political organization, no military organization ;
and it had advanced under the leadership of such men as Moses,
Joshua, Gideon, Saul, and David, to the place where there was a
settled abode, the beginnings of agriculture, private property in
lands, a growing city life, a voluntary military organization, and
a kingship which is still elective and is the servant of the people.
The ideals of the early family group have not yet been imperilled.
Human relationships are still dominant over commercial and
political.
CHAPTER III
FAITH DESTROYERS
When a nation changes its manner of making a living, when it
changes its political organization and its social organization,
there is bound to arise a crisis in its moral and spiritual life.
A well organized system of rights, duties and customs is built
up very slowly about the leading institutions of a social order,
and when these institutions are disturbed the moral values are
liable to be disturbed with them. In such a transition stage it is
always a question whether or not the moral and spiritual values
will survive. The early Christian Church took over the Roman
Empire at a terrible cost to itself. The world witnessed the
corruption of a vigorous democratic movement through the latent
imperialism which existed in the Roman Empire. Christianity
itself became an imperialistic system. The vigorous Hebrew
tribes with their clan organizations and their regard for the
rights of the common man took over the city civilization of the
Amorites and the Canaanites which was essentially commercial
and built up on a slave foundation. All this was done at a cost to
the idealism of the Hebrews and introduced a controversy which
waged until the Exile put an end to it. Let us try to understand
this conquering of a victorious people by the vanquished.
The settlement in Canaan by the Hebrews was a herdsman's
conquest of the hill-country. The Hebrews moved into Palestine
as a rural shepherd people. They took posses-
Tne Conquest g-on Q£ ^ jan(j 0f which they knew how to make
of the Hill-
Country use- The first chapter of Judges leaves no doubt
as to the general character of the Hebrews'
invasion of the Promised Land.
28
FAITH DESTROYERS 29
Jehovah was with Judah ; and he drove out the inhabitants of the
hill-country ; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley,
because they had chariots of iron.1
And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites,
and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites :
and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own
daughters to their sons and served their gods.2
The picture portrayed here is fairly definite. A rural people
with flocks and herds, gradually learning agriculture, hold the
hill-country. They are the dominant military and political
power. The traders and traffickers to whom they sell live in the
towns and cities and are members of a class whose military and
political power is waning. Hebrew justice is dispensed from the
tribal law courts. The centers of power are outside the cities,
and consequently are not controlled by the city point of view.
The nationalization policy of Saul and David meant the tak-
ing over of the cities and the city dwellers by the Hebrews. In
the fourth chapter of I Kings we meet the signi-
The Meaning of ficant statement that the twelve officers who pro-
Nationalization vided the levies of men and provisions for
Solomon's court had their headquarters in the
walled cities largely inhabited by the Amorites and the Canaan-
ites, and in at least six instances these officers lived in cities
which up to the time of Solomon had been Amorite strongholds.
It is not possible to over-estimate the significance of this.
Hebrew political and military power had moved from the rural
villages which had the herdsmen's point of view to the trade
centers which had the point of view of the traders and the
traffickers. We shall see a little later how this power was used
by such men as Solomon and Rehoboam. It is sufficient here to
call attention to the fact that many oriental civilizations were
1 Judges 1:19.
3 Judges 3: 5-6.
30 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
built up on a system of slavery which made the peasants subordi-
nate to the trade centers. Goodspeed, in his history of the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians, thus described the prevalent policy :
The policy of Sargon also involved the subordination of the Assyrian
peasantry to the commercial and industrial interests of the state or to the
possessors of great landed estates. The burden of taxes fell upon the
farmers even more heavily. They dwindled away, became serfs on the
estate or slaves in the manufactories. . . . Thus the state as organized
by Sargon became more and more an artificial structure, of splendid
proportions, indeed, but of foundations which were altogether insufficient.
The vigorous strength of the Hebrews is now used to exploit
the original Hebrew stock which first settled in the Promised
Land. A rural population thus moves into the cities and uses
its vigor to undermine itself. We shall study this process
further in the policies of Solomon and Eehoboam.
The Books of Kings begin the recital of a study in social
anarchy, a story which ends with the complete disintegration of
Israel and Judah and the mournful tragedy of
Solomon, Who the captivity. The two books are more than the
tarts e Crame rec^j 0f a series 0f events. They are the exposi-
of Oriental J r
Luxury in tion °^ a political philosophy. It is the story of
Hebrew Life the tragedy of a nation which deserts the attempt
to build organized relationships on brotherhood
and adopts the philosophy of the master class which can do
injustice if it pleases. Most of us have passed too lightly over
the comments repeated in the succeeding chapters of these two
books, that the various kings made entangling alliances with
foreign religious systems and caused Israel to sin. Baalism was
not only a religion, it had adopted a political philosophy. One
exposition of the idea has become famous :
This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you : he will
take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, and to be
his horsemen ; and they snail run before his chariots ; and he will appoint
FAITH DESTROYERS 31
them unto him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties ; and he
will set some to plow his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his
instruments of war, and the instruments of his chariots. And he will
take your daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards,
even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take
the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers,
and to his servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your
maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put
them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks: and ye shall
be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king
whom ye shall have chosen you.1
Although Saul and David had been kings, they had kept the
kingship a service institution. It had been of the people, for the
people and by the people. But Solomon did not abide by the
traditions of his fathers. He identified himself in sympathy
and in practice with the point of view of the Amorite civilization
which centered in the city. He started as a double personality.
He seemed to be the product of heredity and the product of
environment. Solomon as a product of heredity gives us that
magnificent prayer :
Give thy servant therefore an understanding heart to judge thy people,
that I may discern between good and evil ; for who is able to judge thig
thy great people?2
But Solomon as the product of his kingly environment is a
king surrounded by princes and an elaborate court, living in
oriental luxury. The Bible is pitiless in the frankness with
which it describes the oriental luxury, the military system and
the slave labor :
Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, who provided victuals for
the king and his household ; each man had to make provision for a month
in the year. . . . And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty
*I Samuel 8:11-18.
aI Kings 3:9.
32 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and
twenty oxen out of the pastures and a hundred sheep, besides harts, and
gazelles, and roebucks, and fatted fowl. . . . And Solomon had forty
thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
. . . And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel ; and the levy
was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand
a month by courses ; a month they were in Lebanon, and two months
at home. And Adoniram was over the men subject to taskwork. And
Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens, and four-
score thousand that were hewers in the mountains ; besides Solomon's
chief officers that were over the work, three thousand and three hundred,
who bare rule over the people that wrought in the work.1
Here we have an elaborately worked out system of conscript
labor with Adoniram acting as head taskmaster. It is interest-
ing to notice that when the revolt of the peasants takes place
under Solomon's son, Rehoboam, it is Adoniram, head of the
conscript labor gangs, who is sent to confer with the peasants,
and they stone him to death in their rage. This compromising
of Hebrew social traditions was all a part of the compromising
of the religious traditions in which Solomon engaged for the sake
of strengthening his political standing.
King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter
of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians,
and Hittites. . . . He had seven 'hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines ; and his wives turned away his heart.8
Of course what Solomon tried to do all his nobles tried to do
and it resulted in the placing in the trade centers of Hebrew
society an accumulation of people who were of secondary im-
portance, who yet held the political and military power of the
nation in their hands. They were a group of people with ex-
travagant, luxurious tastes, who had the power to gratify these
tastes at the expense of the common people. Taxation for main-
1 1 Kings 4 : 7, 22-26 ; 5 :13-16.
* I Kings 11 :l-3.
FAITH DESTKOYERS 33
taining the expense of the court was now enforced with great
rigor. At the head of the government was a class of people who
took it for granted that the people existed for them.
In Eehoboam the Baalistic philosophy of the perfection of a
master class idea gains the ascendency. Eehoboam had grown
up in the atmosphere of autocracy. He had
Rehoboam, known luxury, slaves, and self-indulgence. A
^?° ^elie^es a man is governed by his tastes as well as by his
Injustice convictions. If he is trained in self-indulgence,
he will often desire the life which gives him the
privilege of self-indulgence. Rehoboam came out of a king's
court with the desire to oppress, and he disrupted a nation.
The scene at Shechem at what was supposed to be Rehoboam's
coronation is one of the most interesting scenes in all history.
It proved to be the clashing point of two opposite theories of the
kingship, the theory of the Hebrew brotherhood and of the Baal
master class. The people called Rehoboam to make him king.
They still considered that no man was king until they elected
him to the kingship. Before they voted on the matter they made
to Rehoboam a very interesting proposition :
Thy father -made our yoke grievous : now therefore make thou the
grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us,
lighter, and we will serve thee.1
Rehoboam sent the people away for three days and took stock
of the available wisdom with which he was surrounded. Two
classes of people were consulted by him. One group represented
those who were acquainted with the Hebrew tradition that all
the men of the tribe were brothers and that the king was to be a
servant of the rest. They gave their answer in these words :
If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them,
1 1 Kings 12 :4.
34 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy
servants forever.1
But Eehoboam turned from the counsel of these men and
sought advice from the young comrades of the court who had
been raised in the philosophy of the master class. One of the dis-
advantages of being a fool is that a man is liable to have foolish
friends. They were quick and ready with their reply :
Thus shalt thou say unto this people that spake unto thee, saying,
My little finger is thicker than my father's loins ; and now whereas my
father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke : my father
chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.2
The answer of the people reflects the total cleavage between
their ideas and that of the king.
What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the
son of Jesse : to your tents, O Israel.8
Organization for them only meant exploitation. The ten
northern tribes revolted from the king, and the beginning of
Israel's disintegration is at hand. Never again
e easants ^ag jjjgfojy seen a united Israel. Hebrew life
Revolt J
disintegrated because its leaders adopted a theory
which made all human association ultimately impossible. Self-
pleasing on the part of the leaders produced lack of faith and
disloyalty on the part of the people, and social anarchy was the
result. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of the hill-
country had led the revolt, but Ahijah, a prophet of the hill-
country had anointed him for the task. The further develop-
ment of the controversy between the standards of justice of the
primitive Hebrew clans and the Amorite commercial civilization,
we shall take up in connection with the story of the prophets who
now become the defenders of the rights of the peasants.
1 1 Kings 12 :7. 3 1 Kings 12 :16.
*I Kings 12:10, 11.
FAITH DESTROYERS 35
In a description of social conditions at the time of the develop-
ing monarchy, J, P. McCurdy says :
The clansmen, therefore, at this stage, when decisive changes were
impending, were on a pretty even footing. Certain clans or family groups
were, indeed, more powerful than others ; but of the heads of families as
a whole, none were very rich and none very poor. Nor was any freeman
so low as that his voice might not be heard in council with the highest.
But these relations began to be seriously interfered with by the first
stages of the process of settlement.1 . . . The freedom and looseness
of nomadic government gives place almost at a bound to the despotism of
city-states. General society exhibits a similar, almost paradoxical, con-
trast.2 . . . When all live simply and frugally, as in the good old
days, there is enough for all. But luxury demands more than enough,
and always succeeds in getting it. Its success involves the impoverish-
ment of the common man. "Fiat money," of no value in any age of the
world without money's worth behind it, is not issued in Israel even for
temporary relief. War, famine, pestilence, come upon the nation. The
concomitant privation, suffering, anxiety, and terror strike hardest upon
the lower middle class and the very poor. The lingering consequences
swell further the roll of the destitute and the helpless.3
In another discriminating study of the social conditions of this
period, we find the following statement :
Solomon oppressed the peasantry by forced labor. This, of course,
intensified the national malice against the house of David. The taskwork
of all that part of the nation lying north of Jerusalem (the house of
Joseph) was in charge of an official by the name of Jeroboam. This man,
moved by sympathy, lifted up his hand against the king (I Kings 11 :26f ).
In this action, he had the support of Ahijah, the prophet, who lived in the
Josephite village of Shiloh. Although Solomon was not unseated, the
growth of insurgency, as we may call it, continued throughout his reign ;
and by the time of his death, the majority of the people were prepared to
take radical action.*
The shift which we have been witnessing in Hebrew society
XJ. P. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, Book Seven,
p. 561.
3 P. 569.
8 P. 572.
* Wallis, Sociological Study of the Bible, pages 142-143.
36 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
is somewhat as follows. The community starts as a nomadic
clan. It is a group with family standards, without settled abode ;
its different parts are called by family names and not by geo-
graphical names. There is no private property in lands and the
government of the tribe is in the hands of elders elected by the
tribe. The people all have a part in the great tribal assemblies.
There is no standing army.
From this first stage there is a shift to an intermediate stage
when the nomadic clan organizes under an elected king. The
people are learning agricultural methods and have taken on a
settled abode. They are acquiring private property. City life
for them is just beginning. They have a small standing army.
The old democratic standards of the tribe still survive.
In the third stage the hereditary king and the princes have
become all powerful and have crowded into the background the
tribal courts and the elders, who were always very close to the
people. More and more authority has been taken over by the
princes who live in the cities and have the city point of view in
commercial matters. The country has developed a military class
and the princes are often the leaders in the standing army and
have the power to get what they want in Hebrew life. The
political and economic control has slipped from the country
village into the city, and the cities were built up largely on
Amorite traditions. The desire for display had brought on con-
script labor and heavy taxes. The Hebrews were headed straight
for the military career of the big nations round about, until the
prophets decided to interfere.
CHAPTEK IV
THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH
Hebrew community relationships had degenerated in the
hands of a military and commercial group of leaders. Under
the old clan justice a man was a man because he was a member
of the clan. Under the Baalistic civilization a man became a
commodity, to be manipulated for the glory of the king and his
great public building projects. Under David the peasants had
felt that they really had some portion in the progress of the king-
dom. They had rights as well as duties. Under Solomon and
Eehoboam duties multiplied and privileges vanished. Social
injustice was freely indulged in by the military and commercial
classes who had lost their sense of the right of the common man.
It fell to a group of men of deep religious conviction and acute
social insight to begin the process of restoration. These men
came first of all from the peasant classes. They voiced the rage
of the peasants at the injustice of the political and commercial
system which had been fastened upon them. They charged
the leaders of Israel with having gone over to the worship of
Baal, and with a selfish disregard of the standards of justice
which had come down from the primitive clan life of their
ancestors.
No moral reformation can be brought about until some man
can draw a line through human society definite enough to be
appreciated by the people, on the basis of which
Elijah, the Man ^hey can decide for one type of life and against
a Moral Crisis an°ther. This line must be fundamental
enough to form the base line for the building of
further surveys in social morality. The great creative person-
37.
38 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
alities who have changed the course of human society have done
80 by making clear to the people some great principle on the
basis of which society can be reorganized. It fell to Elijah to
do this pioneer work in the moral life of the Hebrews. He
appears in Hebrew society in the midst of the rather prosperous
reign of Ahab, king of Israel. He came from the peasant life
of Gilead.
AhaVs reign had in many ways given evidence of material
power and prosperity. He had succeeded in warding off the
attacks of surrounding kings and in building his kingdom in
external prosperity. But he had done this at the expense of all
idealism and through the encouragement of those tendencies
which were working for the undoing of the Hebrew people. He
had compromised the people by marrying a daughter of a priest
of Baal in order to encourage a commercial and political alliance
with the kingdom of Tyre. Jezebel had proven at the court
to be the organizing center of all those forces which wanted to
see the enthronement of Baal worship in the Hebrew society.
This meant something more than a change in a national system
of religion. It meant a change in the whole social philosophy
which lay back of Hebrew social organization.
One illustration suffices to tell what a change Baalism pro-
moted in Hebrew life. Ahab desired to build up a large country
estate. That he might extend the borders of his estate, he
desired to acquire the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.
Naboth did not want to sell. He did not need to sell since his
rights were protected by an ancient land law which guarded the
small landholder from encroachment on the part of the nobles
and kings. It was a safeguard against the inequalities which
grow up when a few secure monopoly in land. Ahab did not
dare challenge the right of Naboth to maintain his possession
of his vineyard. He accepted the denial with ill-humor but with
THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH 39
resignation. But Jezebel had been raised in a court and under
influences where might meant right. The worshipper of Baal,
whose name meant "great landlord," had as his ideal the acquir-
ing of great lands without scruple. The first Book of Kings
tells the story:
Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit
so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I
spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vine-
yard for money ; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard
for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And Jezebel
his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?
arise, and eat bread, and let thy heart be merry : I will give thee the
vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name,
and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to
the nobles that were in his city, and that dwelt with Naboth. And she
wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high
among the people : and set two men, base fellows, before him, and let
them bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst curse God and the
king. And then carry him out, and stone him to death.1
The plot was successfully carried out. Naboth, the small
landholder, no longer stood in the way of the ambitions of Ahab.
Jezebel turned the ill-gotten vineyard over to Ahab. Ahab
went down to Jezreel to take possession of his newly acquired
property. Nothing is more full of tragic comedy than this
attempt of Ahab to enjoy that which his conscience did not
justify him in possessing. He was evidently expecting a rebuke
from someone who represented the ancient conscience of Israel
about the rights of small peasant proprietors in their estate.
To Elijah's greeting,
Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?2
Ahab weakly replies:
Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?3
1 1 Kings 21 :5-10. » I Kings 21 :20.
*J Kings 21:19,
40 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
To which Elijah replies :
I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to do that which is
evil in the sight of Jehovah.1
The challenge which Jezebel brought into Hebrew religions
and social life had been accepted by Elijah, the prophet from the
hill-country of Gilead.
Naboth's vineyard seems to be typical of the controversy
between the defenders of the ancient clan justice and the Amor-
ite civilization which for the time being had become dominant
in Hebrew life. Elijah commissioned Elisha to anoint Jehu
from Bamoth-Gilead, to start a revolution which will remove
the house of Ahab and Jezebel. Jehu joins hands with Jehona-
dab, of the Eechabites (a sect which is opposed to private owner-
ship of land, evidently because of the injustice to which it leads),
and two kings of Israel and Judah are discovered in the vineyard
of Naboth and there are attacked by Jehu, both of them ulti-
mately slain. The controversy which is dividing Hebrew civil-
ization is in part the fight of the common man for standing room
in Hebrew economic and political life.
But the line which Elijah established as the base line on which
the controversies of the future were to be waged is not the line
which defines the right of the common man. He makes the
supremacy of Jehovah the critical issue which he forces on the
conscience of the Hebrews, but he does this because the justice
of Jehovah defends the right of the common man. In a great
dramatic contest on Mount Carmel he challenged the people of
Israel to choose whom they will serve.
And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long go ye
limping between the two sides? if Jehovah be God, follow him; but if
Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then
said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, am left a prophet of Jehovah ;
I I Kings 21 : 20.
THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH 41
but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore
give us two bullocks ; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and
cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under ; and I will
dress the other bullock, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under.
And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of
Jehovah : and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all
the people answered and said, It is well spoken. And Elijah said unto
the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress
it first ; for ye are many ; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire
under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they
dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon,
saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered.1
With sarcasm and ridicule, Elijah now flays the cringing body
of Baal prophets before the crowd. Then he calls to the people :
Come near unto me ; and all the people came near unto him. . . .
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid
U on the wood. And he said, Fill four jars with water, and pour it on
thv. burnt-offering, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time ;
and they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time ;
and they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar ;
and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening oblation, that Elijah the prophet came near,
and said, O Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it
be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant,
and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Jehovah,
hear me, that this people may know that thou, Jehovah, art God, and that
thou hast turned their heart back again.2
Jehovah in the Heavens! Lay bare thy mighty arm in
behalf of this, thy servant, who has risked everything in thy
cause :
Then the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt-offering, and the
wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in
the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces : and
they said, Jehovah, he is God ; Jehovah, he is God. And Elijah said
unto them, Take the prophets of Baal ; let not one of them escape. And
XI Kings 18:21-26.
* I Kings 18 : 30-37.
42 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
they took them ; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and
slew them there.1
The issue between Jehovah and Baal had been launched and
is carried further by Amos, the Herdsman of Tekoa.
A certain man was asked what he intended to do with the
money he had made by oil speculation. "I am going to get me a
black land farm, some 'niggers/ and some mules,
Amos, and the an(j j am going to live in town." If he could
Autocracv at the
Trade Center on^ ^ave ^a^ ^ne rengi°n °f Baal to add a
sense of religious exaltation to the feelings in
which he was indulging, his happiness would have been complete.
Baalism had offered respectability to the state of mind of the
big landlord who looked down on a body of serving tenants.
Such men, with all those who plotted with them, gathered in the
trade centers of northern Israel. The religion of Israel in the
trade centers had been so thoroughly corrupted that the priest
and the prophet of the trade center no longer were mindful of
the welfare of the peasants who were doing the fundamental
labor which made the trade center possible. Secure in their
numbers and prosperity, they managed to shift the heavy burdens
of taxes on to the peasants, and no trade center priest or prophet
ever raised his voice in protest.
Eeform movements need a critic. They need the man who
can hit hard, who can ruin with an epigram ; a speaker who can
say things in unforgetable ways, who can tear off
Amos, the ^e mas^ wno can cut with the fine edge of a
Spokesman of , . , . , ,
the Peasants moral scalpel, who can condense a moral cam-
paign into a slogan, who can focus moral indig-
nation until it burns. Such a man did Amos, the shepherd of
Tekoa, prove to be. He did not bring about a reform, but before
1 1 Kings 18 : 38-40.
THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH 43
he was through certain eminent nobles had lost their reputation
for piety and instead of being idols had become an exasperation.
Talent, ability, and luxury accumulated at the trade center.
If a priest and prophet wanted to close his eyes and forget the
conditions in the open country, being a prophet at the trade
center was a comfortable task. Rural populations naturally
gravitate toward the trade centers. It is easy for the com-
mercial interests which center here so to organize that the
peasants and farmers who are scattered and isolated in the open
country become the easy objects of exploitation. It has been
the history of civilization that the peasants have been exploited
by the trade center forces. Such was the condition at Bethel,
the king's sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom, where Amaziah,
the local prophet, was evidently performing an acceptable
service to the nobles and the traders who made up his constitu-
ency.
But one festal day when the incense was burning, the music
playing, the people feasting, and the wives urging their husbands
to extravagance in display, there appeared at the market place
a rough but magnetic figure. A man, whose mind had been
forming on the slopes of Tekoa near enough to Jerusalem to
catch its inspiration and far enough away to be free from its
contamination, suddenly appeared at the great festival with a
startling message.
He knew that his first task was to dynamite that trade center
sense of security. This he effectively did by turning back upon
them all the indignation which they had been
His Indictment visiting on the nations round about. He
began by calling that indignation into play by
several sharp and incisive indictments for the crimes of which
they had been guilty.
The people evidently followed him in this when suddenly he
44 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
turned his indignation upon Judah for her crimes, and then to
their utter amazement he brought this indictment on the people
standing before him :
They have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of
shoes — they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the
poor, and turn aside the way of the meek.1
He charged the traders before him with buying with false
measures and paying in depleted currency :
Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor
of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we
may sell grain? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making
the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of
deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair
of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?2
He was talking with leaders who might have been builders of
Israel like Moses and David. No reckless group of profiteers
were ever more accurately pictured than those described by Amos
in the following words:
Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and to them that are secure
in the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel come ! ... Ye that put far away the evil
day, and cause the seat of violence to come near ; that lie upon beds of
ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out
of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall ; that sing idle
songs to the sound of the viol ; that invent for themselves instruments
of music, like David ; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves
with the chief oils ; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.*
Trade centers are a by-product of a vigorous rural population.
Trade centers built by the exploitation of the peasants will be of
short duration. So Amos reminded those who were listening to
him:
Ye who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the
earth. . . . They hate him that reproveth in the gate, and they abhor
1 Amos 2:7. "Amos 6:1-6.
* Amos 8 :4-6.
THE FIGHT FOE JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH 45
him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as ye trample upon
the poor, and take exactions from him of wheat : ye have built houses
of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them ; ye have planted pleasant
vineyards, but ye shall not drink the wine thereof.1
The gross injustice on which they were building their civiliza-
tion negatived the value of all their religious ceremonies :
I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-
offerings, I will not accept them ; neither will I regard the peace-offerings
of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs ;
for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down as
waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.*
Amaziah,, the local priest, was greatly aroused; his constitu-
ency was being maligned. The reputation of the chief officers
for piety would be greatly damaged if Amos continued his fiery
denunciation. Amaziah carried a protest to the king. It is
typical of many another protest which has gone up from trade
centers with similar motives. He accused Amos of disloyalty.
Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel.8
This was his message to King Jeroboam. It is amazing how
patriotic some trade center extortionists can be when they want
the support of the king in helping them exploit the peasants.
His next protest was directed toward Amos :
0 thou seer, go, flee thou away into the land of Judah, and there eat
bread, and prophesy there : but prophesy not again any more at Bethel ;
for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a royal house.4
But Amos was too certain of his cause to be read out of court
by such a man as Amaziah. His reply is vigorous and to the
point :
1 was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son ; but I was a herds-
man, and a dresser of sycamore-trees : and Jehovah took me from follow-
1Amos 5:7-11. sAmos 7:10.
•Amos 5:21-24. 4Amos 7:12-13.
46 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
ing the flock, and Jehovah said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people
Israel.1
Amos frankly affirms his peasant origin and his divine com-
mission to cry out against the injustice which the wealthy classes
of the trade center are visiting upon the people whom he loves.
He does not so far as we know work any reforms, but the cause
of the peasants has a champion who feels intensely and knows
how to speak his message.
George Adam Smith thus described the social conditions
which obtained in Hebrew life at about this time :
"Till the Eighth Century the Hebrews had been but a kingdom of
fighting husbandmen. Under Jeroboam and Uzziah city life was de-
veloped and civilization in the proper sense of the word
Micah, the appeared. . . . But now this further step from the agri-
Champion of cultural stage to the mercantile and civil was equally
the Poor fraught with danger. . . . There were all the temp-
tations of rapid wealth, all the dangers of an equally
increased poverty. ... As in many another land and period, the social
problem was the descent of wealthy men, land hungry, upon the rural dis-
tricts. They made the poor their debtors and bought out the peasant pro-
prietors. They absorbed into their power numbers of homes, and had at
their individual disposal the lives and the happiness of thousands of their
fellow countrymen. Isaiah had cried : 'Woe unto them that join house
to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room'2 for the common
people, and the inhabitants of the rural districts grow fewer and fewer.
Mfcah pictures the recklessness of these plutocrats, the fatal ease With
which their wealth enabled them to dispossess the yeomen of Judah. The
prophet speaks :
'Woe to them that plan mischief and on their beds work out evil ; as
soon as morning breaks they put it into execution, for it lies in the power
of their hands. They covet fields and seize them, houses, and lift them
up. So they crush a good man in his home, a man and his heritage.' "3
Two other passages from this champion of the poor reveal the
social conditions of the time :
And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the
1Amos 7 :14-15. 8 Micah 2 :l-2.
2 Isaiah 5:8.
THE FIGHT FOE JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FAITH 47
house of Israel : is it not for you to know justice? Ye who hate the good,
and love the evil ; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh
from off their bones ; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their
skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as
for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto
Jehovah, but he will not answer them ; yea, he will hide his face from
them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.1
The folly of trying to build the nation at the top at the
expense of those at the bottom is clearly set forth by one who
knows what the conditions are among the peasants :
Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the
house of Israel, that abhor justice and pervert all equity. They build up
Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge
for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof
divine for money : yet they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah
in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. Therefore shall Zion
for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps,
and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.8
1 Micah 3 :l-4.
2 Micah 3 : 9-12.
CHAPTER V
SACRIFICING A NATION IN THE NAME OP A
COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE
If the moral values of one generation are to survive through a
period of transition it will be because some men have such a
keen appreciation of these moral and spiritual values that they
can carry them forward and make them effective in the new
social order which comes because of changing economic and
political conditions. If such men of moral genius are at hand,
it may even be that a higher type of moral and spiritual life will
come because of the social changes which have come. The later
prophets of Israel did not try to force Israel back into the social
mechanism of the tribe. They finally accepted the new political
organization under the king and the princes. They accepted the
city civilization and the settled agricultural life. They carried
over into this new social order the moral values which had been
developed in the life of the tribe. In place of the prince who
oppressed the people, they lifted up the ideal of a prince who was
a leader and who ruled in justice and wisdom and with mercy.
It is interesting to notice this shift in Hebrew idealism. In the
early story the man who founded the first city was said to be
under a curse. In later Hebrew life when the prophet pictured
an ideal society, it was in terms of a city of God in which there
was no injustice. The moral genius of the prophets and teachers
is revealed in their ability to make effective the moral and spir-
itual values in the new social order which was inevitable.
It is not altogether easy to defend the patriotism of the
prophets. It is fair to say that they never made a bogey out of
nationalism. They were never enthusiastic about the kingship,
48
A COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 49
the nobles, or the wealthy classes who inhabited the trade centers.
At a time when the Hebrews needed to conserve all their
strength in order to resist the threatened invasion of the big
agricultural nations to the north and to the south, at a time
when internal strife meant suicide, the prophets were responsible
for a number of violent revolutions in Hebrew society.
It was the Prophet Ahijah who spurred on Jeroboam to lead
the Ten Tribes of the north in revolt. It was Elisha who
inspired the bloody revolution of Jehu. The prophets were back
of the revolution at the beginning of Josiah's reign. It was
Jeremiah who incurred the charge of disloyalty because he
refused to play the game of the court party just before the exile.
The prophets, without doubt, weakened the morale of the
Hebrew people in their repeated announcements that Israel and
Judah would be punished in captivity for their sins. The
prophets were loyal to the Hebrew community but they were not
loyal to the type of social order which developed after the
Hebrews became a commercial, military nation which sacrificed
the moral and social values of the clan brotherhood which had
been established under Abraham and Moses. In the name of a
better sooial order of justice they were willing to sacrifice the
nation of their day. They did not accept the national organiza-
tion of the Hebrews as final. They did not exalt patriotism as
a supreme virtue.
The social philosophy of the prophets followed the ideals of
justice which had come down to them from the laws and customs
of their clan. The clan was a larger family and
The Social some of the standards of family life obtained
the Prophets within it. They called each other brothers;
they were known by their family names and
not by their geographical names. A clan gave a value to a man
which a commercial or political organization did not give.
50 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
Jehovah's welfare was identical with that of the clan and who-
ever was a member of this organization was the object of
Jehovah's care. The laws of Jehovah were the laws which stood
for the welfare of the clan. Thus the prophets had a basis from
which they criticized the state which developed under the
leadership of the Baal ideals. But although they had a basis
for criticism, they felt acutely the needs of their nation and
always identified themselves with its welfare. They speak in
tenderest terms of Israel and Judah. They love to speak of them
as "God's vineyard" :
Let me sing for my well-beloved, a song of my beloved touching his
vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill : and
he digged it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the
choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a
winepress therein : and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and
it brought forth wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I
pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done
more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I
looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard : I will take
away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up ; I will break down the
wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down : and I will lay it waste ; it
shall not be pruned nor hoed ; but there shall come up briers and thorns :
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For
the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men
of Judah his pleasant plant : and he looked for justice, but, behold,
oppression ; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry.1
The clan morality had been founded on the family. The first
great constructive reformer gains the experience on which he
bases his message for the Hebrew community
H from a broken home. The laws of community
living are not different for the smaller com-
munities of life than for the larger. It is possible to argue
* Isaiah 5:1-7.
A COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 51
from the experience gained in a small community and draw con-
clusions for larger communities. Most men do progress by the
extension of a successful social experience. Community life
cannot be based on infidelity. Faith-breaking destroys the
possibilities of home relationships. So argues the prophet,
Hosea, a resident of the Northern Kingdom about 700 B. C.
Disloyalty broke up his home. Eedemptive love rebuilt it.
From this experience Hosea advances to an acute analysis of the
woes of the Hebrew community. He finds that the people have
been led away in a great spirit of infidelity from their former
love for the righteousness of Jehovah and this has thrown
Hebrew life into social chaos. He believes that redemptive love
can rebuild Israel even as it rebuilt his own home.
When the prophets diagnosed the ills of the nation, they came
to the conclusion that false leadership was responsible for the
degradation and corruption of Jehovah's vine-
Leadership yard. By a very direct process of reasoning they
came to the conclusion that right leadership
would restore the nation. The doctrine of the Messiah is an
elaboration and extension of this idea. It is a social philosophy
based on the power of an individual to found a community.
Every social philosophy must have a key thought. The key
thought of the prophets is that some day God will send a great
leader who will restore Israel through a reign of righteousness.
There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch
out of his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of Jehovah shall rest
upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel
and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah. And
his delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah ; and he shall not judge after
the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears ; but with
righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the
meek of the earth.1
1 Isaiah 11 :l-4.
£2 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
The next important item in this social philosophy is the char-
acter of the justice for which the prophets stood. Until justice
has been defined, one is never sure of its implications. Justice
may be something which we practice in very closely defined
groups; it may be something which the strong render unto the
strong. For the prophets the definition of justice came down
from the old tribal life where every member of the tribe had a
share and part in the life of the tribe. For the prophets justice
meant justice for the poor and needy, for the widows and
orphans of the tribe as well as for the strong.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen : to loose the bonds of wicked-
ness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou
seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself
from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thy healing shall spring forth speedily ; and thy righteousness shall go
before thee ; the glory of Jehovah shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou
call, and Jehovah will answer ; thou shalt cry, and he will say, Here I
am.1
Isaiah 58:6-10.
Just because the prophets refused to accept the boundaries of
the nation as the limitation of God's righteousness, they were
able to rise to something of an international conception of the
will and purpose of God. Their statement of an international
order based on righteousness antedates that of any other of
the great world thinkers. They conceive of a world order based
on the righteousness which shall emanate from Jehovah's house.
It shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of
Jehovah's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and
shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it. And
many peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain
of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of
his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the
law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And he will judge
A COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 53
between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples ; and they
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-
hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more.1
1 Isaiah 2 : 2-4.
Ezekiel comes to the same conclusion about the universal
character of a community of righteousness from the standpoint
of the individual man. Men are not good by race or class, and
because they are good only as individuals it is possible for any
man to be good and to become a member of the new community
without regard to race or class.
The word of Jehovah came unto me again, saying, What mean ye,
that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?
As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, ye shall not have occasion any more
to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul
of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth,
it shall die.2
2 Ezekiel 18:1-4.
Too often we are accustomed to think of the prophets as great
individuals who dealt directly with Hebrew life without consid-
ering the way in which the prophets influenced
™. -n !__*! each other and all contributed to the outlines of
The Prophetic
Vision of the a coming better social order which was to be the
Better Commu- community of God. Each makes his contribu-
m^ tion to a common line of thought which becomes
the property of all. Gradually the criticism of
the old social order advances in the minds of the prophets to the
positive outlining of a new and better one. Keconstruction in its
final phase was largely influenced by the constructive genius of
Ezekiel. With an almost painful regard for detail, Ezekiel with
measuring rod outlines the dimensions of the better community,
locating even the residence of priests and king and the dwelling
54 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
of Jehovah. The striking point about his plan for the new com-
munity is that it is to be a God-governed community and the
place of preeminence is given to the temple instead of the palace
of the king. In other words, we have here a distinct assertion
on the part of the prophets of an ethical spiritual community in
which the rule is the rule of God and his righteousness, and in
which the king has only a subordinate place. They have achieved
a moral and spiritual and social triumph in thus conceiving and
outlining an international community based on the righteousness
of God where ethical qualifications constitute the basis of
membership.
The period in the life of the Hebrew community which now
follows is not that of the life of a nation. Jewish life became a
"Kultur" with the synagogue as its center. It
The Fate of the ^ no^ f a^ j^ ha(j national limitations but was
Restored -it- -»r <• i • • t_x
Community marvelously vigorous. Men of moral insight
were given leadership. During this period the
Jews display much of the Puritans' ruggedness and love of
freedom. When Alexander the Great starts to impose Grecian
culture on the world, his success is phenomenal until he reaches
this little Jewish community. But the Jews refuse to give up
their customs and their law, and start a fight for freedom in
religion which is one of the bright spots in human history and
wins for the Jewish people religious freedom and for a short
time even political independence. But Judaism, although en-
riched by some of the greatest literature of all time, nevertheless
comes down to the time of Jesus very much a matter of hard
forms without spirit, a religion which Paul described as having
fallen a victim to the letter of the law. The synagogue had a
central place; leadership had been won for the prophet and the
priest and the man of ethical purpose.
CHAPTEE VI
FIKST ATTEMPTS AT BUILDING THE COMMUNITY
OF JUSTICE
After the exile the religion of Judaism was as widespread as
the Jewish people and they were scattered over most of the
country which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea. But in a
very peculiar sense Jerusalem was the center of all Jewish
idealism and the building of Israel was not separated from the
task of building Jerusalem. The vision of the prophets of a
better world-wide community had always centered around
Jerusalem. Whoever accepted the task of building the com-
munity of justice which they had in mind interpreted this task
in terms of a new and better Jerusalem.
The first person to attempt to carry out in terms of community
reconstruction the vision of the prophets was a young man
named Nehemiah. Many mourned the loss of the ancient city
of David, but he alone mourned to a purpose. With a crowd
of exiles who had made the long journey from Jerusalem to the
city of Artaxerxes in the valley of the Euphrates, he had gone
as a mournful pilgrim. He had all the likableness of youth
and culture, and had been appointed cup-bearer to the king. He
could have had for the remainder of his life a position of security
and ease, but all men are not so constituted that such a life
appeals to them, and the ruin of the city of his fathers' sepulcher
tugged at his heartstrings. Returning pilgrims reported that :
The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in
great affliction and reproach : the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down,
and the gates thereof are burned with fire.1
1 Nehemiah 1:3.
55
56 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
His sorrow showed in his countenance, and one morning as he
appeared before the king, the king inquired :
Why is thy countenance sad ; . . . this is nothing else but sorrow of
heart?1
Then replied the young man:
Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of
my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed
with fire. ... If it please the king, . . . send me unto Judah, unto the
city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.2
The king was favorably inclined to his appeal and gave him
letters of safe conduct, and also gave orders for the king's for-
esters to supply him with the necessary timber for his work of
reconstruction.
Over the long desert the young man goes to the ancient city
once famous as a city of David and Solomon. Had not the
prophet said:
I will give thee for a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to
make them inherit the desolate heritages ; saying to them that are bound,
Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves.3
Upon arriving at Jerusalem he keeps his mission secret. He
does not flood the community with advance notices of what he
is going to do for its upbuilding. Taking his beast one night
he rides out over the city and takes stock of his task and his
resources. He does not propose to allow the wishes of a good
heart to be a substitute for the knowledge of a good head.
Accurate information is the price he proposes to pay for leader-
ship in community building. He returns from the survey with
definite information. Seven of the important gateways of the
city were in ruins ; the streets were full of rubbish ; walls were to
be rebuilt ; and all of this must be done by voluntary labor.
1 Nehemiah 2:2. 3 Isaiah 49 : 8-9.
8 Nehemiah 2 : 3-5.
BUILDING THE COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 57
With accurate information and a vision of his task he now
sets to work. His first problem is — to use his own words — to
arouse in the people a mind to build. Rebuilding Jerusalem
was to be a matter of drawing checks on the good will of the
community, and he must first of all establish that supply of good
will. His methods are interesting. He calls together one hun-
dred and fifty of the chief men of the community about a
banquet table which is supplied at his own expense. For fifty-
two days he maintains this community table at the daily cost of
one ox, six choice sheep, a large number of fowls, and every ten
days a supply of wine. It is the price he must pay for building
the community morale. In a masterful way he presents his
case. He calls to their minds the ancient glory of the city they
had known. He opens to them his plan. He paints for them
the glory of the city that can be :
Let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.1
And the people said,
Let us rise up and build.2
And they strengthened their hands for the great work. The
fight for community morale had won.
But the fight does not end here. If Nehemiah had been
able only to arouse enthusiasm and not to organize it he would
have been a failure. The master workman is now revealed as he
divides the people up into their natural groupings and sets each
group to work over against the task to which it is best adapted.
Then the miracle of community organization takes place.
Jerusalem was not lacking in resources. What it needed was
someone to organize and to direct its resources.
Let us not think for one moment, however, that Nehemiah can
1Nehemiah 2:17.
* Nehemiah 2 :18.
58 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
carry this project for community betterment through without
opposition. Sanballat and Tobiah, the Ammonite, were present
on this occasion in order that it might be typical of all other
occasions of its kind. The way in which Nehemiah meets this
petty piece of community persecution ought to be typical of all
who have this opposition to meet. Sanballat and Tobiah evi-
dently have ulterior reasons for not wanting Jerusalem to become
a better city. They had evidently been profiteering on Jerusa-
lem's misery. The more abject the misery of Jerusalem, the
happier was Sanballat. He sees in Nehemiah someone who is
about to rob him of his prey. The opposition of these two men
takes vicious expression.
They first try ridicule. This is the resort of many who try to
discourage movements for community betterment.
What are these feeble Jews doing?1
asks Sanballat.
Even that which they are building, if a fox go up, he shall break down
their stone wall.*
says Tobiah, the Ammonite.
Public ridicule is hard to bear but neither Nehemiah nor his
people are turned aside from their project.
The next attempt of these two obstructors of public welfare is
a treacherous effort to get Nehemiah to come down to one of the
villages on the plain of Ono that they might entrap him. It is
in response to this that Nehemiah gives his famous reply:
I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down : why should the
work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?8
A man engaged in positive constructive work cannot always be
wasting his time with obstructers of the public welfare.
1 Nehemiah 4:2. 'Nehemiah 6:3.
'Nehemiah 4:3.
BUILDING THE COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 59
The third attempt at blocking the building of the wall was a
vicious piece of propaganda through which Sanballat sought to
poison the mind of Artaxerxes with the thought that Nehemiah
is starting a rebellion. He circulated an open letter to this
effect.
It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and
the Jews think to rebel ; for which cause thou art building the wall : and
thou wouldst be their king, according to these words.1
When we remember that Nehemiah was trying to hold a large
number of people in voluntary labor on a great project, we
realize the treacherous nature of this scheme which would make
the people feel that they were partners to a plan which might any
day bring the cavalry of Artaxerxes down upon them.
The final attempt to injure the influence of Nehemiah came
in the form of an appeal to his self-interest whereby Shemaiah
urged him to take refuge in the temple.
Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us
shut the doors of the temple : for they will come to slay thee ; yea, in the
night they will come to slay thee.2
To which Nehemiah replied :
Should such a man as I flee? and who is there, that, being such as I,
would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.8
Nehemiah proved invincible to every form of community
persecution and opposition, and Sanballat and Tobiah retired
defeated from the scene of action.
So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month
Elul, in fifty and two days.*
But Nehemiah knows that it is not enough to fortify a com-
munity from without. Communities must be fortified from
within. A city wall does not guarantee a city. The great forti-
1 Nehemiah 6:6. 3 Nehemiah 6 :11.
8 Nehemiah 6:10. * Nehemiah 6:15.
60 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
fications of community life are erected in the social organization
of the people, and Nehemiah now turns his attention to the
erection of those inner fortifications which alone can guarantee
a stable human society.
He seeks first of all to reorganize the business life of the com-
munity on the basis of brotherhood. He shows himself loyal
to the standards of the prophets. He supplants exploitations by
cooperation. We read that the people had been enslaved by the
unscrupulous business men of the day. They had mortgaged
their lands and sold their children into slavery in order to obtain
from certain men the necessities of life.
Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against
their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons and our
daughters, are many: let us get grain, that we may eat and live. Some
also there were that said, We are mortgaging our fields, and our vine-
yards, and our houses : let us get grain, because of the dearth. There
were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute upon
our fields and our vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our
brethren, our children as their children : and, lo, we bring into bondage
our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are
brought into bondage already : neither is it in our power to help it ; for
other men have our fields and our vineyards.1
Calling these men before him, Nehemiah makes them a most
remarkable speech. He says :
We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, that were
sold unto the nations ; and would ye even sell your brethren, and should
they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found never a
word. Also I said, The thing that ye do is not good : ought ye not to walk
in the fear of our God, because of the reproach of the nations our
enemies? And I likewise, my brethren and my servants do lend them
money and grain. I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I
pray you, to them, even this day, their fields, their vineyards, their
oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and
of the grain, the new wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them. Then
1 Nehemiah 5 :l-5.
BUILDING THE COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE 61
said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them ; so
will we do, even as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an
oath of them, that they would do according to this promise. Also I shook
out my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and
from his labor, that performeth not this promise ; even thus be he shaken
out, and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen, and praised
Jehovah.1
It was a great speech. The city which he was building by
sacrifice was not to be the hunting ground of those who were
interested only in gain. The law of successful community life is
service and not exploitation. The primary condition of all
community progress is community good will. The community
which is not a success in good will cannot ultimately be a busi-
ness success. Brotherhood affords the only basis for any
economic structure.
But Nehemiah does not stop with the reorganization of busi-
ness life. He knows that the outward institutions of social life
are but the outward expression of inward ideas. He seeks to
guarantee the community, not by leaving it to evolve out of its
own conscience adequate social practice and institutions, but he
seeks to guarantee that conscience by having Ezra, the scribe, on
stated occasions read for them the Mosaic law and lead them in
the celebration of the great national festivals.
All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the broad
place that was before the water gate ; and they spake unto Ezra the
scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which Jehovah had com-
manded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the
assembly, both men and women, and all that could hear with understand-
ing, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before
the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until
midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those that
could understand ; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the
book of the law.2
1Nehemiah 5:8-13.
2 Nehemiah 8 :l-3.
62 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
A community is not an established community until it holds in
common great memories, a common mind for great tasks, great
hopes, and great convictions. In the laws and festivals of
ancient Israel, in the teachings of Moses and the prophets,
ISTehemiah found the expression of the inward faith, hope, and
conviction which had been the sustaining power of ancient Israel.
He is not satisfied until these have become the inner life of his
new community. He seeks thus to build the common mind
which is after all the essence of community life.
CHAPTER VII
THE FOUNDER OF THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY
When Jesus of Nazareth summons men with the call, "the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," it is not a call unrelated to
Jewish experience. For almost two thousand
years there had been accumulating in Hebrew
a enng e thought a passion for a righteous social order.
Hebrew Com- Great successes and great failures had demon-
munity Ex- strated the Tightness and the wrongness of
perience certain theories of life. Certain distinct gains
had been made. Certain experiments had been
tried and did not need to be repeated. In the Hebrew labora-
tory, the power of a great personality to found a community had
been demonstrated. The prophets had formulated the thought
and vision of a community based not on race or on nationality
but on the ethical and spiritual qualities of manhood. The
fallacy of a social order based on autocratic self -pleasing on the
part of the rulers had also been demonstrated. The integrating
healing power of the principles of brotherhood had been experi-
enced by the Hebrews. The way had been prepared for someone
who would gather up in himself the fruits of the Hebrew com-
munity experience and lay the foundation for a social order
founded on justice.
There were certain communities of compulsion and fear which
furnished the dark background for Jesus' life.
It is impossible to understand the thought of Jesus concerning
63
64 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
community life without understanding the Eoman Empire which
was the great world community of his day.
Empire World orders have a way of dictating terms to
the smaller communities of the world. It is
hard to fight against a world order. Those who succeed are the
creative persons of history. Had Germany triumphed and
succeeded in imposing her imperialistic scheme on the world, we
should have had something comparable to the world order which
Jesus knew. The result of such a triumph would have been a
triumph for an ideal of life as well as a political system, and
this ideal would have penetrated and have influenced the remot-
est community of the world, just because it had become the
dominant community ideal in the world.
Rome had triumphed. She had imposed her political system
on all the nations bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. It was
a system built up on compulsion of force and the appeal to
fear. It was a theocracy in which emperor worship was domi-
nant. Eoman arms made common cause with the local recog-
nized authorities in every annexed nation. To a people with the
freedom traditions of the Jews it was compulsion, foreign, alien,
and to be endured only because the people feared to throw it off.
That Jesus knew the hatred of the Jew for Rome is perfectly
clear in his dealing with the captious question about the giving
of tribute to Csesar. The question itself has no point if there
does not lie back of it a great popular hatred toward Rome
which made it dangerous for a man to advocate the paying of the
imperial tax.
The hatred of Rome was also reflected in the popular estimate
of a publican who was the official representative of Rome in the
collection of taxes. He had neither social standing nor religious
privileges. The Jew hated him because he stood for the alien
community which had robbed the Jew of his freedom. Jewish
THE FOUNDER OF THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY 65
hatred of Rome had finally organized in a party of the Zealots
which, like the Sinn Fein Party of Ireland, was pledged to
Jewish independence and the realization of Jewish national
hopes. That Jesus felt with his countrymen the hatred of this
community of compulsion and fear there can be no question.
When Satan led Him to the lofty mountain and showed Him all
the kingdoms of the world and offered Him world domination
on Satan's terms, it was the dramatic plea of Jewish opinion
for a leader who should build another world kingdom with the
Jew occupying the place which the Roman held in the world
order which the Jew hated so much.
The other theocratic community of compulsion based on fear
was the decadent Judaism of Jesus' time. Judaism at its best
was not a religion of legal compulsion based
Decadent _ *
Judaism on aPPeals to fear. In the reconstruction
days following the exile, the ideal of the
prophets, where the spirit of God was to be the teacher of men
and men were to live together in brotherly relationships, had for
a time been partially realized. But the priest had triumphed in
Hebrew life, and Hebrew religion in the fight which it had made
for the preservation of its customs against the Hellenism of
Alexander the Great had become hard and legalistic. The
Pharisees, like the Puritans of three centuries ago, had won a
noble fight for religious freedom but bore in themselves the in-
tolerant temper toward all which they had once developed in self-
defense against Grecian arms. Jewish religion while professing
freedom had become a matter of laws, customs, and forms im-
posed upon the people by threats of various kinds of social pun-
ishment. A religion which had once possessed wide outlook and
a universal appeal had been narrowed until only a Jew with all
the limitations of a Jew could enjoy its privileges. It had grown
petty, and over those who would submit, it had grown tyrannical.
66 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
Jesus has been proclaimed as the chief revolt leader of all
history. He has been pictured as the leader of the proletariat
who sought to organize the seething forces
Jesus' Vision of 0£ un^st jn the Roman Empire. Jesus taught
Community a Pr0I°und doctrine of self-respect but He
was interested in something more than the
starting of a revolt. A civilization which can stand alone
is more than a reaction. No permanent society was ever
maintained on the basis of a revolt. The verdict of Jewish
history was all against such a plan. Jesus looked forward to a
society in which men loved justice more than do those who are
willing just to rebel against injustice in others. He looked
for a society characterized by moral and spiritual independence
gained through discipline more severe than that of Scribe and
Pharisee where men through self-criticism had learned the art
of being just and giving justice to others.
Jesus had drunk deep from the springs of Hebrew idealism
which had been established by the prophets. He had a vision
of a community held together by something stronger than the
compulsion of force and fear. With true social insight He saw
the coming disintegration of the Roman Empire due to the
hatreds which it inevitably bred. His critique of the old order
was severe. It was wrong in principle and must ultimately
break down.
And Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they
who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them ; and their
great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you :
but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister;
and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all. For
the Son of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and
to give his life a ransom for many.1
Abraham and Moses had been organizing centers in the old
'Mark 10:42-45.
THE FOUNDEK OF THE UNIVEKSAL COMMUNITY 67
community. Jesus offers Himself as a center of the new com-
munity. He would be the vine, others would be
~. ~ ,.._ the branches. Some men try to bind others to
The Personality ; .
of Jesus in the them through fear. He would bind men by the
New Commu- strongest tie which society knows — love and
mty social faith. Society shot through and through
with suspicion would find faith returning when
men came in contact with Him. Even in his death He expected
to draw all men to Him. The idea is almost startling in its
simplicity. If one man could ruin the world, a personality such
as Jesus could save it by becoming the organizing center of a
new order of men.
The most striking symbol of the new order was the fellowship
supper at which his disciples partook of the bread and wine which
was the symbol of their mystic union with Him.
S Those who were members of his community were
held together by something stronger than force
and fear. It was the fellowship of those who had been won to
faith through their contact with Him. He had been worthy of a
great trust and had created faith in them. Faith was beginning
to come back into the world when they had faith in Him. The
integration of the community had begun when they gave to Him
trust and loyalty. They were not to be his slaves but his friends.
This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have
loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I
command you. No longer do I call you servants ; for the servant knoweth
not what his lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all things that
I heard from my Father I have made known unto you.1
It was a community freed from the old compulsion of heredity.
A man did not need to be a Jew to be a citizen. The only
'John 15:12-15,
68 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
foreigner in this community was a bad man, and every good man
had a right to citizenship.
There come his mother and his brethren ; and, standing without, they
sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him ; and
they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek
for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my
brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he
saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do
the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.1
Jesus definitely expected that his new community character-
ized by social faith, justice, and brotherliness would supplant the
old community based on autocratic compulsion, fear, force, and
naturalistic conditions. He had every right to expect such a
triumph. Communities based on force and fear have always
developed within themselves the antipathies which cause them
to disintegrate. The chain has not yet been forged which can
bind people together who hate each other. Jesus was not an idle
dreamer. He was the keenest of social thinkers. He had seen
small communities like the home community which centered
around a good father grow strong and persist through all human
vicissitudes. He had all of the Hebrew experience back of Him.
If He could build a world community in which men would have
the spirit of their good Father who was in Heaven He could have
a community founded upon the rocks which all the floods and
storms which sweep through human history could not destroy.
He was perfectly confident that God had called Him to found
such a community because He believed in God. He saw its
realization coming in the Heavens and the supplanting of the old
world order was at hand. In parable and in story He set forth
his optimistic convictions.
Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is
like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his
1 Mark 3:31-35.
THE FOUNDER OF THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY 69
field : which indeed is less than all seeds ; but when it is grown, it is
greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the
heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof.
Another parable spake he unto them : The kingdom of heaven is like unto
leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it
was all leavened.1
Jesus anticipated the ultimate triumph of his community
because He believed that it had power to supplant the old. He
had heartily and completely lost faith in the old type of com-
munity. He said it was fit for the Valley of Gehenna where lay
the discarded refuse of the city of Jerusalem. In other words it
was ready to be scrapped. He was not a dreamer of visions
which were impossible for this world. It was the old order that
was impossible. It could never develop anything but human
hate and human hate was the negation of community life. His
order alone was possible. It gave promise of joy, happiness,
comradeship, a community of the spirit, where there would be
youth and freshness and growth, a brotherhood which men
could never outgrow and which would be the crowning glory of
the creative work of God the Father.
Jesus never minimized to Himself the cost which must be paid
for the new community. It was a good bargain at any price;
it was a pearl worth trading all one's possessions
The Price of ^ secure> jje kep^ continually warning men
Community against the fallacy of hoping to secure the new
community at too low a cost. It called for a
discipline of the body and mind more exacting than that of
Scribe or Pharisee. It called for a people of moral inde-
pendence.
Now there went with him great multitudes : and he turned, and said
unto them, If any man eometh unto me, and hateth not his own father,
Matthew 13:31-33.
70 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his
own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of
you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the
cost, whether he have wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he
hath laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin to
mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another king in war, will not sit
down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet
him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else while the
other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and asketh condi-
tions of peace. So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not
all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.1
The price of the new community was the high price of self-
discipline in the giving of justice. All depended on whether He
could secure men to follow Him who loved justice enough to
give it and give it first, and who would give it for the sake of its
faith-creating power in society. The masterly exposition of this
thought has come to us in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus
begins his discourse with a recital of a list of those who would
be the fortunate initiators of the new order. He calls them the
salt of the earth — the people who will keep society from rotting.
They are those who have a hunger and thirst after righteousness
and He finds such people chiefly among the meek and the lowly
who have come to hate injustice because they have felt the iron
heel of oppression.
Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'
The men who are to make possible the new order must be men
who will give justice in thought as well as deed. It was to be a
discipline of the mind as well as the body. The new community
was to be one in which there would be no murders ; if so, murder
must be dealt with in the thought stage. Men could not go on
*Luke 14:25-33.
'Matthew 5:3.
THE FOUNDER OF THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY 71
feeding the flames of passion with unjust thoughts and stop
short of the fruit of passion in murder.
Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not
kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment : but I
say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in
danger of the judgment.1
The new community was to be free from licentious action. If
so adultery must be dealt with in the thought stage. Unchaste
action is the result of unchaste thoughts. The men of the new
order must be clean in thought as well as action.
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery : but I
say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.2
The new community must be free from falsehood. Public
opinion must be built on the integrity of human speech. If so,
the builders of the new community must tell the truth not be-
cause they have taken oath to do so but because truth-telling is
a primary condition of social trust and faith. Truth-telling was
independent of all external occasion.
Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths :
but I say unto you, Swear not at all.8
Justice could not be maintained on the narrow basis of the law
of revenge. The law of revenge is simply another law of the
assertion of rights, both of which land either in slavery or in
social anarchy. If you will agree to treat someone else as he
treats you, that person can make you his abject slave. If you are
simply asserting your rights, society can stand it so long as some-
one is responsible for holding society together. But when all
begin to assert their Tights, society lands in social anarchy.
1 Matthew 5 : 21-22. 3 Matthew 5 : 33-34.
'Matthew 5:27-28.
72 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
Jesus substitutes his principle of the giving of justice which
takes the initiative without waiting for goodness on the part of
other people. He holds before his disciples the thought of a
righteousness which is like that of the heavenly Father, who
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and unjust.2
Ye have heard that it was said : An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth : but I say unto you. Resist not him that is evil : but whosoever
smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.2
The builders of the new order will seek as their main concern
in life the righteousness of God, confident that the other
privileges and necessities of life can be secured by a social order
which has paid the price of a right attitude between man and
man. A world now facing starvation because of the disruption,
through war, of the forces of production and the channels of
trade may well heed Jesus' thought that the maintaining of right
relationships among men is the key to the solution of the problem
of food and drink.
The founders of the new order will be conscious of a true
self-respect. They will not give that which is holy unto the
dogs or cast pearls before swine, but such a respect will never
prevent them from laying more emphasis upon self-criticism
than upon the criticism of others. They will not be so intent
upon finding the mote in their brother's eye that they will be
unconscious of the beam in their own eyes.
To those who are willing to pay the price the resources of the
heavenly Father are pledged. At their knock there shall be
opening and for their seeking there shall be finding. The gate
is narrow and the pathway strait, but it leads to uplands of
wide areas. Other false prophets may promise that grapes can
1 Matthew 5:45.
8 Matthew 5 : 38-36.
THE FOUNDER OF THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY 73
be grown on thorns and figs on thistles, but it cannot be. He
who would reap the fruits of a permanent community must plant
the tree of sincere wholehearted righteousness. For such a one
there will be the true reward.
Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them,
shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock :
and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and
beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for it was founded upon the rock.
And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall
be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand : and the
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon
that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall thereof.1
To this vision of a universal community founded upon the
justice of his Father in Heaven, Jesus was obedient unto death.
He met his death at the hands of the two world orders whose
failure He foretold. Jewish and Roman justice broke down in
dealing with Jesus, and therein was revealed the need of a higher
righteousness than that exemplified in either of these social
orders.
Matthew 7:24-28.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GROWTH OF THE COMMUNITY FOUNDED
BY JESUS
Abraham founded a racial community. Jesus founded an
ethical community. Moses laid the basis for community rela-
tionships in law. Jesus laid the basis in love. The community
of Moses had been a forerunner of the one established by Jesus.
In it the Hebrews had been in tutelage until they were ready for
the spiritual and ethical community established by Jesus. Sal-
vation for the Hebrew had never been an individualistic matter.
Christians found salvation by becoming members of the new
social order established by the founder of the new covenant. The
followers of Jesus recognized in Him the founder of the pro-
phetic community which had been foretold by the seers of old.
They gave different reasons for believing thus about Him, but
they were not disagreed in their judgment.
The free brotherly universal community founded by Jesus and
having his personality at its center was a new creation in the
world. The understanding of it brought experiences to the
disciples which were new and unforeseen. They explored the
new life as a bride would a home. It was a new status for all
who were called to partake of it. The exploration and defense
of the new life over against the other orders of society with which
the disciples were surrounded occupied the energy of the early
church. The new life seemed inexhaustible. No one human
life was large enough to encompass it. It was something they
were all experiencing together. Different men explored differ-
74
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDED BY JESUS 75
ent phases of the new life and that which each found out became
the possession of the whole new community.
The disciples of Jesus only gradually became conscious of the
treasures which had been committed unto them. The new wine
remained in the old bottles for some time after the death of
Jesus. The disciples were called followers of the "Way." They
were considered an especially pious group who had the favor of
the leaders in the Hebrew church. They were characterized by a
great religious enthusiasm which seemed to be a part of the
wonderful release of spirit and personality which had come to
them. These manifestations of the spirit appear very promi-
nently in the books which describe the life of the new church.
The break with the old community came over the attitude of
the new disciples toward the ceremonial law and also over their
attitude toward those who were outside the racial boundaries
of the Jews.
Next to Jesus of Nazareth the most vigorous character in the
history of the early Christian community is Saul of Tarsus. He
had been raised and trained under the old Jewish
p - . theocracy. He had accepted the ideas of the
Dynamic Figure Jewish commonwealth as interpreted by the
in the New outstanding leaders of his time. With a re-
mmumty ligious devotion he had defended and sought to
enforce the claims of the ceremonial law upon
the Jews of his time and especially upon all heretics who in
any way minimized its validity. He first appears in the records
as the organizer of a crusade against the sect who here and there
were undermining and doing things contrary to the traditions
of the elders. In this capacity we find the men who stoned
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, laying their garments down
at the feet of one named Saul.
SauPs conversion to an entirely new conception of the Jewish
76 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
theocracy comes on his way to Damascus whither he is going on
a crusade to exterminate the followers of Jesus. By a remark-
able spiritual experience he becomes convinced that this Jesus
whom he is persecuting is really the chosen one of God for estab-
lishing of the new covenant and commonwealth towards which
the prophets of the Old Testament had looked forward. The
Jesus whom he is persecuting is not a dead Jew but is the living
founder of the new order, who summons Saul to the work of
preaching the good news to his fellow country men and especially
to the Gentiles.
All the intensity of faith with which Paul had once defended
the old Hebrew theocracy was transferred to the service of ex-
plaining the universal claims of the community
Paul's Descrip- established by Jesus. It was to be a world
Cominunitv order with authority over all principalities and
all powers. The absolute right of Jesus to reign
was the first item of faith of all the apostles. It generally con-
stituted the opening sentence in all of Paul's letters. The
Epistle to the Eomans is typical :
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated
unto the gospel of God, which he promised afore through his prophets
in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of
David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with
power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead ; even Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we receive grace and
apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name's
sake ; among whom are ye also, called to be Jesus Christ's.1
A great difference in opinion existed in the early church as
to the way in which the authority of Christ and his community
was to be set up, but all agreed in the absolute right of this
community over all earthly principalities and powers.
x Romans 1 :l-6.
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDED BY JESUS 77
The great distinction between the Mosaic community and the
Christian community lay in the fact that in the Christian com-
munity man instead of being under the tutelage
The New Status of Jewish law had come in to his moral majority.
He was now a son and heir. The spirit bore
witness with his spirit that he was a son of God. He became a
member of the new community by an ethical and spiritual act on
his part whereby the spirit of Jesus became also his spirit. In
joining the new community his own personal life was enlarged
by becoming part of the personal life of Jesus.
I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I that live, but
Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in
faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave him-
self up for me.1
But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from
a bondservant though he is lord of all ; but is under guardians and
stewards until the day appointed of the father. So we also, when we
were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world :
but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba,
Father. So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son ; and if a
son, then an heir through God.2
The clear recognition that here was a life which called a man
to freedom and introduced him to his moral majority was to
Paul one of the captivating thoughts about the new life. It
released him from the bondage and the childishness of the old
order where he had never enjoyed the right of freedom of thought
and the exercise of his full powers.
Paul very seldom uses the term, "Kingdom of God" to de-
^alatians 2:20.
2 Galatians 4 :l-7.
78 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
scribe the new social order which Jesus established. He adopts
a new term which is very expressive of the
of Christ brotherly life of the new order. He uses the
term, "Body of Christ," to signify the uniting of
all the members of the new order in a great organic relationship
in which each has individuality even as the hand and eye have
separate functions and yet are at the same time united in the
one common body which is greater than all.
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members
have not the same office : so we, who are many, are one body in Christ,
and severally members one of another.1
In this body which is the Church of the living God, the spirit
of Christ, which he also identifies with the spirit of God, dwells
as an abiding authority. Paul does not draw a distinction be-
tween the revelation of the spirit and the discovery of truth on
the part of the members of Christ's body. It seems to be a
mutual relationship that the best thinking of these members is
not different from the revelation of the mind of Christ inside the
Christian community. The corporate conscience of the Chris-
tian Church which every Christian was helping to build was also
the conscience of Jesus Christ revealing itself in the world.
Since love brought the new community into being, love was
the organic law of right in the new community. Whatsoever
was not in accordance with the law of love was wrong. Whatso-
ever was in accordance with the law of love was
The Law of right in spite of all the traditions of the elders.
*g J^1 Paul spends whole sections of the letters which
New Commu- r
nity he writes to his churches, expounding the mean-
ing of this word, "love." His classic exposition
was sent to the Corinthian Church.
Paul's letters to his disciples have two main themes: He
1 Romans 12 : 4-5.
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDED BY JESUS 79
spends a great deal of time defending the new covenant and
basis of the new community over against the Hebrew theocracy
based on the Mosaic Law, and after he has done this he generally
spends the rest of his letter expounding the meaning of the word,
"love." He takes up the whole realm of the common life of the
people to whom he writes and discusses their line of conduct
under the general admonition, "Walk in love even as Christ also
loved you." Under such a general principle he discusses in his
letter to the Ephesians such topics as personal purity, the use
of one's time, the relation of husbands and wives, the relation of
children to parents, of servants to masters, and the relation of a
Christian to the world powers of his time. In his letter to the
Galatians, after expounding to them their freedom as sons of
the new covenant, he says :
Only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through
love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one
word, even in this : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.1
The early Christians could not entirely give themselves to the
enjoyment and exploration of the new relationship into which
they had been inducted by Jesus and so ably led by Paul. The
order which they were establishing brought an
The Fight of the incisive challenge both to the Jewish and the
New Commu- Roman world orders, a challenge which they were
World Orders no* s^ow *° acceP** Here was a theocracy which
of the Time claimed the ultimate right and power to influ-
ence every other world order. Its militancy
was astounding. It had a hatred and scorn of the prevailing
Jewish and Roman world orders which soon brought upon it the
bitter persecution of the leaders in both the Jewish and the
Eoman world.
1 Galatians 5 :13-14.
80 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
The Jew contended for a theocracy based on the saeredness of
the Jewish law as interpreted by the scribes of the day. This
law had been amplified until the observance of it
The Fight with was a kur(jeI1 on the souls of men. It landed a
the Jewish
World Order man m an aDJec* slavery and left him with a bad
conscience because of his utter inability to keep
the law. Both Paul and Jesus took radical ground with refer-
ence to the trivial character of the scribal casuistry. Again and
again in the interest of some great principle Jesus broke the
petty regulations of the scribes and the priests. Paul, on the
basis of his belief that a new covenant had been established by
Jesus and a new religious community had been launched, rad-
ically declared that the law was no longer binding on those who
had entered the spiritual community governed by love which
Jesus had founded.
Of course this attitude brought down the wrath and condemna-
tion of the orthodox Jews. More than anything else it was re-
sponsible for the break of the Christian Church with the old
Jewish theocracy. The Christians were thrust out of the Church.
It has also been responsible for a sentimental attitude which has
prevailed in the Church ever since in a greater or less degree,
which has made Christians content with a negative attitude
toward laws of the state and the community. Christians have
been content with the pious sentimentality which they have
offered as a substitute for the carrying out of moral convictions
in the organic law of the time. Paul carried his moral prin-
ciples out into every department of life and were he here at the
present time, there is no question about his condemnation of
those who allow moral sentiment to stop short of its logical out-
working in the laws of human society.
To the members of the Christian community which took as its
symbol of a true social order the human body in which every
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDED BY JESUS 81
part had an organic place and even the most insignificant part
a place of honor, there was a challenge in the
The Fight with Roman world order built up on its theories of
the Roman - , . ,
World Order orce a compulsion and its sixty million
slaves. To the members of the Christian com-
munity who were followers of one who came not to be ministered
unto but to minister, there was a challenge in the Koman world
order with such a man as Nero at its head who created the cult of
emperor worship for his own glorification and came most dis-
tinctly to be ministered unto and not to serve. To the members
of the Christian community who followed one who said, "Suffer
the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not : for of
such is the kingdom of God,"1 there was a challenge in a Eoman
imperial government reaching out into the provinces of western
Asia and dragging thousands of boys and girls to the great im-
perial city to help satisfy the lust of the ruling powers of the
time. The Christian writers had no hesitation in declaring that
the Eoman world order was corrupt beyond repair and they with
good conscience commanded their followers to have no dealings
with the powers of darkness.
The early Christian literature of the New Testament reflects
a very pessimistic attitude toward the world orders of the time
in which the Christians lived. Many have tried
The Negative ^Q universaiize this attitude and make it normal
Attitude of the
Christian Com- ^or ^ne attitude of Christians toward all social
munity toward orders. This is decidedly a wrong conclusion.
theTwoDomi- It ought not to be the attitude of Christians
Orders when the Christian community has passed be-
yond the place where it was in New Testament
times. The early Christian community faced the problem of
escape from two dominant world orders which were trying to
1 Luke 18 :16.
(Hi 7
82 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
crush out its life. It was not yet strong enough to seek any
kind of control or direction in those world orders. The Chris-
tians had no conception of such a task. They knew that these
two world orders were unfriendly and sought their ruin, and
they dynamited the whole prevailing world order with the doc-
trine of the Second Coming of Christ, who they were perfectly
sure was Lord of all history and under whose power the Chris-
tian community would come into its rightful place in the world
which was under the direction of the great God of human
history.
CHAPTER IX
THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON
JUSTICE IN THE LIFE OF TO-DAY
The experiences of the world war and the struggle of the world
for a just peace have brought us face to face once more with the
necessity of a world order which is more than
of the Idea national. It was the frank assertion on the part
of one nation that the state which had power con-
stituted the limit of right, and a national training built up on
this idea, which threw the world into the chaos of the last four
years. The attempt of the Allies to deal with the issues of a
just peace has revealed a standard of ethics among all the nations
which falls far short of the needs of the situation. When the
stress of an impending defeat drew the nations together, there
was a tendency to rise to something of a point of view of interna-
tional right, but since victory has come to one side the sag back
into the old ethics of nationalism has been both pathetic and
tragic. One cannot help feeling, as many have pointed out,
that the fault lies to quite an extent at the door of that institu-
tion whose business it was to have laid the basis of a conviction
about a justice which was not confined to race or nation, but was
valid for all races and all nations and afforded the basis for an
international order which could temper and set in right rela-
tions the striving national and racial groups.
As one looks back over the history of Christianity he is im-
pressed with the fact that this task of being a community more
inclusive than any of the natural groupings of
Church men, such as race or nation, was a task which the
early Catholic Church attempted. Most of the
great controversies in the early history of the Church had to do
83
84 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
with the right of the Church to rise above racial and national
boundaries. The Church did in a very real sense become a
universal community which for centuries tempered the enthusi-
asm of national, racial and social classes and united them as
members in the Body of Christ. This was the ideal of the uni-
versal Church. For centuries it was a great unifying power and
was the only unifying power in what was then the known world.
In so far as the Church kept itself an ethical community
founded on right, it was fulfilling its mission in claiming an
authority over the nations which was higher than the political
authority exercised by earthly rulers.
The Catholic Church, however, made the mistake of becoming
a manipulating power rather than a power for inspiration. It
was a great super-community which exercised an authority over
individuals and over communities, not unlike that exercised by
imperial Eome against which Jesus had protested. The doctrine
of the infallible Church and the infallible Pope was forged as a
part of the policy of manipulation. The Church was trying to
live by a new kind of force and compulsion. Its mistake lay not
in the fact that it claimed to be a community more authoritative
than national and racial communities, but in the way it sought
to set up and exercise that authority. The vigorous national
groups of central Europe resented the oppressive policies of the
Catholic Church and the Reformation was the result.
The Protestant Church was the outgrowth of the rising tide
of self-assertion on the part of the political, industrial and
religious groups of central Europe which finally
Protestantism revolted against the authority of the Catholic
Church. It has often been described as the as-
sertion of the right of individual liberty in religion. As a prin-
ciple of protest against a manipulating autocratic power, this
right of individual liberty in religion is legitimate. It is only
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 85
right that we should first of all recognize the wonderful blessing
which has come to the world through this exercise of individual
and group right which was set up under Protestantism. Under
this system it has been demonstrated that religion thrives when
it is made a voluntary matter instead of a matter of compulsion
backed up by police force. The last three hundred years of
Protestantism have been some of the most fruitful in the history
of Christianity. The record of missionary activity, of educa-
tional growth, and of philanthropic service shown by the Prot-
estant denominations is phenomenal. Again under this system
religion has been free from graft. There is no well established
center in modern Protestantism which gives opportunity for the
exercise of that modern mania for controlling centers of influ-
ence. Again, modern religious life has been fairly progressive.
Individual churches may be slow to suggestion and conservative,
but society gives to the new the right to organize freely and
openly. And again, religion has been fairly democratic. The
church which must live by the good will of the people must live
close to the people.
But this estimate of modern Protestantism cannot be com-
pleted without a fair recognition of its total failure to set up the
ideal of a universal community founded on justice. Modern
Protestantism has set up almost an infinite number of com-
munities founded not on justice, but on differences in theological
dogma. It has been an agency for division in many com-
munities. In one small county in a western state modern
Protestantism erected the following monuments to its power to
divide :
1 African Baptist 6 Church of God (Winebren-
2 African Methodist Episcopal arian)
3 Amish Mennonite 7 Cumberland Presbyterian
4 Baptist 8 Disciples of Christ
5 Catholic 9 Disciples (Non-Progressive)
86
THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
10 Episcopal
11 General Baptist
12 Holiness
13 Methodist Episcopal
14 Presbyterian
15 Salvation Army
16 Seventh Day Adventist
17 United Brethren
18 Baptist, Primitive
19 Brethren
20 Christian
21 Church of Christ (Scientist)
22 Church of God (Adventist)
23 Church of God (Saints)
24 Covenanters
25 Congregational
26 Evangelic Association
27 German Evangelic
28 Lutheran (Synod of Chicago)
29 Lutheran (Synod of Missouri)
30 Lutheran, Swedish
31 Methodist Protestant
32 Pentecostal Holiness
33 Progressive Brethren
34 Reformed
35 United Brethren (Old Consti-
tution )
36 Wesleyan Methodist
37 Baptist (Means)
38 Baptist (Predestinarian)
39 Friends
40 Millennial Dawn
41 United Presbyterian
The second indictment against Protestantism is that it has
been responsible for that moral and spiritual monstrosity — the
national and class Church. The former of these was created by
intention in the days when Protestantism doubted its ability to
stand alone without state aid. The latter has been built by a
process of drift through which the Church naturally slips into the
control of those who are able and willing to give it support.
When religion becomes a servant of national and class groups
stimulating nationalism and caste, it compounds a felony. It
lands the world in a condition as deplorable as that produced by
an autocratic manipulating church. In some ways it would be
fair to say that we are now living in the dark ages of Prot-
estantism.
The third indictment against Protestantism, and Catholicism
must share this indictment, is that it failed to develop that
international conscience for right which might have made the
recent war impossible or at least have created the conscience for
a just peace after the war. It seems to have done neither. In
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 87
general the churches have supported the League of Nations, but
it has not been the militant support of a religious group worthy
the traditions of the early Church.
Modern conditions and the fullest development of our Chris-
tian faith call for a revival of the conviction of the early Church
that Jesus has laid the foundation for a social
of the Present or(^er which rises above the bounds of race and
nation in which there is neither Jew nor Greek,
slave nor master. This social order organized around a spiritual
and ethical personality must be held together, not by the power
of law enforced by an appeal to fear, but through the binding
power of spiritual fellowship, love, and social faith. It must be
a community of the spirit which will lead its members into
spiritual maturity. Its program for world dominion calls for
the multiplication of human personalities in every situation in
life who possess the spirit of Jesus Christ and whose corporate
conscience will be the continuing authority of God in human
history. Membership in such a community will be more im-
portant from a moral standpoint than membership in family,
race or nation.
If we are to meet the challenge of the present we must
revive what Professor Eoyce called the most neglected doc-
trine in modern Christianity — the doctrine of
The Place and the Church Universal. For a universal com-
punction of munity the universal Christian Church will be
the Universal
Christian ^ne necessary personal expression. The Church
Church does not exhaust or monopolize the full ex-
pression of the universal community. The
Church is the expression of this community in terms of personal
relationships. Outside of the Church there will be all those
phases of community life which exist outside but are related to
the Church in every community. If we are to take seriously the
88 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
setting up of the universal community based on right we are
forced to the conclusion that the building and extension of the
Church Universal is a first charge upon all Christians. This
building of the Church is not a mechanical task ; it is not a work
with wood and stone ; it is the multiplication of people in every
walk of life who owe a conscious allegiance to Jesus Christ and
who in their corporate conscience express his will and spirit for
human society.
Our first task will be the understanding of the personality
of Jesus and the traditions and history of the Church in such a
way as to make possible a unified Christian Church such as the
founder of it evidently had in mmd. The unification of the
Church cannot be accomplished by any mechanical manipula-
tion of organization. It can only come by overcoming the sin
of a misplaced emphasis on non-essentials and by a new emphasis
on great common essentials. Protestant Churches especially
have too long been content to define themselves by exclusive
definitions. Ecclesiastical statesmanship must set for itself the
building of that body of sentiment which will make possible a
reunited Christendom. Let us frankly admit the short-comings
of both Catholic and Protestant. If the reuniting of Christen-
dom is not possible in this new age, nothing of progress is
possible. A Christendom divided on minor issues can never
serve the cause of the universal community. It will be weak in
times of national crisis; it will fall a prey to the very forces
which it ought to control. As Protestants we must be loyal to
the Protestant principles in so far as they are valid, but we
ought also be so loyal to the Founder of our order that we share
his anguish over the fragmentary condition of his Church.
In a time of world chaos, we should have a new longing and
vision for the Church Universal.
To many miuds the idea of a great unified Church suggests a
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 89
closely knit institution whose progress is impeded by the dead
weight of its own machinery. Recalling the lack of progress
and institutionalism of the ancient Catholic Church, many
people conceive that a united Church is neither possible nor
desirable. But the world has learned much about ways and
methods of organization since the Catholic Church was founded
on the plan of the old Roman Empire. We have learned since
then how to unite without destroying individual liberty. The
British Empire and the United States of America have more
cohesiveness and more liberty than the Roman Empire ever had.
It is possible to build a united Church and at the same time
preserve liberty of thought and liberty of action. Surely there
can be found an ecclesiastical statesmanship which is equal to
the new challenge.
If an authority is to be set up in "No-Man's Land" it
will be the corporate conscience of the Christian Church.
This conscience is the only adequate authority
Building the for a WOrld in chaos. The building of this con-
Corporate Con- • • i. n i ™ • • • i
f science is a challenge to every Christian and
the Church every Christian church. It calls for the coop-
eration of all in the building of something which
shall be authority for all of us. The full revelation of the
mind of Jesus Christ calls upon each individual to cooperate
with others in the finding and doing of the will of the loving
God. The will of God for human society has not been com-
mitted to any one individual for interpretation. The corporate
conscience is truer in its outlook than the individual conscience.
No one individual or group is good enough to determine the
complete rule of God for any social situation. On all of us
there is the obligation to seek with others the way of justice and
righteousness.
The corporate conscience of the Christian Church must be true
90 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
to the emphasis of the New Testament which makes the principle
of love the organizing principle for all ethical
The Corporate action. Brotherliness which makes the test of
Conscience*
M _ justice to others the privileges we demand for
Historical ourselves must characterize the justice for which
the Church stands. Whatsoever of the major
satisfaction of life, the strong demand for themselves, these they
must demand for those who share the social order with them.
In the building of the Christian conscience the spirit and
principle of righteousness must be more important than the
letter. If the Church is not to reduce people to moral childish-
ness, it must have that regard for the moral integrity of the
individual which will cause it not to seek the authority which
destroys, but to offer that authority of the spirit which also
encourages freedom. The Church must never again become the
teacher of a casuistry which destroys moral independence.
In the building of the conscience of the Church we must guard
against the sins of the past. We must guard the Church against
the sin of self-consciousness. When the Church conscience is
devoted entirely to those matters which have to do with the
self-preservation of the Church, the Church cannot escape the
charge of being selfish. Church chores are not the chief matter
about which a church should be conscientious. Dress parade
ought not to monopolize the enthusiasm of a regiment organ-
ized for service. The Church which is conscientious about
petty things will make a petty people, and a petty people will
perish from the earth.
The corporate conscience of the Christian Church must
bring to its aid natural science in order that it may under-
lie Corporate stand and control the social order which the
Conscience Christian looks upon as the material to be used
Scientific *n the building of the Kingdom of God. Natural
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 91
science is to the Christian what the science of house-building is to
the one seeking to build a home. The spirit and purpose of the
person desiring to build a home is one thing and is most impor-
tant. When it comes to actual building, progress is not possible
unless there is a knowledge of mechanical conditions under which
it is possible to build a house. Sometimes it is an old house which
needs to be wrecked before a new house can be constructed.
Sometimes it is a matter of thoroughly understanding a house
which has already been built. Sometimes it is a matter of taking
raw material and constructing an entirely new house. Whatever
the task in actual house-building, there is necessity for the under-
standing of the mechanics of the task. The question as to
whether the house is to be a home filled with the spirit and pur-
pose of home life is another question from the scientific task of
house building, but all have their place. The rapid advances of
natural science during the last century ought to make it possible
for those who are establishing the authority of God in the world
to exercise a freer and finer type of workmanship than ever be-
fore in human history. Before the Christian equipped with the
knowledge of social science all social orders become plastic,
they are the raw material out of which a Christian social order
is to be built. There is no conflict between religion and
science to those who would establish the rule of God in human
society.
The Christianizing of vocational and group ethics in the name
of the universal community is the most direct approach to
social order. When the ethics of the kingdom of
The Corporate righteousness become the ethics of our great
Co II SCI GUC s
Must Be Social soc^a^ vocations and our dominant social groups,
the Kingdom of God will be very close at
hand.
The approach of an individual Christian to the social order
92 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
is largely through his vocation. In the shape of community
tasks there is offered to every man the chance to
Etj. take part in the social order. He finds the
chance to be a parent, a minister, a lawyer, a
surgeon, a merchant, a manufacturer, a newspaper publisher,
and it is of supreme importance that he see in these vocations the
chance to do the will of God. When the organizing principle
of his vocation is the Christian principle of love and good will,
his vocation has become a part of the universal kingdom of
righteousness. A good illustration of the Christianizing of
vocational ethics is found in the standards set forth by the Inter-
national Association of Eotary Clubs:
My business standards shall have in them a note of sympathy for our
common humanity. My business dealings, ambitions, relations shall
always cause me to take into consideration my highest duties as a member
of society. In every position in business life, in every responsibility
which comes before me, my chief thought shall be to fill that responsibility
and discharge that duty so that when I have ended each of them I shall
have lifted the level of human ideals and achievements a little higher than
I found them. In view of this your committee holds that fundamental
in a code of trade ethics for International Rotary are the following
principles :
First : To consider my vocation worthy, and as affording me distinct
opportunity to serve society.
Second : To improve myself, increase my efficiency and enlarge my
service, and by so doing attest my faith in the fundamental principles of
Rotary that he profits most who serves best.
Third : To realize that I am a business man and ambitious to succeed ;
but that I am first an ethical man, and wish no success that is not
founded on the highest justice and morality.
Fourth : To hold that the exchange of my goods, my service and my
ideals for profit is legitimate and ethical, provided that all parties in the
exchange are benefited thereby.
Fifth : To use my best endeavors to elevate the standards of the voca-
tion in which I am engaged, and so conduct my affairs that others in my
vocation may find it wise, profitable and conducive to happiness to emulate
my example.
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 93
Sixth : To conduct my business in such a manner that I may give a
perfect service equal to or even better than my competitor, and when in
doubt to give added service beyond the strict measure of debt or obligation.
Seventh : To understand that one of the greatest assets of a professional
or of a business man is his friends, and that any advantage gained by
reason of friendship is eminently ethical and proper.
Eighth : To hold that true friends demand nothing of one another, and
that any abuse of the confidence of friendship for profit is foreign to
the spirit of Rotary, and in violation of its Code of Ethics.
Ninth : To consider no personal success legitimate or ethical which is
secured by taking unfair advantage of certain opportunities in the social
order that are absolutely denied others, nor will I take advantage of
opportunities to achieve material success that others will not take because
of the questionable morality involved.
Tenth : To be no more obligated to a Brother Rotarian than I am to
every other man in human society ; because the genius of Rotary is not in
its competition but in its cooperation ; for provincialism can never have
a place in an institution like Rotary, and Rotarians assert that human
rights are not confined to Rotary Clubs but are as deep and as broad as
the race itself; and for these high purposes does Rotary exist to educate
all men in all institutions.
Eleventh : Finally believing in the universality of the Golden Rule —
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even
so unto them — we contend that society best holds together when equal
opportunity is accorded all men in the natural resources of this planet.
It is not the Greek motive of ethics, which is based upon
perfecting the person and perpetuating the state simply to pre-
serve the ego, but this code is predicated on
The Motive of _ „,, A . * _ , . , r
the Code *ove* ■*-na'; 1S> the -Rotarian does not do right
simply because it preserves himself, but because
he had rather be destroyed than destroy another. Thus his code
of ethics is founded on love.
This code does not take sides in the present dispute in society
between the Conservative and the Liberal. It argues merely
because it is conservative or liberal. This Code
the Code seeks one thing — the value — the utility — of the
ethics it propounds. The utility of the Code
94 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
and not its liberalism or its conservatism has been the ideal of
the man who wrote it. By this it must stand, for by this it
cannot fall.
In the same way that the vocational groups must be brought
under the rule of the universal community of justice, the in-
dustrial groups must recognize the same au-
Ethics thority. The failure of industry to recognize its
allegiance to morality and right has been largely
the cause of our present industrial trouble. We must write into
the industrial codes of the future the principles which will make
these industrial groups fit members of the universal community.
These codes will probably be written by Christian men who are
closely in touch with industry and have that technical knowledge
which alone makes possible true ethical knowledge. Two at-
tempts to write industrial creeds are here given.
The first is chosen from the reconstruction program of the
British Labor Party, published under the title, "Labor and the
New Social Order" :
"We need to beware of patchwork. The view of the Labour Party is,
that which has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that
Government Department, or this or that piece of social machinery, but,
so far as Britain is concerned, society itself. The individual worker, or
for that matter the individual statesman, immersed in daily routine —
like the individual soldier in a battle — easily fails to understand the magni-
tude and far-reaching importance of what is taking place around him.
How does it fit together as whole? How does it look from a distance?
. . . What this war is consuming is not merely the security, the homes,
the livelihood and the lives of millions of innocent families, and an
enormous proportion of all the accumulated wealth of the world, but also
the very basis of the peculiar social order in which it has arisen. The
individualistic system of capitalist production, based on the private
ownership and competitive administration of land and capital, with its
reckless 'profiteering' and wage slavery ; with its glorification of the
unhampered struggle for the means of life and its hypocritical pretence of
the 'survival of the fittest'; with the monstrous inequality of circum-
stances which it produces and the degeneration and brutalization, both
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 95
moral and spiritual, resulting therefrom, may, we hope, indeed have
received a death blow. With it must go the political system and ideas in
which it naturally found expression. We of the Labour Party, whether
in opposition or due time called upon to form an Administration, will
certainly lend no hand to its revival. On the contrary, we shall do our
utmost to see that it is buried with the millions whom it has done to
death. If we in Britain are to escape from the decay of civilisation itself,
we must ensure that what is presently to be built up is a new social order,
based not on fighting but on fraternity — not on the competitive struggle
for the means of bare life, but on a deliberately planned co-operation in
production and distribution for the benefit of all who participate by hand
or by brain — not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a
systematic approach towards a healthy equality of material circumstances
for every person born into the world — not on an enforced dominion over
subject nations, subject races, subject colonies, subject classes, or a sub-
ject sex, but, in industry as well as in Government, on that equal freedom,
that general consciousness of consent, and that widest possible participa-
tion in power, both economic and political, which is characteristic of
Democracy. We do not, of course, pretend that it is possible, even after
the drastic clearing away that is now going on, to build society anew in
a year or two of feverish 'Reconstruction,' What the Labour Party
intends to satisfy itself about is that each brick that it helps to lay shall
go to erect the structure that it intends, and no other.
"We need not here recapitulate, one by one, the different items in
the Labour Party's programme, which successive Party Conferences
have adopted. . . . The Four Pillars of the House that we propose to
erect, resting upon the common foundation of the Democratic control of
society in all its activities, may be termed, respectively :
"(a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum;
"(b) The Democratic Control of Industry;
"(c) The Revolution in National Finance; and
"(d) The Surplus Wealth for the Common Good.
"The various detailed proposals of the Labour Party, herein briefly
summarised, rest on these four pillars, and can best be appreciated in
connection with them."
In much the same spirit from the standpoint of Christian
ethics, is the following statement of the Social Service Commis-
sion of the Congregational Churches of America :
"We recognize that the building of a great social order characterized by
96 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
justice is not something which can be set up en masse but must be built
up community by community, social situation by social situation, and that
the obligation to think in terms of social justice thus becomes the obliga-
tion of every Christian to seek justice in every community where he has
accurate knowledge and a control over the conditions which endows moral
theory with real obligation.
"We declare for the sacredness of human beings over against the world
of things. All the machinery of civilization, its industries, its laws, its
institutions, exist for man, and not man for the machinery.
"We declare for the absolute necessity of every social unit both indi-
vidual and group justifying itself on the basis of its ability and will to
serve. The crying need of today is for men who see in the common
vocations of life man's opportunity and obligation to serve. The com-
munity offers to men the opportunity to be ministers, teachers, lawyers,
soldiers, surgeons, merchants, manufacturers, publishers, and laboring
men. We need nothing short of a moral revolution in the spirit and
purpose with which men enter these lines of work. There is not one
ethics of service for the minister and another law for the manufacturer.
There is not one law of service to the state for the soldier and another
for the lawyer. Public service alone justifies the holding of private
property or the possession of a license for professional practice.
"We declare that the setting up of programs of social justice must be
a cooperative task of all groups and parties concerned and that no one
group has such a monopoly on a sense of justice as to constitute it the
sole arbiter of justice in any social situation, and we look with favor on
all movements in community, in national, in international and in in-
dustrial life, which seek the way of justice by the calling together of all
parties concerned for common counsel. In the open parliaments for free
discussion we see part of those 'things which belong to peace.'
"We declare that the cooperation of free individuals and free groups
will produce a finer social order than can be built up through the estab-
lishment of any dictatorship. We recognize that in granting to indi-
viduals and to groups a generous amount of freedom there is always a
danger that society will break up into social anarchy or degenerate into
a dictatorship of the strong. There are those who seek a solution only in
a new dictatorship of the many, but no community is large enough to
contain a dictatorship. True community life resents the dictatorship of
church, of capital, of hereditary class, of military power, of the pro-
letariat. A community which accepts the dictatorship of any class has
forfeited the right to the loyalty of all other classes. We believe that a
free community served by free individuals and by free groups in a
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 97
brotherly spirit of cooperation can offer to every man a larger share and
portion than any other kind of social order which the world knows.
"We declare for an extended application of the great summary of the
law of social justice given us by Jesus, 'Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you even so do ye unto them,' which being further inter-
preted means we shall not be contented until those values which we
demand for ourselves as privileges become the possession of every man
inside the limits of our social order.
"We demand for ourselves an adequate home life, even so must we
extend the privilege unto others.
"We demand for ourselves a living wage and conditions conducive to
health and morality, even so must we extend these conditions until they
exist for the masses of the people.
"We demand for ourselves an adequate economic opportunity, even so
must we work for a social order in which there will be none without
opportunity to work and in which it will be impossible for idlers to live
in luxury and for workers to live in poverty.
"We demand for ourselves a square deal in industry, even so will we
seek to abolish all special economic privileges which enable some to live
at the expense of others.
"We demand for ourselves the right to determine the conditions under
which we labor, even so must we extend this privilege of self-determina-
tion and representation in industry to others.
"We demand for ourselves opportunities for wholesome recreation, even
so would we see that the opportunity for wholesome play is extended to
the limits of the community.
"We demand for ourselves public safety in person, even so we would
uphold the sacredness of all machinery of public law and will not allow
it to be manipulated in the interest of any private group, and we will
fight mob lawlessness to the extent of our ability.
"We demand for ourselves safety in name and reputation, even so we
will fight the promotion of race prejudice and every means by which men
rob our neighbor of his good name.
"We demand for ourselves chance for education and the opportunity for
culture, even so would we place this privilege at the disposal of all the
people.
"We demand for ourselves freedom of conscience and freedom of wor-
ship, even so will we maintain that right for others in the face of private
and public intolerance, and we would reinstate the right of free speech
in American life.
"Whatsoever of these major satisfactions of life we would for ourselves,
98 THE BIBLE AS A COMMUNITY BOOK
these we must demand for our fellowmen who share our social order
with us."
The principles of control for vigorous industrial groups are
not different except in details from the principles which must be
worked out for the vigorous national groups.
National Ethics The Christianizing of national ethics in the name
of a world order in which there will be a common
basis of right, a recognition of a total welfare which is larger
than that of any one group and yet which grants to every group,
however small, a share in the world's progress, is an absolute
necessity if there is to be a society of nations based on anything
more lasting than military power. The old order based on force
and fear and the balance of power has lost the confidence of
thinking people. The Church advances to this new situation
with the proud consciousness that for over a hundred years in its
missionary propaganda, it has said that national lines are not
the limits of love and justice. It looks upon the plan for a
society of nations as the fulfilment of its own scheme of mis-
sionary activity. The Church believes, however, that the fulfil-
ment of the world plan awaits the sincerest effort on the part
of the Church in the building of the smaller communities nearer
home. By thus devoting itself to the community which it knows
best and advancing through an ever widening circle of com-
munity life it would seek to build up a system of communities
which, because they are organized on Christian principles and
feel the authority of the Christian ethics, will culminate in a
Christian world order which will be the community of God on
earth.
It is evident that a conscience which takes upon itself a world
task must feel that it has its origin and authority in the will of
God. The futility of a fragmentary, isolated code of ethics to
control human society is apparent whenever one thinks of the
COMMUNITY FOUNDED ON JUSTICE TO-DAY 99
colossal forces to be controlled. The task cannot be accomplished
except as there is the marshalling of a great
The Corporate social force like the Christian Church whose
onscience corporate conscience is rooted in the very being
Religious °^ ^od and whose outreach is in every province
of human society. There can be no divorce
between religion and ethics if the battle is to be won. There
can be no minimizing of the Church if the battle is to be won.
The forces of a living Church, which is also the historic Church,
in the name of the God of our fathers, who is also the God of
the present, must rally to the task of setting up the authority of
the spirit in a world which cannot be manipulated from without
but must be controlled from within.
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