Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  If the time of our weakness comes, the barbarians will not be wanting to take possession. Where the carcass is, the vultures will gather. Nations do not die by wealth, but by injustice. The forward impetus comes through some great historical opportunity which stimulates the production of wealth, breaks up the caked and rigid order of the past, sets free the energies of new classes, calls creative leaders to the front, quickens the intellectual life, intensifies the sense of duty and the ideal devotion to the common weal, and awakens in the strong individuals the large ambition of patriotic service. Progress slackens when a single class appropriates the social results of the common labor, fortifies its evil rights by unfair laws, throttles the masses by political centralization and suppression, and consumes in luxury what it has taken in covetousness. Then there is a gradual loss of productive energy, an increasing bitterness and distrust, a waning sense of duty and devotion to country, a paralysis of the moral springs of noble action. Men no longer love the Commonwealth, because it does not stand for the common wealth. Force has to supply the cohesive power which love fails to furnish. Exploitation creates poverty, and poverty is followed by physical degeneration. Education, art, wealth, and culture may continue to advance and may even ripen to their mellowest perfection when the worm of death is already at the heart of the nation. Internal convulsions or external catastrophes will finally reveal the state of decay. It is always a process extending through generations or even centuries. It is possible that with the closely knit nations of the present era the resistive vitality is greater than in former ages, and it will take much longer for them to break up. The mobility of modern intellectual life will make it harder for the stagnation of mind and the crystallization of institutions to make headway. But unless the causes of social wrong are removed, it will be a slow process of strangulation and asphyxiation. In the last resort the only hope is in the moral forces which can be summoned to the rescue. If there are statesmen, prophets, and apostles who set truth and justice above selfish advancement; if their call finds a response in the great body of the people; if a new tide of religious faith and moral enthusiasm creates new standards of duty and a new capacity for self-sacrifice; if the strong learn to direct their love of power to the uplifting of the people and see the highest self-assertion in self-sacrifice—then the intrenchments of vested wrong will melt away; the stifled energy of the people will leap forward; the atrophied members of the social body will be filled with a fresh flow of blood; and a regenerate nation will look with the eyes of youth across the fields of the future. The cry of “Crisis! crisis!” has become a weariness. Every age and every year are critical and fraught with destiny.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The Christian spirit of fraternity should create fraternal social institutions, and the fraternal institutions may in turn be trusted to breed and spread the fraternal spirit. It is a most hopeful fact that the communistic features of our govern- ment are awakening in some public officials a whole-hearted and far-seeing devotion to the public welfare. A number of our public health officers have thrown themselves into the crusade against tuberculosis and infant mortality with a zeal more far-sighted and chivalrous than is usually called out in the ordinary doctor who cures patients on the individualistic plan. When men at the head of some department of city government realize the immense latent capacity of their de- partment to serve the people, they are fired with ambition to do what they see can be done. Their natural ambition to make themselves felt, to exert power and get honor, runs in the same direction with the public needs. Such men are still scarce, but they are a prophecy of the kind of character which may be created in a communistic society and of the power of enthusiastic work which may hereafter be summoned to the service of the people. The vast educational work done by some departments of our national government, for instance the Department of Agriculture, furnishes similar proof of what may be done when we abandon the policeman theory of government and adopt the family theory. Certainly it would be no betrayal of the Christian spirit to enter into a 400 CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL CRISIS working alliance with this great tendency toward the creation of cooperative and communistic social institutions based on the broad principle of the brotherhood of men and the soli- darity of their interests. The upward v The ideal of a fraternal organization of society is so splendid S°the'v^ork- ^^^^ ^^ ^^ to-day enlisting the choicest young minds of the intel- ing class. lectual classes under its banner. Idealists everywhere are surrendering to it, especially those who are under the power of the ethical spirit of Christianity. The influence which these idealists exert in reenforcing the movement toward solidarity is beyond computation. They impregnate the popular mind with faith and enthusiasm. They furnish the watch-words and the intellectual backing of historical and scientific information. They supply devoted leaders and give a lofty sanction to the movement by their presence in it. They diminish the resistance of the upper classes among whom they spread their ideas.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  But that’s OK, too. I share all this because not everyone has an easy time with religion or spirituality. It can be confusing, dogmatic, and just plain weird. And yet, folks who aren’t sure or just don’t buy it are often ridiculed or treated as if they’re not “evolved” enough or trustworthy. Faith is a feeling, not a fact. It can’t be forced. It’s a personal choice and practice that’s unique to each of us. In today’s world, faith can even be contentious. God is often trotted out like a puppet in our culture wars or is used as a weapon to separate and control us, especially women. The disingenuous and dangerous nature of these strategies not only diminishes how we think of God, but it turns many of us off to the very existence of a force beyond our knowing. One thing is clear: Whatever the shit pickle du jour, people in crisis tend to be more open to faith as a means of comfort. Maybe this openness starts from a desperate place, but ask anyone whose loved one has crossed over or who experienced some awe-inspiring synchronicity at the moment they really needed a lifeline . . . they don’t need science or validation from anyone else to know that what they felt brought some peace to their hearts. And that comfort can be a salve, often leading us to search for wider, more open horizons. At least that’s what’s happening for me. CARING FOR YOUR SPIRIT & DEVELOPING FAITH Perhaps you were raised with a strong faith, or you had more of a creative, free-range childhood that sparked lots of questions, like mine. Either way, if you’ve ever felt like an oddball, skeptic, or spiritual misfit (more wood nymph, less devout), you’re not alone. My advice to us: Stay wild: Staying wild means trusting your innate instincts and developing your intuition—the intelligence of your heart. Honoring your deep sensitivity and empathic abilities—your gift for reading and feeling energy. Regularly restoring and recharging yourself in nature and with animals. Staying open and receptive to the seen and unseen love that’s ever present from many sources. And knowing that what you believe or don’t believe has no bearing on who you are. Judgment is an overused human construct. We’re all doing the best we can. I love how Elizabeth Gilbert describes what she calls the “always life.” After her partner died of pancreatic cancer, she explained that Rayya (her beloved) was still very present within her: “She’s braided into me. I’m very comfortable saying, if nothing else, her afterlife is living within me, changing me, walking through the world with me and making me different. But I don’t pretend to know much more than that.” Amen, Liz.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Something of his tastes and presuppositions flows into it. Unless we assume an absolute divine prevention of any such change, we must allow that it is wholly probable that the Church which told and retold the sayings of Jesus insensibly moulded them by its own ideas and hopes. And if that is true, then no part of the sayings of Christ would be so sure to be affected as his sayings about his return and the final consummation of the kingdom. That was the hottest part of the faith of the primitive Church and anything coming in contact with it would run fluid. But any modifications on this question would all be likely to be in the direction of the catastrophic hope. That was the form of the Jewish hope before Christ touched it; he certainly did not succeed in weaning his disciples from it; it was the form most congenial to cruder minds; it chimed best with the fervid impatience of the earliest days; its prevalence is attested by the wide circulation of the Jewish apocalyptic literature among Christians. It is thus exceedingly probable that the Church spilled a little of the lurid colors of its own apocalypticism over the loftier conceptions of its Master, and when we read his sayings to-day, we must allow for that and be on the watch against it. Like the old prophets, Jesus believed that God was the real creator of the kingdom; it was not to be set up by manmade evolution. It is one of the axioms of religious faith to believe that. He certainly believed in a divine consummation at the close. But the more he believed in the supreme value of its spiritual and moral blessings, and in the power of spiritual forces to mould human life, the more would the final act of consummation recede in importance and the present facts and processes grow more concrete and important to his mind. It was an act of religious faith for John the Baptist to assert that the long-desired kingdom was almost here. It was a vastly higher act of faith for Jesus to say that it was actually here. Others were scanning the horizon with the telescope to see it come; he said, “It is already here, right in the midst of you.” Any one who reversed the direction of his life and became as a child could enter into it. Any one who saw that love to God and man was more than the whole sacrificial ritual was not far from the kingdom. The healing power going out to the demonized was proof that a stronger one had come upon the lord of this world and was stripping him of his property, and that the kingdom was already come upon them. Thus the future tense was changing to the present tense under the power of faith and insight into spiritual realities.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The Church in America believes heartily in political democracy. But a Church which believes in political democracy can easily learn to believe in industrial democracy as soon as it comprehends the connection. It has one foot in the people’s camp. The type of Christianity prevailing in America was developed in the Puritan Revolution and has retained the spirit of its origin. It is radical, evangelical, and has the strong bent toward politics which Calvinism has everywhere had. American ministers naturally take a keen interest in public life, and, as well as they know, have tried to bring the religious forces to bear at least on some aspects of public affairs. As a result of these characteristics, the Christian Church in America is actually deeply affected by sympathy with the social movement. It stands now, at the very beginning of the social movement in America, where the repentant Church of Germany stands after a generation of punishment by atheistic socialism. No other learned profession seems to be so open to socialist ideals as the ministry. Several years ago the New York Evening Post began to lament that the Church had gone over to socialism. Nevertheless the working class have not as yet gained the impression that the Church is a positive reenforcement to them in their struggle. The impression is rather the other way. The eminent ministers whose utterances are most widely disseminated are usually the pastors of wealthy churches, and it is natural that they should echo the views taken by the friends with whom they are in sympathetic intercourse. Even those ministers who are intellectually interested in social problems are not always in sympathy with the immediate conflicts of the working class. They may take a lively interest in municipal reform or public ownership, and yet view dubiously the efforts to create a fighting organization for labor or to end the wages system. We are of a different class and find it hard to sympathize with the class struggle of the wage-workers. In recent years many ministers have spoken frankly and boldly against the physical violence and brutality in connection with the great strikes, and against the denial of “the right to work.” The former protest was made in the name of law and order, the latter in the name of liberty. No one who has ever seen the destruction of property in a riot, or the hounding of scabs by a mob, or the unleashing of the brute passions under the continued strain of a great industrial conflict, can help sympathizing with both contentions. And yet it is probable that when posterity looks back on the struggles of our day, it will judge that the righteous indignation of these protests was directed against a cause that was more righteous still. Law is unspeakably precious. Order is the daughter of heaven. Yet in practice law and order are on the side of those in possession.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  In the past the Church has largely connected the idea of religious duty with the service of the Church. It has made itself the summum bonum , the embodiment of all religious aims. To that extent it has monopolized for itself the power of devotion begotten in regenerated hearts and has not directed that incalculable force toward social and political affairs. Now that the idea of social salvation is taking hold of us, the realm of duty spread before a mind dedicating itself to God’s service is becoming more inclusive. The social work of the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., of the Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America, of the social settlements and institutional churches, show what is coming. It is significant that several new religious sects have embodied the social ideal in their religious aims. If the Church in any measure will lay consecrating hands on those who undertake social redemption, it will hallow their work and give it religious dignity and joy. And when politicians and social exploiters have to deal with the stubborn courage of men who pray about their politics, they will have a new factor to reckon with. The older conception of religion viewed as religious only what ministered to the souls of men or what served the Church. When a man attended the services of the Church, contributed money to its work, taught in Sunday-school, spoke to the unconverted, or visited the sick, he was doing religious work. The conscientiousness with which he did his daily work also had a religious quality. On the other hand, the daily work itself, the ploughing, building, cobbling, or selling were secular, and the main output of his life was not directly a contribution to the kingdom of God, but merely the necessary method of getting a living for himself and his family. The ministry alone and a few allied callings had the uplifting consciousness of serving God in the total of daily work. A few professions were marked off as holy, just as in past stages of religion certain groves and temples were marked out as holy ground where God could be sought and served. If now we could have faith enough to believe that all human life can be filled with divine purpose; that God saves not only the soul, but the whole of human life; that anything which serves to make men healthy, intelligent, happy, and good is a service to the Father of men; that the kingdom of God is not bounded by the Church, but includes all human relations—then all professions would be hallowed and receive religious dignity. A man making a shoe or arguing a law case or planting potatoes or teaching school, could feel that this was itself a contribution to the welfare of mankind, and indeed his main contribution to it. But such a view of our professional life would bring it under religious scrutiny.

• From What We Lost in the Swamp: Poems (2023)

  I curse. I start to blame, but all I hear ​is must retrain is ​don’t feel shame. So I go. You go? Yes, I take some space. Then when I’m back, I put in place a fresh pee-pad, a training crate. (She laughs.) Because? I won’t give up. One day, this loud, disruptive pup, he’ll learn to sit, he’ll know to stay, & the silly sign upon my face, the one that reads ​Beware of Brain, will finally have no use. THE HUFF & PUFF OF MEWhen my brain is stuck in a negative rut, I am a force of self-destruction, a howling wind that rips through towns to blow every thin straw house down. But while I topple, twirl & heave, your stubborn brick bones never leave. I’m here, you say, through thick & thin, through tidal waves, through violent winds. I’ll never let you feel alone. Crawl in my heart & make your home. GOLD DOG TAGThe other day I was walking back from lunch when a woman approached me, asking if I’d seen her gold dog tag. It must’ve fallen off on our morning walk, she said. Will you please keep an eye out as you go? So I smiled & agreed & continued on my way, but my eyes would not lift up from that street. They were scanning every rock, every crack & blade of grass. I was obsessed. Compulsively, I felt this need to find it: a thing that wasn’t mine, for a dog I didn’t know. & even though I (of course) never found it, the moment left me thinking, left me wishing I could split in two, walk up to myself on a similar sunny day & say, Hey. I think I dropped my confidence a few blocks back. Have you seen it? ’Cause maybe then I’d try my best, search high & low, become obsessed with sailing every sea until I felt like me again. SPACE WALKS(I will whisper this to ensure it does not set in stone.) It’s becoming increasingly clear I may never go to space to fulfill my dream of exploration. So instead I pretend, settling for walks around my town, small tours of a neighborhood nebula. I like to think about the self-contained, boxy Milky Ways inside each house, all those swirling worlds that pay no mind to the things outside their orbit. How many passing planets teem with life? How many on the brink of extinction? Now show me those who live & grow despite the approaching asteroid. TROUBLESI couldn’t escape it: the deep-seated, paranoid thought, the what-if, the maybe it’s not working after all. Even as I stood in the kitchen boiling a pot of water for our pasta, I could feel that I was being watched: an unfriendly monster, submerged subconscious simmering beneath the surface with its million wary eyes, bubbles full of pupils, black & unblinking. IV [image file=image_rsrc2CS.jpg] LITTLE HYMN IIIIf there really is a god up there, I hope she’ll answer

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Moreover it was variously understood by the different classes and persons that held it. Because this hope was so comprehensive and all-embracing, every man could select and emphasize that aspect which appealed to him. Some thought chiefly of the expulsion of the Roman power with its despotic officials, its tax-extorters, and its hated symbols. Others dwelt on the complete obedience to the Law which would prevail when all the apostates were cast out and all true Israelites gathered to their own. And some quiet religious souls hoped for a great outflow of grace from God and a revival of true piety; as the hymn of Zacharias expresses it: “that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” But even in this spiritual ideal the deliverance from the national enemies was a condition of a holy life for the nation. Whatever aspect any man emphasized, it was still a national and collective idea. It involved the restoration of Israel as a nation to outward independence, security, and power, such as it had under the Davidic kings. It involved that social justice, prosperity, and happiness for which the Law and the prophets called, and for which the common people always long. It involved that religious purity and holiness of which the nation had always fallen short. And all this was to come in an ideal degree, such as God alone by direct intervention could bestow. When Jesus used the phrase “the kingdom of God,” it inevitably evoked that whole sphere of thought in the minds of his hearers. If he did not mean by it the substance of what they meant by it, it was a mistake to use the term. If he did not mean the consummation of the theocratic hope, but merely an internal blessedness for individuals with the hope of getting to heaven, why did he use the words around which all the collective hopes clustered? In that case it was not only a misleading but a dangerous phrase. It unfettered the political hopes of the crowd; it drew down on him the suspicion of the government; it actually led to his death. Unless we have clear proof to the contrary, we must assume that in the main the words meant the same thing to him and to his audiences. But it is very possible that he seriously modified and corrected the popular conception. That is in fact the process with every great, creative religious mind: the connection with the past is maintained and the old terms are used, but they are set in new connections and filled with new qualities. In the teaching of Jesus we find that he consciously opposed some features of the popular hope and sought to make it truer. For one thing he would have nothing to do with bloodshed and violence.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  CARING FOR YOUR SPIRIT & DEVELOPING FAITHPerhaps you were raised with a strong faith, or you had more of a creative, free-range childhood that sparked lots of questions, like mine. Either way, if you’ve ever felt like an oddball, skeptic, or spiritual misfit (more wood nymph, less devout), you’re not alone. My advice to us: Stay wild: Staying wild means trusting your innate instincts and developing your intuition—the intelligence of your heart. Honoring your deep sensitivity and empathic abilities—your gift for reading and feeling energy. Regularly restoring and recharging yourself in nature and with animals. Staying open and receptive to the seen and unseen love that’s ever present from many sources. And knowing that what you believe or don’t believe has no bearing on who you are. Judgment is an overused human construct. We’re all doing the best we can. I love how Elizabeth Gilbert describes what she calls the “always life.” After her partner died of pancreatic cancer, she explained that Rayya (her beloved) was still very present within her: “She’s braided into me. I’m very comfortable saying, if nothing else, her afterlife is living within me, changing me, walking through the world with me and making me different. But I don’t pretend to know much more than that.” Amen, Liz. After my dad died, my willingness to consider faith grew. It was that smile that spread over my dad’s face as he passed into the next world that encouraged me in a way that words never could. I also turned 50, more years behind me than in front of me. More people dying and chapters ending. And so I surrendered my need for anything to make sense. I surrendered to comfort—and there’s surely no downside to that. Ask for a specific sign: Two years after Dad died, my best friend, Marie Forleo, invited me to a weekend workshop with psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson. Ever wise, Marie knew I would benefit from learning how to connect with Dad and other loved ones who had passed. Laura encouraged us to ask for specific signs from loved ones and suggested we pick unusual ones, as an added way to bolster our faith. This made sense. I mean, picking a squirrel is kinda easy. Why not give the dead a harder job to do. So I picked a narwhal—a cross between a whale and a unicorn, with its long, spiraled tusk jutting from its head. If Dad could send me one of those, I was a believer. Days went by . . . no narwhal. A week went by; where was my frickin’ narwhal? Just when I was about to chalk it all up to nonsense, I walked into an antique store and right over the counter was a vintage print of a narwhal.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  “People develop new understandings of themselves, the world they live in, how to relate to other people, the kind of future they might have and a better understanding of how to live life,” says Tedeschi. It’s not about going back to your old self, but rather using the experience to become a better version of yourself. This can include things like having better relationships and feeling like you have a greater sense of purpose. Everyone copes with trauma differently, so the process of PTG is different for each person. Some people may experience positive changes right away, while for others it may take longer. It’s also important to understand that not everyone who experiences trauma will experience PTG, and that’s OK. No one is expecting us to find silver linings. Personally, I found hope in even the mere existence of post-traumatic growth. Trust that you are capable of doing this work: The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung believed that we keep circling around the same themes our entire lives, and with each passing orbit, we reach the next circle of meaning. From where I stand now, I believe that our orbiting is the mechanism of our healing. The waves of grief still pass over us, and the pain is still very real—sometimes as powerful as if it arrived on this morning’s red-eye—but each time those waves come, we have a chance to tend to and nurture ourselves like we would a good friend. Think about it: We treat our friends and family with TLC because we love them. And when we are the ones hurting over unbearable losses or traumas, we are given the chance to love ourselves—truly, madly, deeply. Processing trauma will likely feel intense, and that’s normal. Trust that your spirit is able to breathe in the power of the entire universe. It can handle the matters of your heart as well. And as the waves of emotion arise, you bravely allow them in and through. In and through. In and through, until the tides recede. And they will. You won’t lose yourself, or if you do (temporarily), it’s because you needed to process what wasn’t working in order to heal. Now, this doesn’t mean that you’ll be over the situation—the loss of your job, your health, or a loved one. Or that you condone any abuse or betrayal. It just means that you’re willing to be restored so that you can carry on “with your one wild and precious life,” as the poet Mary Oliver would say. CHAPTER 6ACCEPTANCE [image file=image_rsrc1VT.jpg] The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary of our freedom. — TARA BRACH If the word acceptance makes you feel uncomfortable or defeated, you’re not alone. Years ago, I remember hanging out backstage before delivering a keynote at a wellness conference when another speaker leaned over and asked me what the subject of my talk was. “The healing power of acceptance,” I cheerfully shared. She paused.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  In the Roman Empire, as we have seen, social agitation would have been suppressed promptly. To-day it still encounters the moral resentment of the classes whose interests are endangered by a moral campaign and, if necessary, these interests are able to use the political machinery to suppress agitation. But in the freer countries of Western civilization the dissemination of moral ideas is almost untrammelled. The prophet’s message still brings the prophet’s odium; but a man will have to go far if he wants to be stoned or put in the stocks. Primitive Christianity did not work for social changes which required a long outlook, because it expected the immediate return of Christ. That the return of Christ will end the present world is still part of general Christian teaching; but the actual lapse of nineteen centuries has proved so plainly that we have to reckon with long reaches of time, that this expectation deters very few from taking a long look ahead in all practical affairs. There are, indeed, a number of Christian bodies and a great number of individuals who have systematized the apocalyptic ideas of later Judaism and early Christianity and have made them fundamental in their religious thought. They are placing themselves artificially in the attitude of mind which primitive Christianity took naturally. They are among the most devout and earnest people. By their devotional and missionary literature they exert a wide influence. They share with splendid vigor in evangelistic work, because evangelism saves individuals for the coming of the Lord, and in foreign missionary work, because it is an express condition that the Lord will not return “until the gospel has been preached to all nations.” They take a lively interest in the destructive tendencies of modern life, because these are “signs of the times” which herald the end; but they do not feel called to counteract them. Such an effort would be predestined to failure, because the present world is doomed to rush through increasing corruption to moral bankruptcy, and Christ alone by his coming can save it. Historical pessimism is generally woven into the texture of this pattern of thought, and it is this pessimistic interpretation of history, more than the somewhat academic expectation of the immediate return of Christ, which neutralizes the interest of this school of thought in comprehensive moral reformation. So far as the influence of this drift goes, it is a dead weight against any effort to mobilize the moral forces of Christianity to share in the modern social movement. This is all the more pathetic because these men have a nobler ingredient of social hope for humanity than ordinary Christians. But outside of this sphere of thought the hope of the immediate millennium, which was once so influential, is no longer a factor to deter Christians from their wider mission to society. The primitive attitude of fear and distrust toward the State has passed away. We do not regard the existing civilization and its governments as hostile to Christianity.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  One of the most serious charges that can be raised against preaching on social questions is that it is unreligious. It is the business of a preacher to connect all that he thinks and says with the mind and will of God, to give the religious interpretation to all human relations and questions, and to infuse the divine sympathy and passion into all moral discussions. If he fails in that, he is to that extent not a minister of religion. It is the highest test of his influence if his pastoral visits, his chance conversations, and his pulpit teachings somehow help men and women to take the high and divine view of their past and their future, of their joys and their sorrows, of their labors and their pleasures. That test is justly applied to his teachings on social questions too. Others can talk from the point of view of economic and political expediency, does the minister talk from the point of view of the eternally true and right? In passing judgment on a preacher’s work by that canon we shall have to remember, however, that religion and public questions have so long been divorced that it requires a strong and independent religious nature to carry the religious spirit freely into the discussion of public questions. If a man can make his hearers feel that they are in the presence of God when he discusses the condition of the working girls or the drift of the city administration, he gives proof of unusual qualities. It was evidence of religious genius when Jeremiah carried religion out of national life into the experiences of the suffering individual soul. To-day it is evidence of spontaneous religious power if a man can carry religion from private experience into national life. His hearers, too, are likely to mistake their own customs for the whole range of religion. Because they have not been accustomed to hear such questions discussed in the pulpit, they feel that the preacher is dragging in alien and non-religious matters. When the “Evangelical movement” swept over the Church of England, and ministers once more preached personal repentance and conversion, Lord Melbourne is said to have risen from his pew and stalked down the aisle, angrily exclaiming, “Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is made to invade the sphere of private life.” At any rate, social questions cannot be more non-religious than many of the things about which ministers have to talk in the pulpit. If it is religious to advocate rebuilding a church, why is it non-religious to advocate tearing down and rebuilding slum districts? If it is religious to encourage the church to recarpet the aisles and cushion the seats for the feet and backs of the worshippers, why is it non-religious to speak of playgrounds for young feet and old-age pensions for aged backs?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, The faith of a married person does not dissolve but perfects the marriage. Wherefore, since there is true marriage between unbelievers, as stated above (A[2], ad 1), the marriage tie is not broken by the fact that one of them is converted to the faith, but sometimes while the marriage tie remains, the marriage is dissolved as to cohabitation and marital intercourse, wherein unbelief and adultery are on a par, since both are against the good of the offspring. Consequently, the husband has the same power to put away an unbelieving wife or to remain with her, as he has to put away an adulterous wife or to remain with her. For an innocent husband is free to remain with an adulterous wife in the hope of her amendment, but not if she be obstinate in her sin of adultery, lest he seem to approve of her disgrace; although even if there be hope of her amendment he is free to put her away. In like manner the believer after his conversion may remain with the unbeliever in the hope of her conversion, if he see that she is not obstinate in her unbelief, and he does well in remaining with her, though not bound to do so: and this is what the Apostle counsels (1 Cor. 7:12). Reply to Objection 1: It is easier to prevent a thing being done than to undo what is rightly done. Hence there are many things that impede the contracting of marriage if they precede it, which nevertheless cannot dissolve it if they follow it. Such is the case with affinity ([4993]Q[55], A[6]): and it is the same with disparity of worship. Reply to Objection 2: In the early Church at the time of the apostles, both Jews and Gentiles were everywhere converted to the faith: and consequently the believing husband could then have a reasonable hope for his wife’s conversion, even though she did not promise to be converted. Afterwards, however, as time went on the Jews became more obstinate than the Gentiles, because the Gentiles still continued to come to the faith, for instance, at the time of the martyrs, and at the time of Constantine and thereabouts. Wherefore it was not safe then for a believer to cohabit with an unbelieving Jewish wife, nor was there hope for her conversion as for that of a Gentile wife. Consequently, then, the believer could, after his conversion, cohabit with his wife if she were a Gentile, but not if she were a Jewess, unless she promised to be converted. This is the sense of that decree. Now, however, they are on a par, namely Gentiles and Jews, because both are obstinate; and therefore unless the unbelieving wife be willing to be converted, he is not allowed to cohabit with her, be she Gentile or Jew.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The ancient feeling that demon powers inspire the State has vanished with the belief in demons. Some to-day regard the State as the organization of secular life, which, though in a sphere apart from religion, is good and useful in its way. Others take the more religious view of it, that it is one of the divinely constituted factors to train the race for the kingdom of God, of equal dignity with the family and the Church. Under either conception it is possible to cooperate with it and turn the regenerative moral power of religion into the channels of organized civil life. The other-worldliness of Christian desire is strangely diminished. We all believe in immortality, but we are not weary of this world. The longing to die and go to heaven is not regarded as a test of spiritual life as it used to be, even within the memory of many of us. To us salvation means victory over sin rather than escape from hell. This change of attitude dignifies the present life. It is not, then, too paltry for earnest effort. The hope of personal salvation after death no longer monopolizes the Christian hope. There is now room beside it for the social hope. The ascetic and monastic ideal, which dominated Christian life for a thousand years and more, has disappeared almost completely. If the saints that lie buried under the stone floor of some ancient European church could rise and listen to a modern sermon, they would find their gospel turned upside down. Instead of praise of virginity, they would hear eulogies of family life. Instead of the call to poverty, they would hear the praise of Christianity because it makes men and nations prosperous and wealthy. Instead of exhortations to wear their flesh thin with fasting and vigil, they would be invited to membership in the Y. M. C. A., with gymnasium and bath to keep their flesh in a glow of health. If the old gospel of individualism should hereafter change into the gospel of socialism, the change would not be half as great as that involved in the surrender of the ascetic ideal of the Christian life. Some ascetic practices still linger in the observance of Lent. The ascetic notion occasionally crops up that men are best turned to God by affliction, and that revivals follow on hard times. The distrust of the intellectual and artistic and political life in English evangelicalism and German pietism, the retirement of the Christian within the untroubled realm of family and business life, is a diluted Protestant form of the ascetic flight from the world. The Roman Church, by force of its strong mediæval traditions, still exalts the monastic life as the crown of religious living; but its mediæval saints would think their Church was dead if they saw the scarcity of monks in America. The current of modern religion does not run away from the world, but toward it.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The wiser leaders of Christianity do not desire to monopolize the services of Christian men for the churches, but rejoice in seeing the power of religion flow out in the service of justice and mercy. Religion is less an institution and more a diffused force than ever before. The brazen vessel of the Church was fatally cracked and broken by the Reformation, and its contents have ever since been leaking away into secular life. The State, the schools, the charitable organizations, are now doing what the Church used to do. The Roman Church continues its traditions of churchly authority and exclusiveness. Some Protestant bodies try with more or less success to imitate her rôle, but Protestantism cannot compete with the Roman Catholic Church in churchliness. In spite of itself, Protestantism has lost its ecclesiastical character and authority. But at the same time Protestant Christianity has gained amazingly in its spiritual effectiveness on society. The Protestant nations have leaped forward in wealth, education, and political preponderance. The unfettering of intellectual and economic ability under the influence of this diffused force of Christianity is an historical miracle. Protestantism has even protestantized the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Church crumbles away before it in our country and can only save its adherents by quarantining its children in parochial schools and its men and women in separate social and benevolent societies. The churches are profoundly needed as generators of the religious spirit; but they are no longer the sole sphere of action for the religious spirit. They exist to create the force which builds the kingdom of God on earth, the better humanity. By becoming less churchly Christianity has, in fact, become fitter to regenerate the common life. Modern Christianity everywhere tends toward the separation of Church and State. But when the Church is no longer dependent on the State for its appointments and its income and the execution of its will, it is by that much freer to champion the better order against the chief embodiment of the present order. We shall see later that even when Church and State are separated, the Church may still be in bondage to the powers of the world. It can still be used as a spiritual posse to read the Riot Act to the rebellious minds of men. But as the formal control of the Church by the State slackens, and the clerical interests are withdrawn from politics, the Church is freer to act as the tribune of the people, and the State is more open to the moral and humanizing influence of Christianity. At the same time the political emancipation and increasing democracy of the people is bound to draw the larger social and political problems within the interests of the masses, and there is sure to be a silent extension of the religious interest and motive to social and political duties. In the past the Church was dominated by the clergy and it was monarchical in its organization.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The Reformation brought a slow turn on both points. The power of the hierarchy was broken; the laity began to rise to increased participation in church life. That in itself insured an increasing influence of Christianity on secular life. At the same time the Protestant bodies, in varying degrees, reverted toward democracy in organization. Those Protestant bodies which constitute the bulk of Protestantism in America and of the free churches in England all have the essence of church democracy. Even the churches with episcopal government are affected by the spirit of democratic self-government. The Roman Church in America itself has not escaped this influence. All this lays the churches open to democratic sympathies, provided they are not merely organizations of the possessing classes. The intellectual prerequisites for social reconstruction were lacking formerly. They are now at hand. Travel and history are breaking the spell of existing conditions and are telling even the common man that social relations are plastic and variable. We have the new sciences of political economy and sociology to guide us. It is true, political economy in the past has misled us often, but it too is leaving its sinful laissezfaire ways and preparing to serve the Lord and human brotherhood. All the biblical sciences are now using the historical method and striving to put us in the position of the original readers of each biblical book. But as the Bible becomes more lifelike, it becomes more social. We used to see the sacred landscape through allegorical interpretation as through a piece of yellow bottle-glass. It was very golden and wonderful, but very much apart from our everyday modern life. The Bible hereafter will be “the people’s book” in a new sense. For the first time in religious history we have the possibility of so directing religious energy by scientific knowledge that a comprehensive and continuous reconstruction of social life in the name of God is within the bounds of human possibility. Conclusion To a religious man the contemplation of the larger movements of history brings a profound sense of God’s presence and overruling power. “Behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.” Christ is immanent in humanity and is slowly disciplining the nations and lifting them to share in his spirit. By great processes of self-purification the alien infusions in Christianity have been eliminated, and Christianity itself is being converted to Christ. But all these larger movements, by which the essential genius of Christianity is being set free, have also equipped it for a conscious regenerating influence on the common life of the race. It is now fitter for its social mission than ever before. At the same time when Christianity has thus attained to its adolescence and moral maturity, there is a piercing call from the world about it, summoning all moral strength and religious heroism to save the Christian world from social strangulation and death. That call will be the subject of the next chapter.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Max Nordau meant the same when he said, “In spite of its theoretical absurdity, socialism has already in thirty years wrought greater amelioration than all the wisdom of statesmen and philosophers of thousands of years.” All that we as Christian men can do is to ease the struggle and hasten the victory of the right by giving faith and hope to those who are down, and quickening the sense of justice with those who are in power, so that they will not harden their hearts and hold Israel in bondage, but will “let the people go.” But that spiritual contribution, intangible and imponderable though it be, has a chemical power of immeasurable efficiency. Summary of the argument We undertook in this chapter to suggest in what ways the moral forces latent in Christian society could be mobilized for the progressive regeneration of social life, and in what directions chiefly these forces should be exerted. We saw that some lines of effort frequently attempted in the past by Christian men and organizations are useless and misleading. It is fruitless to attempt to turn modern society back to conditions prevailing before power machinery and trusts had revolutionized it; or to copy biblical institutions adapted to wholly different social conditions; or to postpone the Christianizing of society to the millennium; or to found Christian communistic colonies within the competitive world; or to make the organized Church the centre and manager of an improved social machinery. The force of religion can best be applied to social renewal by sending its spiritual power along the existing and natural relations of men to direct them to truer ends and govern them by higher motives. The fundamental contribution of every man is the change of his own personality. We must repent of the sins of existing society, cast off the spell of the lies protecting our social wrongs, have faith in a higher social order, and realize in ourselves a new type of Christian manhood which seeks to overcome the evil in the present world, not by withdrawing from the world, but by revolutionizing it. If this new type of religious character multiplies among the young men and women, they will change the world when they come to hold the controlling positions of society in their maturer years. They will give a new force to righteous and enlightened public opinion, and will apply the religious sense of duty and service to the common daily life with a new motive and directness. The ministry, in particular, must apply the teaching functions of the pulpit to the pressing questions of public morality. It must collectively learn not to speak without adequate information; not to charge individuals with guilt in which all society shares; not to be partial, and yet to be on the side of the lost; not to yield to political partisanship, but to deal with moral questions before they become political issues and with those questions of public welfare which never do become political issues.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Social preaching has come under suspicion because experience has shown that when a preacher begins to speak on social questions, he is apt to veer away from the established course and fly off on a tangent. The new ideas take such hold on him that all other Christian truth seems stale and outworn in comparison. His preaching becomes one-sided. He twangs on a harp of a single string, and it becomes a weariness. If he encounters coldness, he may shake the dust of the Church from his feet in witness that it has once more cast out its prophets. Such cases are held up as proof that social questions are forbidden ground. They are indeed profoundly pathetic. These men are the explorers who travel along the unblazed trails where in coming days the highways of the Church will run, and explorers are apt to leave their graves as way-marks for those who come after. It is easy enough to march steadily on a beaten road and in the rank and file of a regiment. If these social preachers were not so alone, they would not go astray as they do. If they found many other ministers thinking the same thoughts, they could exchange and correct their ideas, and the future would not seem so dark. Thus the guilt for their aberrations rests in part on all of us who have shirked our duty and lagged behind. It may be that some of these men are naturally unstable and self-confident. But that is the stuff of which pioneers are usually made. Our Western pioneers were the venturesome pick; the solid people stayed at home. Abraham, who was the father of all men of faith, was also the father of pioneers, striking off into the unknown at the call of an inner voice, and perhaps some of his friends in Haran hinted that he was a rolling stone and “lacked common sense.” It may be that God will find more virtue in the impetuous faults of these pioneers of social Christianity than in the faultless prudence of their critics. Balance was hardly the distinguishing quality of the Old Testament prophets, and yet they are commonly supposed to have been good for something. It is doubtless true that the interest in the social question is apt to overshadow the other aspects of religion. Absorbed in public questions, such men may forget to appeal to the individual soul for repentance and to comfort those in sorrow. That is a sore defect. The human soul with its guilt and its longing for holiness and deathless life is a permanent fact in religion, and no social perfection will quench its hunger for the living God. There was no chance for Christianizing public life on the island where Robinson Crusoe lived alone with his parrot and his cats, but when Crusoe began to read his Bible and won through to repentance for his past and faith in God, it was a triumph of religion.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  If production could be organized on a basis of coöperative fraternity; if distribution could at least approximately be determined by justice; if all men could be conscious that their labor contributed to the welfare of all and that their personal well-being was dependent on the prosperity of the Commonwealth; if predatory business and parasitic wealth ceased and all men lived only by their labor; if the luxury of unearned wealth no longer made us all feverish with covetousness and a simpler life became the fashion; if our time and strength were not used up either in getting a bare living or in amassing unusable wealth and we had more leisure for the higher pursuits of the mind and the soul—then there might be a chance to live such a life of gentleness and brotherly kindness and tranquillity of heart as Jesus desired for men. It may be that the coöperative Commonwealth would give us the first chance in history to live a really Christian life without retiring from the world, and would make the Sermon on the Mount a philosophy of life feasible for all who care to try. This is the stake of the Church in the social crisis. If society continues to disintegrate and decay, the Church will be carried down with it. If the Church can rally such moral forces that injustice will be overcome and fresh red blood will course in a sounder social organism, it will itself rise to higher liberty and life. Doing the will of God it will have new visions of God. With a new message will come a new authority. If the salt lose its saltness, it will be trodden under foot. If the Church fulfils its prophetic functions, it may bear the prophet’s reproach for a time, but it will have the prophet’s vindication thereafter. The conviction has always been embedded in the heart of the Church that “the world”—society as it is—is evil and some time is to make way for a true human society in which the spirit of Jesus Christ shall rule. For fifteen hundred years those who desired to live a truly Christian life withdrew from the evil world to live a life apart. But the principle of such an ascetic departure from the world is dead in modern life. There are only two other possibilities. The Church must either condemn the world and seek to change it, or tolerate the world and conform to it. In the latter case it surrenders its holiness and its mission. The other possibility has never yet been tried with full faith on a large scale. All the leadings of God in contemporary history and all the promptings of Christ’s spirit in our hearts urge us to make the trial. On this choice is staked the future of the Church. -------------- CHAPTER VII WHAT TO DO

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  All the elements of cooperation and interaction which are now at work in our great establishments would be conserved, and in addition the hearty interest of all workers in their common factory or store would be immensely intensified by the diffused sense of ownership. Such a social order would develop the altruistic and social instincts just as the competitive order brings out the selfish instincts. Socialism is the ultimate and logical outcome of the labor movement. When the entire working class throughout the industrial nations is viewed in a large way, the progress of socialism gives an impression of resistless and elemental power. It is inconceivable from the point of view of that class that it should stop short of complete independence and equality as long as it has the power to move on, and independence and equality for the working class must mean the collective ownership of the means of production and the abolition of the present two-class arrangement of industrial society. If the labor movement in our country is only slightly tinged with socialism as yet, it is merely because it is still in its embryonic stages. Nothing will bring the working class to a thorough comprehension of the actual status of their class and its ultimate aim more quickly than continued failure to secure their smaller demands and reactionary efforts to suppress their unions. We started out with the proposition that the ideal of a fraternal organization of society will remain powerless if it is supported by idealists only; that it needs the firm support of a solid class whose economic future is staked on the success of that ideal; and that the industrial working class is consciously or unconsciously committed to the struggle for the realization of that principle. It follows that those who desire the victory of that ideal from a religious point of view will have to enter into a working alliance with this class. Just as the Protestant principle of religious liberty and the democratic principle of political liberty rose to victory by an alliance with the middle class which was then rising to power, so the new Christian principle of brotherly association must ally itself with the working class if both are to conquer. Each depends on the other. The idealistic movement alone would be a soul without a body; the economic class movement alone would be a body without a soul. It needs the high elation and faith that come through religion. Nothing else will call forth that self-sacrificing devotion and life-long fidelity which will be needed in so gigantic a struggle as lies before the working class. The coöperation of professional men outside the working class would contribute scientific information and trained intelligence. They would mediate between the two classes, interpreting each to the other, and thereby lessening the strain of hostility. Their presence and sympathy would cheer the working people and diminish the sense of class isolation.