Christian society

“ To the man of practice in those days, as to the student of St Augustine’s City of God, Christian society was one great whole, within which there were many needs, many ends to reach, and many varied things to do. ”

“ The man who quotes Jesus and His relation to society, as a justification of attendance upon numerous social functions, ought also to carry out the purpose of Jesus in bringing others to a better life; he ought also to lead the conversation to the same topics. If society sways any man from the right purposes of life, and he finds that he cannot breast its temptations he should remain out of it or increase his spiritual strength.
The Christian Society, composed of a body of persons associated for the common object of exploiting Jesus Christ and His principles, at first was almost wholly social. ”

“ And the history of the Christian Church, with its development of orders and cults, sects and dissents, the history of fashionable society with its cliques and sets and every political history with its cabals and inner cabinets, witness to the struggle that goes on in the minds of men to adjust themselves to a body larger indeed than themselves, but which still does not strain and escape their imaginative grasp. ”

“ Put thus on the defensive, it may be well to recur to first principles, in order to satisfy ourselves that the church is the unit idea in all Christian labor. And to unfold that idea in the conversion of men, and to make it potential in society, through the preaching of the Gospel and the sanctified lives of believers, is the end of the family, of the school, and of all the forces which go to civilize and uplift communities. ”

“ To leave that civil society, in which the different sects of religion are now-a-days compelled to live in peace and side by side, and to enter religious society itself, the Christian Church of our days:—what is its actual position with respect to these grand questions which it has to discuss with the spirit of human liberty and audacity? ”

“ That we do deplore the perversion of the power of God, as men and Christians, and believe it highly commendable to this, the only true society of Christian principles, to associate and connect ourselves with all churches, of every denomination, and with all societies, not for the purpose of supporting them, but through these means to the furthering of our own designs. ”

“ Not the push, not the equivocal success of one person here and there is it that creates doubt of Christianity and provokes antagonism, but the whole systems of society and business in so-called Christian lands, and even the conduct of affairs within the church, the strain of feeling there. For in the church as without it wealth and rank are important in themselves, and make some important who have little or no other claim to respect. ”

“ That society is the society that Christ came to found upon earth; and what the State cannot do by its laws—what society dare not do by its forgiveness—the Church of the loving Saviour of men can do by the strength He puts into it, and by the love with which He fills it. It is in the Church, and in the Church of Christ alone, that there can be entire forgiveness for the penitent, because the Church of Christ alone is strong enough to overcome and reclaim. And therefore this work is especially the work of the Christian Church. I hold that it is eminently Christian work. ”

“ Therefore, I hold that it is the duty of all christian men, and of the Christian Church also, to work in the first place towards the amelioration of personal character, and to have the influence from that emanate into society. ”

“ So also the teachings of Christ, which were at first practised and developed by a small coterie of religious-minded men, acquired, under the conditions of the world, such secular and political influence, that about the time of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the Church organisations of the Christian society alone were the real political authorities, and discharged all the important functions of the secular states. ”

“ The Christian lives, in a manner, two lives, an outward one of necessary conformity to the fashions and ordinances of the present world; an inner one of protest against the present world and anticipation of an ideal state of things; and this duality is reproduced in the separate existence of the spiritual society or Church, submitting to existing social arrangements, yet struggling to transcend them, and to transmute society by the realization of the Christian's social ideal. ”

“ The great principles of Christianity pervade the frame of society, and its morals are made the standard. The second table of the decalogue is adopted throughout as indispensable to the well-being of the state; and a thousand forms of legislation are attempted to secure the ends of the great and comprehensive Christian precept—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” ”

“ These men have all been formed by the principles of that great Christian document, and that state of society and those social influences which grew out of it, and it is instructive to watch, in their early life, how a Christian republic trains her sons. ”

“ With the aim of assisting in bringing Christian ideals into the domain of our social and industrial life, this discussion presents the present situation of social reconstruction, considers whether the church has a special mission to society as well as to the individual, and brings forward some things the church can and ought to do in order to meet the obligations which the problems of the hour impose upon her. ”

“ The character of our religious institutions, the style of our preaching, the means we rely upon for the production of the christian virtues, are such as were adopted in a distant age, and fitted to wants which no longer exist, or which exist only in a greatly modified shape. ”

“ In another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Like all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is found in worship. Unlike others it recognises that the individual is restricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a common worship. ”

“ It is well known that the early Christian church was persecuted because, from the first, it preached a total regeneration of human society and its reëstablishment of a basis of peace and good-will, social equality, absolute justice, mutual aid, respect and sympathy, unselfish, disinterested subservience of the individual to the interest of the community. ”

“ If Christians are as grateful to God, to Christ, and to the Bible as they should be, they will give attention to every problem that affects the individual, the community, and the larger units of society and government. They will consider it their duty to carry their religion into business and politics and to apply the teachings of Christ to every subject that affects human welfare. In another lecture I call attention to the Church's duty to reconcile capital and labour, and to teach God's law of rewards. ”

“ But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is, toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards accepted by society. ”

“ All have been agreed in one belief, that the teachings of Jesus Christ are to be carried out in political institutions, and that the form of society based on his teachings, is to be defended at any sacrifice and at all risks. ”

“ The Church had become respectable, comfortable, sensible, temperate, liberal; jealous about the forms of its creeds, equally jealous of its secular rights, interested in the discussion of subordinate questions, and becoming more and more tolerant of differences; ready for works of benevolence and large charity, in sympathy with the agricultural poor, open-handed in its gifts; a willing fellow-worker with society in kindly deeds, and its accomplice in secularity. ”

“ And because families and nations, and the Church of Christ above all, are good, and holy, and beautiful, therefore any society which is formed upon the same plan—I mean of helping each other—must be good also. ”

“ Has the religion of Christ been a disturber of the social organization where social rights were properly understood and regarded? or has it set aside the rights and obligations of men in social life where men were enjoying peaceable, happy relations? Does its legitimate influence make men more wicked and miserable? An honest answer to these questions will commend the religion of Jesus Christ, and do honor to him as our Lord and Master. The Scriptures have been the means of establishing institutions which have stood for centuries. ”

“ For, as we found an aristocratic type of Christianity in the aristocratic medieval period, the social conditions demanding the aristocratic organization in Church and State and permitting no other, and as, in the age which succeeded the feudal, a freedom-loving, competitive, individualistic class imposed its character on the social and the ecclesiastical organization, so institutional Christianity will undergo a third transformation and, in a society dominated by Labor organizations, will become democratic and brotherly. ”

“ What, then, is the Church? It is the product of the collective conscience, that is to say of the society of individual consciences which by virtue of the principle of vital permanence, all depend on one first believer, who for Catholics is Christ. ”

“ Christianity, based upon the personal example and teaching of Christ, is too individualist to be in accordance with Society as at present constituted. Institutional Christianity, on the other hand, has obviously transferred its allegiance in certain matters of moral guidance from Christ to Cæsar ”

“ It has come to signify, not the religious, not the moral, not even the social or political interests of the Christian community, but often the very opposite of these—its merely accidental, outward, ceremonial machinery. ”

“ The church has thus entered the educational world, the missionary field, the substratum of society, the political life, and the field of social order, everywhere becoming a true servant of the people. ”

“ The Church is one society, nay, the world is one society, for man without his fellow-men is not; and into the society, both of the Church and the world, are inextricably woven the most social sacraments. ”

“ The teaching of Jesus dealt with three recalcitrant forces, which easily escape from the control of social duty and become a clog to spiritual progress: ambition for power and leadership, and the love of property, have been considered. How about religion? Is it a help or a hindrance in the progress of humanity? Opinions are very much divided today. No student of society can neglect religion as a social force. ”

“ And when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians—those who happen to have the right talents—should be economists and statesmen, and that all economists and statesmen should be Christians, and that their whole efforts in politics and economics should be directed to putting ‘Do as you would be done by’ into action. If that happened, and if we others were really ready to take it, then we should find the Christian solution for our own social problems pretty quickly. ”

“ How many concern themselves as to where their clerks go after business hours, what associations they form, whether they have a place of worship or not? How many of you business men, here to-day, are in the habit of asking the young men in your employ to accompany you to church, or to Bible class, or to prayer-meeting?
Take the community at large. Its influence, if exerted in this direction, must be chiefly confined to furnishing some counter attraction, moral, but not necessarily religious, to the attractions of the haunts of sin. ”

“ The results of religious work must appear in the lives of the people, in the Christian sentiment of the community, in the upward trend of all things that make for righteousness and for the establishment and prevalence of the kingdom of God. ”

“ Hence that Religion, which at full appeared so innocent, and peaceable, and fitted for the Benefit of human Society; which consisted in the plain, and direct Rules, of good Life, and Charity, and the Belief in a Redemption by one Saviour, was miserably divided into a thousand intricate Questions, which neither advance true Piety, nor good Manners. ”

“ The main bent in all the important deliberations on subjects of great moment to the well-being of our small section of the universal church, was to adhere to the long-known principles of the Society, and to turn aside the sentiments of opposing individuals in the spirit of gentleness, forbearance and love. ”

“ A church truly Christian, professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which aims directly at the welfare of man. ”

“ Many of these societies are made up of two distinct classes—the active members, who are the bone and sinew, the life of the institution, and the honorary members, who take no personal interest in the management or working of the society, but who, nevertheless, are good enough, or interested enough, to advance the cause they honor by the support of their name.
You and I, brethren, belong to a society, the Catholic Church, which embraces the whole world. We have in view one great object—the salvation of souls, the spread of the kingdom of Jesus Christ among men. ”

“ And their religion, of a strong Protestant type expressed in various forms of Dissent, formed an ideal bond which kept the little society together, and made an authority which all acknowledged, an atmosphere in which all moved. ”