Organized religion

“ A democratically organized church could not have fulfilled the mission of the Church, could not, indeed, have existed. With great hordes of half-savage people precipitating themselves upon the Empire and almost extinguishing the ancient civilization, the only kind of Church that could grapple with the problem--the most formidable and appalling that civilization and Christianity ever had to face--was a Church organized on thoroughly aristocratic principles. ”

“ It is organized religion that here makes its claim to fealty, as organized liberty, organized justice do, in man's communal life. There is a joint and general consent in the masses of men with similar experience united into the Church, with respect to the religious way of life, similar to that of such masses united into a government with respect to secular things. ”

“ Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism, the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism, fetichism, Sabaism—all stand where they did. All gather in their population; all have their organized activities, as they ever had. ”

“ Without some such organization as is proposed the churches cannot accomplish their social redemptive work. Through such organization they can demonstrate the vitality of the Christian religion by manifesting its power to meet existing needs, thus molding the civilization of the new century. ”

“ In keeping with this fact it is found that in those countries where the greatest changes and modifications of government and occupation have occurred, there have the religions undergone the greatest modification to fit the new order of things. If it were the religion that determined the matter, civilization and morals would be immovable, and legislation would revolve around, the guidance of the Church. ”

“ It presents a variety of group types to match the inclinations and opinions of different types of mind. One type is that of a closely knit, centralized organization, claiming ecclesiastical authority over individual opinions and practices on the principle that religion is a static thing, a law fixed in the eternal order, and not to be improved upon or questioned. Another type is that of loosely federated ecclesiastical units, flexible in organization and creed, cherishing religion as a dynamic thing, suiting itself to the changing mind of man and adjusting itself to individual and social need. ”

“ So long as the new organisation claims to be Christian at all, it must go back for its foundation to Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and he himself can appear only as a reformer, a restorer of what professes, and must profess, to be the religion which they delivered to mankind. ”

“ What, does our author make the religious societies a church? This is going further than the Methodists, whom he is pleased to stile only a sect. But if the religious societies, my Lords, be a church, may it not be proper to enquire how their doctrines or practices came to be set up as a rule and standard for others to go by, so that persons doing service or disservice to religion must be judged of according as they deviate from or adhere to the religious societies either in doctrine or practice? ”

“ If the religious nations of the world had been consulted in establishing a new religion with the intention of superseding all other sects and denominations, they would have selected a grave council of the wisest, most most learned, and pious men they could find,—learned in theology, in philosophy, in law, and in every department of science. ”

“ The usefulness and the very existence of the church as an organization, are involved in the use made of this subject. Let the church look to it. Organizations are strong, but there is something in the world much stronger than any human organization. The eternal Spirit is mightier than all the external world ; religion is greater than the form created to express it. ”

“ If any man say that the laws of the Church have not binding force unless confirmed by the civil power, and that it is competent to the civil power to judge or decree in causes where religion is implicated, let him be anathema.
The logical succession of ideas was manifest. The first five Canons established the principle that the Christian Church is a society which has Form, Visibility, Unity, and is necessary to salvation. ”

“ 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? ”

“ These priests thought that obedience to the national authority which respected and protected religion, was a catholic dogma. What resistance could be made to legitimate power, which neither attacked the dogma, nor morality, nor the interior and essential discipline of the church? ”

“ Then, too, the great religious denominations became fired with the idea of a consolidating, unifying process that should smelt down all denominations into one. To do this every type of religion should find a place. What would it matter if one or more of the religions denied the Deity of Christ? that others did not accept the Bible as the Inspired word of God and so on? 'The doctrine of Christ,' was gradually eliminated from almost all preaching and the doctrine of a divine humanism—'The divinity of man,' became largely the new cult. ”

“ Hear what this author thinks of promoting holiness over these "high places," or sect walls.
"The divisions of the Christian church, as they now exist, are a prominent cause of the low state of piety among believers; the greatest single obstacle which now exists to the spread and triumph of our religion in the world." "The moment you separate the church of Christ into distinct divisions, you set up the idol of party. ”

“ Those entering by primary obedience are received on their own terms. Such organizations, not daring to stress loyalty to Christ and the New Testament, must find an outlet for their religion in social service. Deeper than this they can not go. They cease to be churches of Christ, and, at best, are nothing but altruistic clubs.
We hear of one such church that has Jews, Mormons and Catholics in its membership. ”

“ When I speak of the authority of the Christian religion, I do not pretend to confine the extent of that term to the single authority of its holy assemblies, in which, through the mouths of its pastors, the church makes decisions, and holds out to all believers the infallible rules of worship and of doctrine. ”

“ If I have succeeded in answering the cavils which seek to discredit the church as a social organization, and especially as an agency for the maintenance of social worship, let me go on to suggest some positive reasons for the existence of such an agency.
Such an opportunity as the church offers for social worship is essential to the maintenance of religion. Religious feeling the expression of which was confined to the relations between the individual and his God, would become self-centred, egoistic, and morbid. ”

“ New dignities, new organizations, new institutions for the government of the Church successively arose. All societies must have a government. This is a law recognized in the nature of things. So Christian society must be organized and ruled according to the necessities of the times; and the Scriptures do not say what these shall be,--they are imperative and definite only in matters of faith and morals. To guard the faith, to purify the morals according to the Christian standard, overseers, officers, rulers are required. ”

“ What has been spontaneous and intermittent is now becoming regular and continuous, until a social gospel is taking its place alongside individual evangelism. The Biblical phrase, "the kingdom of God," is being interpreted in terms of an improved social order. Religion, therefore, becomes a present-day force for progress, and the church an agency for social uplift. ”

“ In this day of those shifting standards which mark the gradual transference of power from one group to another in the community, and the merging of a spent epoch in a new order, neither the chief opportunity nor the most serious peril of religious leadership is met by fresh and energetic programs of religion in action. ”

“ No facts are insignificant which bring to an issue the general value of local religion—or the assumption of any particular [140] Church to direct the conscience of the world—or the amount of liberty within such a Church left on questions which concern the faith and practice of thousands of its members. ”

“ How are these institutions—organized and controlled, as they are, by men, different from other institutions, organized and controlled by the same men? Surely you are aware that there are thousands of institutions and organizations in the world with aims as distinctly Christian as the professed object of the church. ”

“ He makes many strong statements to commend and urge a national establishment of religion as far more dignified, consistent, and desirable than the scattering and fragmentary multiplication, indefinitely increasing under petty variances, of independent religious organizations. ”

“ Hence, any assembly of people, anywhere, united together for the worship of God, striving to live better lives themselves, and to help others to do the same, and thus make this world better and human life happier, meets all the essentials of a true church of God, regardless of any form of organization, ordinance, sacrament, creed, belief or ecclesiastical pedigree. ”

“ In the midst of this relaxation of every rule of life, grew surely, but unobserved, the Christian Church, which drew strength from the very helplessness of the civil state, and was forced, in self-defence, to establish a regular organization in order to extend to its members the inestimable benefits of regularity and law. ”

“ I am speaking of that body of believers of every denomination or sect, who belong to our Christ. They may be [Pg 150] Protestants or Roman Catholics; they may be Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians or Quakers. No one denomination can lay any claim to a monopoly of religion or of Christianity, and therefore cannot be considered alone.
1. The Church today is shorn of much of its power by so many divisions. ”

“ The history of the social organization of religion is the history of the growth of churches—voluntary associations for worship; it is toward the Church that society has hitherto moved.2018 Every ancient community may be said to be an incipient church in the sense that it contains the germs of the later ecclesiastical development. But this later form exists in such communities only in germ—the most ancient worship was communal, an affair of clan, tribe, or State. ”

“ But if any one, in the face of the fact which has just been stated, and in opposition to authentic reports to the same effect from various other quarters, should still contend, that a voluntary system is sufficient for the spread and maintenance of religion, we would ask, what kind of religion? ”

“ By their control of the churches, and all our seminaries, public and private, they can encourage freedom of thought; can promote the public morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins of the nation, of Society, the actual sins of men now living; can encourage them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and then apply that religion to the State, to society, and tho individual ”

“ If religion is moral goodness, a religious organization must be an embodiment of its principles, a practical exemplification of its maxims, and a scheme in measures and policy adapted to extend the observance of its obligations. Such an organization must be consistent with itself, and in harmony with the natural principles of man. In integrity it must be invulnerable; in adherence to right inflexible; in hostility to wrong, uncompromising. It must be the champion of the rights of human nature; the friend of freedom, equality and liberality; the enemy of bigotry, intolerance, and despotism. ”

“ Whether, therefore, we come to England, America, Germany or France, or any other country where similar religious movements are going on, we ask them to cooperate with us; we ask the whole world to treat us a fellow-disciples, to give unto us all the good things they possess and enjoy for our benefit, that we may thus collect materials from all existing churches and religious denominations, in order in the fullness of time, to construct and uprear the future Church of the world. ”

“ It will be unnecessary to go through the whole catalogue of beliefs finding expression in the dogma of practically all religious organizations, and in times past dividing the followers of Christianity into denominational groups. ”

“ But on the other side we see a tendency, even more manifest if we look for external signs, to emphasise the institutional side of religion, that which prompts men and women to combine in sacred societies, to cherish enthusiastic loyalties for the Church of their early education or of their later choice, to find their chief satisfaction in acts of corporate worship, and to subordinate their individual tastes and beliefs to the common tradition and discipline of a historical body. ”

“ This eager effort toward a standard of social righteousness is not regarded by people generally as having its source and power from within the church, though we of the church know that the impulse which gave birth to this movement and the ideals and standards sustaining it are the product of the church of Christianity. More and more, organized Christianity is realizing its obligations along these lines and is seeking to render the fullest social service. ”