Religious organization

“ Who is looking to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual standards of the Church for guidance? We are to-day ruled spiritually, as well as intellectually, by laymen, and in a way which is quite outside the organized work of the Church.
2. The Church needs a more business-like organization and way of work. It needs a more military spirit and discipline. The Church is diffuse and loosely strung. There are in the United States alone about two hundred and fifty-six kinds of religious bodies. There is no centralized interest or work; there is no economic adjustment of funds ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such are some of the essential characteristics of a religious or moral organization. Any departure from them in an institution, proves its secularism. No church in which they form not a distinguishing feature, has any claims to be a religious or moral corporation. ”

“ The church at large forms a great organizing centre, the influence of which in political and social life enlarges every day. The church body arranges itself in different groups on the basis of the different sects and denominations, and within the individual church organization there are small groups or societies, which again segregate religious social life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now it has sometimes been questioned whether a Congregational organization, working on thoroughly Congregational principles, could so well plant the Christian church among an ignorant, degraded people, needing guidance, oversight, care, government. ”

“ On this subject—on the real nature and unity of that great and widely-scattered society which we call the Church of God, and its real claims on the heart and conscience—on the question whether it is intrinsically desirable that the organization of a Church should be vigorous and firmly strung, or lax and pliant—on these and other questions lying outside the range of the foregoing remarks every man has a right to his own opinions, and I have mine. ”

“ Now with the intrusion of the social question into religion, a new concept of church organization came immediately to the fore. The unit of fellowship was now no longer the denomination, but the community. The centre of life and allegiance was no longer the challenge of ancient controversy, but the cry of present day human need. ”

“ Some readers may ask why we formed a new Institution for the spread of the gospel, and why we did not unite with some of the religious societies, already in existence, seeing that there are several missionary, Bible, tract, and school societies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, I go a step farther and ask whether the Church as an organization—not any one denomination, but the Church universal—appreciates its great opportunities, its tremendous responsibility, and the infinite power behind it. If the Church is what we believe it to be it must be prepared to grapple with every problem, individual and social, whether it affects only a community or involves a state, a nation, or a world. There must be some intelligence large enough to direct the world or the world will run amuck. ”

“ No doubt it is at first sight a fair vision, this inclusion of all decently orderly and decently Christian ministries in the land within one pale of order and law: one service, one liturgy, one recognised ministry, one administration of ordinances, throughout the whole country,—the whole people taught out of the same books, at the same time, and by men who have the same claim to their attention, until the nation, in the visible uniformity of its religious acts and expressions, presents a fair image of one visible Church. ”

“ Every existing organization, created to serve the churches, might disband, but that would not divide the church. Societies may be good servants of the churches, but they must not try to become masters. ”

“ We look for an organization of the Church of Christ that shall exclude no one who shares His Spirit, and that shall provide an outlet for every gift the Spirit bestows, that shall bind all followers of Christ together in effort for the one purpose—the Kingdom of God—enabling them to feel their corporate oneness, and that shall give them liberty to think, to worship, to labor, as they are led by the Spirit of God. ”

“ This necessitates the organization of an external body having its ministry who teach, its societies for worship and the cultivation in liberty of its distinctive life, and all the offices of use appertaining to an organized Church. ”

“ The leaven of their intelligence and higher standard of morality is taking hold of many families about them. From many centers the call reaches us for the organization of Congregational churches, churches which shall stand for morality, equal membership rights and a more rational type of piety. ”

“ How far does the authority of the church extend? It certainly has no right to say what its members shall eat and drink; to what societies they shall belong; what alliances in marriage or in business they shall contract. It has no right, as an organized body, to suppress vice in the community, or to regenerate society by taking sides in a political canvass. The members of the church, as citizens, have duties in all these lines of activity. The function of the church is to give them religious preparation and stimulus for their work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in the movement of the churches toward a truer charity, a grander catholicity, a larger liberty, and a higher unity, foreshadowing the ultimate attainment of a form of the church on earth akin to that of the church in heaven, it cannot be denied that the new organization, so far as it is faithful to the revealings it accepts, is leading all the others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Church is an organization, a social body, with a certain doctrine to proclaim, a certain faith to hand down to men. The doctrine is not in all details final—each phase of faith may change. But the organization, to protect its own purity and integrity—however generous in allowing individual research, and the expression of individual ideas—must exert authority over the teachers in her midst, those who are called by her name, who have her children in their charge, and for whose teaching the Church, as a whole, is responsible. ”

“ In the same direction we have been led in days more recent by the large development, in all our denominations, of two main branches of Christian work. I refer to Missionary enterprise abroad and Social service at home. Our ecclesiastical divisions are a serious handicap to both. In a matter more vital still, that of the Religious—the Christian—Education in our Schools and Colleges, our divisions have sometimes proved well-nigh fatal. The one remedy is that we make up our differences and come together. ”

“ But the form of organization which most comprehensively illustrates the unity of the church is that "Charity Organization" which has grown to be a necessity to the social life of cities and considerable towns, furnishing a central office of mutual correspondence and coördination to all churches and societies and persons engaged in the Christian work of relieving poverty and distress. ”

“ And it should be that the world will be better, because this Church has been organized, that the world will be better for our existence as an organization. And it should be the aim of every man in this Church, of every Bishop and every President of Stake and every Counselor and officer of whatever name or calling; it should be his aim to labor for the salvation of the people. ”

“ The Evangelical and the Roman Catholic Churches, as well as all other religious societies, may administer and regulate their affairs in perfect freedom. All religious societies may continue in the possession and enjoyment of their institutions, foundations, and funds destined for worship, instruction, and charity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But always there is a distinctive form of organization, or type of ritual, or doctrine of belief, or spirit of association, which binds these separate churches into a single group; and always this distinctive feature is something which had its origin, and still finds its vitality, in the thought and experience of an earlier age. Every one of our denominations, and every one of the churches in our denominations, is representative of past controversies, not of present interests and duties. ”

“ They are really the Church, and mean everything to me, to the world outside, and to all aspirants to the dignity of the name of Christian. [Pg 17]
Organizations Essential
The visible Church stands to me above all else as appointed of God for all that organization means in the attainment of any other object. Atmospheric religion is desirable, but to progress, to permanence, organization is essential. Moreover, being conscious of the idiosyncrasy of the human mind, I have every use for the various communions if no man is to be excluded. ”

“ It would be found very difficult for any individual left to himself to do right, to think right, to speak right, and to fulfil the will and law of God upon the earth; and hence the necessity of the organization of the Church and kingdom of God upon the earth, of the properly organized Priesthood, of the legitimate channel, check, bounds, laws, and governments that the Almighty has introduced into his Church and kingdom for the guidance, instruction protection, welfare, upbuilding, and further progress of his Church and kingdom upon the earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must also be recognized that until the two great branches of the Christian Church—Catholicism and Protestantism—learn to cooperate in their service to the community, the religious forces of America cannot present a united front in rendering the service that belongs peculiarly to them. ”

“ Even where church and state are, in theory, quite divorced—a modern conception—the church with its ordinances and prescriptions, its sacred days, its ceremonial, its educational institutions, remains a very significant factor in the social environment of man. Religious duties have at all times and in all sorts of societies been regarded as constituting an important aspect of conduct. They color strongly the mores of the community. ”

“ As one of the chief remedies against evil societies is the formation of Catholic societies, the Code (Canon 684) praises those of the faithful who enroll as members in associations established or recommended by the Church. Catholic societies distinct from religious Orders or Congregations are of two kinds. ”

“ We propose that the Church shall have such a spirit of helpfulness, that it shall be so wise and practical in laying out its work, so energetic and aggressive in prosecuting it, that all shall recognize it as a potent and most blessed force—an institution that they gladly support because of its practical value. ”