Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/522

 510 recognized in law and customs outside of Christianity. To the question, then, whether there be such a thing as Christian sociology, we answer, there is no other. , Washington, D. C.

Our reply is that the term "Christian Sociology " is used in the only justifiable sense in the inductive studies of the social doctrines of Jesus contributed to this Journal by Professor Mathews. This is not the sense in which the people who are most strenuous for its use have employed it, and in which they wish license to employ it. They want to make it a means of inflating the stock of sociological ignorance on which they are trying to do business.

Whether Jesus taught more or less truth that must be assimilated in ultimate sociology, that truth was a very small and—in form, at least,—incidental portion of his whole teaching. It is perfectly competent to digest and organize these sociological teachings, and it is entirely appropriate to name the resulting system "Christian Sociology." In a precisely parallel way it would be possible to derive a "Homeric Ethics" or a "Shakespearean Psychology."

The belief of Christians that every thing which Jesus taught is true, seems to be changed by some zealous Christians into the form "nothing which Jesus omitted to teach is true." Hence, the alternatives of importing into the teachings of Jesus everything which it seems desirable to believe, or to limit the realm of research to the subjects upon which he discoursed. The people who adopt either of these alternatives are bound to defend their consistency by denying the authority of anything supposed to be discovered from sources outside the New Testament.

The effrontery of much of the teaching which labels itself Christian Sociology is unspeakable. Its platform is, "Christ knew everything; therefore, by virtue of calling myself a Christian, I know everything." Consequently men who understood neither Christianity nor sociology assume the right to call themselves "Christian Sociologists" and to teach their own version of both.

We do not object to the use of the term "Christian Sociology," but we decidedly object to ignorant and opinionated abuse of it. The fundamental principles of human relationship which Jesus expounded must be recognized and applied in any permanently successful social