Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/629

Rh If men desire the sanction of Jesus for any form of government, they must appeal not to specific sayings, but to this spirit which is the basis of the ideal order. The test of a theory or a fact of government must not be Does Jesus teach it? but Does it make for that fraternity that is his ideal for society? Such a tendency is conceivably the result of almost any form of political organization. Jesus himself most naturally used the monarchical vocabulary of his people just as Plato used that of the Athenian aristocratic democracy. But he thereby stands not at all committed to monarchy as the ultimate form of government. Yet for that reason the democrat and the socialist cannot claim his exclusive authority. For it cannot be too strongly emphasized that Jesus was not a political thinker, and that he has left no divinely sanctioned form for political association, A government is Christian, not because it is of this or that form, but because it is attempting to realize the principles of fraternity and love that underlie the entire social teachings of Jesus. If it be objected that no such government can exist, that force and not love is still the essential element of the state, the only rational reply is one of doubt that is itself hope. For it may well be doubted whether the teachings of Jesus are not more operative in politics than men think; and it may well be hoped that so long as this possibility lasts, that, as the conceptions of man and society and the family have more and more come under the sway of the thought of Jesus, so too politics are approaching, be it never so slowly, that justice and altruism which are to be the world's when once its kingdoms have become the kingdom of the Lord and his Christ.

And one dares to write thus in the face of Armenia and American municipalities!