Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/319

 THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH.-

By Graham Taylor, D.D.,

Professor of Christian Sociology in the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Resident Warden, Chicago Commons Social Settlement.

Of the social function of the church the churches are conscious as never before in their modern history. This fact is due to the dawning of that social consciousness upon the race which is the presage of another new era of its progress toward the kingdom of God. This new consciousness of each other is begotten by the growing recognition of God as the Father of us all. To the proposition of universal fatherhood there is but one corollary — brotherhood — of church with church in the communion of saints; of nation with nation in the bonds of an international patriotism; of race with race in the strangely new and real race-consciousness which is thrilling the body of humanity; of craft with craft and of class with mass in the indissoluble interdependence of modern society, and of man with man the world over.

As surely as the church's mission is fundamentally more positive than negative, and ultimately more constructive than destructive, so certainly the function of the church in society is more formative than reformatory. There can be no reform without the idea of the ideal form. Reformation, therefore, must ever be subsidiary to the creative function of forming the ideal. The formative social functions of the church are three: first, the recognition of the divine ideal of human life, individual and social, for itself and all men; second, the initiation of movements and agencies for its realization in the world; third, the transmission of the Spirit's power for the social regeneration.

To recognize the divine ideal of human life in worship is the primary social function of the churches in their several communities and in all the world.

'A discussion of "The Church and Social Reforms" at the International Council of Congregational Churches, Tremont Temple, Boston, September 23, 1899.