Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/323

 THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 309

kingdom. For only these Christian ideals of the social order can really possess the place in the world's hope and heart which the substitutes for them can never more than occupy. But to make society Christian there must be a science of Christian society. It is the new science of the old "kingdom," the social exten- sion of the common faith, the application of the doctrines which save the soul to the saving of society. The gospel of the king- dom is sociology with God left in it, with Christ as the center of human unity, with the new birth of the individual for the regen- eration of society and the indwelling Spirit as the only power adequate to fulfill its social ideals. For this kingdom of the Son of Man the whole earth is space, the weary heart of man gives place, every nation will make room, each community will welcome its humblest herald, all else must make way.

It is the second function of the churches to initiate social movements and agencies for the realization of the Christian ideal, but not to be their executive.

One "Holy Roman Empire" is enough for Christendom to extenuate before the bar of history. The name, fame, and influ- ence of another Constantine are more than enough for the ideals of the church to carry through the centuries. We free church- men have not found ecclesiasticized politics to be enough of an improvement upon the genus to be tempted to repeat those colossal failures. But we are subject to the temptation of attempting the same sort of less imposing blunders. Our rank and file have so long and so largely been composed of the mid- dle men of the economic world, and we have so long and so largely shared in the gains of their prosperity, that our churches are in danger of being regarded as institutions of the bourgeois class and the self-appointed and accepted executors of its residuary estate. The thinking elements of the producing classes long since identified these organized bodies of the followers of their greatest friend and fellow-workman with the history and the des- tiny of the bourgeoisie system of industry, out of which the eco- nomic world is surely and more and more swiftly passing. We from within know how far from true that thought is to the inner consciousness of the churches, and yet we should be honest and