THE MIND OF CHRIST.
PROFESSOR BARRACK has published a new book in conjunction with Professor Herrmann (" Essays on the Social Gospel," Williams and Norgate, 4e. 6d.), a large section of which deals with "The Real Mind of Jesus." There can be no doubt that the theological interest of the modern layman centres more and more round the mind of Christ. The laity are troubling themselves less and less about the mind of the Church, though allusions to it are still frequent in pietistic literature. Few care to learn when the Church began to say this or to think the other, or to trace the development of such-and-such a dogma from its suggestion to its full definition. The Councils are regarded by most ordinary men as historical rather than as religious landmark., and they are scarcely prepared to accept the via media of many of the reformers, who, while denying their authority, nevertheless accepted their conclusions, rebasing those conclusions upon certain sentences of Holy Scripture which seem nowadays hardly able to support their weight. There is little life left in the controversies of the past. The professional theologian alone can fix his mind upon them. But the spirit of Christ continues to "draw all men." "Who bath known the mind of the Lord P But we have the mind of Christ," said St. Paul; and again, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" ; and the words of the great Apostle are ringing in the ears of the present generation. Perhaps never since Paul was martyred have they sounded so insistently. In the Middle Ages the bulwarks of dogma arose so fast around the Divine Figure as often to obscure it altogether from the wayfaring man, and at the time of the Reformation the mists of controversy replaced the shadows of the past.
In the days of our grandfathers the ordinary religious man, the man who went to church and read the Bible at stated intervals, thought very little about the character of Christ; he might even have thought that the phrase had a heterodox sound. If he were an Evangelical, his faith rested upon the Atonement; if a High Churchman, upon the efficacy of the Sacraments. Nowadays, whatever denomination he may belong to, the ordinary man, if he thinks about his religion at all, thinks first about the mind of Christ, about the attitude towards life and towards death of the Founder of his faith.' He reads his Gospels, not in order to confirm a catechism or illustrate a creed, or even in order to acquire merit. He reads that he may learn "the way of God more perfectly," that he may make for himself a conception of the Christian revelation. Such a change in the focus of religious thought can hardly be without far-reaching results. Even in the Roman Church we see the influence of the new spirit. Christ has become once more the centre of Christianity, the Christ of the Gospels, not the Divine Child of latter-day Romanism or the sacrificial Lamb of an ultra. Protestant theology, but He who " spake as never man spake." We are entering upon a fresh religions phase, but as yet we have no religious enthusiasm. New altars have been prepared, but no fire has descended from heaven. What will happen when the spark comes, for come it must ? Every period of religious doubt has been followed by a religions revival. What will be the effect upon Christendom if the mind of the faithful, now concentrated upon the mind of Christ, is once more "endowed with power from on high "? Nothing is less likely than the sudden coming of the millennium. The religious world will not become Christlike all in a moment. Where individuals are concerned the rate of moral and religious progress cannot be calculated with any approach to accuracy; but taking men in the aggregate, it seems to be in the order of Providence that all progress should be gradual. Every revival is a Second Coming, and in every revival the sad words of our Lord once more prove themselves. He who prayed that His followers might all be as one foresaw how many were the struggles to be gone through before that prayer could be fulfilled. Men would be "set at variance," He said, by the new doctrine. Those of one household would find themselves in intense opposition. It is not possible for men to meditate freely, and without fear of coming to unauthorised conclusions, upon the character of Christ, and remain altogether satisfied with the social status ryuo ; and human nature is such that the conscientiously dissatisfied seek refuge in a new system.
How did Christ look at wealth ? the student of Christ's character cannot but ask himself. What was His attitude towards those who take the sword P Why, in apparent contradiction to His dictum upon the subject, did He say there were times when a man who had two coats should sell one for a weapon P What was His attitude towards commerce, and why did He uphold tbe rights of contract with such tremendous sternness P Why did He seem at times verily and in deed to reprove the world, not only for sin, but, as St. John said, for righteousness ? With what extraordinary severity certain typical sinners are dealt with in the parables and what • wonderful kindness is shown to others. Dives lifts up his eyes in torment because he was indifferent to the suffering and the sickness of the poor, and no mercy is shown towards the overseer who became in his master's absence a tyrant over his fellow-servants. On the other hand, the young man who repented his riotous life is met by his father while he is yet a great way off. The Pharisee whose heart was not right before God is condemned, though there is no reason to suppose that his own estimate of his outward respectability was a false one, while the publican is justified by his repentance alone. When ' the servant is condemned for exacting money owing to him • at a moment when his own debt had been cancelled, the righteousness of his claim is not even taken into consideration, • A rougb-and-ready justice on the part of the man in authority is distinctly held up to admiration, while in the Sermon on the ' Mount we are told at all costs to avoid retribution. If we refuse to leek at the Gospel as a whole and to use our reason —if we insist on making of Christ what He distinctly refused to be, a ruler and judge, instead of the Light of the World—we may set up tyrannies as bad as, or worse than, those instituted • by Roman dogmatism. There will be no new Torquemadas, but how much suffering may not be caused by a new Tolstoy.
Upon isolated sentences of Jesus absolutely conflicting systems may be erected, and a measure of fanaticism is natural to man. The object of Professor Harnack and Professor Herrmann's book is to warn men against the dangers of this new turn of religious thought. They have convinced themselves that the Gospel contains no economic programme. Only, they say, if it be regarded as a legal code can social and political laws be found in it. Christ was no legalist, but " He who emancipates the conscience." Christianity is the religion of liberty, and "its duties are specially imposed upon you, and upon me, and upon every age as an individual problem for each to solve." Christianity as a religion, they say, would be at an end if the Gospel were changed into a social manifesto. It cannot be forced into a system, and no system, however literally carried out, would satisfy the aspirations of man. "Tire living God of the conscience is inexorable in His demand that we ought to do what, in our own conscience, we recognise as perfection," for "a man can do what is good only if his will is directed towards the pursuit of truth, as he perceives it." The tendency of the human mind to dogmatise will not die because men have ceased to think dogma the most vital part of Christianity. It is possible so to interpret the words of Christ as to overthrow the fabric of civilisation and to cause His name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles, these two liberal theologians plead, and surely their warning is needed. Not that they ask or hope that religions men should rest satisfied with things as they are. "The want and misery of our fellow-countrymen" should, they think, "act like a goad ' urging us on to study and investigate the construction of the social organism, to examine which of its ills are inevitable, and which may be remedied by the spirit of self-sacrifice and energy." What they deprecate is the growing notion that Godliness is a. way of gain for whatever Christianity may teach a man to do for others. "None dare ultimately expect more for himself from the message of the Church than a firm, consolatory faith, able to triumph over all the troubles of life." If Christianity is to remain the great force for good—above all, if it is to be once more quickened into intenser life—it behoves all thinking Christians to hold fast the wise words of St. Paul spoken to the early Church at a time of great social unrest and expectancy "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." But we may not forget that there is an indifference Which plumes itself on its moderation, and is even more opposed to the spirit of Christ than fanaticism. No step in advance can be ' made without great searchings of heart and many mistakes, and it is difficult to contemplate without misgivings the sacrifices which a new Reformation may demand from the individual or the nation.
Previous page
