THE CHRISTIAN ETHIC.
Perhaps the most obvious contribution which Christianity has made to ethical ideas is that of the supreme value of the individual, writes Dr. W. R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul’s, in “World Review.” This conception is a necessary consequence of its belief about God and man. Though man is a “fallen” creature, he was created in the “image of God” and has been the object of God’s redeeming love. The love of God, as Christ taught, goes forth to persons one by one—not to humanity in the mass, but to individuals. Thus Christianity, when it is true to its principles, must condemn every attempt to absorb the individual consciousness in a mass consciousness or subordinate the person to the State, as though the latter were a higher value. It is the individual person who is immortal, is loved by God and judged by Him. The question whether Christianity is on the side of Socialism or Communism is a foolish one unless the type of Socialism is specified. Certainly it can have no blessing for those at present in operation ill Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, for both these systems commit the crime of regimenting and “liquidating” the individual in the larger group. They are both reversions to the level of the tribal consciousness.
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Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 49, 7 December 1940, Page 4
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216THE CHRISTIAN ETHIC. Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 49, 7 December 1940, Page 4
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