THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 12

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

THE CHURCH AND DEMOCRACY. The Rev. Charles Strong, the .well: known pastor of the Australian Church at Melbourne, has this to say on the above question:— ' " ' ' .' ' "Much is said these days about 'the Church' and 'Democracy,' but what is exactly to be understood of "these terms is not by any' means clear: they .are simply"' current, coin.' Until we get some clear idea of what ' the Church' and ' Democracy ' mean it is useless to talk. The old meaning of ' the Church,' as set forth in church decrees, catechisms, and the many confessions of faith, is essentially, what ever more it may be, a miraculously founded institution, with divinely appointed officers commissioned to teach ' the ways of salvation ' frpm a divinely-revealed fall and curse, by which the whole human race is doomed to everlasting torments in 'hell.' The conception of the Divine Being is more or less despotic, borrowed from Roman Imperialism and other pre-Christian Governments ; and the conception of man is that of an utterly corrupt and rebellious race, a mere ' creature' with no rights. "This 'aristocratic' conception of'the Church,'- it is plain, will not harmonise with ' democratic ' ideas of the dignity and rights of man, and the basis of authority as conceived of in the modern 'State.' "But this conception of 'the Church ' is by no means the modern one. A large number even of those who are still officially bound by it do not accept it. One has only to read current religious literature to recognise this as an indisputable fact. Science, study of history, truer knowledge of the Bible, and deeper insight into the meaning and heart of religion, seem to the ' modernist' to necessitate a complete reinterpretation of ' the Church,' as the spiritual brotherhood which naturally, sprain* up around Jeans of Nazareth, inspired with His spiritual ideal of 'the kingdom of God aiid its righteousness' of love, and gradually organising itself as His represen-

tative, to spread abroad ' the good news' and-draw all men into His fellowship of the children of the.Divine Spirit. The Church thus stands for the highest form of human life, and is a world-wide society for the redemption of man from animalism and materialism and' enslaving' selfishness, with their accompanying hell fires. "Now, what does' democracy' stand for? The old democracy of the early nineteenth century may be said to have stood'for the rights of the individual. It was essentially Individualistic. Modern democracy reinterprets 'Democracy,' and recognises thai only in and through society can the individual realise himself. There is no such* being as an abstract individual. Modern Democracy is social Democracy. But is it not plain that social Democracy cannot mean, as we are so often told it does, ' the majority must rule' ? This may be a working expedient for the time being, but is it not closely akin to ' might is right' ? Mere numbers can never be a national basis of society. Social Democracy must rest ultimately on ,1 moral ideal; and that ideal is the Christian Church's ideal of the justice based not on law, but on good-will, love, reverence for man, and doing to others as we would they should do to us, which even in the so-called ' dark ages ' the Church within the Church has witnessed for. " We have not yet realised a true social Democracy. But we are, it is to be hoped, moving towards it, and its deepest root will be found, not in mere economic or political reform, necessary though these are, but in the growth of social conscience and the fuller recognition of the spirit of liberty, equality, fraternity, good-will, neighboriiness, which, even beneath harsh theologies and ecclesia-sticisms, has flowed through the ages, socialising mankind and nvemring the way for the better day we all hope is beginning to dawn. " Between the true Church and the true Democracy there can be no hostility. The latter is the living expression of the former, and the natural outcome of the moral spiritual faith which lies at the foundation of 'the Church.' This at least is the ' modernist' point of view."