The "failure" of Christianity.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XIII, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 389

The "failure" of Christianity.

We are constantly being told that Christianity is a failure. For example—because it has not made war impossible, because it has not abolished crime and brought about a moral millenium, because it has not solved social problems, abolished poverty and industrial warfare, dishonesty m business, and so on. Men like G. K. Chesterton and the new Bishop of Bloemfontein (Dr. Carey) besides other leaders of thought have tried recently to clarify Our ideas on this subject! ' ; '. ' ' Who are the people W^^eharge;; Christianity with failure? "^^se,, whose ideas of Christianity areT^pgs the shallowest ; those who have not really tried Christianity themselves; frequently they acknowledge themselves as outside Chrstianity, they.

suppose that from the position of outsiders they are the best qualified to be critics, and with lofty super-; iority they condemn as a failure something whose objects they misunderstand, whose, power they • have never experienced and whose teaching they are unable to grasp. They say Christianity has failed because it has not become, popular — because it does not adapt itself to the ideas and to the morals of the majority. But did the Founder of Christianity aim at making Christianity "popular"; was its doctrine intended to be a reflection of public opinion ? Is Christianity a failure ? Bishop Carey quotes General Smuts as having remarked to him: "The greatest things are always failures. ' ' That is to say they appeal only to a small proportion of mankind. From this point of view the greatest musicians are failures. What proportion of men appreciate the best music, the best art, the best poetry? Take a popular vote between a masterpiece of Beethoven and the latest ragtime ditty, what will be the result? The right question to ask is not does Christianity appeal to the multitude, but does it achieve i that which it sets out to do? Now the commission given by Our Lord to his apostles was "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to (make disciples of) all nations." The Master warned them that they would be despised and rejected of men as He was Himself; That their message would be listenedtb only by the few. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that le'adeth to eternal life and few there be that find it." Even we ourselves are continually testing' our' work by ' its results, and are cast down because m spite of faithful labor so few are found who make Christ the centre of their lives. Christians, certainly, have failed to fulfil the great commandment — the Gospel has net been preached to all nations, . but Christianity has not failed where it hasi been preached and ti'ied. Multitudes have refused it but no one who ever tried it has .-found it to fail him. So long as God does not compel man's freewill, or his intellect or his moral character, multitudes will reject the message and refuse to. model their lives on Christ 's teaching. The Christian Church fails only insofar as she neglects to teach and proclaim Christ, she does not fail because men reject Christ when he has been proclaimed. She fails if she presents a distorted Gospel, a mutilated Gospel,

if, she . does not provide the lifer giving sacraments of. which her Lord made her the steward. She fails when she waters down the truth to gain popularity,, when ..she ceases; to preach : Christ.'. Crucified and makes herself a mere social club. The measure' of success is. not popularity but faithfulness; not numbers but intensity. The general acceptance of true Christianity would certainly abolish war, greed, lust, crimes, poverty and all other things that make the realisation, of man's brotherhood impossible, but as Chesterton reminds us, Christianity has not been generally accepted; it has not failed, because it has never been tried.

But if Christianity is to reform the world, it must be a complete Christianity. The moral teaching of Christ must be accepted whole, not modified to suit the depraved tastes and ideas of the multitude, and Christian morals , must not be divorced from Christian faith and worship. The power of Christianity is the power of Christ. All the elaborate organisation of the Church, all her moral teaching is absolutely futile unless the living Christ is the centre of our love and worship. Only a church filled with the ever abiding and energising presence of the Holy Spirit can ever hope to reform the world, but even a church full of saints and full of the'" Holy Ghost would not succeed m converting the whole world to faith, or m abolishing the moral depravity that is the necessary result of man's free Avill. Let no one talk about the failure of Christianity till he knows what Christianiy is, what are its aims. After, all. our Lord did not establish the Church which is His own Body m order to provide an object of criticism for the superior, but m order to. provide an ark of refuge for the simple. There are far too many people both within and without, the Church very willing, to criticise but very loth to help. If the Churches methods can be improved, .if she is lacking m zeal, if poor results of her work seem to be the fruit of her lethargy or lifelessness let our critics join up and remedy these things rather than sit on the fence and throw stones.