Chapter IX: The War and Church Unity

WILLISTON WALKER

The great war has been conspicuously one of alliances. For its successful accomplishment cooperation and individual subordination have been manifested in military, political and economic fields in heretofore unexampled fulness. Liberties, the result of long struggles, and deeply cherished, have been laid aside, for the time, that larger efficiency may be accomplished. Individual opinions strongly held have been subordinated to a common purpose. The time has witnessed a reappreciation of values in many realms. Much that in days of peace has seemed of importance, has appeared in the fierce light of war of relatively minor significance. A change of perspective has been the consequence. Has this result, so apparent in most realms of activity and of ordinary life, been manifest in the realm of religion? Are the same forces at work there also? An answer to these questions cannot as yet be fully formulated; but it is at least possible to indicate certain influences which are at work.

The entry of the United States into the world-war has been in a degree unexampled in the history of this country a response to the appeal of righteousness. No action in which the nation has ever engaged has been so unselfish. We have taken our part in the struggle without hate, and with full consciousness of the prospective cost in life and treasure, that certain principles of justice may prevail, and that despotism, brutality and falsehood may not dominate the civilized world. We look for no indemnities, no annexations, and no pecuniary rewards. The American people has never more fully exhibited that idealism which, in spite of frequent misapprehension by those unacquainted with the real national spirit, is its fundamental characteristic. The consonance of this attitude with some primary teachings of religion is apparent. Self-sacrifice that the weak may be helped, that wrong may be resisted, and that a truer and juster order may be established among the nations, are aims that are closely akin to those of the Christian faith in its aspect of love to one's neighbor. Nor is it without evidential value to the essentially religious quality of American life that no enterprise has ever so united the people, and that Americans, whether so by long inheritance or immigrants who have more recently caught the national spirit, have never before been so at one in a common endeavor. Nothing less noble, less idealistic, less in a true sense religious could so have fused them into one.

The war, furthermore, has been a revelation of the fundamental purposefulness of the rising generation. The years immediately antecedent to the struggle saw not a little shaking of older heads over what were called the irresponsibility and pleasure-seeking of our young people. The call to arms has shown them as patriotic, as whole-hearted in devotion, as sacrificial as ever their elders were. They need bow in reverence to none who have gone before them. The cheerfulness with which a selective draft has been accepted, and in thousands of cases anticipated, has shown the readiness of youthful response to high appeal. This demonstration of the soundness, the earnestness and the unselfishness of those who are soon to be the leaders of the national life is full of religious encouragement.

Equally heartening has been the cheerful and effective answer of the responsible population of America to limitations in food and drink that the needs of the Allies should be met and the national resources conserved. Doubtless other nations in the world-struggle have made larger sacrifices and endured far severer privations; but the impressive quality of what America has done is that it has been so largely self-imposed, a voluntary sacrifice, in which suggestion rather than compulsion has been the task of its leaders. Strikingly impressive, also, has been the outpouring of wealth and effort to relieve human suffering through the Red Cross and kindred agencies, not only for the alleviation of the miseries of our own sons, but of the martyred population of Belgium, of France, of Poland and of Syria. No village has been too small, no community too remote or too rural, to have a share in this altruistic endeavor. Its spirit is in a true sense that of religion. More openly and professedly religious has been the marvelous work of the Young Men's Christian Association and of the Knights of Columbus. No previous war has seen anything comparable in extent of effort or scope of plan. The aim, and to a great extent the accomplishment, has been to cast Christian sympathy and brotherly helpfulness around the soldier and sailor in every camp at home and abroad, in the trenches, the hospitals, the battleships, the transports, and in the cities where his furlough is spent and his ideals so easily forgotten. These agencies have not labored for our own sons alone, but for those of France and Italy also. Even more impressive than the vast sums of money contributed from all over the United States for this cause have been the numbers and the quality of the men and women who have given themselves freely and in Christian consecration to this service. The Young Men's Christian Association and the Knights of Columbus have been in truth the right arm of American Christianity stretched out to shelter, to hearten and to aid. They have been the agents of the churches in their ministry. Without them the contribution of organized American Christianity would have been relatively ineffective. Through them that Christianity has exhibited itself in practical and achieving power as never before.

The outstanding feature of these conspicuous manifestations of American religious life is that they have been absolutely undogmatic. Their type of Christianity has been broadly inclusive of what may be called universally accepted doctrine. Chaplains from most various denominational antecedents have labored together in a spirit of Christian comradeship, bearing only the sign of the cross. The workers, ministerial and lay, recruited by the Young Men's Christian Association have been drawn from all shades of American Evangelicalism and have wrought not only harmoniously one with another, but with the Knights of Columbus and with the representatives of Jewish faith. In common efforts to reach common needs, differences which loomed large at home have been laid aside. The requirements and experiences of our soldiers and sailors have been elemental, and these agencies have sought to meet them with a simple, earnest, uncontroversial Gospel,--the common denominator, if it may so be called, of our American Christianity. They have presented God, sin, salvation, faith in Christ, purity of life, brotherly helpfulness; and to this presentation the young manhood of our armies and navies has been quick to respond. These young men have cared little as to the particular denominational label which these messengers may have worn at home. Spoken with manliness, sincerity and sympathy, the message has won their hearts.

These experiences have inevitably raised the question more insistently, which had already before the war been sounded increasingly loudly in our home churches, whether the divided state of American Christianity is to continue. It has long been deplored. Can it not be in a measure abated? A disposition to believe that it can is increasingly evident. The enlarging support given to the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ since the beginning of the war is significant of a growing conviction that at least a larger federal cooperation is not merely desirable but feasible. The much-divided Lutheran body has taken steps which promise its union in one fold. The last General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States has empowered a committee to issue a call for a Council to meet before the close of the present year by which practical action may be initiated looking towards the organic union of all American Evangelical Christianity. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States still urges its ambitious and remote plan of a World Conference on Faith and Order, aiming at a general reunion of Christendom; though in this case the war seems to have delayed rather than furthered the project. In the local field, the scarcity of fuel during the recent winter led to hundreds of instances of temporary combinations of congregations representative of different denominations throughout the northern portion of the United States. Not only has no evil been the consequence, but better acquaintance and larger Christian sympathy have resulted. In some places, as in New Brunswick, N. J., these temporary unions have led to efforts to make these combinations permanent. It is evident that the possibility of a larger unity is being discussed as never before, and in a spirit which more than at any previous time tends to emphasize the great truths in which Christians are agreed and to minimize their differences.

Will anything permanently effective come out of this widely diffused desire? Shall we be satisfied with the remarkable exhibitions of Christian cooperation in our army and navy, shall we entertain a pious wish that something similar may be achieved at home, and will the end of the war find us, nevertheless, in our present divided state? The answer will depend on the sacrificial willingness of our American Christianity. Is it ready to pay the cost? That is a far-reaching question any answer to which is at present impossible, for the difficulties in the path of a larger union are enormous. Such a greater unity can be achieved only as several barriers of great strength are overthrown.

One such barrier is the inertia of local organizations. Few American communities are not confessedly overchurched, as far as the Protestant population is concerned. The spectacle of eight or ten relatively feeble churches ministering to needs which two or three larger bodies could much more effectively meet is one exhibited in hundreds of communities. Yet effective consolidation is opposed by serious obstacles. Long custom, ancient disputes, denominational loyalties, keep these relatively feeble bodies asunder. These prejudices are hard to overcome. "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain," is a feeling not peculiar to Samaria. Much of this local loyalty is not without its commendable qualities. It is bound up with traditions of parental piety, of devotion to a particular house of worship and to a congregation of believers in which one has grown up in the Christian life. These feelings are very real. Yet it is only as the advantages of a larger local unity become evident that our churches can rise to a greater consolidation and more effectively meet the local situation. Only the larger good can drive out the lesser goods.

A further barrier, and one of no inconsiderable magnitude, which renders local union difficult is that our local churches are parts of large organic wholes for the advancement of the Kingdom of God at home and abroad. By their gifts, their sons and daughters and their prayers, the missionary societies are supported, by which the outreaching work of the Kingdom of Christ is carried forward. These societies are now denominational. If two local churches are to become one, where will their joint contributions go? One has aided one group of missionary societies hitherto, the other another. Shall the new union divide its gifts? If it does, will they be as extensive or the interest as great as formerly? These are practical questions for the missionary societies. The only final solution of such a situation would seem to be an extensive consolidation of the missionary societies themselves, so that they might become more representative of American Christianity, at least of American Evangelical Christianity, as a whole, rather than simply the organs of particular denominations.

A third barrier of difficulty barring the pathway of local consolidation is that of ministerial and ecclesiastical responsibility. Each of the various denominations now has its definite method of entrance on its ministry, and of responsibility for the character and standing of those in its pastorates. Each holds itself bound to aid its feebler churches in their pecuniary necessities. If a new congregation results from the union of two or more existing bodies representative of different denominations, where is the test of ministerial fitness, and the guarantee of continued ministerial standing to be found, and who is to aid such a church if financially feeble? These are the problems which are often raised by the so-called "community church." Of course these difficulties are often met by the united organization attaching itself to the denomination originally represented by one of its component parts; but this solution, though effective, makes so large demands on Christian self-denial as often to be impracticable in the present still comparatively feebly developed desire for unity.

A still further barrier to unity, both on the local field and on the larger national scale, is the fact, often overlooked, that the separations of American Christianity are really due quite as much to differences of taste as to divergencies of doctrines or of polity. There is an Episcopal, a Presbyterian or a Methodist way of doing things that really differentiates these great families of believers quite as fully as their more generally acknowledged divergencies. They view the Christian life, they look upon worship, they express their deeper feelings, in unlike ways. The variety is not so much a diversity of belief as a contrast of temperaments. Being so, it is not susceptible to argument, or to adjustment by conventions or creedal agreements. It is to be met, if met at all, by the increasing spirit of democracy, which the war has done so much to foster. In proportion as the fundamental Christian democracy of America becomes a real consciousness these temperamental unlikenesses will tend to be subordinated to a larger unity of spirit. They will continue. Men are not all made in the same mould. But, it may be believed that they may be overcome by a growing recognition of unity in variety.

Moreover, in spite of an increasing longing that the multitudinous subdivisions of American Christianity be merged in a larger whole, much tenacious holding of peculiar denominational tenets will have to be overcome. The simplicity of the great truths which Christians hold in common will need to be more fully realized. Most American Evangelical denominations are now willing freely to admit that the essential verities of Christianity are held by their associated communions, and that a true Christian life is possible in each of them. The evident working of the spirit of God makes a denial impossible. But while each denomination is thus willing to recognize a real, if grudgingly admitted, sisterhood as the share of the others, each regards its peculiarities of belief or practice as of extreme importance, if not to the being, at least to the well-being of the church, so that effective inter-communion seems impossible. An interesting illustration of this spirit has recently been shown in a discussion involving a communion which professes, one cannot doubt with sincerity, a desire for a reunion of Christendom. A proposition was made to it by a number of representatives of other communions, urging that the unity of American Christianity be illustrated by joint ordinations of chaplains for service with the army and navy. That proposal, which involved no question of ministerial status in the home churches, was declined by its highest authorities. It is not conceivable that those who thus refused it believed that chaplains went forth to their arduous task in the name of Christ from other communions without the blessing of God; but such differences of apprehension as may still coexist with obedience to the one Master are evidently yet deemed too great to permit mutual Christian authorization for service. Doubtless many similar instances could be found, but as long as they characterize American Christianity at all they reveal the persistence of a spirit which exalts denominational peculiarities above the full recognition of common Christian discipleship.

These barriers have been thus frankly stated because they are very real, and while the impulse toward Christian unity now flows in increasing strength from the experiences of the great war, the movement in that direction must acquire far greater momentum before its work can be accomplished. Christian unity was never so fully before the thought of the American churches as now. Never were so many sincerely desirous of it. Never was its need so obvious as in these days when the church faces the tremendous problem of the reconstruction on a Christian basis of a shattered social order. It is a task which demands all the forces of an undivided Christianity. Yet desirable as the goal of unity is, it will never be reached save through the strenuous cooperant effort of all who long for it. That effort must be greater than any heretofore made. It must be patient and persistent and in full faith that the Master's prayer for his disciples demands their utmost endeavor.

Three steps are certainly needful for effective progress towards a larger unity:

There must be a clearer recognition of the things in the Christian faith which are of vital significance. The really great truths must be seen in their proper perspective. The simplicity of the Gospel must be increasingly recognized. We have too often elevated relatively subordinate convictions to an equality with the fundamentals of the faith. In this clearer perception of proportions the experiences of the religious work of the war is greatly aiding. We are seeing that in the Christian life we need not so many things as much.

No less necessary is it that a spirit ready to sacrifice the important, but relatively subordinate, be developed. No denomination is called upon to sacrifice alone. If unity is to be achieved, each must feel a willingness to subordinate that which though precious by custom or antiquity or cherished possession is yet divisive.

Even more imperative is it that American religious bodies know each other better. Existing side by side, laboring in the same communities, it is amazing how little real comprehension of each other's spiritual life now exists. In mutual acquaintance by common association, wherever such intercourse can be brought about, lies the corrective of much present misunderstanding that separates us. All that aids a common acquaintance is an aid to ultimate unity.

The consideration just mentioned makes it probable that the most promising present step is in the direction of federal cooperation. Religious bodies that are far from willing to sink their present differences may yet work in harmony, and by working together increase that mutual understanding and thereby confidence in each other's Christian spirit which is so essential a preliminary to unity. That is what makes the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ and similar movements eminently worthy of support. They are not ends in themselves. They are means of utmost significance to a larger end.

The war is showing a vision of our need and of the goal of our effort. That the road to a larger and more effective unity of the religious forces of America is full of difficulties is no reason why a Christian man should hesitate to tread it. It is as true now as when the Master said it, that "with God all things are possible."