Book: Religious Reality

A >> A.E.J. Rawlinson >> Religious Reality




And so doing we are made one with Christ and one in Him with each
other. The Eucharist has a social aspect which is too little regarded.
It is the sacrament of Holy Fellowship. "We that are many are one
Bread, one Body," wrote S. Paul, "for we all partake of the one
Bread." The Holy Communion is the sacrament of the unity of all
Christians in Christ. The scandal of a divided Christendom shows
itself perhaps most of all in the fact that it prevents inter-
communion. For that very reason it appears to many persons unreal, and
therefore wrong, to practise isolated acts of inter-communion while
ecclesiastical differences remain unresolved: it is to conceal the
fact of actual disunion beneath the cloak of immediate sentiment. Yet
there is a true sense in which, through the Spirit, we _are_, in the
act of communion, made one with the fellowship of all faithful people
whether in the sphere of this earthly life or in the world that is
beyond death and tears: with all those, of whatever race or rank or
age or country, who amid whatever diversity of language and liturgy
and denominational loyalty, have named the name of Christ and received
the life of Christ in obedience to His command as they understood it.
There is no bond comparable to this bond, and no equality like the
equality of those who, high and low, rich and poor, one with another,
kneel side by side as brothers and sisters at the common Table of the
Lord.

And lastly there is a further point. The Body of Christ is a broken
Body and the Blood is Blood that is shed. "This is My Body which is
for you"--for you, and never for Myself. The Bread is the Bread of
Sacrifice and the Cup is the Stirrup-cup of Service: and part, surely,
and a great part, of the meaning of the words, "Do this in remembrance
of Me," is "Break your bodies in union with My Body broken: give your
lives in sacrifice for others, as I have given Mine." The Eucharist,
rightly regarded, is the mainspring and motive-power of service, the
principle of a life that is crucified. And all those who in their day
and generation have spent their lives unselfishly and used themselves
up in promoting causes not their own are partakers in that Holy
Fellowship.

At this present time of war and tumult, when all the powers of Hell
are abroad and leagued together for the onset, we think of that which
alone can be the redemption of war, even the self-devotion of those
who, hating the whole devilish business and going into it only because
they saw no alternative to Duty's clear and imperative call, have been
counted worthy to show forth the love than which no man hath greater,
even to lay down their lives for their friends. There is no one so
unfortunate as not to have known some such men. And at the Communion
Service "in the act of conscious incorporation into the fellowship of
the love of Jesus," it may be given to us in some measure to
understand these things, and to know that we are become partakers in
the power of a world-wide crucifixion, a fellowship of broken bodies
and lives poured out in Christ: and to know also--with a knowledge
that is not of this world--that somehow, in it and through it, the
Spirit of GOD in Christ will bring redemption.

So wonderful, so many-sided, and so full of meaning is this Sacrament:
so great is the measure of their loss who, professing and calling
themselves Christians, are content to ignore the last injunction of
the Christ to His disciples on the night before He died that we might
live.




CHAPTER X

THE LAST THINGS


"It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment."

"He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead,
whose Kingdom shall have no end."

"I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

Jesus Christ spoke in symbolical language of His coming in the clouds
of heaven as Son of Man with power and great glory, and declared that
the Divine verdict upon the lives and deeds of men should be
determined by their relationship to Him and to His ideals. Both in the
days of the Apostles, and for the most part among succeeding
generations of Christian people down to the present time, it would
seem that a more literal signification was attached to His words than
they will really bear. The truth of the Divine Judgment upon men's
lives nevertheless stands. "GOD is a great Judge, strong and patient:
and GOD is provoked every day." We must, however, be careful, in
thinking of the reality of Divine Judgment, to interpret the justice
of GOD in the light of the Christian revelation of His Love. The
attitude of GOD towards sinners is never anything but love, though a
love that is holy and righteous, and never merely sentimental. GOD as
Christ reveals Him can never impose or inflict a merely external
penalty upon a sinner, other than the supreme penalty of being simply
what he is, viz. a soul who by his own deliberate actions has
separated himself from goodness and from GOD. It is important in
thinking of the Judgment to remember that the essence of judgment is
neither the sentence nor the penalty: it is simply the verdict,
whereby moral and spiritual realities are revealed, shams and
disguises are stripped off, and evil is separated from good.
[Footnote: The associations of an English law-court, in which the
verdict is the work of the jury, are here misleading.] If our Lord,
speaking in parables, declared, of such as had neglected to do good,
that "these shall go away into eternal punishment," a considerable
body of orthodox opinion in the Christian Church has always held that
the punishment in question consists essentially in the "penalty of
loss"--the loss of goodness and of GOD, the loss of capacity for the
life which is life indeed--rather than in any imagined "penalty of
sense," or purposeless prolongation of pain. The imagery which our
Lord employed to describe the spiritual condition known as "hell" is
taken from the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine just outside the walls of
Jerusalem, in which fires were continually maintained for the
destruction of refuse, and maggots preyed on offal. The imagery is
sufficiently terrible; but it suggests the destruction of waste
products in GOD'S creation, rather than the prolonged torture of
living beings. It may well be that a soul, which by persistent and
deliberate rejection of every appeal of the Divine Love even to the
very end--in this life or beyond--has become so wholly self-identified
with evil as to be finally incapable of life in GOD, passes, of
necessity, out of sentient existence altogether. We do not know. What
we do know is, in the first place, that wickedness is of its very
nature instinct with the eternal quality of "hell"; and, in the second
place, that GOD is Love, and that GOD "desireth not the death of a
sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness, and live."

Just as the term "hell" expresses the condition of a soul which by its
own act and deed and deliberate choice has become wholly self-
identified with evil, so the term "heaven" expresses the spiritual
state of the pure in heart, to whom it is given to see GOD. So
regarded, heaven is simply the ideal consummation of progressive
spiritual advance, the perfect fruition of that "beatific vision"
which the saints of GOD desired. It has ever been the conviction of
the Christian Church that her members are already, even in this
present life, made partakers in the life of heaven, just in proportion
as their affections are set upon things above and not upon things in
the earth. What is begun here is continued more perfectly hereafter;
but it is unreasonable to assume that at the moment of death the
ultimate fulness of "heaven" is immediately attained.

The Church, therefore, has believed in an intermediate state,
sometimes called "Purgatory," a condition of progressive purification
and spiritual growth, characterized at once by a deepening penitence
for the sins and failures of the past, and by a deepening joy in GOD'S
more perfect service.

Moreover, since the Christian salvation is a social salvation, those
who have departed this life in GOD'S faith and fear shall not without
us be made perfect. None can enter fully into the joy of the Lord
until the whole of GOD'S great World-purpose is accomplished, and all
are gathered in. This brings us to the consideration of the Christian
belief in the Second Advent and the final Kingdom of GOD. It has
already been remarked that the terms in which this belief is expressed
are symbolical and should not be taken literally. Just because we
ourselves, under the conditions of life here upon earth, are immersed
in the stream of time, the idea of an ending of the World-process, a
final passing over of time into eternity, is to us, in the strict and
literal sense of the words, unthinkable. Only under the form of
imagery and symbol is it in the nature of things possible for the idea
of the last great Drama to be expressed, or rather, suggested: it is
impossible for our minds to grasp, in any more exact or effectual
manner, the Reality which the imagery is meant to symbolize. It may be
that the event expressed by the dramatic picture of the Second Advent
of the Christ is simply the revelation of the fact of His Eternal
Presence at once as Saviour and as Judge; however this may be, the
picture stands for the assurance of His final triumph, and the
vindication of His Kingdom in its fulness: and as such it is the
object of Christian hope--"Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy
will be done; in earth, as it is in Heaven."

If we ask what is the positive nature of the Christian hope and what
the final character of the life of heaven, the answer is that we
cannot fully say, that we know only in part, "we see obscurely, as in
a mirror." In hymn and ecstasy and vision men have sought to find
expression for the substance of things hoped for, and they have
failed. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into
the heart of man to conceive, the things that GOD hath prepared for
them that love Him." The Book of the Revelation essays to paint a
picture of the heavenly state, and for the most part succeeds in
setting before our minds a noble imagery; but in the end its language
is most convincing when it tells us what heaven is _not_. "They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light
on them, nor any heat. And GOD shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes." Negatives and contrasts--the picture of a state of things
contrasted with all that in the world as we know it is amiss; we
cannot _positively_ envisage heaven. Only we believe that "there
remaineth a rest for the people of GOD," where nevertheless they rest
not day or night from His perfect service. "Beloved, now are we sons
of GOD, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that
when He shall appear we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He
is."

Here this chapter might end: but with regard to the nature of the
Christian conception of the life of the world to come there is
something more to be said: for the Church's creed contains the
assertion of a belief in the Resurrection of the Body, or even, in the
Latin form of the Apostles' Creed, and in the translation which
appears in the Prayer-book Service for Baptism, in the Resurrection of
the Flesh. The plain man may be tempted, brushing aside such a
doctrine in its plain and literal acceptation as a manifest
impossibility, either to hold aloof from a Church which retains such
an affirmation in her creed, or else to conclude hastily that the
words are meant only as a picturesque way of expressing a belief in
the immortality of the soul. Either attitude would be a mistake. It is
true that a literal resuscitation of Christian corpses on some future
Day of Resurrection would be neither possible nor desirable.
Nevertheless the Christian doctrine of the life to come involves more
than a bare assertion of the immortality of the soul.

The body is the embodiment or vehicle of the spirit; the spirit
disembodied would be a mere wraith, a phantasm of the living man. The
life of the world to come is not unreal or shadowy as compared with
the concrete reality of the life of earth: it is a life richer and
fuller, more concrete and more glorious than the life of earth. The
Church by her doctrine of the Resurrection means to affirm that the
full reality of that which made the living man what he was is carried
over into the life beyond. The buried corpse is not "the body that
shall be." "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."
As to the nature of the future embodiment of the spirit in the life
beyond the grave we are ignorant. "GOD giveth it a body as it hath
pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own." But we believe that
"the deeds done in the body" here upon earth while we are yet
tabernacling in the flesh necessarily affect and determine the
character of the spiritual embodiment which shall be ours hereafter.
For this reason we hold our bodies sacred, as being temples of the
Holy Ghost. "The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and
the Lord for the body." Christianity can have nothing to do with the
notion that the defilement of the body is without effect in the
pollution of the soul.

[NOTE.-For a fuller treatment of the subjects of the Second Advent and
the Resurrection of the Body the writer may be allowed to refer to
Chapters III. and IV. in his book, _Dogma, fact and Experience_
(Macmillan & Co., 1915).]




CHAPTER XI

CLERGY AND LAITY


The clergy are not the Church. They are a specialized class within it.
They are men who believe themselves to be called by GOD to give
themselves for life to the particular work of caring directly for the
spiritual interests of their fellows. To this end they are set apart
by ordination. They hold the commission and authorization of the
Church to minister the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel in the name
of Christ and of the Brotherhood. Their task is high and difficult. It
is not wonderful if they fail. But solemn prayer is offered for them
at their ordination: and the answer to the Church's prayers is
according to the measure of the Church's faith.

The historical or Catholic system of ministry in the Church consists
of a hierarchy in three orders or gradations. To the order of Bishops
belongs oversight or pastorate-in-chief. It is not the business of a
Bishop to be prelatical, or to lord it over GOD'S heritage, but to be
the servant of the servants of GOD. A Bishop is consecrated to his
office by not less than three of those who are already Bishops. He
exercises all the functions of the Christian ministry, including those
of confirmation and ordination and the right to take part in episcopal
consecrations.

Priests and deacons are a Bishop's delegates for certain purposes. A
priest may have charge of a "parish" or subdivision of a diocese, and
is competent to celebrate the Eucharist, to bless, to baptize, and to
absolve. He is also authorized to preach, and to give instruction in
Christian doctrine. He may not confirm or ordain apart from the
Bishop, though he may co-operate with the latter in ordinations to the
priesthood. He is ordained to his ministry by the Bishop acting in
conjunction with certain representatives of the priesthood who take
part with him in the laying on of hands.

Deacons are subordinate ministers appointed to assist parish priests
in the work of parochial visiting and also, within certain limits, in
the conduct of Divine worship and the administration of the
sacraments. They may read parts of the service, but have no authority
to bless or to absolve. They may preach by express and specific
license from the Bishop. They may not celebrate the Eucharist, but may
assist the priest who does so by reading the Gospel and administering
the chalice. They are ordained to their office by the Bishop, and in
most cases, though not invariably, proceed subsequently to the
priesthood. [Footnote: In the absence of a Bishop or priest, a deacon
is competent to baptize. In the absence of any of the clergy Baptism
may also, in cases of urgency, be administered by a layman, and in the
absence of a man, by a woman.]

The principles which underlie this system of Catholic order in the
Church are important. The devolution of authority to minister through
the episcopate safeguards the continuity of the Church's corporate
life and tradition, and secures that ministerial functions shall be
exercised in the name and by the authority of the Christian Society as
a whole. Moreover through the ordered succession of the Bishops the
tradition of ministerial authority is carried back certainly to sub-
apostolic, and perhaps also actually to apostolic, times: it
represents in principle Christ's commission to His Apostles--"As the
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you."

At the same time it is important that the doctrine of the ministry
should not be allowed to become "sacerdotalist" in a wrong sense. The
Christian priesthood is not in possession of any magical or exclusive
powers. The essence of priesthood is the dedication of life as a whole
to the service of GOD on behalf of others: and in this sense every
Christian man is meant in his ordinary daily life and business to be a
priest of GOD and a servant of his brethren. What the Church to-day
needs most chiefly is a body of laymen who will take seriously their
vocation. A layman is not a Christian of inferior type, on whose
behalf the clergy are expected to display a vicarious spirituality: he
is simply an unordained member of the people of GOD. The hope of the
future is that laymen should do their part, not merely by supporting
the efforts of the clergy, but by exercising their own proper
functions as living members of Christ. The Church--and especially the
Church of England--is in vital need of reform. The recently launched
"Life and Liberty" Movement is a hopeful sign of the determination of
a certain number of clergy and laity that reform shall be secured. In
particular it is essential that the Church should recover freedom of
self-government in spiritual things, and liberty to adapt her
machinery and organization to changing needs, by the readjustment of
her relation towards the State. This may or may not involve
disestablishment, and disestablishment in turn, if it should take
place, need not necessarily involve, but in practice would probably
involve, some measure of partial disendowment. The Church must be
prepared for all eventualities, and must be ready, should necessity
arise, to take cheerfully the spoiling of her goods. For liberty is
essential at all costs.

In the movement for Life and Liberty, as in every other department of
her work, the Church needs the co-operation of her laity. It is their
duty both to be informed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to make their
voices heard. It is part of the programme of Church reformers to give
the laity, through elected representatives, a more effective voice in
Church affairs. The administration of finance and the raising of funds
for work both at home and abroad is more particularly their province,
but there is no single department of Church affairs in which the
layman ought not to have his share, though no doubt the Bishops in
virtue of their office have a special responsibility in matters of
doctrine. Certainly there is need of a much greater extension of lay
preaching, and a freer recognition of the capacity of many laymen to
lead the worship and intercessions of their brethren. The
administration of the sacraments, with the partial exception of
baptism, is reserved for those to whom it is committed: but this need
not and does not apply to the ministries of preaching and of prayer.

Clerical autocracy, where it exists, ought resolutely and firmly to be
broken down. It has to be admitted that between clergy and laity at
present there is a regrettable and widespread cleavage. The clergy are
widely criticized, and it is certain that they have many faults. One
who belongs to their number cannot help being conscious of some at
least of the failings both of himself and of his class. But the faults
are not all upon one side. It may be suspected that those who
criticize the clergy with the greatest freedom are not always those
who pray for them most earnestly. To affirm that the laity get, upon
the whole, the clergy they deserve would be too hard a saying: but it
is sometimes forgotten that the clergy are recruited from the ranks of
the laity, and that, when not dehumanized by an undue professionalism
of outlook, they are human. Many of them would be frankly grateful for
friendly co-operation and criticism on the part of the lay members of
their flocks. One of the difficulties about preaching is that the
clergy in many instances do not really know what is in the layman's
mind. The life of the Church in England will not proceed along healthy
lines until there is greater mutual candour between laymen and clergy.
At present laymen will not talk freely about matters of religion in
the presence of the clergy because they imagine (often quite wrongly)
that the latter would be shocked. It sometimes happens conversely that
the clergy hesitate to express their real minds for fear that laymen
would be shocked. This attitude of mutual reserve is hopeless. No
Christian, lay or clerical, has any business to be shocked at any
expression of opinion whatever, orthodox or unorthodox, whether in
faith or in morals. Either side may disagree with the other; but
either ought to be prepared to listen to what the other has to say.




CHAPTER XII

THE BIBLE


The Bible is the "sacred Book" of Christianity, as the Koran is the
sacred Book of Mohammedanism; with this difference, however, that
Christianity, as the religion of the Spirit, can never be, like
Mohammedanism, a "religion of the Book," any more than it can be, like
ancient Judaism, a religion of the Law. The Biblical writings include
two main collections of books, known as the Old Testament and the New
Testament respectively, of which the latter alone is distinctively
Christian. Intermediate between the two "Testaments" in point of date
are the writings known as the "Apocrypha," which though inferior, for
the most part, in spiritual value to the fully canonical books, and
frequently omitted from printed editions of the Bible, are regarded by
the Church as canonical in a secondary sense.

The various books of the Bible originally became canonical, that is,
were included in the "canon" or collection of sacred writings, on the
ground that they were read aloud or recited in the course of Divine
worship. The Old Testament canon comprises the books customarily read
aloud in the Jewish synagogue, together with certain other writings
associated with them. The books of the New Testament are a similar
collection of early Christian writings which were read side by side
with the Old Testament in Christian worship. The selection of these
particular writings for the purpose was determined in part by the
Church's recognition of their spiritual value and in part by the
regard which was paid by the Christian community to the religious
authority of those by whom they were believed to have been written.

Speaking generally, we may say that the Old Testament is the religious
literature of Judaism. It is the literary deposit of the spiritual
life of a nation, the written record and monument of a progressive
process of religious development. It begins at the level of folklore
and primitive tribal cults, such as are portrayed or reflected, for
example, in parts of the Pentateuch and in the Books of Judges and
Samuel. It culminates, in the utterances of the greatest of the
prophets and in many of the Psalms, at the highest levels of religious
attainment which are discoverable anywhere in history prior to the
coming of our Lord.

The Old Testament will always have a value for Christianity: in part
because many of the religious lessons which it conveys can never be
superseded even by Christianity itself: in part because the study of
it provides the general knowledge of Judaism, and of Jewish
institutions and modes of thought, which is necessary for the proper
understanding of the religious background of the Gospels, and of much
else in the New Testament as well: in part also because the two
revelations--the Jewish and the Christian--hang together, interlocking
with one another as anticipation and fulfilment, in a manner which is
singularly impressive.

The various books of the Old Testament, nevertheless, require to be
read by Christians with discrimination, and with a clear realization
of their Jewish character. There is much in the Old Testament as it
stands which is liable to mislead the simple and cause needless
difficulty. There are, moreover, numerous passages, and not a few
entire books, which except in the light of historical criticism and
scholarly guidance are not really intelligible. But the study of the
Old Testament as reinterpreted in our own generation by research and
scholarship is a fascinating subject. It requires little in the way of
technical equipment, and there is no reason in the world why it should
be monopolized by specialists. To have even the most general
acquaintance with the methods and results of critical study brings
with it a great transformation of outlook. The Old Testament writers
come to life again wonderfully when they are set in their proper
historical context, and the result is a clear gain in spiritual
values. The best general introduction to the whole subject is Dr. W.
B. Selbie's book, _The Nature and Message of the Bible_ (Student
Christian Movement, 3s. 6d.). Canon Nairne's volume, _The Faith of
the Old Testament_ (Layman's Library, Longmans, 2s. 6d.) is an
illuminating survey designed specially to bring out the religious
value of the Old Testament, [Footnote: Those who may desire a more
detailed and comprehensive treatment of the literary problems of the
Old Testament should consult G. B. Gray, _A Critical Introduction to
the Literature of the Old Testament_ (Duckworth, 2s. 6d.).] and for
commentaries upon individual books _The Century Bible_ (T. C. and
E. C. Jack, 3s. each volume) is to be recommended.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.