The Social Teachings of the Church Year

Abstract

The slow formation of a Christian social mind is one of the greatest things happening in this great epoch; for it means that Christian people are regaining a passionate allegiance to their Master's allbut-lost ideal, the Kingdom of God on earth. In the development of this mind, a vital part is played by the seasons of the Christian year. For Church folk, at least, their solemn recurrent rhythms reveal ever new depths of meaning in the mysteries of the Faith; every one of these mysteries carries a distinct social message; in their sum, they are for the Christian the foundation and source of all sound social philosophy.This is not a thought which will commend itself widely. Dogma is unfashionable, and the Church Year is saturated with dogma. Modern radicals appalled by the failure of Christianity to control the relations of either classes or nations, are in strong reaction against theology; when religiously disposed, they point in triumph to the revolutionary ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and summon men away from the formulae of the Church, back to the words of the Master. Christian ethics rather than Christian doctrines are the habitual source of social religion. The source is good, for no one can read the words of Jesus honestly and not be shocked in turning to contemporary life. The salutary contrast is continually pressed home, even in the newspapers! We are not allowed to forget that our industrial system habitually says: Cursed are the poor, incompetent are the meek; that some Christian manufacturers, instead of giving unto the last as unto the first, fight a living wage to the finish; that far from turning the other cheek and overcoming evil with good, many Church leaders enjoin us vigorously to hit back when we are struck and to exact the uttermost farthing; that we do not fill the hungry with good things, and assuredly do not send the rich empty away. The abiding contradiction between Christian ethic and world-ethic is an abiding disgrace-to a compromised Christianity.But even while stressing this contradiction, social Christians need another line of attack. For the radicalism which feeds wholly on such contrasts is ill nourished, and in disgust with the Church is likely to slip away from Christ. We need to find in our religion not only precept but dynamic, not only moral teaching but a revelation of God's actual dealings with man. In the flow of the Church seasons from Advent to Trinity, such revelation is recorded. It shows Christian experience as a living thing, based on historic facts; it shows dogma, not a mass of abstract assumptions tom out of life, but a transcript of spiritual realities encountered by the soul. These realities are the one ground of our social hope. In spite of anti-dogmatic prejudice and anti-clerical revolt, in spite of the present alignment which throws the forces of progress largely on the non-Christian side, the ultimate source of all true social philosophy is to be found, not only in the Teaching of Christ but in His Person. Unless our rising faith in social equality, in industrial democracy, in a league of free nations, be rooted in Catholic truth, one of two things will happen: either that truth will be discredited, or the social creed professed by liberals will fade away. Only from the roots of a Catholic and Christian civilization could bloom the fair flower of a cooperative commonwealth, for whose unfolding we watch and wait.The very existence of the Church Year as presented in the Prayer Book is a tremendous witness to the social instinct. That instinct looks not only outward, but backward; it unites men, not only to their comrades now on earth, but to the vast majority who have gone before; time and space cannot bind it-it can be satisfied by nothing short of the whole Communion of Saints. And no better illustration of the vital unity of the Beloved Community down the ages can be found than the Church Year. The Anglican use rests directly on the Samm Missal, or on the earlier Missal of Leofric, tenth century Bishop of Exeter, but the basis of the arrangement of Gospels and Epistles is the Comes traditionally ascribed to St. …