Article February 22, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from W. Tudor Jones, James I. Vance

[Dr. W. Tudor Jones in Christian Commonwealth.]

We are so much in the midst of wars and rumors of wars that the meaning and value of religion seem for the movement to have receded into the background, or indeed to have disappeared altogether. The attention of the world is drawn to objects outside the religious aspect, but the religious aspect, in so far as it is a reality at all, will make its contribution in the settlement of all these disputes. It is our own fault if religion is not strong enough to prevent conflicts, and it is a sign of weakness that the ethical and religious elements have taken such a secondary place. When the disputes of nations are investigated, they are found to rest upon certain imaginary or real rights which each nation holds it is entitled to possess. The consciousness of the rights of individuals and nations has developed more rapidly than the consciousness of duties.

The new presentation of religion is concerned with this all-important fact. In Germany today the advocates of the need of a better understanding between their own country and England are leaders of religion who have worked their way out of traditional theology to the conception of an international ethic. These leaders believe that no peace and good will can ever come about between nations until religion is something infinitely more than a number of theological propositions, whether such propositions belong to the past or the present. Their work is no other than a deepening of the meaning of religion to include spiritual experience and overpersonal ideals which include the good of all. We have been spending too much time in talking about our religion, and too little time in attempting to realize and live it out in the individual life and in the community. There is no power besides an international, spiritual ethic that will overcome race prejudice, hatred, and selfishness. Many men—indeed, strong armies of them—are conscious of this fact today. [James I. Vance, D.D., in Christian Intelligencer.]

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