Signs of the Times

Joseph McCulloch

The Times

The Reverend Joseph McCulloch St. Mary-le-Bow Cheapside, London in The Times London, England

From Calvary there flowed a spiritual power into human affairs which continues to change them, not by the violence of man's will but by the transforming of man's imagination. The passion of Jesus was that the life of the ego should die and be raised into the life of the person. Because the human situation is primarily an egocentric predicament, it cannot be radically changed by external force, only by the renewing of man's inner vision.

Paul embodied this essential teaching of Jesus in his exhortation to the Christians at Rome: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We shall not get the splinters out of the world's eye, unless our own insight is cleared of all illusion, not least of the presumption that we can force God's kingdom upon the world.

Society as it is, openly encourages egocentric self-assertion, impedes the growth of personal life, and therefore needs to be radically changed. In so far as the young are saying this, they echo the mind of Jesus. Those among them who practise non-violence have to that further extent correctly learned Christ. But only those who see that the kingdom will not come by saying the words, but by doing the works of compassion, are identifiable as his disciples, in this or any age....

Christ...tries us very high when he asks us to be in this world but not of it. It is not enough to keep alight his flame of compassion by doing the works of love. He demands also that we engage actively, but with a terrible meekness, in his struggle to reform and transform the pattern of power in the world.

As he told the churchmen of his time: "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." He asks us to fight as well as to love. He proved that it could be done. But we of the church are still learning how to follow where he leads.

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