462 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: SOCIAL 



very far off," it gains reality and power by dealing with all phases 

 of actual and everyday life. With such a religion God becomes 

 real; not the Great Perhaps, but the great / Am ; not what 

 Carlyle calls an " absentee " God, not the God of a remote past or of 

 a dim future, but the God of to-day; the greatest reality in the 

 world; active in all human affairs, turning and overturning among 

 the nations, and out of the discord and chaos of conflicting selfish 

 interests slowly but infallibly evolving the harmony and beauty of 

 his kingdom of loving obedience heaven on earth. 



Let us consider further what influence the acceptance of the social 

 teachings of Jesus will naturally exert on theology. Changes in our 

 conception of religion are sure to be reflected in our theological views. 

 Heretofore theology has been a circle drawn around the individual 

 as the centre; hereafter it must be an ellipse drawn around the 

 individual and society as the two foci. 



Of course it is impracticable to attempt on this occasion even an 

 outline of the modifications which will naturally result from a new 

 point of view in theology, but we may note, by way of illustration, 

 the new aspects of the doctrines of service, sacrifice, and love, when 

 viewed in the light of the social teachings of Jesus. 



The old theology, still current, gives to these doctrines or laws 

 an individualistic interpretation, thus perverting them, and robbing 

 them of their essential character. If I were the only being in the 

 universe, it would clearly be impossible for me to observe any one 

 of these three laws, which shows that they are social in their nature. 

 If God and I were alone in the universe, I cannot imagine anything 

 that I could do for him; though I might love him, I could neither 

 serve him nor sacrifice for him, " as though he needed anything." 

 The only way to serve him that I know of is to help him lift this 

 poor blundering, sinning, and suffering world up into the light and 

 blessedness of his knowledge and his love. I can serve God only in 

 the person of his children, because it is only in their person that he 

 is in need. 



The attempt to serve God without serving man is the explanation 

 of ritualism, which serves neither, and which is hateful to the one 

 and hurtful to the other. Forgetting that service, if real, is neces- 

 sarily social, we, by a misnomer, call divine worship " divine service; " 

 thus our services are " held " instead of being rendered. 



Failing to see that sacrifice is a social law, men have tried to sacri- 

 fice to God without sacrificing for men; and this blunder has shed 

 rivers of blood of both man and beast, and has cost incalculable 

 self-inflicted and wasted suffering. Sacrifice for the*sake of others 

 is divinely beautiful, but sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice is suffering 

 for the sake of suffering, in which only a fiend could take delight. 



Unless sacrifice is made for the love of another, it is made for the 



