St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: A Practical Exposition

The 'Report of the Committee of the Lambeth Conference appointed to consider and report upon the office of the Church with respect to industrial problems – (a) the unemployed; (b) industrial co-operation,' is so much to the point as a statement of Christian social duty that I venture to reproduce the first part of it here.

'The Committee desire to begin their Report with words of thankful recognition that throughout the Church of Christ, and not least in the Churches of our own Communion, there has been a marked increase of solicitude about the problems of industrial and social life, and of sympathy with the struggles, sufferings, responsibilities, and anxieties, which those problems involve.

'They hope that they rightly discern in this some increasing reflection in modern shape of the likeness of the Lord, in whose blessed life zeal for the souls, and sympathy for the bodily needs of men were undivided fruits of a single love.

'The Committee, before proceeding to touch upon two specific parts of the subject, desire to record briefly what they deem to be certain principles of Christian duty in such matters.

'The primary duty of the Church, as such, and, within her, of the Clergy, is that of ministry to men in the things of character, conscience, and faith. In doing this, she also does her greatest social duty. Character in the citizen is the first social need; character, with its securities in a candid, enlightened, and vigorous conscience, and a strong faith in goodness and in God. The Church owes this duty to all classes alike. Nothing must be allowed to distract her from it, or needlessly to impede or prejudice her in its discharge; and this requires of the Clergy, as spiritual officers, the exercise of great discretion in any attempt to bring within their sphere work of a more distinctively social kind.

'But while this cannot be too strongly said, it is not the whole truth. Character is influenced at every point by social conditions; and active conscience, in an industrial society, will look for moral guidance on industrial matters.

'Economic science does not claim to give this, its task being to inform but not to determine the conscience and judgement. But we believe that Christ our Master does give such guidance by His example and teachings, and by the present workings of His Spirit; and therefore under Him Christian authority must in a measure do the same, the authority, that is, of the whole Christian body, and of an enlightened Christian opinion. This is part of the duty of the Christian Society, as witnessing for Christ and representing Him in this present world, occupied with His work of setting up the Kingdom of God, under and amidst the natural conditions of human life. In this work the clergy, whose special duty it is to ponder the bearings of Christian principles, have their part; but the Christian laity, who deal directly with the social and economic facts, can do even more.

'The Committee believe that it would be wholly wrong for Christian authority to attempt to interfere with the legitimate evolution of economic and social thought and life by taking a side corporately in the debates between rival social theories or systems. It will not (for example), at the present day, attempt to identify Christian duty with the acceptance of systems based respectively on collective or individual ownership of the means of production.

'But they submit that Christian social duty will operate in two directions: —

'1. The recognition, inculcation, and application of certain Christian principles. They offer the following as examples: —

(a) The principle of Brotherhood. This principle of Brotherhood, or Fellowship in Christ, proclaiming, as it does, that men are members one of another, should act in all the relations of life as a constant counterpoise to the instinct of competition.

(b) The principle of Labour. That every man is bound to service – the service of God and man. Labour and service are to be here understood in their widest and most inclusive sense; but in some sense they are obligatory on all. The wilfully idle man, and the man who lives only for himself, are out of place in a Christian community. Work, accordingly, is not to be looked upon as an irksome necessity for some, but as the honourable task and privilege of all.

(c) The principle of Justice. God is no respecter of persons. Inequalities, indeed, of every kind are inwoven with the whole providential order of human life, and are recognized emphatically in our Lord's words. But the social order cannot ignore the interests of any of its parts, and must, moreover, be tested by the degree in which it secures for each freedom for happy, useful, and untrammelled life, and distributes, as widely and equitably as may be, social advantages and opportunities.

(d) The principle of Public Responsibility. A Christian community, as a whole, is morally responsible for the character of its own economic and social order, and for deciding to what extent matters affecting that order are to be left to individual initiative, and to the unregulated play of economic forces. Factory and sanitary legislation, the institution of Government labour departments and the influence of Government, or of public opinion and the press, or of eminent citizens, in helping to avoid or reconcile industrial conflicts, are instances in point.

'2. Christian opinion should be awake to repudiate and condemn either open breaches of social justice and duty, or maxims and principles of an un-Christian character. It ought to condemn the belief that economic conditions are to be left to the action of material causes and mechanical laws, uncontrolled by any moral responsibility. It can pronounce certain conditions of labour to be intolerable. It can insist that the employer's personal responsibility, as such, is not lost by his membership in a commercial or industrial Company. It can press upon retail purchasers the obligation to consider not only the cheapness of the goods supplied to them, but also the probable conditions of their production. It can speak plainly of evils which attach to the economic system under which we live, such as certain forms of luxurious extravagance, the widespread pursuit of money by financial gambling, the dishonesties of trade into which men are driven by feverish competition, and the violences and reprisals of industrial warfare.

'It is plain that in these matters disapproval must take every different shade, from plain condemnation of undoubted wrong to tentative opinions about better and worse. Accordingly any organic action of the Church, or any action of the Church's officers, as such, should be very carefully restricted to cases where the rule of right is practically clear, and much the larger part of the matter should be left to the free and flexible agency of the awakened Christian conscience of the community at large, and of its individual members.

'If the Christian conscience be thus awakened and active, it will secure the best administration of particular systems, while they exist, and the modification or change of them, when this is required by the progress of knowledge, thought, and life.

'It appears to follow from what precedes that the great need of the Church, in this connexion, is the growth and extension of a serious, intelligent, and sympathetic opinion on these subjects, to which numberless Christians have as yet never thought of applying Christian principles. There has been of late no little improvement in this respect, but much remains to be done, and with this view the Committee desire to make the following definite recommendation.

'They suggest that, wherever possible, there should be formed, as a part of local Church organization, Committees consisting chiefly of laymen, whose work should be to study social and industrial problems from the Christian point of view, and to assist in creating and strengthening an enlightened public opinion in regard to such problems, and promoting a more active spirit of social service, as a part of Christian duty.

'Such Committees, or bodies of Church workers in the way of social service, while representing no one class of society, and abstaining from taking sides in any disputes between classes, should fearlessly draw attention to the various causes in our economic, industrial, and social system, which call for remedial measures on Christian principles.'

Abundant illustration of the kind of matters with which such Committees might deal will be found in the report.

notes

1

The Committee of the Conference of Bishops at Lambeth, 1897, in a report commended by the bishops as a body to the 'consideration of all Christian people,' write: 'Your committee do not hold that a true view of Holy Scripture forecloses any legitimate question about the literary character or literal accuracy of different parts or statements of the Old Testament.'

2

Acts xxiv 14; xxvi. 6, 7, 22, 23; 2 Tim i. 3.

3

Eph. ii. 12-19.

4

1 Thess. ii. 14-16.

5

Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans.

6

See app. note C (#pgepubid00070), p. 257.

7

Acts ix. 20; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Rom. ix. 5; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 4.

8

Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon.

9

Col. ii. 18: 'by a voluntary humility (or 'taking delight in humility') and worshipping of the angels.'

10

See i. 13-20; ii. 2, 3, 9-23; iii. 11. Cf. i. 27-28.

11

Hort, Judaistic Christianity (Macmillan, 1894), p. 125.

12

Cf. app. note C (#pgepubid00070), p. 257.

13

Cf. Hort, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians (Macmillan, 1895), p. 100.

14

Col. iv. 2-4; Philemon 22; Phil. i. 12-14.