same reasons which induced the writer to leave his. How refreshing! A rejected stone has become a corner-stone. Rebellion against tyrannies in the church is beginning to be recognized as obedience to God. The coöperating cause of this rapid reversal of public opinion is the War. It has made three facts about the church disturbingly clear: First, the exceeding great need of the world for the contribution which the Christian religion is designed to make to it; second, the exceeding great failure of the churches to supply what the world most needs; third, that if it hopes to make a contribution of real value, the church must be organized democratically. The first two propositions are assumed to be self-evident facts; and the writer addresses himself to the third as the next step in the emancipation of the Christian religion from the fetters which hitherto have caused its failure. The divine-right delusion as applied to the state has almost been destroyed. It must likewise be banished from the church. Time was when the king business was most useful. There is a reason why the people cried, "Long live the king," for it was he who led Europe out of feudal anarchy into the consolidated modern state. Likewise an autocratic church, as the lesser of two evils, once rendered a real service to civilization in Europe. But the divine-right idea in both church and state was used as a bulwark for special privilege and paved the way for its own destruction. God is tired of autocracy in either church or state, and so are the people. They are now sufficiently intelligent to get along very well without deluding themselves with a fiction, from which they have suffered untold damage. The church, which ought to have led the way to freedom, will now be compelled to follow the example of the state and organize itself democratically. For these reasons the writer is convinced that the time has come when the publication of his story will be most productive of good. It will not now fall on unprepared soil. The author speaks in no wise for the Bureau of Education, but only for himself, and he takes sole and full responsibility for all opinions expressed in it. Theoretically the United States Bureau of Education can make no connection with a sectarian church, although during the War, and after, several departments of the government made direct appeals to the churches for their service. Nevertheless, in the course of my work as the Bureau's representative of the community center movement, I am frequently asked by the churches what they can do to help the movement. These questions deserve an honest answer. This book, therefore, may be regarded as my answer to these questions. But it is much more. It is my contribution, as an individual, to a cause in which I am deeply interested, the cause of organizing social activities in behalf of the common welfare. The churches are social institutions capable of becoming either very helpful or very harmful to the nation. To assume toward them an attitude of moral neutrality is an impossibility. Nor is it desirable when, as at present, they express the desire to serve the common good and ask to be shown how they can do it. This is the day of golden opportunity for the cause of democracy. The new day upon which we have entered has set before the churches an open door which no man can shut. The time to go through an open door is when the door is open. Washington, D.C. Oct. 1, 1919. |