Creighton Lacy - "A Social Creed in Poetry and Practice" (January 23, 1966)
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| (slow piano music) | 0:04 | |
| Preacher | Those of you who were in the congregation | 0:26 |
| last Sunday were reminded or informed | 0:29 | |
| that 1966 marks the bicentennial of Methodism in America. | 0:32 | |
| Without any collusion or even knowledge | 0:39 | |
| of Chaplain Wilkinson's sermon, | 0:41 | |
| I had planned to make my own modest contribution | 0:44 | |
| to that anniversary | 0:46 | |
| in the tribute to one of the most influential, | 0:48 | |
| but least known Christian statesman of the past century. | 0:51 | |
| If any of you recognize the name of Frank Mason North, | 0:56 | |
| it is probably as the author of the hymn, | 1:01 | |
| which we have just finished singing, | 1:03 | |
| "Where across the crowded ways of life, | 1:06 | |
| "where sound the cries of race and clan, | 1:09 | |
| "above the noise of selfish strife, | 1:13 | |
| we hear Thy I voice, O son of man." | 1:16 | |
| Born in exactly mid century 1850, | 1:21 | |
| North was in some respects a typical Victorian Clergyman. | 1:24 | |
| After graduating from Wesleyan University, | 1:29 | |
| he worked for less than a year in his father's business | 1:31 | |
| before deciding that he must be | 1:35 | |
| about his heavenly Father's business. | 1:37 | |
| For nearly 20 years, he served Methodist pastorates | 1:40 | |
| in New York city and its suburbs. | 1:43 | |
| If there was any one theme underlying all of his preaching, | 1:46 | |
| it was man's active partnership with God. | 1:50 | |
| In sharp distinction to Calvin's Doctrine of Election, | 1:55 | |
| North affirmed his Wesleyan-Arminian conviction | 1:58 | |
| that salvation is conditional | 2:03 | |
| upon the believer's response and responsibility | 2:05 | |
| as a free moral agent. | 2:09 | |
| God calls but he does not coerce. | 2:12 | |
| In the realm of personal ethics, | 2:17 | |
| most of you would consider Frank Mason North | 2:18 | |
| hopelessly square. | 2:21 | |
| He knew that pace boards with red and black symbols | 2:23 | |
| are not sinful in themselves, | 2:26 | |
| but he believed that card playing could lead | 2:28 | |
| to many forms of evil. | 2:31 | |
| Convinced that most playwrights | 2:33 | |
| and actors led immoral lives, | 2:35 | |
| he regarded the theater as a center of corruption. | 2:37 | |
| Dancing, he referred to as midnight gymnastics | 2:41 | |
| or agility at the expense of intellect. | 2:45 | |
| Attributing a large proportion of poverty | 2:50 | |
| and crime to liquor, | 2:52 | |
| he declared that major responsibility | 2:54 | |
| for drunkenness in society | 2:56 | |
| rests on those who themselves never get drunk, | 2:59 | |
| but that quote, | 3:02 | |
| "Every drop that goes into the system | 3:04 | |
| drives just that much true manhood out." end quote. | 3:06 | |
| Maybe he was right. | 3:12 | |
| His favorite sermon text in this area seemed to be, | 3:13 | |
| "If meet make my brother to offend | 3:17 | |
| "I will eat no flesh." | 3:19 | |
| His favorite illustration, | 3:21 | |
| "The mountaineer who is skillful | 3:22 | |
| "leaps across dangerous chasms, | 3:24 | |
| "tempted others into fatal attempt at imitation." | 3:27 | |
| Such an ethical criterion deserves more attention | 3:31 | |
| than it receives today. | 3:34 | |
| In other respects, however, | 3:38 | |
| Frank Mason north was 50 years ahead of his time. | 3:39 | |
| Few Christian leaders during the first two decades | 3:43 | |
| of this century, | 3:46 | |
| pioneered more decisively in more varied activities. | 3:46 | |
| If three solid points can turn a biography into a sermon, | 3:51 | |
| I shall have no difficulty this morning. | 3:55 | |
| For North stood at the height of his career | 3:58 | |
| on the frontiers of the social gospel | 4:01 | |
| of the missionary enterprise and of the ecumenical movement. | 4:04 | |
| Let me review for you very briefly, | 4:09 | |
| some of these positions and the faith | 4:10 | |
| which undergirded them. | 4:13 | |
| In 1892, Frank Mason North became secretary | 4:16 | |
| of the New York City Church Extension | 4:19 | |
| and Missionary Society. | 4:22 | |
| This agency existed and still exist | 4:24 | |
| to initiate, supervise and coordinate | 4:27 | |
| the numerous inner city projects | 4:30 | |
| of the world's largest metropolis. | 4:32 | |
| The famous Church of All Nations | 4:34 | |
| was founded during this period | 4:36 | |
| and separate congregations were organized | 4:38 | |
| from most of the diverse ethnic | 4:41 | |
| or linguistic immigrant groups. | 4:43 | |
| Germans, Italians, Russians, Poles, Chinese, Japanese. | 4:45 | |
| Problems of crime and vice of political corruption | 4:51 | |
| and economic exploitation multiplied rapidly | 4:55 | |
| as commerce and industrialization accelerated. | 4:58 | |
| in 1904, in his house Oregon, the Christian City, | 5:03 | |
| North speculated about the probable effects | 5:06 | |
| of the new subway, which could transport passengers | 5:09 | |
| from 125th Street to Brooklyn Bridge | 5:12 | |
| in 20 to 25 minutes. | 5:15 | |
| He did not envision the chaos created | 5:17 | |
| when it might cease to transport its millions of passengers. | 5:20 | |
| In haunts of wretchedness and need | 5:25 | |
| across shadowed thresholds, | 5:28 | |
| dark with fears and grief and greed, | 5:30 | |
| Frank Mason North walked the city streets, | 5:34 | |
| a tall dignified man with a Prince Albert coat | 5:36 | |
| and a heart of compassion as large as the parish he served. | 5:40 | |
| Through his editorial columns | 5:44 | |
| and half a dozen church magazines | 5:46 | |
| from the platforms of Carnegie Hall | 5:48 | |
| or Union Square, in countless pulpits, | 5:50 | |
| North pled for a recognition of Christian responsibility, | 5:53 | |
| amid urban needs. | 5:57 | |
| As early as 1892, 15 years before Walter Rauschenbusch | 5:59 | |
| published his first influential book, | 6:04 | |
| Frank Mason North deplored the fact that quote, | 6:07 | |
| "There are people who do not perceive | 6:11 | |
| "that God is at work in the secular world | 6:13 | |
| "as truly as he is in the religious." end quote. | 6:16 | |
| Is the Christian he asked repeatedly | 6:21 | |
| to rejoice in the growing light of the suburbs | 6:23 | |
| while the shadows deepen | 6:25 | |
| and lengthen upon the heart of the city. | 6:27 | |
| No wonder it has been said that Harvey Cox's concern | 6:30 | |
| for The Secular City today | 6:33 | |
| is merely a return to the insights | 6:36 | |
| and the sensitivity of the early social gospel. | 6:38 | |
| Surprisingly enough, North had very seldom preached | 6:43 | |
| on the social application of Christianity | 6:45 | |
| during his pastoral ministry. | 6:48 | |
| In 1891 however, he published "In Zion's Herald.", | 6:51 | |
| a Methodist periodical, one of the most important writings | 6:55 | |
| in the entire social gospel movement. | 6:58 | |
| A series of four articles on socialism and Christianity. | 7:01 | |
| Pointing to a number of parallels between these two faiths, | 7:06 | |
| North acknowledged the dangers | 7:10 | |
| and limitations of socialism | 7:12 | |
| restricted by its concern for one world instead of two. | 7:14 | |
| But he insisted that its best ideals | 7:19 | |
| were those of true Christianity. | 7:21 | |
| That the church was guilty of propagating | 7:24 | |
| the fundamental misconception that the gospel is quote, | 7:26 | |
| "A divine contrivance for redeeming man | 7:31 | |
| "from this present world rather than in it. | 7:34 | |
| "The half-truth that Christ came to rescue the individual, | 7:38 | |
| "not to reform society." end quote. | 7:42 | |
| 15 years later, Frank Mason North joined | 7:47 | |
| with half a dozen younger colleagues | 7:49 | |
| to organize the Methodist Federation for Social Service, | 7:51 | |
| an agency which more recently | 7:56 | |
| has drawn controversial attack, | 7:57 | |
| but which initially earned the overwhelming | 8:00 | |
| though unofficial support of the Methodist Episcopal Church. | 8:02 | |
| The following year 1908, | 8:06 | |
| members of the federation including North, | 8:09 | |
| composed the 10 point bill of rights for labor, | 8:12 | |
| which was adopted by the Methodist General Conference | 8:15 | |
| as its social creed. | 8:18 | |
| Six months after that, | 8:20 | |
| Frank Mason North took this statement, | 8:22 | |
| incorporated it into a stirring theological treatise | 8:25 | |
| on Christian social responsibility | 8:28 | |
| and presented it to the first meeting | 8:31 | |
| of the Federal Council of Churches | 8:33 | |
| as a report on the churches and modern industry. | 8:35 | |
| "They are North Larger Formulation" | 8:39 | |
| officially adopted became the social creed of the churches, | 8:42 | |
| a milestone in American Christianity. | 8:46 | |
| What distinguishes the social creed | 8:50 | |
| in spite of later distortions by friends | 8:52 | |
| and critics alike, | 8:55 | |
| is it's unequivocal affirmation | 8:56 | |
| of the supreme authority of Jesus Christ. | 8:58 | |
| Not merely to reform society, | 9:02 | |
| but to save it. | 9:04 | |
| As the preamble asserts, | 9:06 | |
| "The church becomes worthless for its higher purpose | 9:08 | |
| "when it deals with conditions | 9:12 | |
| "and forgets character, | 9:14 | |
| "relieves misery and ignores sin, | 9:16 | |
| "pleads for justice and undervalues forgiveness." | 9:20 | |
| But the reason for this concern, | 9:25 | |
| North made abundantly clear the nature | 9:26 | |
| and purpose of the gospel itself. | 9:29 | |
| "The church does not lay foundations of a social order." | 9:32 | |
| he declared, "It discloses them | 9:35 | |
| "they are already laid. | 9:38 | |
| "Nothing that concerns human life | 9:40 | |
| "can be alien to the church of Christ." end quote. | 9:43 | |
| Thus for 20 years, | 9:49 | |
| Frank Mason North moved among the panelists immigrants | 9:50 | |
| and the wealthy philanthropists of New York City. | 9:53 | |
| By his challenge to christian justice and compassion, | 9:57 | |
| by his personal character and commitment, | 10:00 | |
| he not only attracted large donations | 10:02 | |
| for the work of the city society, | 10:05 | |
| but he persuaded prominent citizens | 10:07 | |
| to visit the rescue missions, | 10:09 | |
| to kneel in prayer with the so-called Bowery Bums, | 10:11 | |
| to talk with union leaders and Tammany politicians. | 10:15 | |
| After exactly two decades in this position, | 10:20 | |
| North was elected by the Methodist General Conference | 10:23 | |
| as one of three corresponding secretaries | 10:25 | |
| in the board of foreign missions. | 10:28 | |
| Frank Mason North's pioneer vision shown as brightly | 10:32 | |
| through his missionary administration, | 10:36 | |
| as it head in the inner city | 10:38 | |
| though he was already in his sixties. | 10:39 | |
| His belief in Christian responsibility | 10:42 | |
| for world service and evangelism | 10:45 | |
| rested again on his Wesleyan Theology. | 10:47 | |
| "Men should be the instruments for saving men.", | 10:51 | |
| he declared, "In fact, man is the sole medium | 10:54 | |
| "by which the gospel can come to unsaved humanity." | 10:58 | |
| In language which strikingly anticipates | 11:03 | |
| present day mission theology, | 11:05 | |
| he asserted in a youthful sermon back in 1881, | 11:07 | |
| "The church is a mission, | 11:11 | |
| "a far more dynamic concept than simply the church | 11:14 | |
| "has a mission." | 11:18 | |
| In fact, North went on to proclaim this mission | 11:19 | |
| as an essential element | 11:22 | |
| in any genuinely religious experience. | 11:24 | |
| "The call to tell the glad tidings," he said, | 11:28 | |
| "is as surely a part of personal salvation | 11:31 | |
| "as is the forgiveness of sins." | 11:35 | |
| As Jonah discovered long long ago, | 11:39 | |
| the summons to mission is inescapable. | 11:41 | |
| The only question a faithful Christian need consider | 11:43 | |
| is where or how. | 11:46 | |
| Those of you who are familiar | 11:49 | |
| with contemporary mission writing | 11:51 | |
| in the pages of motive of D.T.Niles, | 11:52 | |
| will recognize how forward-looking | 11:55 | |
| such insights must have been 85 years ago. | 11:57 | |
| Even more remarkable, | 12:03 | |
| North's concern for the mission of the church | 12:04 | |
| was not based on any narrow 19th century pietism. | 12:06 | |
| His entire life and thought | 12:11 | |
| found its purpose and power | 12:13 | |
| in a personal experience of Jesus Christ. | 12:15 | |
| But this was an eternal and living Christ | 12:19 | |
| as relevant to the present and the future as to the past. | 12:22 | |
| There is no time here to discuss North's calm, | 12:28 | |
| reasonable acceptance of evolution, biblical criticism, | 12:31 | |
| and other controversial views, | 12:35 | |
| which were rocking many segments of the Christian community. | 12:37 | |
| Though some of these issues appeared | 12:41 | |
| at that time even more shocking | 12:42 | |
| than the socialism of Christianity. | 12:44 | |
| Significantly, Frank Mason North | 12:47 | |
| confronted the world mission of the church | 12:49 | |
| from a new theological frontier | 12:52 | |
| in his attitude toward non-Christian religions. | 12:54 | |
| Most 19th century missionaries had responded | 12:58 | |
| to Christ's call with a clear conviction | 13:01 | |
| that all those individuals of every nation, | 13:04 | |
| race and creed who did not consciously | 13:06 | |
| and openly accept the gospel, | 13:10 | |
| presumably expressed in baptism and church membership | 13:12 | |
| were doomed to eternal punishment. | 13:16 | |
| Even today, when we try to fathom the mysteries | 13:19 | |
| of salvation, many of us are perplexed | 13:22 | |
| by the seeming contradiction | 13:25 | |
| between inclusive love and exclusive judgment | 13:27 | |
| in the Christian gospel. | 13:31 | |
| North did not presume to offer logical answers, | 13:34 | |
| but he did have clear theological beliefs. | 13:38 | |
| One of these in regard to non-Christians | 13:42 | |
| was that God will not condemn them | 13:45 | |
| because they do not believe in truths they have never heard. | 13:48 | |
| Expressing the hope that such exceptions | 13:53 | |
| need not be made in a Christian land, | 13:55 | |
| he took the still more radical position that quote, | 13:58 | |
| "I care not whether they are in the church or not, | 14:01 | |
| "God requires of us only according to our light." end quote. | 14:05 | |
| In other words, the conditions for Christian salvation | 14:11 | |
| are always a conjunction of opportunity and responsibility. | 14:14 | |
| Incidentally in this connection, | 14:20 | |
| North did not hesitate to link | 14:21 | |
| with the poor degraded heathen, | 14:23 | |
| the man of prejudice habits of thought and life, | 14:26 | |
| both standing equally in need of redeeming grace. | 14:31 | |
| The mission of the church therefore, | 14:36 | |
| is not to take Christ to the man of superstition, | 14:38 | |
| whether that superstition be rooted in ignorance or bigotry | 14:42 | |
| for Christ is already there already, | 14:46 | |
| already Lord of all nations and all cultures. | 14:48 | |
| The missionary is called to witness in deed | 14:52 | |
| as well as word, | 14:55 | |
| to that Christian presence in the world. | 14:57 | |
| To take this modern theology of mission one step further, | 15:00 | |
| one might say the Christian is called | 15:03 | |
| to be that presence of Christ, | 15:05 | |
| that love made manifest. | 15:09 | |
| In China Town, in South African ghettos | 15:11 | |
| or among Hindu burning gods. | 15:15 | |
| North would have rejoiced as some of us did at the news | 15:18 | |
| that the Choir of Christ Methodist Church in New Delhi | 15:21 | |
| sung Christian hymns, | 15:25 | |
| while the body of prime minister Shastri | 15:26 | |
| lay in state last week. | 15:28 | |
| This was a unique but meaningful kind of Christian presence. | 15:31 | |
| "The work of the gospel is one." | 15:37 | |
| he told his parishioners, "Whether at out doors | 15:39 | |
| "or at the (mumbles) | 15:42 | |
| "it is not more true that missions need us | 15:44 | |
| "than that we need missions." | 15:47 | |
| The third arena of Frank Mason North statesmanship | 15:53 | |
| was the Ecumenical Movement. | 15:56 | |
| As early as the 1890s, | 15:58 | |
| North had been active in interdenominational federations | 16:00 | |
| with such noted church men as Washington Gladden | 16:04 | |
| and Josiah Strong, he was one of the founders in 1894 | 16:07 | |
| of the Open and Institutional Church League. | 16:12 | |
| The open referred to their effort | 16:15 | |
| to abolish the pure rem system | 16:17 | |
| as inefficient, undemocratic and unChristian. | 16:20 | |
| The institutional indicated and attempt | 16:25 | |
| to utilize church buildings during the week | 16:27 | |
| for social, recreational and educational programs | 16:30 | |
| of many kinds. | 16:34 | |
| Out of this league and other local and national federations | 16:36 | |
| came the planning for a Federal Council | 16:40 | |
| of the Churches of Christ in America, | 16:42 | |
| inaugurated in 1908. | 16:45 | |
| As North put it in one of his council reports quote, | 16:47 | |
| "We waive no right or privilege, | 16:51 | |
| "we break with no sound tradition, | 16:54 | |
| "we surrender no precious heritage, | 16:57 | |
| "but the church has but one inalienable right, | 17:01 | |
| "the right of finding Christ in the world of today | 17:04 | |
| "and interpreting him in all his sacrificial | 17:08 | |
| "and triumphant power to that world. | 17:11 | |
| "It is not in their history, their traditions, | 17:15 | |
| their formula, that the churches of Christ can be one. | 17:18 | |
| "It is alone in Christ himself." end quote. | 17:22 | |
| During the first quadrant AM of the council, | 17:28 | |
| Frank Mason North served as chairman | 17:30 | |
| of the Commission on the Churches | 17:33 | |
| and Social Service. | 17:34 | |
| From 1912 to 1916, | 17:36 | |
| he was chairman of the executive committee. | 17:39 | |
| And in 1916, as the war clouds spread | 17:41 | |
| from Europe to the United States, | 17:45 | |
| he was elected president of the council, | 17:47 | |
| for a crucial four year term. | 17:49 | |
| Although the churches rallied | 17:52 | |
| more enthusiastically around the war effort | 17:53 | |
| in 1917 than they have in recent years, | 17:56 | |
| North's was always the voice of restraint, | 17:59 | |
| of sympathy for the foe, of hope for world brotherhood | 18:02 | |
| and world organization beyond the horrors of war. | 18:07 | |
| Very shortly after the armistice, | 18:12 | |
| Frank Mason North journey to Europe | 18:13 | |
| on a multiple mission | 18:15 | |
| to survey opportunities for expanded Methodist work, | 18:17 | |
| to inspire and coordinate relief and rehabilitation programs | 18:21 | |
| and to deliver to the Versailles Peace Conference, | 18:26 | |
| the federal council of churches appeal | 18:29 | |
| for a league of free nations as the political expression | 18:31 | |
| of the kingdom of God on earth. | 18:36 | |
| In all the practical details of war time responsibility, | 18:40 | |
| North kept constantly in mind, the ecumenical dream. | 18:44 | |
| The underlying question quote, | 18:48 | |
| "whether the inheritance of the splendid, | 18:51 | |
| "but narrow conscience of our fathers | 18:53 | |
| "necessarily creates for us a proper barrier | 18:56 | |
| "between ourselves and Christians of another name, | 19:00 | |
| "whether after all the essentials in which we are all one, | 19:03 | |
| "if they are really set on fire, | 19:07 | |
| "may not burn the barriers away | 19:10 | |
| "and give us a common life in the fellowship | 19:12 | |
| of our Lord Jesus Christ." end quote. | 19:15 | |
| Two days before his 70th birthday, | 19:20 | |
| Frank Mason North turned over the presidency | 19:23 | |
| of the Federal Council of Churches | 19:25 | |
| to another ecumenical statesman, Robert Spear. | 19:28 | |
| In his valedictory, North offered this assurance | 19:32 | |
| to those who feared or doubted the Federal Council, | 19:35 | |
| "The good of all must come not by the negation, | 19:39 | |
| "but by the affirmation of the values of each. | 19:44 | |
| "It is a worthy aim equally appropriate | 19:48 | |
| "for the ecumenical movement today." | 19:51 | |
| For four years more, North continued to direct | 19:55 | |
| the Methodist Board of Missions | 19:58 | |
| and retained an advisory capacity still longer. | 19:59 | |
| In the last decade before his death in 1935 | 20:03 | |
| at the age of 85, | 20:06 | |
| he taught missions of Drew University, | 20:08 | |
| began a history of Methodist missions | 20:11 | |
| and continued to serve actively | 20:13 | |
| on various boards and agencies. | 20:15 | |
| In his 83rd year, he presented to The Federal Council, | 20:18 | |
| a revised social creative. | 20:21 | |
| This committee report included | 20:24 | |
| among progressive new provisions | 20:26 | |
| just prior to Franklin Roosevelt's new deal, | 20:28 | |
| freedom to dispense birth control information, | 20:33 | |
| recognition of broader grounds for divorce, | 20:36 | |
| wider and fairer distribution of wealth, | 20:40 | |
| social insurance and social control of the economic process. | 20:44 | |
| What message does Frank Mason North have for us | 20:52 | |
| 30 years after his death? | 20:55 | |
| He was not a systematic theologian | 20:57 | |
| though he had conscious and conscientious reasons | 20:59 | |
| for avoiding dogmatic controversy. | 21:02 | |
| First, that beyond the simple faith in Christ, | 21:05 | |
| which is basic to salvation, | 21:08 | |
| God's ways are mysteries | 21:10 | |
| which man cannot presume to fathom. | 21:12 | |
| Second, that man's freedom of thought | 21:15 | |
| and responsibility of action are essential to true religion. | 21:18 | |
| Third, the theological speculation and debate | 21:23 | |
| may divert Christians from their central purpose | 21:27 | |
| of active service and neighbor love. | 21:30 | |
| Nevertheless, the basic tenant of North's faith | 21:35 | |
| was human freedom to choose or to reject, | 21:38 | |
| to give or to get, to follow or to disobey. | 21:41 | |
| For Frank Mason North, Jesus could not be merely historical | 21:46 | |
| or merely an ideal. | 21:51 | |
| "We need to feel that Christ is this morning | 21:53 | |
| "an actual being." he said, | 21:56 | |
| "A personality as truly as you and I are | 21:58 | |
| "that he thinks, feels, perceives. | 22:01 | |
| "With this kind of a living Lord, | 22:05 | |
| "man could and should cooperate, | 22:07 | |
| "but are never compelled. | 22:09 | |
| "He could not save us without our consent." | 22:13 | |
| North asserted strongly, "But he could die for us | 22:16 | |
| "and by that death prove to us the Father's love. | 22:20 | |
| "Yet our stubbornness denial or rejection | 22:26 | |
| cannot change the reality of God and his love." | 22:29 | |
| To the death of God Theologian North would probably say, | 22:34 | |
| as he did in 1879, "Walk, if you choose in your own shadow, | 22:37 | |
| "hide yourselves, you cannot hide the sun. | 22:43 | |
| "Burrow into your rocky caves, the sun is no less shining. | 22:47 | |
| "Hurry into your idle temples | 22:52 | |
| "and peer through the stained windows of your superstition | 22:53 | |
| "and yet the sun is risen." | 22:57 | |
| On one hand Frank Mason North believed firmly | 23:02 | |
| in justification by faith. | 23:05 | |
| He was equally convinced that faith without works is dead. | 23:08 | |
| "Conversions, which still leave man liars, cheats, covetous, | 23:14 | |
| "worldly minded are not counted in the kingdom of God." | 23:19 | |
| he declared. | 23:23 | |
| Nor did he see any need for an opposition | 23:24 | |
| between faith and reason. | 23:26 | |
| "We need a Christian revival of natural religion." | 23:28 | |
| he suggested early in his ministry. | 23:32 | |
| So certain was he that God's power | 23:34 | |
| and purpose extended to all mankind | 23:36 | |
| that he insisted quote, "Christ is the savior | 23:39 | |
| "of all who are saved, whether they have ever heard of him | 23:43 | |
| "in this life or not. | 23:48 | |
| "It is in the nature of God to deal with every soul, | 23:50 | |
| "both righteously and the mercifully." end quote. | 23:54 | |
| Repeatedly at every stage in his career, | 24:00 | |
| North rejected any conflict between science and religion, | 24:03 | |
| often ridiculing those who feared | 24:07 | |
| and avoided scientific hypotheses, | 24:09 | |
| he maintained that science could explain the how of nature, | 24:11 | |
| but not the why, | 24:16 | |
| the laws, but not the cause. | 24:18 | |
| One cannot leave the thought of Frank Mason North | 24:23 | |
| without coming back to the social gospel | 24:25 | |
| though he is himself seldom, if ever used that term. | 24:28 | |
| He believed thoroughly that the church has an obligation | 24:32 | |
| to make moral judgments in society | 24:35 | |
| and to inspire its members to responsible citizenship. | 24:38 | |
| "It is neither socialism nor paternalism," | 24:43 | |
| he wrote in 1898, "for the Christian body | 24:46 | |
| "to demand of government just provision | 24:50 | |
| "for the physical and social welfare of the people | 24:53 | |
| "whom in God's name, it governs." | 24:57 | |
| In one of his most powerful addresses, | 25:01 | |
| he declared that the mission of Jesus was quote, | 25:03 | |
| "Not the satisfaction of the outrage justice of God, | 25:07 | |
| "not to select from humanity some the chosen spirits | 25:12 | |
| "for a new Commonwealth at the skies, | 25:15 | |
| "not do upbuild upon the earth an institution | 25:19 | |
| "to conserve his true, | 25:22 | |
| "but a mission to humanity, to establish a kingdom of God | 25:25 | |
| "that is, the reign of God in human hearts | 25:31 | |
| "and so in human life and institutions." end quote. | 25:34 | |
| If that is the true meaning of salvation, | 25:40 | |
| it is therefore the Christian mission in the world. | 25:43 | |
| Through this mission, Frank Mason North gave himself | 25:48 | |
| through a long lifetime. | 25:51 | |
| In his pastoral ministry, in his work in urban slums | 25:53 | |
| and settlement houses, in directing the world outreach | 25:56 | |
| of the church | 25:59 | |
| and strengthening the bonds of Christian unity. | 26:01 | |
| It may be an oversimplification, | 26:04 | |
| but it is not inaccurate to say that, | 26:07 | |
| while older Rauschenbusch | 26:10 | |
| taught the social gospel in Rochester Seminary, | 26:11 | |
| while Washington Gladden preached it in Columbus, Ohio, | 26:15 | |
| Frank Mason North practiced it on the sidewalks of New York. | 26:19 | |
| But it is safe to predict that when all of his social | 26:25 | |
| and institutional and ecumenical achievements are forgotten, | 26:28 | |
| Christians of many races and creeds | 26:32 | |
| will be singing the greatest of North's poems | 26:35 | |
| appropriately entitled "A Prayer for the Multitudes." | 26:38 | |
| For in that hymn, which we have sung this morning | 26:43 | |
| lies the central affirmation of his faith | 26:46 | |
| and perhaps of yours and mine. | 26:49 | |
| That behind our human concern for wretchedness and need, | 26:53 | |
| for famish souls and burden toil, | 26:58 | |
| stands the compassion of the son of God, | 27:01 | |
| who is also son of man. | 27:04 | |
| The cup of water is not enough | 27:08 | |
| unless it helps man to see his grace, | 27:11 | |
| the welfare programs, the civil rights, | 27:16 | |
| the ministries of teaching and healing | 27:19 | |
| all are essential expressions of Christ's mission. | 27:22 | |
| But we fail in our task if through them, | 27:28 | |
| we do not help these multitudes | 27:32 | |
| to see the sweet compassion of his face. | 27:35 | |
| Let us pray. | 27:41 | |
| Oh master from the mountain side, | 27:49 | |
| make haste to heal these hearts of pain, | 27:51 | |
| among these restless throngs abide, | 27:54 | |
| oh, tread the city's streets again, | 27:58 | |
| till sons of men shall learn Thy love | 28:01 | |
| and follow where Thy feet have trod | 28:04 | |
| till glorious from Thy Heaven above | 28:08 | |
| shall come the city of our God, | 28:11 | |
| may grace, mercy, and peace guide all that you do and are | 28:16 | |
| now and forever more. | 28:22 | |
| (congregation singing) | 28:30 |