of service. Not the sect, but the community,
will be the nucleus of integration. We will have groupings not of
Methodist churches, and Baptist churches, and Unitarian churches, to
remind the world of ancient differences, but of New York churches,
and Boston churches, and San Francisco churches, to teach the world of
present needs and future hopes. Our churches will be related as the
wards in a city are related, or the cities in a state, or the states in the
nation. We shall be all Christians together, as we are all Americans
together. We shall have different religious ideas as we have different
political ideas. But we shall be organized religiously, as well as
politically, in a single community. Our churches, like our schools, will
be the possession, and the resort, of all!
This vision of the church as a community, or civic centre, is the logical
application of socialized religion. It is no accident that together these
two things have captured my life. For a moment, just as the idea of the
social question set me thinking of leaving the church altogether, so this
idea of the community church set me thinking of leaving this church
and organizing in this city an independent religious movement. Indeed,
this latter thought has been something more than a [13] momentary
temptation. To have a church has been with me from the beginning a
necessity. To have a church of the new community order has become a
great desire. Last spring I seriously considered presenting to you my
resignation, that I might enter upon the fulfillment of this hope. Last
summer I pretty definitely made up my mind to lay this problem and
prospect before you, as soon as peace should come, and the distractions
of war be gone. Then, at the very moment when peace came, as though
to anticipate and thus forestall my decision, there came the call from
Chicago.
Most of you know what Abraham Lincoln Centre is, and many of you
by what pioneer devotion this church of the future was fashioned out of
a traditional church of the past. It is not perfect; in some ways it is
already itself became traditional again. But it stands today as a more
complete embodiment of what I feel a modern church should be than
any other institution of which I know in America. The invitation from
the people seemed to me an instant bestowal of all for which I seek. I
do not think I could have resisted this call to service, had it not been for
your rightful claims of loyalty and affection, and my own reluctance to
abandon the project of accomplishing my desires in New York. These
considerations made me hesitate--and while I hesitated, I thought. Why
should I turn elsewhere for the fulfillment of hopes which may be as
surely if not as swiftly realized here? Why should I undertake to build
an independent church in this city, or accept the leadership of a church
however remarkably developed in Chicago, when the Church of the
Messiah, pledged to freedom, and long committed to the idea of
progress, lies ready to my hand? Why should I seek the easy
inheritance of another man's completed work, and thus avoid the hard
labor of building an institution of my own, which, for that reason alone,
would be moulded nearer to my heart's desire? Above all, why should I
assume that my people who have loved and sustained me these dozen
years, are unwilling to move on with me in comradeship [14] to the
new pathways of the new world which we have entered, or by what
right make decision involving my future ministry here or elsewhere,
without taking them fully into my confidence and searching the utmost
temper of their minds? These were the questions which came to me
promptly on the receipt of the Chicago call. Should I undertake to
organize an independent church in New York, should I go to Chicago
as minister of All Souls' Church and Director of Abraham Lincoln
Centre, should I stay here as minister of this Church of the
Messiah--this was my problem. I could not solve it, with fairness to
myself or to you, until you had spoken. Hence, the meeting of last
Monday night, called by the helpful co-operation of the Board of
Trustees, and attended largely by our people.
In addressing this meeting, I stated in some detail the future conditions
of church work which I proposed to establish or to find. I had intended
originally not to make these public, at least all at once; but rumor has
been busy, and exact information, for purposes of correction, if nothing
more, has now become essential.
First of all, therefore, may I say that I made announcement to this
meeting, as
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