"Christ Himself Is Christianity"
In his sermon titled “Christ Himself Is Christianity” published in 1946, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick described the world then and compared it to the world of the writer of Hebrews:

This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race, facing a confused world, man's wild behavior dangerously out of control. No neat formula from anywhere can solve our problems or allay our anxiety, but today we turn to one man in the New Testament who lived in an age not unlike our own, and who carried on with hope and confidence. He wrote the letter to the Hebrews. In his time, too, the world was shaken... Confusions reigned, and as for his own people, only a few years before he wrote, Jerusalem had been laid waste, the Holy Land desolate, its population slain or scattered. Over his world, too, man had not been able to establish intelligent, ethical control.

Fosdick could have been describing the time we are living through now. Humanity has made so much progress in all fields of endeavor over the past 20 centuries, but we still do not have “intelligent, ethical control.” This reality was on full display during the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. The very fiber of our nation was tested last Wednesday and will be tested still in our response to the attack. I believe the laws of our land will prevail and those who violated the laws will be brought to justice to pay the penalty for their crimes. This is how we can begin once again to exercise intelligent, ethical control.

The mob violence last week illustrated the truth that individuals capable of moral action easily lose their moral capacity in groups. In his book Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr observed: “In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships.” One reason for this is the “collective egoism, compounded of the egoistic impulses of individuals, which achieve a more vivid expression and a more cumulative effect when they are united in a common impulse than when they express themselves separately and discreetly.” To put that in terms my parents taught me, MIND THE COMPANY YOU KEEP!

In view of our societal failure at intelligent, ethical control, what is our recourse? Fosdick states in his sermon: “and in that situation, the writer of Hebrews says: “as it is, we do not yet see all things controlled by man; What we do see is Jesus” (Hebrews 2:8b-9). Fosdick does not view Jesus as an easy answer to our confused world or present him as “chiefly a beautiful Ideal.” Rather, the coming of Jesus was “the emergence of a prophetic fact that would outlast things that withstood it.” He says: “I am inviting you to see Christ, his revelation of God, his basic principles, his way of life, his spirit and qualities, and so seeing him, to say, he is the answer! Cannot we see whither the contrary answers are plunging the whole world now? He is the answer! That is the everlasting truth!”

Christ is no easy answer to the problems we face. Following him is hard! You who dare to follow him, who live by his principles, his way of life, and seek to embody his spirit and qualities, you are the moral leaders we need who will guide us on the path of love.

Yours in Christ,

Hughey