The New Man for Our Time - Continued
We tend to apply these prophetic words to the clash between ideological groupings of nations, but they can be applied, with almost equal appropriateness, to our own citizenry.
The most significant nonreligious division in our nation today is between those who respect and those who reject what, for want of a better term, is called the Protestant ethic. Those who accept this ethic are convinced that a man's personal conduct is important. They honor the paying of debts, fidelity to promises, and an honest day's work. Unfortunately, it is true that some of the people who live and work by this standard have insufficient sympathy for the poor, including those who are on welfare rolls. "I worked to get where I am. Why can't they?" is frequently heard.
On the other side of a deep cultural chasm are the representatives of what some call a new morality. According to this morality, it is primarily concern for the poor and for the ending of war that counts. Accordingly, a man of liberal political tendencies may neglect marital fidelity and yet be pardoned. Some, who are tolerant of infidelity and drunkenness, are not equally tolerant of participation in war. For one part of our population, the key word is honesty; for another part, the key word is compassion.
This gap in our culture is not primarily just a generation gap, as it is not a matter of geography. The contrast is not between urban and rural America; with the wide distribution of television, there is no rural America any more. In some ways, particularly in political division, the parties in question are becoming more isolated from each other, rather than less so. As we read the columns of the commentators, it is often easy to see which of the two ethics is represented. In the light of such a secular division, it is not really very surprising that there should be a serious division in the churches as well.
The social gospel, as preached by Washington Gladden and his associates in the nineteenth century, has been with us a long time. It is in part an application of some of the Christian home schoolings of Jesus and in part a culmination of the emphasis of the greatest of the prophets of Israel. The present mood was already envisaged by Isaiah when he put stinging words into the mouth of God: "Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me" (1:13).