PART I
Modern man's greatest problem today is man! "Fitzpatrick, the great cartoonist of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has expressed this feeling in a strong, simple drawing. He shows a vast bomb with a ferocious warhead leaning against a wall, beside an equally tall and solid question mark. Two little men in the foreground are looking up at the huge monoliths. The bomb is labeled 'How to kill everybody,' and the other 'How to live with everybody.' ''—STEWART CHASE, The Proper Study of Mankind, pp. 15, 16.
And that is the world's and also the church's greatest and most acute problem —how to live together!
By general analysis we can deduce the statement that we shall never be able to live together as a world until we have learned to live together as individuals. But where do we go from here? Modern inventions have brought the world, with its fever-hot tensions, so close together that almost everybody knows everybody else's business: national, international, and personal. And the question arises: Do we, as Christian workers, know how to live the kind of life that this Atomic Age requires? Are we as a denomination working and living together in ever-growing love and fellowship? Or do we shun almost entirely the social gospel? Are our worker and family relationships good human relationships? Or are we too often small, mean, uncharitable, hardhearted, selfish, unsympathetic, and unkind?
Let Us Take a Look
We all know that there are many among us who are really converted, and who are the epitome of human kindness—but what about the rest of us? Let us take a look:
SCENE I: We see a conference president and a treasurer both dismissed because they cannot get along with each other. Why?
SCENE II: A worker is continually suspicious of his conference president—feels the president "has it in for him." Why?
SCENE III: A school board is in session. There are some members who are very rebellious and hostile, to the point that almost every meeting is a knockdown, drag-out affair. Why?
SCENE IV: A teacher is not rehired in one of our colleges, and he is not told the reasons. He is left without employment, although some people believe him to be a very good teacher. Why?
SCENE V: A pastor is having trouble with his church board. The pastor uses some methods in his leadership that stir up enmity and result in a disruption of church unity. A petition is circulated to accomplish the removal of the pastor. Why?
SCENE VI: A young missionary family feels beaten, bruised, and bleeding—yes, almost disconsolate. The mission director has treated the worker harshly, has been inconsiderate; in fact, the worker hardly feels that he can call his soul his own.
He has not been able to use his own ideas, and when seeming mistakes are made the director is cruel and heartless. Why?
SCENE VII: The colporteurs in ___ do not feel that they are treated fairly. Why?
And so we might go on; scene after scene comes to mind—scenes in our institutions, in our churches—yes, and in our homes. These show that we are not living together as we ought, and as God desires that we should. Certainly "the inhumanity of man toward man is our greatest sin."—The Ministry of Healing, p. 163. Does it ever occur to us, brethren, that the church needs to inaugurate a global program based upon the words of the Master: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34)? If we love as He loved, we shall be able to live as He lived—and live together.
Christ and Human Relations
"Just after the first World War John T. McCutcheon had a cartoon showing a group of men about a table. At the head of the table was the President, or the Premier. Other men sat at their places with their portfolios at the base of their chairs. One of them was the traditional figure of Mars, and on his portfolio was written 'Secretary of War.' Opposite him was the traditional figure of Jesus. On his portfolio were the words 'Secretary of Human Relations.' Underneath the cartoon was the statement 'In what Cabinet or at what Council Table would He have a portfolio?' "—WILLIAM K. ANDERSON, ed., The Minister and Human Relations, p. 9.
True it is that the human-relations phase of His work has been sadly neglected by us. Human relations have become so strained that they certainly need a secretary to handle them. The minister of the gospel especially needs to be an expert in human relations. Jesus, the great Human Relations Secretary, came to this earth to restore good human relations. He knows what is in man, and came here to bring peace" and "good will toward men" (Luke 2:14). When His disciples came to the place where they could dwell together in unity, Christ sent them to the ends of the earth on a divine love and good-will mission, fitting them for their work with a Pentecostal outpouring of His own Spirit. And when we fulfill the same simple requirements that the early disciples did, we too shall be fitted for our good-humanrelations mission.
It may surprise some of us to know that science has now come to our aid in this field. In fact, a new science is being born, called precisely this: the science of human relations. Already a number of books have been written on the subject, and some of them are excellent. But the science is young and needs leadership. And who, as a people, could be better prepared to give that leadership than the Seventh-day Adventist organization? We have an untold wealth of information and instruction in the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy that is only waiting to be gathered into manuals of instruction. At our denominational headquarters in Washington a noble beginning has been made. Classes are being given in the SDA Theological Seminary, and a course in Youth Problems with some material along this line is taught in the Home Study Institute on the secondary level. This is a beginning, but it is not enough. A subject as vital as this surely needs greater emphasis. It must be made appealing to our ministers, our teachers, our mothers and fathers, and the children in our homes. How that can be done we will discuss later.
(Concluded next month)
