From the standpoint of practical, or non-academic problems, however, the higher critics thus far occupy virtually the same ground as their conservative, orthodox predecessors and colleagues. For while the new school replaces the legal by the moral view of religion, it stands alongside the old school in treating redemption as an individual or personal matter. The new school has recovered the moral standpoint of Jesus and the prophets; but thus far, on the whole, it moves within the terms of individualism as a gospel sufficient for the salvation of the world. The new and the old schools have been parted by their intellectual perceptions, but not by any difference of practical emphasis. The old school, in spite of its legalism and supernaturalism, always viewed the moral regeneration of the individual as an incident of the redemptive process; and up to the present time, the new school with a few exceptions, has merely banished legalism from theology, and put moral regeneration to the front as the essential feature of redemption.

The struggle to establish the critical method has prevented the new school from realizing the incompleteness of its work. The scientific discovery of the moral character of the Bible and its religion does not have the finality that most critics have assumed. Although it throws light upon older problems regarding the nature and composition of the Bible, it brings to view another problem in which the Bible is linked up with the moving forces of all history. The conclusions to which we are now advancing will be indicated in the final chapter. But before turning to these conclusions, the general argument relates itself to another fact of large and epoch-making importance in social history. While this fact is a commonplace, its connection with the problem before us is not often discussed.

CHAPTER XXXVI

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Modern society dissolves the ancient bonds between politics and religion. Another sociological fact of large importance now claims our attention. We have seen that among all primitive and heathen peoples, religion and politics are intimately connected. Religion is a positive, legal bond, holding social groups together. Whoever does not worship the gods and practice the ceremonies of a given group is an alien to that group. It was under the dominance of this view of life, which we have called "the church-and-state régime," that all ancient civilization existed. When we pause to recall the immemorial connection between religious and political matters, the modern divorce of Church and State appears not only sudden, but almost miraculous. While the religion of the Bible came into being under the church-and-state system, and was entangled with that system for thousands of years, it now exists in the more progressive part of modern civilization without the support of external authority; and the principle of the separation of Church and State tends constantly to spread.

There are many good and sufficient reasons for this great social revolution; but we shall not inquire into them. The fact itself is before us. The "disestablishment" of religion is complete, for instance, in the United States, where the national constitution forbids Congress to make any law respecting the establishment of religion. Although England has an "established" church, the legal recognition of "nonconformity," and the right of "dissenters" to vote, to sit in Parliament, and to be ministers of the Crown, completely neutralize the original principle of state-religion. The same result has been attained in other Christian countries, such as Germany and France,

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by the passage of laws appropriate to the various localities. The general fact, then, comes before us that in modern society religion either is, or tends to be, no longer a direct political and economic issue. The separation of Church and State is now a commonplace; and there is difficulty in picturing the former condition of things to a modern audience. The modern layman reads the Bible with the impression that David, and Isaiah, and Jesus, and Paul acted and spoke and thought in an atmosphere of religious toleration, when, as a matter of history, the Bible can be interpreted only in view of the church-and-state system. Bearing sharply in mind the separation of religious and political issues, we turn to the modern social awakening as the final topic in our study.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE MODERN SOCIAL AWAKENING

The present age is marked by a new interest in the social problem. The influences that we have been tracing in our study of modern religious history have now converged in the production of a crisis through which society is passing into a new epoch. The forces leading to the present crisis are indicated by the rise of scientific Bible-study, the separation of Church and State, and the great social awakening. The development of society is very complex; and the present age, like all others, is moved by the pressure of many forces. But an epoch always gets a distinctive character from the problems that crowd themselves into the center of its attention. In this way, the twentieth century is more and more becoming the age of the social problem. What is the practical bearing of sociological Bible-study upon the present crisis? Does this line of inquiry give results of any value in reference to the social problems now coming up for attention? A number of answers to this question disclose themselves.

Sociological study of the Bible promotes understanding of the social problem, and leads to a social habit of thought.-We all tend to ignore "society," and to discount its existence. We accept the fact of society like the air we breathe. It is an important condition of life; yet we commonly think as little about it as we do about the atmosphere. We think in terms of the individual persons with whom we come in contact. In forming judgments about the merits of any particular question, such as a labor strike, a dynamite outrage, or the rise in the cost of living, our first and chief impulse is to blame somebody. We find the "causes" of problems in the bad habits of certain people; and we undertake to solve problems

merely by reforming individuals. This tendency is called "individualism;" and it has so much truth in it that it will always be a factor in human thought. Nevertheless, when individualism is uncorrected by a wider vision of human problems, it leads to conclusions and results of limited value.

The world is now learning, through much labor and sorrow, that human problems are caused, not only by the bad will of individuals, but by defective social arrangements. Fundamentally, this is the meaning of the present "social" awakening. The fact of "society," as distinct from "the individual,” is forcing itself into the field of human vision as never before. The "social consciousness" is rapidly growing into power. Sociological study of the Bible, through its appeal to commonplace interests in religion and economics, helps to give expression to the new social spirit. As the student "observes the evolution of political and social life in Bible times and sees the consequent evolution of moral and religious ideals, it becomes perfectly natural for him to employ in the attempt to understand the life of his own day and generation those very principles which have proved to be fruitful in the understanding of the Bible." The study of the Bible, then, is no mere delving into the dust of antiquity; it is a matter of modern interest. When we follow out the development of Bible religion, we are studying the origin of ideas that live in the civilization around us. The religion of the Christian world is, to a large extent, a projection of the life of ancient Israel across the intervening ages into modern times.

Since individualism ignores the "social group," it has done little toward a real solution of the world's problems; and it is now going into partial eclipse. Representing an extreme tendency of the human mind, it is at length confronted by the opposite extreme. A new philosophy is now spreading rapidly among all classes. This new view of human problems 1 Biblical World (Chicago), October, 1909, p. 222. Editorial.