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DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH
R. W. FRANK
McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois
"We are at the cross-ways and progress is not inevitable."
This arresting statement occurs in the Preface to a remarkable
book on Political Ideals by C. Delisle Burns. He is persuaded
that democracy and a League of Nations are the only alterna-
tives to preparation for more civilized wars, the passions of
the mob, and social chaos. The Christian church, too, is at
the cross-ways. Whether it shall be discarded as outworn
machinery or be refashioned to function creatively in the
socialization and spiritualization of a new human order is no
mere academic or even ecclesiastical problem. It is a social
problem with vital implications for the future career of society.
The purpose of this article will be to analyze the r61e of the
church in our democracy with a suggested reorganization of
that institution to fulfil its function.
Democracy and science are the two most significant muta-
tions of social evolution today. They go hand in hand. We
are concerned principally with democracy in this article, yet
let us remember that science is the intellectual counterpart
of modern democracy. Both had their small beginnings in a
remote past. But their rapid expansion and development in
modern life warrant the use of the mutation figure. They
have come upon us so suddenly that we have been taken
unawares and have scarcely had time to adjust outselves to
them.
Democracy is not yet achieved. It lies in the future. It
is an ideal. "It is the ideal of those who desire a society of
interdependent groups so organized that every man shall have
equal opportunity to develop what is finest in him." It has
528
DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH 529
arisen from the perception that the social organization of
today does not allow most men to develop what is finest in
them. In this sense democracy has not arrived, but is on the
way. It is one of those flying goals that seem within our
reach, but which we never quite overtake. We trust it is the
pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that shall
lead us into a promised land of social order, harmony, and
peace.
That is one aspect upon which we wish to dwell more
emphatically. Democracy seems to be as much a process as
an organization. It is a movement as well as a state of society.
This is the dynamic rather than the static view of democracy.
Stated more technically, democracy is that social process
which permits and encourages both individual differentiation
and social integration. It is the process which provides for
the fullest, richest, freest individualization consonant with
the most complete socialization. As Mr. Burns says, "Our
Utopias are not now fixed and eternal situations, but con-
tinually developing organizations of life." Democracy, there-
fore, seeks the harmonious coadaptation and growth of both
individualism and mutualism. It is that progressively changing
organization of society in which the personalities of all members
reach their ripest development through constant adjustment
to and interaction with one another.
Thus defined, democracy is seen to mean more than the
rule of "the undistinguished and ignorant 'demos' " in politics.
It is not a mere counting of heads, or the sovereignty of the
people. These are but the more or less imperfect methods
and techniques of democracy as it is organized in society
today. Democracy is the latest and most rational phase of
the social process as it has developed among human beings.
It must be made clear at this point that this form of associa-
tion we call democratic is not superimposed upon people from
without. It cannot, by the very nature of the case, be foisted
upon a group. It is rather the latest step in the evolution
530 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
of group association. It must be consciously initiated, sus-
tained, and guided by the group. Every member of the group
must voluntarily and consciously participate in the further
functioning of this process. This means that a certain degree
of education is necessary in the members of the group. The
power to reason and moral responsibility are prerequisites.
There cannot be a democracy among animal or low human
groups. Only those groups capable of consciously directing
the evolutionary process can be progressively democratic.
Thus education is ever the central and crucial problem for
democracy. It has been said that the ideal of education in the
United States is that each generation shall stand on the
shoulders of the preceding generation. This is not only the
ideal, but the method, of a democracy. No individual can
be either a slave or a spectator here. Although he may occupy
a subordinate position, each is a creative factor and force
in the democratic process. Hence everyone must be capable
of seeing his relation and function in the whole and must have
developed a sense of obligation for the movement and success
of the process.
Democracy does not repudiate all authority. It substitutes
for the self-constituted authority of a minority or a vested
interest, however, the freely chosen authority of the expert.
And even the expert is subject to the constant criticism and
recall of his constituency. More than any other organization
or process, it gives recognition to real distinctions of intellect
and character. "Democracy has been well said to be an
hypothesis that all men are equal, which hypothesis we make
in order to discover who are best; for it is only by giving equal
opportunity that distinctions of intellect and character are
made to appear." One of the principal functions of education,
therefore, is not only to lift the level of intelligence and develop
moral and social attitudes in the masses, but it is to grow
experts, to provide specialists — in a word, to train leaders to
guide the democratic process.
DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH 531
This may have seemed to be a highly attenuated and
abstract treatment of democracy. But such a treatment is
necessary. Democracy is too frequently identified with a
specific organization of society, or confused with certain social
ideals such as justice, equality, and the like. If this statement
of what democracy means is valid, we see that it is the latest
phase of the human social process. It is both organization
and process, and if it be not paradoxical, it is an ideal. It
stands for that method of development whereby the individual
and the group reach their maximum of growth through mental
interaction that is voluntary and rational. Its method is two-
fold. The principal technique of democracy is education.
Following education, its method of development is through
consciously trained and selected leaders. This in brief is the
democratic process.
The church, as it stands today, is an institution which
democracy has inherited. Organized in a past when authority
was the ruling force in society and the form of social organiza-
tion was a hierarchy, the church seems to be somewhat of
an anomaly in modern life. In many quarters it represents
medievalism stranded in the rising tide of democracy. The
Roman Catholic branch of the church is still rigidly organized
on the hierarchical and autocratic basis. Protestantism has
cut loose from its mother-institution, yet even here we find the
constant appeal to authority and a striving to impose a more
recent hierarchical form upon society. The polity of some
Protestant churches is avowedly democratic. The theology
of most of them is conservative, traditional, and unadapted
to the expanding stream of democracy. In a process where
the function of religion should be to enhance and reinforce
the highest ethical values with emotion, symbolism, and
idealism, to socialize human attitudes and moralize human
motives, one church is content to institutionalize its members
and make blind devotees of them, the other would pluck
individuals here and there from a lost world, like brands from
532 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
the burning, and save them for a postmortem bliss of question-
able ethical character. These may be exaggerated pictures,
but for the main the trend has been, in one branch of the
church, toward a mechanical ecclesiasticism and, in the other
branch, toward selfish individualism. Neither fulfils its func-
tion in a democratic society.
There may be controversy over that function. Indeed,
that is the stage at which the churches find themselves today.
There is a growing body of religiously minded people who
do not think it is the business of the church either to call us
back to medievalism or to disinfect us for the hygienic post-
mortem society. Christianity means more to them than
ecclesiastical regularity or creedal conformity. It would seem
that the church should permeate the democratic process with
passionate religious fervor for the highest ethical and social
ideals. It should reinforce the democratic process with the
religious motive. It should cultivate social attitudes, pro-
mote social values, and observe for the future what is vital
in the religious tradition of the past. It should neglect
neither the individual nor the group, but should seek to co-
ordinate them and perfect them. The otherworldly motive
should be supplemented by a burning enthusiasm for the
improvement and amelioration of this world. Nothing short
of the redemption of the social order from all its vices, diseases,
malformations, and maladjustments should be the goal of the
church, and its primary function should be to incite and then
enlist men to the consummation of this task. Education will
be the principal method. And this education will not be a
cognitive affair, a pouring in and stamping in of information.
It will be more affective and conative than in the past, a
building up of social attitudes, desires, and habits, a moraliza-
tion of the individual.
This will require a reorganization and redirection of activi-
ties. The basis for entrance into the churches in the past has
been creedal. And once within the church, the chief duties
DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH 533
of the member were to observe certain rites and passively
enjoy in anticipation his future security. Now there is a
fundamental fallacy in the creedal basis of the church. Creeds
are made to exclude, not to include. It is doubtful whether
a creed can be constructed so liberal that all or any considerable
portion of a community will subscribe to it. Creeds are
usually the majority's voice in debatable issues and as such
tend to split groups rather than to integrate them. Should
not the basis of church membership be an intelligent willing-
ness to co-operate in the church's enterprise rather than a
submissive acceptance of ecclesiastical dogma ? Is not loyalty
to the humanitarian purposes of Christianity the more excellent
and more just test of fitness for church membership ? Once
within the church, the members should be under obligation
to promote the service of the church to its community group.
The highest social values in the local community should be
given a religious sanction by the church as those values emerge
in the democratic process. The membership of the church
should be the animated nucleus in the promotion of the
salutary community interests, the moral yeast in an otherwise
unleavened mass.
The church in a democracy will not require one peculiar
type of religious experience as the prerequisite to membership.
In the past the Protestant church has sought to standardize
the emotional conversion experience and make that essential.
In a democratic society the church should allow free play for
individuality in religious growth. It will not seek to press all
persons into the same mold or stamp them with a certified
experience. It will respect variation and individuality so
long as fundamental loyalty to its major motives hold sway
in the life. Religion, moreover, is not something to be experi-
enced once and for all. It is itself a growing experience of
fellowship and service with God and man. It may express
itself in a variety of ways, but to be vital in a democracy it
must assuredly issue in some form of socially useful service.
534 TEE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
Spontaneity and individuality in religious experience and
growth ought to be prized by the church functioning in a
democracy.
Dogma and doctrine will not be venerated because of their
antiquity or origin in the sacred literatures of the past. They
will deserve the respect of people only as they are instrumental
to more harmonious and richer forms of human association.
The teaching of such churches will not consist of ex cathedra
utterances upon biblical interpretations and ecclesiastical
formulas. It will be a co-operative working-out of specific
and immediate problems in the lives of pupils in which both
teacher and pupil participate. The solutions to these problems
will be reached in the light and by the aid of the moving ethical
and social ideals, standards, and values of the community.
The policies and organization of the church will be deter-
mined democratically. If this change could be accomplished
in this generation a great step would have been taken. At
present the overhead organization tends to perpetuate itself
even in the most democratic of Protestant bodies. New and
original leadership is excluded too frequently. Only the
indoctrinated "machine" men are promoted. This is be-
coming less and less true, however. The strait-jacket of
orthodoxy is no longer the only style which ecclesiastical
leaders may wear. More and more variation, originality,
and individuality will be welcomed, as these tend to enrich
the life and service of the group.
Thus we have defined democracy as a dynamic process of
human social evolution brought about by the conscious
and voluntary participation and interaction of all individuals
of the group, in which the goal is the most complete individua-
tion in the richest social organization. Education and expert
leadership are the chief methods of furthering this process.
Institutions represent, more or less, nuclei of experts who are
attacking specific problems, obstructions, and maladjustments
which occur in this onward process.
DEMOCRACY AND THE CHURCH 535
The church has been organized in the past on the authori-
tarian and hierarchical basis. Admission came through sub-
mission to a standardized creed or experience. Its function
was an otherworldly salvation. It sought to redeem indi-
viduals out of the group. To function in the democracy of
today the church must reorganize and redirect its activities.
It must find the ideals, standards, and values as they emerge
in the social process which are of highest utility to the group
and enhance and reinforce these with the religious sanction,
motive, and fervor. It will seek to build up social and moral
attitudes in the entire community. Free play will be given
for originality and individuality in religious experience and
in the expression of that experience. Its great objective
will be the redemption of the group rather than of the lone
individual. 'But the redemption and social regeneration of
the individual will ever be one of the methods of group regenera-
tion. All individuals who have the social passion will be
members of this church. Its immediate objectives will be in
its own community. But it will also orient itself to the world-
community of which, increasingly, we are an effective part.
Thus we shall have the church fulfilling its function in a
democracy. So long as standards, ideals, and values are the
moving dynamic forces in society, so long as human aspirations
reach out toward an unseen, unrealized yet constraining goal,
so long as the great facts of mystery, death, and imperfection
abide, man will have a religion. In a democracy the religious
spirit should permeate the total process. And the church's
function is to impregnate the process with the religious spirit.
Only when we have reached that divine-human democracy
which Jesus called the Kingdom of God, and we more affec-
tionately call the brotherhood of man, will there cease to be
a need of a church.
