Frederick Franklin Shannon was born in Morris County, Kansas, February 11, 1877. He received his education at the Webb School, Bell Buckle, Tenn., and at Harvard University; was ordained a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1899; pastor Logan, W. Va., 1899-1900; Grace Methodist Church, Brooklyn, 1904-1912. In 1912, Dr. Shannon was called to the pastorate of the Reformed Church on The Heights, Brooklyn. Here he remained until 1919; he was called to the pulpit of historic Central Church, Chicago, as the last in that famous succession of great prophets-Hillis and Gunsaulus. Dr. Shannon is a pulpit genius. Practically a self-made man (in the best sense of the term), he is to-day one of the most brilliant preachers of modern times.

Among his published volumes are: The Land of Beginning Again, The New Personality, The Soul's Atlas, The Enchanted Universe, The Infinite Artist, The Country Faith and The Economic Eden,

XIII

CHRIST'S MAN'

But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."-ROMANS 8:9.

P

AUL has a fashion of penetrating into the

very soul of reality. The text is a striking illustration of his method. He is considering the stamp of a genuine as contrasted with a spurious Christian. Laying aside conventionalities, he declares, in a swift lightning-stroke of thought, what constitutes the ultimate in discipleship. It is this: The Christian is a person possessing, and possessed by, the Spirit of Christ. Everything else is beside the mark. The issue is clear-cut. There is no haze, no half-lights, no soft-tinted suppositions. It is simply the difference between the quick and the dead, fact and fiction, make-believe and reality. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Here is the deathblow to mere professionalism, a kind of judgmentday's doom for clever excuses and popular trimming. Moreover, it is a challenge to our own time, which seems in a strait between the Emersonian and Father Taylor types of mind. The philosopher and the Methodist preacher were very dear friends, but lived in different sections of the 1 From "The Economic Eden."

66

spiritual universe. 'Emerson," wrote Taylor, "is one of the sweetest creatures God ever made; there is a screw loose somewhere in the machinery, yet I cannot tell where it is, for I never heard it jar. He must go to heaven when he dies, for if he went to hell the devil would not know what to do with him. But he knows no more of the religion of the New Testament than Balaam's ass did of the principles of the Hebrew grammar." Now this is not just a discriminating and humorous statement. It is far more than that; it enables us to catch two souls in their attitude toward finalities. Intimate as they were, friends and lovers, able to respect and appreciate each other's individuality, yet the religion of the New Testament and Christ mark the line of separation for Emerson and Taylor. And, my friends, make no mistake-this is the line of separation for all of us. It is just a pointblank choice between the lower and the higher, the secondary and the essential, the good and the best. Here, then, is the gist of our present study-whether we have any right to accept the inferior ways of life and faith when the more excellent and superior are demanding a verdict.

I

By way of approach, we may say that the lesser meanings of Christianity partake of the impersonal. Dropping the negative in the text, it reads: "If any man have the spirit of Christ "—

that is, spirit is spelled with a small "s." It implies that the Christian is one under the influence of a man named Jesus, who lived and died in Palestine two thousand years ago. He was a good man-the best earth ever saw; he was a great man-the greatest among the sons of men. But he is dead and gone; the stars keep watch above his Syrian grave; he is a lovely memory, precious, but just a page in the sealed book of the past. This, I think, is an adequate statement of the impersonal phase of Christianity. Analyzed, this viewpoint breaks up into the following subdivisions:

1. Jesus is an atmosphere. The metaphor is excellent. Atmosphere is essential to physical well-being. A room is shut off from the outer world. Darkness, disease, and death hold carnival within. Why? For lack of atmosphere. Fling wide the doors, open the windows, and atmosphere, sweet, keen, health-bringing, comes smiting in with gently powerful pressure. So this idea of atmosphere as descriptive of Jesus on man and society is fine, but-impersonal. It marks the difference between the antique east and the modern west, between such religions and cults as Hinduism and Eddyism and New Testament and historic Christianity, to say nothing of the finer philosophies of the race.

2. Jesus is an example. This is better still. Example, we know, is one of the immeasurable factors in our human world. The example of the

parent, the friend, the scholar, the statesman, the preacher is so vast, so subtle that we have no accurate method of reckoning it. Thus certain men emphasize the example of Jesus. He befriended the outcast; He remembered the forgotten; He sought out the lost, as a shepherd seeks the one strayed lamb; He loved children and took them in His arms; He toiled with His hands; He entered into the joys of a wedding feast; He was august in His simplicity; He was majestic in His humility; He was compelling in His self-assertion; He was quietly masterful, and sometimes He was irresistibly indignant in the presence of injustice and unrighteousness. Yes; Jesus was a truly great and wonderful example. "Why not take Him as such?" asks the disciple of the inadequate view. Why? Just because example falls pathetically short of that full-toned vitality which bursts from the personal, with which the impersonal cannot be on intimate, friendly terms. Jesus as an example, merely, confronts us with the alternative of choosing the good, the second-rate, when it is our duty and privilege to choose the best and the supreme.

3. Jesus as a teacher. From the atmospheric to the exemplary the transition may not be marked, but it is important. It helps to distinguish some of the finer shades and tones in Christian thought. Thus Jesus the teacher occupies a separate brain compartment. Why not, says the lesser stand