(3) It has taught us that religious susceptibility is intimately
connected with social status. Spiritual movements have always found some
relatively unimpressionable classes. In primitive Christian times "not
many well-educated, not many influential, not many nobly born were
called"; and in our own age the two least responsive strata in society
are the topmost and the bottom-most--those so well off that they often
feel no pressure of social obligation, and those without the sense of
social responsibility because they have nothing. It is the interest of
spiritual religion to do away with both these strata, placing social
burdens on the former and imposing social privileges on the latter, for
responsibility proves to be the chief sacrament of religion.

(4) It has brought the Church to a new place of prominence in Christian
thought. Men realize their indebtedness for their own spiritual life to
the collective religious experience of the past, represented in the
Church; their need of its fellowship for their growth in faith and
usefulness; and the necessity of organized religious effort, if society
is to be leavened with the Spirit of Christ. Church membership becomes a
duty for every socially minded Christian. And the social purpose renders
Church unity a pressing task for the existing Christian communions. John
Bunyan's pilgrim could make his progress from the City of Destruction to
the New Jerusalem with a few like-minded companions; but a Christian
whose aim is the transformation of the City of Destruction into the City
of God needs the coöperation of every fellow believer. Denominational
exclusiveness becomes intolerable to the Christian who finds a whole
world's redemption laid on his conscience.

(5) It demands a social reinterpretation of many of the Church's
doctrines, a reinterpretation which gives them richer meaning. The
vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ, for example, becomes intelligible