And yet it is perfectly clear that while the Scriptures exalt the
individual, they do not mean to wall individuals off in impenetrable
circles by themselves. It is true that the individual is the end toward
which the scriptural redemption and glorification aims, but individuals
find their own best selves not in isolation but in union with their
fellows--a union of mutual cooperation and service, a union so close
that the persons thus related come to be looked upon as a veritable Body
of Christ, making together by their impact upon the world the same sort
of revelation that the living Christ made in the days of his early life.
The ideals as to the supremacy of human values are realized, according
to the Scriptures, not in any separateness of individual existence, but
in a closeness of social interdependence. So true is this that it is
hardly possible to see how one can make much of the scriptural movement
without immersing himself in the stream of human life with highest
regard for the values of that life.

It has been insisted from the beginning that the Christian consciousness
is the only adequate interpretation of the Scriptures. By Christian
consciousness is meant not the consciousness of the body of believers
who are together trying to serve Christ. The interpretation of the
individual becomes final only as it is accepted by the mass of the
believers. Something of worth-while thought is conceived of as going out
from the life of every believer. The utterance of the seer is not
conceived of as complete until even he who sits in the seat of the
unlearned has said "Amen." The pronouncements which do not evoke this
wide human response fall by the wayside. For example, how was the canon
of the New Testament shaped? Was there a determination on the part of
individual leaders that such and such books should be included in the
volume of Scriptures? Very likely there was at the last such deliberate