1926

Bishop —— and I shared the platform tonight. Fortunately, I spoke first so that I did not have to compete with his powerful eloquence. His sermon warmed the heart, but it was based upon the uncritical assumption that modern Christianity is an exact replica of primitive Christianity and is characterized by the same qualities of heroism and faith. There was a disquieting tendency to patronize in the good man’s demeanor. I should think it would be a very difficult achievement for a bishop to be a real Christian. The position is bound to aggravate the inclination to pride which all of us possess. I do not know many bishops intimately. The few that I have known well have been singularly free of arrogance; but they were unusual, for they were saved by a sense of humor which is not frequently found in the pulpit and certainly hardly ever in the episcopacy.

“Be not ye called rabbi,” said Jesus, “and call no man father upon earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.” I am not interested in applying the words of Jesus literally, but it seems to me that the principle involved in these words would wipe out the episcopacy. It wouldn’t leave much justification either for “The Reverend Doctor.” Of course the Christian community cannot do without leaders. But it might learn to save them from pride and arrogance.

The highest type of leadership maintains itself by its intrinsic worth, sans panoply, pomp and power. Of course, there are never enough real leaders to go around. Wherefore it becomes necessary to dress some men up and by other artificial means to give them a prestige and a power which they could not win by their own resources. But it would be well if the church realized how dangerous power and prestige are, and how easily they corrupt a man’s spiritual integrity.

It is certainly not to the credit of the church that it is less eager than the democratic state to circumscribe the authority and socialize the power of the leader. The Methodists try to preserve the proper spirit of humility among the bishops by relegating them to parliamentary impotence once every four years. But who wouldn’t be willing to suffer for that brief period for the sake of the power and authority which the bishop exercises for the rest of the quadrennium?

Somewhere I read the observation of an anthropologist that naked savages could never have evolved a priesthood or an hereditary monarchy. No one is so much superior to his fellows that he deserves the positions of authority which a complex society finally evolves. That is why the leader must be put over with the proper clothes and paraphernalia. The throne and the crown make the king. Even the President of the United States has impressive naval and military aids to offset the unimposing frock which the democratic tradition prescribes. As for the bishop, who could be more awe-inspiring than a hierarch sitting upon his “throne” in his full regalia? That does not apply to Methodist bishops. But they have so much power that they don’t need the panoply.

Think how insufferable bishops might be if they had to be both worshiped and feared. I am afraid that is true of Catholic bishops. Perhaps that is why the Catholic saints are not frequently found in the hierarchy.