EVANGELICAL SOCIAL CONGRESS IN GERMANY 27
and of Christianity to point out the particular methods of improvement. "In respect to special social-economical meas- ures (state ownership, land reform, labor hours, price regulations, taxation, insurance, labor unions, etc.) the church cannot form a party, nor compel its members to take a side; since a decision of these questions demands expert knowledge which has nothing to do with Christianity, and the power of the state is required" (Harnack, 1894). "Since the social life has its own laws, and is conditioned by the general conditions of life and culture, the church must leave the problem of social measures to those whose special training makes them responsible" (Pastor von Soden, 1896).
These expressions interpret the fundamental idea of the Con- gress, that the economic life of the present should be helpfully influenced by the forces of the Gospel. These powers cannot be transformed into a fixed program; the church cannot be used as a political party for pushing a reform. The only practical duty remaining is the care of parish life and the testing of social conditions by moral principles. A working program for action the Congress no longer has ; it is now only a society for formu- lating ethical instruction, for awakening conscience and sympa- thy; but not a group for carrying out a plan of action.
This was a necessary order of development. At the first many of the members were eager to proceed at once to some practical effort; but this impulse did not find expression after the second session. Ever more decisively was the purely inspiring and ethical character of the goal of the Congress emphasized. A principal reason was the broad platform which the Congress was compelled to adopt if it did not at once dash itself on the rocks of partisan interests. But this very ecumenical character made practical effort impossible. Whoever will represent social- political demands must plunge into the strife of political parties and defend his measures. Very soon we should have been driven to Social Democracy, because no other party had taken up the desired measures. But the un-Christian factor in Social Democracy made this impossible; and the participants in the Congress remained members of their own political parties. The
