THE KINGDOM OP GOD

Domant does not elucidate In depth or length wbat he means by the kingdom of God, There are only laolated commenta scattered among hie writings,

Like hia view of history# the kingdom of God has two dlBBnelone# It la from beyond this world and yet it belongs In this world. "This 18 to say that the Ohurch has to re^aarn end proclaim that precisely because the kingdom of God la not of this world— not springing from this world— and thouggh It ie not finally for t&ile world in the sense that It la merely a name for a stable civilization-" yet It la meant to be effective in this world In a way which no earthbound Utopia can

Demant will not permit ua to identify the kingdom of Ckd with the aoolal order. "A good aocial order ia not

the same as the kingdom of God."'" %ae kingdom of God does not relieve man of his historic reaponalblllty but gives him a baalB for acting In it.

There Is an Isolated paanage where Dement hints that there mi^t be acme relationship of the kingdom of God to the Natural Order. "lAen the kingdom of God ie known again as a power that reorders the social relations of man by

1

'Demant# God. Ife.ri and Society, p. 20#

- 161

bringing them back to the iafcural state, then the p«obl@® of the oorjfliot between the innes? and. outer life beooaies manageable,

When writing about the Natural Order# Dement Implied that the sheer );%(?oolamatlon of It carried ita own power* Now he eeeme to be saying that the kingdom of God will W l p to usher In the reign of Natural Law rather than Natural law aerving the kingdom of God,

It l8 puzzling to know why there hae been eudh an evasion of the kingdom of God, % e concept 1$ far more Biblical than any notion of "Natural law" which# even Demant admits# waa borrowed from the Graeoo-Roman world. If lament taken the Incarnation aerloualy# then why does

not pay more attention to the teaching of Jeaua he kingdom of @od?

1 6 2

a) O m i a T i m OIVILIZATION

A volume of essaye published In 1922 uuder the title The Return of Ohrletendom wae ^rbape the starting point for a mehool of thou#it which dominated Ohi'istlan social thought in England for tiiree decades, A Bummer Bohool of Sociology was inaugurated and supported by those assoclated with the movement* The came group began publishing a

Quarterly journal# Ohrietandem. In 1931. The publication of t^lB "Journal of Ohrlatlan Sociology" came to an end in 19S0. Prom very beginning# Demant eerved on the Editorial Committee# served as editor of the book section and made frequent contributions to the journal. Dement was one of the key figures In what came to be known ae

"the Obrlatendom Group."

iDClde the front cover of the third Issue# Volume I# September# 1931# and in eubBeguent leauea# Ob%?letqndom publlahed Its purpoaes "Now# a constituent of the School

(Summer School of Sociology)# the League of the Kingdom of God# ie emboldened by the made and opportunities of the situation to eetabllah a quarterly journal# Christendom, which shall have for its object a euetalned attempt to present and elaborate a Catholic view of eoolal leeues and the construction of a valid alternative to the pagan

163

Inside the baok oover of this issue, end teoae follosiog, «© find the basis and objoots of the

the E n M o m of Sod. Among other things it saMs

The teague le a band of OhOTOiMSB and Churetoomsn who believe that the Cstholio Faith demands a challenge to te® world hf the repudiation of capitalist pluto- eracy and the wag© gyefcsm, and stands for a sooial order in which the means of Ilf© subserve the ooœon-

m&lth. ...

The League believes that a holy, just and free eoeiety— Oteisteiidom— will ooa© first and chiefly tin?ough faith and thought and sacramental power—

personal loyalty to Ghrlat and fils eaus©— sad that it must express Itself in sealoue endeavcars after fellow- ship Is industry, oomasere©, eltizenstolp and eultare, O M I C ®

(1) Th© inmlatence 00 the prophetic Office of the

Ohiiroh, and the Kingdaa of Sod aa t w regulatlv© principle of theology.

(2) Hie awakealng off Ghurohmert to the lost socslal

traditions of Ohrlatendo® and the recreatioa of a

Christian sociology eonsonant with the needs off the age. This %m,e a vigorous ahalleoge to the Gbureh to rethink Its relevance to social issues, ObrlsteMom of the» Middle Ages was viewed as th© GoMen Age of Ghuroh-Stat© relations, Demant uses an Interesting analogy to llluBtrat® his points

Shall we Bay p3.ayfully, but seriously, teat the first three centuries of the Christian era correspond to the stage at. which tlw® Is meeting between woman and young man. The period from th© conversion of Oonstftnfeln© to th® end of the eig^ith eentury Is Ilk© the petimi of

engagement. S » epoch from that tote, with the ooronatlon of Oharleaagn©, to the fifteenth oenturf is representea

in our analogy bj marriage# Ita tonmlona and mutual InteraotioD. T W alxteentb oentury wltmaaes a dlvoroe.^

Whether that marriage warn a blaaalng either to the Ghuroh or to t^e aoolety would aeem to he questionable.

The empire wae far from Eoly and the ohuroh was undmbWdly more corrupt than In any period of Ite history. But Demant doea not plead for a return to the eoolal atruoture of the Middle Agee# he wants a recovery of some of the prevailing principles and# above all# the return to a re]jation$hip out of which a new reaponelbllity can emerge in our time. It meana the church will have "to find a renewed relation to Boclety entirely different from that of the last three centuries. In brief# It has to take up the task where the

,.9

break up of the Middle Agee left it.

For Demant# the Middle Agee had a ecale of valuee which had spiritual and human intereate in their p?:»oper oMer*

To look to the thou^it of the Middle Agea is therefore to look to a pattern in which social activities were

conceived as having a certain order for a spiritual and therefore a truly human end. It is mere perversity to regard it as a desire to return to Medieval social

structure. It is still g^^ater perversity to regard it as a belief that man can build the klogdo%) of God on earth.'^

p. 109. Damant# mivern# 1941# p. 130.

165

Demaot doss aot a s?©tuFn to the fixed imttern of' a soelai Btrimtum, but bow muoh did that pxetlml&t

â©t. of ôondt'fcloBS depend upon the prevailing relationship of ebas’eta and soet@%? If It wae a happy mapriege, then it wouM be telpful If Bernant were to Infwrn us why the

àlvm&B ©v@i* oocurreâ.

lîmm sre f o w tgajor features of the eoatrl'bution Ctorlstsndoa (Christianity and the Bible) nsde to western civilizations

It gav® B terrifie Impress to the cliseov@ry of the self, or soul“p©lâtl0g it to the eter-nal God as well

as to Its setting in the wtlAs it ©mar?ol,pate<l man not only ia his mind as the Greek bad. done, but In the depths of his being, from teeing m m t y & part of the tribal or soelal or naturel proeess.

In the seeond place, only in Ohrieteodcaii did you get that division of Ilf© Into aaoved and secular,

due to the doatî'ine ©f ereafcion and febeo to the @#pa.ref tioo of religious and eivle leadership#:.,. there caa® into being a 'sseular* realm which bad Its m m responsl- blllty to God, and not dlreetXy through tba Church.

In th© third place, CljylstlaBltf gav© a great stlaiulus to the sense of history as slgnifleast.

In the fourth pl®@@, there follows from 111® previous three dereloprssnte the ©Ktraordlnary aeti¥,l®sg of Mestero saw. Ifeis aetivls» has remained and increased, with âisîlnisblng reepsot and v m a m m a tovaa*âB Sea aod the

Surely Damant souM not W uos-ware of tte extent to wfeieh the Church of the Middle Ages viols-ted every one of

those principles. Both the early Church and the Reformation 1Damant,

of the sixteenth eentwy contributed moi'e to the formation 4&i3(l 5Si]]p]3<)]?1b j&SMBGse t/iïEm iitiG) î4&dl3,Grir(Ll CWhiui'obi over did. (1) Intelleotual integrity and freedom suffered more under the dmmdLnonoe of the KWieval Church than

du3?li)g5 any other jperlod of history. SScittncse

did not really oome Into Its own until after the Beformatlon. (2 ) Whs the *aeoular * realm really aa autonmoue a$ Damant implies? Is he ignoring the %)C)]L3.lblc&]L machinations of the Medieval Church? Wlmt happened to that "marriage

analogy"? la he now upholding the divorce of the sacred from the aeculai^? (3) 9he obaeeelon of the iiflth the

"saving of aouls" for heaven tended to cijloajLiïjL&is rather than stimulate an Interest in history, (4 ) The aolsiirjLBR) of man was profoundly en(5()i%ra@gGhdl by the Oalvlnistio contribution to the Reformation,

Cbriatendom of the Middle Agea, by Demant*S3 definition^