Not Creeds Alone

"If the Church were trying to practice love in society, there would be a reason for its existence. With creeds alone I do not expect it to be able to save the world." I read that quote recently, liked the sentiment expressed, but I was not familiar with man to which it was attributed, Toyohiko Kagawa.

After brief investigation, I learned he was a Japanese Christian pacifist, reformer, and labor activist who was born in 1888 and died in 1960. Kagawa wrote, spoke and worked to employ Christian principles in the ordering of society. In fact, he wrote over 150 books and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947 and 1948, along with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1955. His vocation to help the poor led him to live among them, establishing schools, hospitals and churches.

He studied at several theological seminaries, including ones in Japan and also at Princeton, but he was not a fan of doctrinal technicalities. He believed the truth of Christian doctrines was Christianity in action, and he practiced what he preached. He not only was a champion of the poor, but campaigned for women's rights, voting equality and the plight of children. In 1921 and 1922, he was imprisoned for his role in labor activism and upon his release, helped organize relief work in Tokyo following the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake.

Kagawa is a wonderful reminder that Christianity is, of course, not solely an American institution and never has been, seeing as how Jesus was born several hundred years before the United States was founded. All around the globe, there are over 2 billion followers of Christ, with less than 300 million of them living in the United States. There are religious heroes everywhere, from all walks of life, in every nation, and I have found a new one in Toyohiko Kagawa who also said, "I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about."

Wouldn't it be a different world if all 200 billion Christians put Kagawa's example into practice? Creeds alone are not what we need. We need love put into action.