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The Reappearance of the Christ - Chapter VII - Preparation for the Reappearance of the Christ
2. Lack of Financial Support for the Work of the Christ This is perhaps the major difficulty, and it appears to many at times to be an insuperable one. It involves the problem of true financial trusteeship and the deflection of adequate sums of money into channels which will definitely aid in the work of preparation for the return [172] of the Christ. It is closely tied up with the problem of right human relations. The problem is, therefore, a peculiarly hard one, for the spiritual workers of the world have not only to train people to give (according to their means) but, in many cases, they have - first of all - to provide them with a motive so magnetic in its appeal that they must perforce give. They have also to provide the trust, foundation or organization through which the given money may be administered. This presents them with a most impressively difficult task. The impasse which at present exists is not based only upon the novelty of raising funds in preparation for the return of the Christ, but it is based also upon the trained selfishness of the majority who own the world's wealth and who - even if they do give - do so because it fosters prestige and indicates financial success. Necessarily, there are exceptions to this but they are relatively few. Generalizing, therefore, and over-simplifying the subject, we can assume that money finds it way into four main channels of expenditure: Into the myriad homes in the world in the form of wages, salaries or inherited wealth. All this is at present most unevenly balanced, producing extreme riches or extreme poverty. Into great capitalistic systems and monopolies which are found as towering structures in most lands. Whether this capital is owned by the government, or by a municipality or by a handful of wealthy men or by the great labor unions matters not. Little of it is spent in the betterment of human living or for the inculcation of those values which lead to right human relations. [173] Into the churches and religious groups throughout the world. Here (again speaking in general terms and at the same time recognizing the existence of a spiritually-minded minority) the money is deflected into the material aspects of the work, into the multiplying and preservation of ecclesiastical structures, into salaries and general overhead, and only a percentage of it really goes into the teaching of the people, into a living demonstration of the simplicity "as it is in Christ," and into the spreading of the fact of His return - for centuries a definite doctrine of the churches. That return has been anticipated down the ages, and might have occurred ere now had the churches and religious organizations everywhere done their duty. Into philanthropic, educational and medical work. All of this has been exceedingly good and greatly needed and the debt of the world to the public-spirited men who have made these institutions possible is great indeed. All of this has been a step in the right direction and an expression of the divine will-to-good. It is, however, frequently money misused and misdirected and the values developed have been largely institutional and concrete. They have been limited by the separative tenets of the donors, or the religious prejudices of those who control the disbursement of the funds. In the quarrelling over ideas, religious theories and ideologies, the true assistance of the One Humanity is overlooked. The fact remains that had the directing agencies (through whose hands the money of the world is channeled) any true vision of the spiritual realities, of the [174] one humanity and the one world, and had their objective been the stimulation of right human relations, the mass of men everywhere would be responding to a future possibility very different from the present one; we would not be faced as we are today with the expenditures - running into countless billions - necessitated by the need to restore physically, not only the physical bodies of countless millions of men, but entire cities, transportation systems and centers responsible for the reorganization of human living. Equally, it can be said that if the spiritual values and the spiritual responsibilities attached to money (in large quantities or in small) had been properly appreciated and taught in homes and schools, we would not have had the appalling statistics of the money spent, prior to the war in every country in the world (and spent today in the Western Hemisphere) on candy, liquor, cigarettes, recreation, unnecessary clothes and luxuries. These statistics run into hundreds of millions of dollars every year. A fraction of this money, necessitating the minimum of sacrifice, would enable the disciples of the Christ and the New Group of World Servers to prepare the way for His coming and to educate the minds and hearts of men in every land in right human relations.
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