Religion in the making

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RELIGION

In The Making

VOLUME II

NOVEMBER, 1941

No. 1

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By William Clayton Bower

THE TWO HUMANISMS

By Roger Hazelton

PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND THE
LORD'S SUPPER

By Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr.

ARE THE EXORCISMS OF JESUS FOLKLORE?

By S. Vernon McCasland

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURAL EVOLUTION

By Shirley Jackson Case

0

FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION,, LAKELAND, FLA.

fl

RELIGION IN THE MAKING

VOLUME II NUMBER 1

Shirley Jackson Case, Editor

Religion in the Making is published four times a year,
in May, November, January and March. It is sponsored
by the Florida School of Religion and edited by the dean
of the School.

The subscription price is $2.00 per year, or sixty
cents per single issue. Remittances should be made by
postal or express money orders or by check and made
payable to the Florida School of Religion.

All communications, including business correspond-
ence, manuscripts, exchanges, and books submitted for re-
view should be addressed to Shirley Jackson Case, Editor,
Florida School of Religion, Lakeland, Florida.

Published by the Florida School of Religion, Box 146
Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, four times a
year, May 15, November 15, January 15, and March 15.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office, Lake-
land, Florida.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANNOUNCEMENT 3

OUR CONTRIBUTORS 4

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 5

By William Clayton Bower

THE TWO HUMANISMS 20

By Roger Hazelton

PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND THE LORD'S

SUPPER 39

By Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr.

ARE THE EXORCISMS OF JESUS

FOLKLORE ? 55

By S. Vernon McCasland

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURAL

EVOLUTION 67

By Shirley Jackson Case

NEWS AND NOTES:

The Florida School of Religion 91

*

ANNOUNCEMENT

With this issue Religion in the Making enters upon its
second year. We have become convinced that it has a real
mission to perform. The hearty reception accorded it
during the first year far exceeded our fondest expecta-
tions. Within a few months the first number was out of
print. Consequently many new subscribers have been
unable to secure the first issue. This fact we sincerely
regret and as slight compensation we added a fifth com-
plimentary number for our first-year subscribers. Hence-
forth the new subscription year will begin in November
instead of May.

Evidently we were not mistaken in supposing that there
was a place for a new quarterly religious journal design-
ed for thoughtful readers who desired to keep abreast of
the times in the changing world of today. It has not been
our purpose to exhibit the technical processes of research
but to present the constructive findings that are emerging
in the various fields of religious thinking and activity.
We have no desire to be propagandists for any particular
interest. Rather, our aim is to be informative. Each oi
our writers speaks for himself untrammeled by any orders
from us. In this respect we represent a truly democratic
temper and seek to widen the range of our readers' ob-
servation to cover different aspects of present-day re-
ligious growth.

The selected list of books reviewed in each issue aims
to inform readers about the content and character of re-
cent publications. With this information in hand one
knows what is being said and whether or not one desires
to procure a book for more intensive reading.

Now we solicit subscription renewals for the second
year. The subscription price remains the same as before.
It is $2.00 per year, or sixty cents for a single copy. One
may remit by personal check or Post Office Order, made
payable to the Florida School of Religion, Box 146, Flori-
da Southern College, Lakeland, Florida.

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

William Clayton Bower, who is Professor of Religious
Education and Chairman of the Field of Practical Chris-
tianity in the Divinity School of the University of Chi-
cago, has been for several years one of our foremost
authorities in this area of interest. His numerous books
published during the last quarter-century are recognized
as standards of authority.

Roger Hazelton has been Dean of the Chapel and Pro-
fessor of Religion at Colorado College since 1939. Pre-
viously he was Tutor in Religion at Olivet College in
Michigan. He attended Amherst College, the Chicago
Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago
from which he received the A. M. degree in 1934. He
then obtained the Ph. D. degree at Yale in 1936. He has
contributed articles to Christendom, the Journal of Phi-
losophy, Ethics, and the Philosophical Review.

Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., is at present a member
of the faculty of the Episcopal Theological School in Cam-
bridge, Mass. Formerly he was an instructor in the Di-
vinity School of the University of Chicago, where he ob-
tained the Ph. D. degree in 1937. His articles have ap-
peared in the Anglican Theological Review, the Journal
of Religion, and in other scholarly publications.

S. Vernon McCasland has been John B. Cary Professor
of Religion at the University of Virginia since 1939. Dur-
ing the preceding decade he had been Professor and
Chairman of the Department of Religion in Goucher Col-
lege. In 1937-3,8 he was annual professor at the American
School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. He received
the Ph. D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1926
and the next year was German-American exchange stu-
dent at the universities of Marburg, Munster and Berlin.
His book on the Resurrection of Jesus appeared in 1932,
and he has published numerous scholarly articles in dif-
ferent periodicals.

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By William Clayton Bower

University of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

In order to understand the changes that have taken
place in religious education during the last quarter of a
century it is necessary to know what the modern religious
educator is seeking to accomplish. Since the beginning of
the century, he has shared with progressive educators*
a growing misgiving as to the traditional views of the
nature and ends of education and as to the procedures
employed. These misgivings had their source in an in-
creasing dissatisfaction with the results, both in individ-
ual persons and in society, of the forms of education in-
herited from the past.The twentieth century was moving:
into a new attitude toward man's relation to his world — -
an attitude that had its roots in the Renaissance of the
thirteenth century. This maturing attitude had gradually
shifted attention from the past with its inherited struc-
tures of thought and action to the present with its opening
possibilities the realization of which lies within the future.
The philosophy and practice of education had been form-
ulated under social conditions that set the supreme value
upon the recovery and reproduction of the past as norm-
ative for the present. The emergent interest in the pos-
sibilities of personal and social living called for a new
philosophy of education and a new procedure that would
enable society to re-examine its assumptions, explore the
possibilities of its present experience, and proceed cre-
atively to bring these possibilities to realization in new
forms of thought and action.

Roughly speaking, it may be said that the education
which the twentieth century inherited subsumed under
three general types, each with its distinctive philosophy,
its content, and its procedure. One was the disciplinary-
conception of education. It is very old — as old as education
itself. It grew out of the conflict between the organized

6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

thought and habits of the mature generation and the
fresh experience and spontaneous impulses of the newly
born. It was conceived to be the function of education to
v nold the young into the authoritative patterns of behavior
a id into the institutions inherited from the past. The
f esh impulses of youth pressing against the barriers of
tradition were looked upon with suspicion. Human nature
as it renewed itself in the child was distrusted as innately
evil and to be curbed or broken by discipline. In religious
education this distrust was deepened and darkened by the
doctrine of original sin. As a regimenting procedure, the
content of disciplinary education was narrow and formal
and prescribed. Its method was that of habit-formation.
Its appeal was to the capacities of respect for authority,
conformity, obedience, self-renunciation. The method
employed is better fitted to animal than human intelli-
gence and is the one consistently used in subjecting
animals to the will of man, either in domesticating them
or in training them to perform in the circus. It is recently
being employed on an immense human scale in the total-
itarian states.

A second type was the transmissive concept of educa-
tion. It conceives the function of education to be the re-
covery and reproduction of the great traditions of society,
literary, scientific, philosophical, aesthetic, technological,
moral, historical and religious. It regarded the mind as a
blank and as plastic, to be formed from without by the
presentation of subject-matter selected from the great
traditions. Like the disciplinary concept, in its earlier
forms it was manipulative and external. With the rapid
growth of knowledge under the influence of the scientific
method, greater and greater emphasis has been placed up-
on knowledge. The content of education under this view is,
therefore, the organized body of human knowledge ac-
cumulated through the centuries. In more recent years
, the growing volume and complexity of knowledge has be-
ime so great that it is no longer possible for any one
person to master all that is to be known. Out of this dif-

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 7

ficulty grew the elective system, which because of its
fragmentary results, gave place to the organization of
fields of knowledge and specialization. In religious edu-
cation this idea of education placed emphasis upon the
Christian tradition, especially upon the Bible, the heritage
of Christian belief, and the development of the church
as a divine institution. The effective method for this
type of education was instruction which was reduced to a
smooth technique in the five formal steps of teaching by
the Herbartians. As in the case of disciplinary education,
the burden of education under education as transmission
rested primarily upon the teacher. It made use of the re-
ceptive, assimilative, and passive capacities of the learner.
Being dominated by tradition, education could not be other
than backward-looking and authoritative.

The third type in the educational inheritance of the
twentieth century was the concept of education as reca-
pitulation. It had a brief but enthusiastic vogue in this
country. It was one of the outcomes of the influence
of the doctrine of evolution upon education. It resulted
from the confluence of the ideas of the evolution of the
race, of the individual organism, and of culture. According
to this view, as the human being in its prenatal stages re-
capitulated the prehuman biological development of the
race, so in its development after birth it recapitulated the
epochs in the cultural development of the race. The order
of the appearance and flowering of the instincts and in-
terests was set by heredity, and the proper materials for
the stimulation and guidance of these interests were the
culture products of the epochs of human evolution. Not-
withstanding its great contribution in focusing attention
upon the human organism as the chief concern of edu-
cation and upon growth as the basic method of education,
it, like the disciplinary and transmissive types, was under
the domination of the past — in this instance not through
precedent or tradition, but heredity.

The reactions from these inherited conceptions of the
nature, ends, and methods of education since the begin-

8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

ning of the century have been profound. Religious edu-
cators share in the conviction of progressive educators
that it is not the function of education to mold the young
into the behavior patterns and thought-forms of the past
or to recover and transmit the end-products of past ex-
perience in the form of the great traditions. It is, rather,
the function of education to assist growing persons to
achieve the most intelligent and effective interaction with
their real and present world, with the help of the re-
sources of the funded experience of the past, with its rich
content of insights, values, techniques, and institutional
arrangements. The focus of attention of the modern edu-
cator is upon the living present as the existential moment
in history, where history is in the making, and where
human life in its personal and social aspects takes on new
directions. Within the range of the present situation, his
attention is fixed upon the possibilities that are resident
in it and particularly upon the effect of their out-working
upon the future. This is why creative education is con-
cerned with developing attitudes of constructive criticism
regarding the existing modes of thought and life and
with the conscious and intentional improvement of the
conditions of human life through the processes of social
reconstruction.

Within this larger framework of current educational
thought, the religious educator is concerned with assist-
ing growing persons to achieve a vital religious experience
ef life. This means for him that religion is not a com-
partmentalized experience set off from the rest of life,
but a quality that potentially attaches to every
phase of living — intellectual, economic, political, voca-
tional, aesthetic, moral, social. What the religious educator
is seeking to do is to bring religion into vital and func-
tional relation to personal and social experience in its en-
tire dimension. He has become convinced that there is no
guarantee that anything religiously significant has hap-
pened when biblical knowledge has been taught by in-
structional methods, when information concerning the

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 9

history of Christian thought or the development of the
church has been mastered, or the routine of ceremonial
acts has been performed. What is more likely to happen
is that the literature of the Bible, history, and liturgy
will be substituted for a vital religious experience, or that
religious instruction will end in verbalizing about re-
ligion rather than in the reconstruction of life in terms of
religious values.

The achievement of a creative religious experience of
life involves, however, much more than dealing with the
isolated individual. Religion is a social fact, both in its
origin and nature. It is a phase of a people's total culture.
It finds expression in man's collective life as it does in his
personal life — as a quality that is diffused throughout
every aspect of his common life. Moreover, it is an insight
of social psychology that the individual develops in inter-
action with society. It is from considerations such as these
that the modern emphasis upon the social implications of
religion have arisen. In religious education this has ex-
tended the objectives of the religious educator far be-
yond the assisting of individual persons to achieve a re-
ligious personality, to the building of a fellowship that is
the church and to the reconstruction of the processes that
constitute society in the light of religious ideals and pur-
poses. Nor do these objectives move in separate planes of
educational endeavor. They are reciprocally and insep-
arably interrelated phases of an undifferentiated educa-
tional process. No program of religious education can be
considered complete educationally or religiously until it
has eventuated in effective action — in the actual recon-
struction of one's own personal religious life, of the fel-
lowship that is the church, or of society. Modern religious
education denies that the end of the educative process is
a complete and clear idea. The achievement of an ade-
quate idea is but the beginning of creative education; its
consummation is the effective functioning of the idea in
the redirection of a complete act. Moreover, one arrives
at the clarification and completion of ideas through their

10 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

actual use in managing experience. Ideas have their ori-
gin in experience; they undergo modification and valida-
tion through their functional use in experience. This also
is the way in which values arise and find their fulfilment,
as do techniques and institutions.

These are the backgrounds of the religious educators
concern during recent years regarding curriculum and
method, as well as the organization of religious education.
They explain why he has been chiefly occupied with a re-
examination of the basic assumptions regarding education
and religion, with the formulation of a philosophy to
support and guide his work, and with experiments in new
types of curriculum and method.

The foundation of the modern theory of religious edu-
cation rests upon an analysis of experience and of the
functional relation of religion to it. One of the most fruit-
ful insights of contemporary social psychology is that
persons become what they are at the various stages of
their development through the experience which they
have. The way, therefore, into the control of the process
of personal becoming through educational guidance is
through an analysis of the structure of experience and the
factors that determine its nature. Upon the nature of
experience depend both the curriculum and method.

When experience is subjected to analysis it is seen to be
the outcome of man's interaction with his objective world.
It is not, as has often been supposed, the result of the
pressures of environmental factors, on the one hand, or,
as has often been supposed, of the internal growth of the
organism, on the other hand. Human experience arises at
the point where the live human being and the dynamic
objective world interact with each other. Their action
upon each other is reciprocal, and results in change in
both. The live human being is born with impulses and
needs which cause him to assume an active, outreaching,
and controlling attitude toward the various aspects of
his world. In attempting to satisfy these impulses and
needs desires arise in the self and values attach to ends

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 11

in the objective world. The objective world is manifold
and complex. It consists of the physical environment,
other human beings, social behaviors and institutions, the
traditions of culture, and values, all with cosmic impli-
cations. It, too, is a dynamic process of becoming, in
which continuity is indissolubly united with change.

When experience is further analyzed for its structure,
it reveals a pattern which makes it possible for the edu-
cator to assist the person whom he is guiding to bring it
under a measure of conscious and intentional control.
Every experience has its beginning in an identifiable
situation and its completion in some kind of a response
made to the situation. This pattern is not, however, to be
thought of as isolated or static. No situation is ever whol-
ly unrelated to other situations. Neither is it possible to
set a limit to the response as though it were fully com-
pleted. As the situation emerges out of a rich supporting
context of experience, so the response has a way of con-
tinuing on in its consequences. So also the situation-re-
sponse configuration is itself a process undergoing de-
velopment. The situation undergoes change while the re-
sponse is being made to it. Indeed, the response itself
enters into the situation, resulting in what has been called
a cyclical effect.

From the standpoint of tunctional and creative rts-
ligious education based upon guided experience, the unit
of the curriculum is a unit of experience. A functional cur-
riculum consists of a selection of crucial experiences in-
volving major aspects of the person's interaction with his
physical, social, and cosmic world at the various levels of
growth from early childhood through maturity to age, so
arranged as to be sequential, cumulative, and comprehen-
sive. Life situations differ greatly in their educational
value. Some are quite trivial and recurrent and require
for the most part only simple treatment. They can largely
be left to take care of themselves. But others are crucial
and extremely complex, involving major issues and far-
reaching decisions. These involve not only one's personal

12 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

interests and needs, but the major issues of society. These
are the ones to which the religious educator needs to give
attention. It is not enough therefore, that the child's or
youth's interests should be made the basis of an educa-
tional program. The child's interests and needs are set in
the larger social context. There is something off-center in
the concept of the "child-centered" school. Education in-
volves more than the interests of the child; it is at the
same time a profound concern of culture itself and its
principal means for interpreting and recreating itself.

This does not mean that a functional curriculum is lack-
ing in content. There are two resources upon which the
learner or the learning group may draw for the inter-
pretation, evaluation, and resolution of these indetermin-
ate situations. One is the learner's or the group's own
past experience, with its mixed content of information,
skills, prejudices, and errors. When it is perceived that
this accumulation of personal past experience is a means
of misreading and mishandling a situation as well as of
managing it intelligently and effectively it is easy to be-
lieve that not enough has been made of this content of a
learning situation. The other resource is the funded ex-
perience of the race through long centuries of living. Here
are to be found the great traditions of religion — its sacred
literature, its heritage of religious faith, its system of
growing values, its developing insights into the nature of
reality and of man, the rich inheritance of meanings and
symbols, and the embodiment of religious ideals in great
religious leaders. The difference between the place of this
fund of historical experience in the subject-matter cur-
riculum and the functional curriculum is that in the sub-
ject-matter curriculum subject-matter is directly "taught",
chiefly as an end in itself, whereas in the functional cur-
riculum it is used as a resource for the interpretation,
judging, and resolving of the issues involved in current
living. All the component elements of the religious tradi-
tion had their origin in their functional relation to the
once-present experience of the religious community in its

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IS

»

interaction with the actual and concrete situations which
it faced with the same uncertainty as we face our own.
The Bible, theology, the creeds, ceremonials, the church
— all these are the outgrowth of the religious experience
of the ancient Hebrew and early Christian communities
and their successors. They are the end-products of past re-
ligious living. They are alive and have meaning only
when viewed in their functional relation to the experience
out of which they grew. It is when divorced from the
living experience that gave them birth that they lose their
meaning and become inert. It is because they were part
of the living tissue of life in the past that these traditions
again become living when they re-enter our own con-
temporary experience as resources for understanding and
directing them toward genuinely religious outcomes. The
fundamental difference between the subject-matter and
the functional curriculum is that the subject-matter cur-
riculum starts with historical subject-matter and, at its
best, seeks ways in which it may be "applied" to current
living, whereas the functional curriculum starts with the
actual life situations of living persons and groups and
utilizes the funded experience of the past in resolving-
them in terms of enduring spiritual values and ideals.

For the same reason, a functional religious education
calls for a creative method in dealing with experience.
Such a method rests upon an analysis of the way in
which an indeterminate situation is resolved by the use
ef critical intelligence, discriminating choice, and effec-
tive executive action. In this the creative method differs
markedly from habit-formation, indoctrination, or in-
struction. It is the method of inquiry, of search, of ex-
perimentation. It begins by bringing the situation clearly
into consciousness and in clarifying the issues involved.
It proceeds by analyzing the situation for its factors and
for its possibilities. It searches the resources of historical
experience as preserved in the great traditions for such
relevant insights, standards, and techniques as may throw
light upon the present situation and facilitate its resolu-

14 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

»
tion. It weighs the possible outcomes in the light of the
inherited values of the past and of the demands of the
present situation which are never quite the same as those
of the past. Out of such analysis and weighing a choice
is made among the possible outcomes. The chosen out-
come is tried out experimentally. If the result is satisfac-
tory the situation is resolved ; if not, a new attack is made,
n new alternative is chosen, and so on until the situation
is satisfactorily resolved. As a result of weighing, judg-
ing, and choosing courses of action in order to achieve
desired ends that are felt to be intrinsically worthful the
emotions are aroused and appreciation is evoked. Appre-
ciation in this way becomes as much an integral part of
the learning process as are critical thinking and execu-
tive action. It is out of this actual experience of value*
that worship springs. It is out of such experience in the
past that the symbols of religion have come and it is only
ms these values have been experienced in the process of
living that the symbols which are their historic expres-
sion can be meaningful.

It will thus be seen that creative method in religious
education has its beginning and its end in experience. As
ideas and values have their origin in experience, so they
reach their fulfilment only as they re-enter experience as
factors of interpretation and control. The burden of learn-
ing has shifted from the teacher to the growing person
who has been brought from a passive into an active re-
lation to learning as growth, as inquiry, and as achieve-
ment rather than as an external and superimposed result.
Its motivation lies deep in disciplined desire and its end
is commitment to that which is felt to be supremely worth-
fuL Such creative learning is oriented, not to the prece-
dents of the past, but to the possibilities of the future.
Through it religious ideals and values are brought into
functioning relation to the living process, and religion be-
er mes a vital experience.

It was to be expected that in its reaction from a trans-
missive, external, authoritative, and backward-looking re-

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 15

ligious education creative religious education in seeking
to redress the imbalance should temporarily overstress
certain values and neglect others. Undoubtedly there was
overemphasis upon ephemeral interests of the child at the
expense of the long-time values and needs of culture. An
extreme emphasis upon the present led to an under- val-
uation of historical experience and tradition. The stress-
ing of life-situations as units of learning led to a certain
degree of atomism, though it was never greater than that
of a subject-matter curriculum with its specious logical
unity. Revolt against the pressures of social authority led
to an unwarranted initial individualism. These ovei'-
emphases are the normal expressions of reaction which
tends initially to be as extreme as that which the reaction
sought to rectify. There are evidences that modern re-
ligious education is seeking to achieve a synthesis of the
new values it has won and the abiding values that were
resident in the traditional types of education. Knowledge
is indispensable in any intelligent ordering of life; but it
is functionally useful knowledge rather than knowledge as
an end in itself. A stable and effective life is impossible
without discipline; but it is not discipline imposed from
without but self-discipline of an even more rigorous sort
involved in every form of social co-operation. Growth is
the essence of education; but it is not a growth whose
patterns are set by the irrevocable forces of heredity, but
growth that springs from the interaction of the live hu-
man being with a dynamic world, both in process of be-
coming.

Creative Christian education takes place at the grow-
ing edge of Christianity where Christianity is in the
making. It is here in the living present that tradition and
creativity meet. Too often these have been felt to be in
irreconcilable conflict. Actually, they belong inseparably
to each other as phases of the historical process. The
present is the outgrowth of the past, as the future will in
turn grow out of the present. Here continuity and change
are inseparably united in an ongoing social movement. In

16 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the experience of living men and women face to face with
the issues of the changed and changing modern world
Christian concepts and values that had their origin under
cultural conditions quite other than our own are subjected
to re-examination and reinterpretation. In this testing of
historical experience under new and different social de-
mands those elements of the Christian faith that are en-
during are sifted out from the context of temporary and
datable circumstances. They live again in their function-
ing in the support and the enhancement of the spiritual
life of the contemporary Christian community. So our
conceptions of the nature of God and man and their re-
lation to each other that seem so convincing to us under
the conditions of our scientific and social world will be
subjected to the same process of re-examination and selec-
tion by those who will come after us in a world that in
its mental outlook and social needs will be very different
from our own. The great historic creeds as well as the
operative systems of beliefs are the records of the chang-
ing and growing faith of the Christian community
through many generations and the changing conditions of
the centuries.

But at this growing edge of Christianity in the living
present not only are the concepts and values of the
Christian tradition re-examined, tested, and sifted;
Christianity as a growing movement is taking on new
qualities and new directions. This has been true of
Christianity in the great moments of its development in
response to new conditions and new demands, as in the
first century when its center was shifted from Jewish to
gentile soil and in the Reformation as a phase of the Ren-
aissance. History demonstrates that the experience of
twenty centuries has not been sufficiently ample and com-
plex to exhaust the resources of Christianity. The
capacity of Christianity to respond to new intellectual and
social demands seems to justify the expectation that the
extremely complex and difficult situations of the con-
temporary world will bring to light new potentialities of

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 17

the Christian movement heretofore unsuspected. But the
Christianity of the epoch before us will be like the Chris-
tianity in all of its other great creative epochs — it will be
a Christianity that is continuous with its historic past,
but at the same time a reformulated Christianity.

It is because creative religious education works at this
growing edge of operative Christianity where the great
traditions of Christianity are put to functional use in the
interpretation, evaluation, and redirecting of present
Christian experience that it is brought into immediate
and fundamental relations with theology. It has been the
habit of not a few religious educators to belittle theology.
This is a superficial and mistaken attitude though net
difficult to understand. Much of traditional theology, like
much of traditional philosophy, has been a rationalization
of social behavior irrationally determined — a legitimiza-
tion of the status quo. The speculations of metaphysical
theology seem to be so remote from the actual processes
of life and culture that they confuse and retard rather
than facilitate man's interaction with his real and present
world. In so far as this is true much of a priori, tradition-
al theology is useless for educational purposes.

A more considered view, however, shows that religious
education and theology are closely interrelated. The phi-
losophy, content, and procedure of religious education are
conditioned by the theological assumptions upon which
they rest. A religious education that rests upon the
theological assumptions, be they traditional or neo-orth-
odox, of a supernaturally revealed and authoritative body
of static truth, of a depraved human nature, of God's
action as an invasion of the temporal by the eternal, of
grace as contravening the known processes of growth —
such a religious education will conform to the transmis-
sive and disciplinary patterns of education described in
the early paragraphs of this discussion. If, on the other
hand, the religious educator thinks of God and man as in
reciprocal relations, seeking and finding each other at the
point of man's interaction with his objective world, if he

18 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

thinks of truths as growing insights into reality to be
modified, enriched and extended by fresh experience, if
he views man with self-respect and dignity as evolving
toward ever higher levels of intellectual and spiritual
capacity, if instead of inflexible absolutes he grounds his
life upon growing values that have been validated by
millenniums of human living, if he is convinced that in cre-
ativity man most nearly comes into mutual fellowship
with God — if these are the substance of his Christian
faith he will ground his educational philosophy upon the
present moment in personal and social experience where
human life is reproducing and recreating itself and where
he believes that God is as creatively at work as in any
period in history. He will trust that experience as capable
of carrying the load of education more adequately than
the past can do. He will endeavor to assist the growing
person and the learning group to bring to bear upon the
living issues of that experience the highest capacities of
the human spirit — critical intelligence, discriminating
judgment, and a dedicated purpose to realize in the con-
crete terms of human relations the values that live at the
heart of Christianity. Thus he will lift religious educa-
tion from the level of repetitive routine authoritatively
imposed from without to an ennobling and creative
achievement of a way of life consonant with man's digni-
ty and destiny. Above all he will direct the attention of
living persons to the frontiers of religious thought and
life where God is still at work creating a realm of good
where life may be lived and lived abundantly.

The religious educator is, therefore, not only dependent
upon theology as a ground for his work. Because creative
religious education is concerned with the actual function-
ing of Christian concepts and values in contemporary ex-
perience where historic Christianity is recreating itself, it
has much to contribute to theology. Religious education
is concerned with the operative aspects of religious con-
cepts, values, and symbols. Theology, on the other hand,
is concerned with the interpretation and formulation of

CREATIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 19

these products of Christian experience. Theology has
more to learn from the functioning of these expressions
of Christian experience than from their formal structure.
Other sciences have long since learned this in regard to
their subject-matters. The productive focus both for
theology as the interpretation and formulation of Chris-
tian faith and for religious education as the conscious ana
intentional organization of the operation of Christian con-
victions and purposes in the lives of growing persons and
groups is at the existential point in historic Christianity
— the living present — where religion is in the making.

THE TWO HUMANISMS

By Roger Hazelton

Colorado College

Colorado Springs, Colorado

"Humanism" has surely been a word to conjure with in
contemporary thought. By and large its defenders and
critics alike have considered its meaning to be a denial
of faith in God and an assertion of the ethical autonomy
— and often even the cosmic primacy — of man himself. The
arbitrary and confusing ways in which the word has been
used almost makes one despair of defining the term again
and marking off the things it stands for. In the face of
the mass of indecisive discussion about humanism one is
tempted to give up impatiently the slow business of clari-
fying terms and resort to Humpty-Dumpty's advice about
words: "Pay them extra and make them mean what you
like."

As examples of only a few of the uses of the word we
may remind ourselves of some of its American meanings.
There is, or has been, a literary humanism urged by
Babbitt, More, Foerster and others which has sought
standards for literature and life, stressed the place of the
"inner check" as against the dogma of self-expression,
and exalted the aristocracy of the intellect. This formerly
vigorous view has recently come under the fire both of
the right and the left wings of current thought.1 Marxist
humanism, combining a world-view of dialectical material-
ism with a strategy of the class struggle and an apocaly-
ptic of the classless society, stands at an opposite pole of
meaning. A so-called "religious" humanism, much to the
fore in the twenties, has lately been defended by such able
thinkers as Burtt and attacked by naturalistic and super-
naturalistic theists alike.2 It has defined God (where it
uses the word at all) in terms of human values, equating
religion with their practical and social realization. To
these familiar brands must now be added the "integral"
humanism of Maritain and Gilson, which is a program

THE TWO HUMANISMS 21

for contemporary culture based on the thought-structure
of Thomas Aquinas.3

It is this last, Catholic usage which poses a new problem
for Christian thinkers. Theistic and Christian writers
have generally sought rather to repudiate humanism out
of hand than to come to terms with it. Their attack has
been largely apologetic, setting up more or less traditional
Christian presuppositions against those of humanist
thought. It has seldom been a square facing of the ques-
tions humanism poses or a search for better answers to
them than the humanist himself can give. David Roberts
continues this line of attack in a recent article4 and
Charles Hartshorne, though more sympathetic than
Roberts to the humanist's questions, sets forth panpsychis-
tic theism as a step "beyond humanism"6.

Now what the Catholic thinkers have done is to at-
tempt to include humanism within the theocentric per-
spective and, by making a humanistic theism possible, to
kill the views of atheists and non-theists with the kind-
ness of a more adequate religious metaphysics. That this
move has been possible from the Catholic position is due
to the fact that, interestingly enough, Protestant thought
has been moving away from philosophical understanding
to theological affirmation, while Catholic thought on the
other hand has been feeling toward a "Christian philo-
sophy" capable of comprehending and winning over con-
temporary secular life.

The importance of this newer development is that the
older antithesis between Christianity and humanism can-
not longer be maintained without serious confusion, and
that it now becomes possible to speak of this contrast as
two kinds of humanism, one centered in man and the other
centered in God. Perhaps a more accurate statement could
be given by using the terms "non-theistic humanism" and
"humanistic theism;" but the present discussion, concerned
primarily with the fact that the latter view now sees the
importance of accepting the challenge of humanism and
meeting it so far as possible on its own ground, will speak

22 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of the two humanisms, one of which tells us that man is
"the highest type of individual in existence",6 and another
which holds that man gains his worth from superior
powers and values. The one says that man is alone in real-
izing his ideals, facing an indifferent nature on the one
hand and a vacuum where God was formerly supposed to
be on the other. The second humanism says that man
finds meaning and purpose for his living only because he
is upheld by a power not himself, at once great and good,
which men have immemorially called God.

In spite of these basic differences, the two humanisms
display a common pattern. First there is a realistic ap-
praisal of man as he is, individually and socially; second,
an urgent concern about the ways in which he ought to
live; and finally a presistent effort to adjust the tension,
in thought and practice alike, between what he is and
what he ought to be. There are really only two root-ques-
tions at the bottom of humanism in this broader sense.
They happen also to be ancient Biblical questions: "What
is man?' and "What can a man do to be saved?" In so far
as these questions are accepted, and answers to them
sought, by thinkers of both groups, we are justified in call-
ing both "humanistic."

No one can properly deny that this appraisal concern
and effort have been the very substance of both secular
and religious thought. But the impact of the present
crisis has quite naturally led many to question the power
and advantage of thinking itself. The practical failure of
liberalism on many fronts, as well as the rebirth of dog-
matic finality in political and theological practice, make
the painstaking use of reason seem ineffective and fre-
quently impossible. Thinking, even about the things that
most nearly concern men's values and hopes, proceeds
under a heavy cloud of suspicion. One needs to remind
himself of two things: that thought worthy of the name
arises out of real needs and stimulations; and that such
thought must in turn be tested in the fire of practice and
action. It is no accident that Augustine wrote The City

THE TWO HUMANISMS 23

of God even while the very earthly city that was the
Roman Empire crumbled and crackled before his agonized

eyes ; or that the most important work on ethics of recent
times, that by Nicolai Hartmann, was begun in the tren-
ches of the Eastern front during the first World War.
Every love, every bereavement, every disappointment,
makes philosophers and theologians out of us willy-nilly,
and the placid sea of thought is fed continually by the
warm and turbulent streams of common, earth-bound life.
Nor is it accidental that millions of school children lead
different lives because John Dewey writes, modifying the
whole course of public education in the United States for
several decades, and that John Locke's innocuous treatise
on civil government becomes a corner-stone of the
American constitution, to which legislators even yet refer
with patriotic enthusiasm on special occasions. The point
is well put by Irwin Edman :

The waves of a pebble of thought spread until they
reach even the nitwits on the shores of action. There
is nothing so remote or impractical in philosophical
speculation that, granted only its genius and its in-
sight, may not have infinite repercussions on pract-
ical life7.

If it be admitted, then, that such thinking as concerns
the ways of man arises in and contributes to those ways
themselves, and that we may fairly speak of both theistic
and non-theistic thought as humanistic in so far as they
seek answers to the questions "What is man?" and "What
can a man do to be saved?", we are prepared to follow the
issue between the two humanisms at closer range. We do
so in the conviction already voiced by David Roberts : "No
clarification of the theological issue is possible so long as
humanism and the recent tendencies in doctrinal theology
remain hermetically sealed off from each other."8 For
this purpose we choose two representative American
thinkers, each a decidedly influential spokesman for his
point of view, Max Otto and Robert L. Calhoun.

24 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

II

The keynote of Max Otto's thought' may be found in a
passage in his earlier book, Things and Ideals (New
York: Holt, 1924) which Walter Horton has called a clas-
sical expression of our first type of humanism:

It is thus a constructive social suggestion that we
endeavor to give up, as the basis of our desire to win
a satisfactory life, the quest for the companionship
with a being behind or within the fleeting aspect of
nature; that we assume the universe to be indifferent
towards the human venture that means every thing
to us; that we acknowledge ourselves to be adrift in
infinite space on our little earth, the sole custodians
of our ideals . . . accept the stern condition of being
psychically alone in time and space, that we may
then, with new zest, enter the warm valley of earthly
existence — warm with human impulse, aspiration
and affection, warm with the unconquerable thing
called life; turn from the recognition of our cosmic
isolation to a new sense of human togetherness, and
so discover in a growing human solidarity, in a pro-
gressively ennobled humanity, in an increasing joy in
living, the goal we have all along blindly sought, and
build on earth the fair city we have looked for in a
compensatory world beyond.9

These are courageous, humane, hopeful words. They
contain the familiar double-headed insistence of the non-
theistic humanist that we must give up the quest for God
in or above nature as hopeless and transfer our allegiance
to the unfinished business of improving the relations be-
tween men. This combination of atheistic naturalism and
social idealism he calls, in his latest book,"realistic ideal-
ism".10 Only by ceasing to sing "Glory to God in the
highest", Otto thinks, can we set about the important
business of realizing "peace on earth, good will to men."

Since the issue about God is the diverging point of the
two humanisms, we must get Otto's denial of God into
sharper focus. In his Conversation about God held not a

THE TWO HUMANISMS 25

decade ago with H. N. Wieman and D. C. Macintosh he
accused the theists of having falsely divided the world into
material and spiritual realms, — falsely, because the two
are"coequal aspects of experienced reality." He went on
to say:

It is my conviction that the happiest and noblest
life attainable by men and women is jeopardized by
reliance upon a super-human, cosmic being for guid-
ance and help . . . Reliance upon God for what life
does not afford has, in my opinion, harmful conse-
quences. It diverts attention from the specific con-
ditions upon which a better or worse life depends;
it leads men to regard themselves as spectators of
a course of events which they in reality help to de-
termine; it makes the highest human excellence con-
sist in acquiescence in the supposed will of a being
that is defined as not human . . . u

One wonders, and can never be sure, if Otto's denial
of belief in God arises because the belief is false or be-
cause it has "harmful consequences." When he is talking
about nature he gives the impression that his aversion is
intellectual, because God's existence cannot be proved and
seems in the face of the given indifference of nature to
be most unlikely. But when he is speaking of man he is
against belief in God because he thinks that men who be-
lieve in God tend to consider themselves helpless to change
things and to look away from the things that need chang-
ing to the far-off being who, they fondly suppose, changes
not. Belief in God, he holds, is not only an error of mind
but a paralysis of the will ; it cuts the nerve of action.
Now it is clearly not the same thing to say that God does
not exist because the facts are against the belief as it is
to say that God ought not to exist because men's ideals
will fail of realization if they look beyond themselves for
the help men alone can give to one another. Mr. Otto, be-
kig a pragmatist, confuses the two.

26 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

• Nevertheless he claims to be an atheist, which he says
does not mean that he doubts whether God exists but that
he affirms positively that God does not exist. Such an
affirmation calls for proof, and Otto offers several re-
flections pointing in this direction. For one thing there is
the undoubted fact that naturalism (the denial of God)
has gained and theism has lost in power over men's lives,
which seems to prove in a practical if not theoretical way
that "in proportion as men have ceased to lean on God,
they have not only learned to bend mechanical forces to
good use and to control the physical conditions of human
well-being, but they have opened up undreamed-of re-
sources for the satisfaction of the noblest desires of which
they are capable."12 Or consider, he goes on to say, that
much theism is crisis theism.13 When people are comfor-
table and happy they do not believe in God nearly so
much as when they are miserable or shaken. Neither of
these furnishes anything like genuine proof of God's non-
existence. Otto comes nearer to such proof when he points
to the non-moral character of the evolutionary process.
We cannot presume to know of a far-off divine event to
which the whole creation moves because we are in the
middle of the business ourselves and can scarcely speak
about the climax of a performance when we have witness-
ed only the opening scenes; nor can we see in human
history any evidence of a power not ourselves siding with
our ethical best. On the contrary, "there is no indication
that anything or anyone superhuman is bent upon the
triumph of humane or ethical principles." See what hap-
pened to Socrates and Jesus. Note the growing, festering
power of wicked men, the death of the good and the defeat
of the things for which they stood. In the face of all this
"evidence" from nature and history, "the best we can in
truth say for the cosmos is that up to date it has not prej
vented the human experiment from being tried. Anything
more is too much."14

But even that, of course, is something. It may, strictly
speaking, prove the existence, quite as convincingly as

THE TWO HUMANISMS 27

the non-existence, of God. Otto honestly admits that he
cannot prove cosmic atheism to be true but claims that the
theist cannot prove his assertions either. The evidence
sufficient to establish either view beyond doubt is lacking.
He chooses for his part an ""affirmative faith in the non-
existence of God," because in the last aralysis it is better
not to believe in God so that you will be better able to
take up arms against a sea of social troubles.

Waiving for the moment the feeling that Otto has dis-
posed a bit too lightly of God, we come on to his view of
man. What is man? The characteristic of human beings
which sets them off from all other beings is that they are
"intent upon making desired actualities cut of imagined
possibilities."15 Man, like other organisms, refuses "pas-
sively to accept the world in which he happened to occur,"
but unlike these his aggressiveness toward the environ-
ment is in the direction of an intelligent use of means to
further his ends and a higher plane of general ethical con-
sciousness. Otto is a "progressist" though not a shallow
optimist; there are lights and shadows, losses and gains,
in the picture of human advance, but it is an advance.
Otto does not suppose, as did Ralph Adams Cram, that
man has remained essentially at the Neolithic level. Man
eludes all simple formulas and is a hopeless contradiction
to logic. He is not only what he was but what he shall
find the means of becoming. The conclusion, Otto tells us,
must be "that man's nature cannot be exhausted in one
stratum of existence."16 In fact for Otto man is just about
what he is to the humanists who also believe in God.

And how shall man save himself, from what evils and
for what end? The "spiritualizing tendency" observable
throughout human history gives the clue to man's future
advance. He must overcome the egocentric impulses which
mai k childish life in the individual and the race ; he must
wrestle effectively with the problems created by a general
business-mindedness which places power and profit above
the contribution of goods and services to life's dignity and
beauty; and he must re-channel the immense mechanisms

28 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of industrial and political life into the ways of a con-
tributive society. He can do these things by relying on the
propulsiveness, resourcefulness and creativeness of his
own spirit to produce not an accidental and chaotic equi-
librium between human groups but a "man-conscious plan-
ning," based on just a "comprehensible and work-
able philosophy of life for those who are in it and of it"
as Otto himself has set forth. It is the hope of a good life
In a good world, not that of a future life in another,
which is the undying flame kindling any social idealism
worthy of the name.

This is surely a most eloquent and honest example of
the humanism which finds man's hope of betterment in
himself, rather than in sub-human nature or an assumed
super-human God. Its courage and faith must have a
magnificent appeal for all those who, when the great
maps of life are gone, need to find new incentives for
living to replace the old. It should be understood and ap-
preciated by theistic thinkers before it is attacked.

One of those who have best understood humanism
without God is Robert L. Calhoun. In a paper prepared
for the Oxford Conference he deals fully and fairly with
such a view as Otto's.17 He goes so far as to say that
"humanitarian modernism" (which would certainly include
Otto's position) "should be cherished by contemporary
Christians" in large part, "without conceding its ul-
timate perspective."18 That love of man is something we
have far more need of, not less, is a recurrent theme in
Calhoun's thought. In exalting personality and in seeking
to shape the patterns of institutions to human needs such
a humanism as Otto's comes nearest, in his opinion, to
Christian faith. What the Christian clearly- cannot grant
is the ultimate perspective of man-centered humanism,
which is man himself. He rather sees man "as at once
less admirable in his present actuality, and more pro-
found in his ultimate significance."19

How can this be? Atheistic humanism places man's
hope of salvation in himself and his ideals. Intelligence,

THE TWO HUMANISMS 29

good will, education, improving the social environment,
which are part and parcel of its program, are all very
fine, but they are not enough. They do not come near
the heart of the problem of man which is man himself.
Even ideals are not enough, for there are demonic depths
in man which only a God-centered view can recognize, and
only God can plumb. Such optimism about man as the
atheistic humanist shares, even if it be like Otto's of a
chastened sort, is simply not true to the facts of human
behavior. One must admire the courage, but refuse to ac-
cept the estimate, of such humanism's account of man.

This refusal does not involve any unwillingness to ac-
cept or utilize the findings of science and its positive
gains in relation to the social and psychological environ-
ment. In so far as atheistic humanism has been far more
ready to profit from these than has Christian faith, it is
Christianity's shame and loss. Such changes in Ihe en-
vironment of human life and the world-views to which
they gave rise need not to be repudiated but to be trans-
cended by being included. Yet Calhoun feels certain that
the Christian view sees depths of perversity and weakness
in man which actually explain what man does better than
the easier confidence of humanism without God, and holds
that any program for man's advance must reckon with
the facts concerning man's worst.

This is what Calhoun means by holding that Christian
faith sees man as less admirable in his present actuality
than atheistic humanism. But what of the point that it also
sees him as "more profound in his ultimate significance?"
This is so because for the former man is seen as placed
in a universe not alien to him but continuous with his
own spirit, the source of his being and the goal of his
striving. His significance is not self-sufficient but derived
and dependent. But even so it is more profound. Man the
sinner is more significant than man the thinker and learn-
er and lover because he stands in the presence of a power
and Tightness in things which judges him and from which
even in sinning he cannot totally separate himself. Unless

30 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

there be something greater and better than both man and
nature, "there is no obvious ground for optimism about
either the goodness and power of men or the ultimate
worth of things."20

What, then, are Calhoun's answers to the root-questions
of humanism? What is man? Man is "the victim of his
own spoiled nature, which has become self-corrupted into
a mass of misdirected cravings." He continues by pointing
out that the Christian view

has its eyes on man the animal as we know him in
business, in politics and in war; in the hypocrisies of
home and school and church, and all polite society;
in the secret lusts and hates of his most private im-
aginings, and in the walking nightmares of his mad-
ness when these lusts and hates come out frankly, in-
side hospital cells or in lynchings and pogroms.
From this creature, man as he is, what can deliver him?
What can he do to be saved? Neither "high ideals and
moral discourses" nor "common sense, nor science, nor
philosophy" can avail, though they may all help. And even
less can the cults of race or class that seek "to free man
from conscience and the claims of right by handing him
over to the whirlwinds or raw power." For man is this
curious, ambivalent being: he is an animal, predatory,
deceitful, cruel ;" but he is no less incurably a "social, re-
sponsible, aspiring being, who can no more rid himself of
conscience than of his memory or his powers of speech,
without ceasing to be a man,"12 Thus we see an apparent
paradox in the Christian view of man. A deep pessimism
about man as he is and his ability to save himself is com-
bined with a great hope for man as he may become, and
his chances to be saved by God.

The Christian understanding of man, with its re-
lentless pessimism and its exultant faith, is no ordi-
nary Utopian dream, for it sees man not merely re-
housed and re-educated, but re-made. It does not
crudely glorify man, but it sees him, even in the depths
of his sin, as never for a moment alone but always

THE TWO HUMANISMS 31

with God, in whose unseen presence he lives and .
moves, and has his being. If there be any ground of
hope for man the animal, it must be because some-
thing like this is true.22

Man, then, is to be saved by God. This does not mean
that he is abjectly helpless, cringing in weak fear before
the divine omnipotence, as Islam, the Calvinist-Puritan
strain in Christianity, and non-theistic critics like Nietz-
sche and Otto, have all too often pictured him. It does
mean that at some critical points in his living man stands
in need of guidance, power, help, which neither he no?
others of his kind can furnish. It means, further, that
on the Christian premise such help is to be had, not
magically or arbitrarily, but simply because there is what
Einstein has called a "rationality manifest in existence"
which has also the marks of power and goodness as we
know them in human experience to be.

Man's part in being saved is real and not illusory. But
salvation comes by way of response to an order and pat-
tern already "there," not through aggressive, self-suf-
ficient attack by man upon his own problems. The ap-
parent paradox of pessimism and optimism is actually re-
solved in the experience of worship, in which one discerns
the presence of God and commits his living into God's
hands. Man is not only animal and child of nature. He is
critic and builder, criticizing not only what is in terms of
what he wants but even his wants in the light of what he
ought to want, and making tools, developing cultures in
order to reach desired and far-off ends. He is at all times
an unfinished being, and knows his center of equilibrium to
be outside himself, for he can become himself only by
transcending himself. Even his ordinary work may assist
in the process of being saved, in so far as that work is
contributive rather than egocentric, planned rather than
haphazard, a joy rather than a monotonous routine.

In all this a certain view of God has been implied, ana
we must glance now at the main lines with which Calhoun
sketches in his view. The subject-matter of theology, he

32 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

maintains, includes not only the data of natural and social
science but also the rich variety and profusion of human
experience not yet brought under the microscope and the
calipers — "all of the more concrete and pungent aspects
of human life."23 Taking as many of these facts into ac-
count as possible, and being as critical as one can in in-
terpreting them, we find good reasons for preferring the
hypothesis that along with random or mechanical or un-
conscious factors in the universe there is something sus-
piciously like mental behavior.

Calhoun does not suppose any more than Otto that com-
plete certainty can be had about God by any human being.
In all such matters we have to move by analogy, which is
to explain the less familiar in terms of the more familiar.
He is quite as aware as logicians like Mill or Joseph that
analogy is inconclusive, but he insists that it is an inevitable
procedure in all thinking, and that to say that something
lik^. mind is discernible jn the working of nature is quite
as good an analogy as to suppose with Lord Russell that
a million monkeys pounding a million typewriters could
turn out all the books in the British Museum, the more so
when on a chance or mechanistic view the typewriters
would have to assemble, repair and reproduce themselves,
turning out books for their own amusement or improve-
ment.24 Such analogical thinking about God should not fly
in the face of scientific methods or findings; but Calhoun
does not see how scientific research can possibly disprove
God's existence, for the very reason that it is not con-
cerned with God but with data that can be pointed to,
weighed, measured and otherwise manipulated. We must
use what methods we have, where they are appropriate.
God is a question not of what we know but of what, given
the things we know, it is reasonable to believe.

Pursuing the analogy cautiously, we get, according to
Calhoun, a view of God as Mind, present and operative
everywhere through the space-time order in such wise
that no event transpiring within it is physically hidden

THE TWO HUMANISMS 33

from the central permeating Mind, although it does not
possess omniscience in the sense of foreknowledge or in the
further sense of being able to get outside its own perspec-
tive into some or all others. God's thoughts are not our
thoughts, nor his ways our ways. As Doer God also has a
purposive nature, for if one thinks of God as good (and
Calhoun holds with Plato that this is the starting-point
for theology) one must assume that He has some pref-
erences and antipathies by nature. This assumption of
goodness in God also prevents Calhoun from maintaining
an absolute omnipotence for God : "There are many things
which God cannot do, precisely because He is God, and
must be true to himself: He cannot act unjustly, nor un-
wisely, nor unmercifully."2'

Rather than pursue this theological trend further, we
must consider how this God is related to men. Again, we
depend, as we must, on analogies from human experience.
If we say that God "loves", however greatly we may think
divine love exceeds human love in power and reach, we are
saying that God's love has something in common with
man's, and can be recognized by men for what it is. There
is what in statistics is termed "significant correlation"
between human and divine attributes. Yet we have con-
stantly to be on our guard against making over God too
easily into the image of man. God, like a friend who re-
fuses to fit into my pre-conceived picture of him, refuses
again and again to be what we want Him to be, and by
this refusal, as childish ideas of God give way to wiser
ones, we are drawn closer to God as He is. Yet with con-
siderable reasonableness we may say, Calhoun thinks, that
God's activity with respect to men has three phases: the
establishing and maintenance of conditions suitable for
the rise and growth of beings capable of knowing good
and achieving it; then, bringing into life such beings as
can take advantage of these conditions; and finally the
awakening in such beings of responses to good already
there or possible good to be achieved.26 This is God's
way, as "living Mind at work", with men, in which a man

34 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

is called to be a "contributing participant in a shared task
and a common life," a "co-worker" with God.27

It is a fair question whether such a view may properly
be called "humanism" at all. Calhoun himself nowhere
uses it to describe his position but rather reserves it for
characterizing views to which he takes exception. Yet if
the term be allowed in the broad sense already given,
surely Calhoun's fundamental realism in dealing with hu-
man nature, as well as his careful analysis of human
ideals and their grounding in the world order, and his
positive statement of the ways in which these ideals are
realized by man co-working with God in the search for
personal integrity and social reconstruction, all permit
the term in his case. When we further consider that he
does not set his view up against the non-theistic or
atheistic views but insists that they be inclusively
transcended, we have another reason for using the term.
When we also admit, as we must, that the belief in God
which Calhoun upholds is not at all the same belief in
God which Otto attacks, we have a third reason for al-
lowing the possibility of such a designation. Calhoun
would say that a belief in man such as Otto holds de-
mands some notion of God in order to be made intelligible
and practicable in such a world as this. If concern with
common problems can justify a common name, "human-
ism" would seem appropriate in Calhoun's as in Otto's
case.

Ill

In weighing the merits of the two humanisms we have
to remember that non-belief in God and belief in God are
matters of faith which necessarily go beyond available
fact. Otto has been more frank than some of his fellow-
travelers in admitting that, and Calhoun has been more
willing than some theistic naturalists to say that the
existence of God is not a matter of knowledge but of ra-
tional faith. We are dealing here, of course, with the ul-
timate guesses, with what James called the "overbeliefs",

THE TWO HUMANISMS 35

by which men try to body forth the forms of things un-
known. We cannot rightly expect sure-footed certainty in
these beliefs, though we have every right to insist on such
clearness, consistency and adequacy as we are justified in
expecting. In choosing between Otto's and Calhoun's views
we do not have a choice between fact and fancy, or be-
tween certainty and uncertainty; we have two alterna-
tive faiths, which we must judge by the standards which
are appropriate to them.

We have in the second place to re-emphasize the fact
that the real issue between theistic and non-theistic (or
atheistic) humanism hangs upon two questions. The first
is the theoretical question: Does such knowledge as we
have tend to justify or to deny faith in God? It seems to
the present writer at least that Otto's negative answer
depends clearly upon his sharp division of the human
from the natural realm, and that this distinction in turn
depends upon a kind of scientific naturalism proper to
the nineteenth century but quite out of place in the twen-
tieth. When, for example, Whitehead holds that "the
energetic activity considered in physics is the emotional
intensity entertained in life",28 he is assuming continuity
and not discontinuity between human and natural facts.
When Einstein paraphrases Kant to say that "science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind",
he is suggesting a postulate of method which is much closer
to Colhoun's than to Otto's way of thinking. Otto seems to
equate theism with superstition and says in fact that to ac-
cept the passing of the. gods is "the price of growing up."-9
One who makes such a statement in the face of respected
opinion based on full acquaintance with rigorous scientific
method must take upon himself the burden of proof.

It is the special merit of Calhoun's criticism of non-
theistic views that he joins the issue on grounds of ra-
tonality rather than attempting to meet them on the basis
of the pragmatic effects of belief in God. This is the
proper function of a philosophical theology, which needs
especially to be maintained in view of the anti-philoso-

36 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

phical bias of much contemporary theology. Only such a
theology can really understand, and really meet, the ques-
tions posed for it by anthropoentric humanism.

As we are constantly being made more aware of the
connections between living and non-living, what is "val-
uable" and what is "real", what men have termed "phy-
sical" and what they have called "spiritual", where form-
erly these were supposed to constitute realms irrelevant
to one another, it seems clear that a world-view is now
possible among men familiar with the procedures and re-
sults of science in which God is not an anachronism or a
superfluity, though he be not the God of Edwards, Milton
or Dante or of the simple-minded believer. In a sense this
is a judgment on past history, since it depends on what
recent science has already achieved; but the strong hold
of out-moded assumptions upon the "social sciences"
makes its insistence pertinent.

The second question which we have seen at issue be-
tween the two humanisms is the practical question : Does
belief in God tend to reinforce the moral life of the be-
liever or, as the non-theists hold, to paralyze his will? In
view of the discussion to this point it will be evident
that the non-theistic position is valid only if the God in
question be assumed to be all-powerful, all-knowing and
all-there-at-bottom-is. To repeat a point already made, the
idea of God held by Calhoun is not the idea of God which
Otto rejects. A God who is the principle of goodness and
the process of making good, who communicates himself
to men not by intrusions of miracle into the normal order
of nature so much as through that order itself, who is the
ground and the goal of human striving persuading but
not compelling the will,— such a God is the guarantor and
guardian of human good rather than its annulment and
denial.

It should be abundantly plain, to those of us who live
under the ominous shadow of world crisis, that good will
alone is not enough. It should be equally plain, waiving
now the problem of theoretical justification with which

THE TWO HUMANISMS 37

we have already dealt, that man "needs to have his own
stumbling efforts powerfully upheld by forces greater
than his own."3" It should be clear, again, that even such
good will as a man has does not explain itself, but points
beyond itself to its source and its end. Men of good will,
saddened as is Thomas Mann by the failure of the intellect
to tip the scales in favor of humane living, shocked like
Jules Romains into pained recognition of the unsavory,
uutractable forces deep within life, or driven like Aldous
Huxley and others into the paradoxes of a mystical
pacifism, may find in the ageless quest of the human
spirit after God not an easy peace, but a more sobering
estimate of man at his worst and a profounder hope for
man at his best than good will alone can provide. The
unmistakable note of sadness sounding through the
thought of non-theists like Max Otto is its own com-
mentary on the position that belief in God destroys be-
lief in man. Belief in man and belief in God belong to-
gether.

Let this belief be clarified and criticized with all the
tools of observation and of reason; let it be tested again
and again in the fires of practice and of crisis; but man
will know with the sureness born of conflict and desire
that he is a child of earth but a child of starry heaven,
too, that, in George Herbert's phrase, he is one world ana
hath another to attend him. This strangest of beings
which is man, which is you, which is myself, will go on
learning and unlearning, building and wrecking, stumb-
ling and striving, loving and hating. But he will know
when he is most himself that the condition of his growth
as man is a patient, teachable openness toward what is
not himself, what he does not make but finds, after the
fashion of the ancient paradox of religion, which is no
paradox at all but the simplest truth : "He that loseth his
life for my sake shall find it."

NOTES

1. See for example Eliseo Vivas, "Humanism: A Backward Glance"
T'icn Hsia Monthly, February-March, 1941, pp. 301-313; and Leo

38 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

R. Ward, "Humanism and the Religious Question," The Review of
Politics, October, 1940, pp. 477-487.

2. See E. A. Burtt, Types of Religious Philosophy (New York:
Harper's, 1939) ; H. N. Wieman, and W. M. Horton, The Growth
of Religion (Chicago: Willett, Clark, 1938), pp. 250-1 and passim;
David E. Roberts, "A Christian Appraisal of Humanism," Journal
of Religion, January, 1941, pp. 2-22.

3. See especially Jacques Maritain, True Humanism (New York:
Ccribner's, 1938.)

4. See above, note 2.

5. Charles Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism (Chicago: Willett, Clark,
1937.)

6. Ibid., p. 2.

7. Irwin Edman, Four Ways of Philosophy (New York: Holt,
1937), p. 100.

8. David E. Roberts, loc. cit., p 2.

9. Pp. 289-290.

10. The Human Enterprise (New York: Crofts, 1940) Chapter V.

11. The Christian Century, August 10, 1932, pp. 978-9.

12. The Human Enterprise, pp. 323-4

13. Ibid., p. 325.

14. Ibid., pp.332, 335.

15. Ibid., p. 129.

16. Ibid., p. 223.

17. ''The Dilemma of Humanitarian Modernism", in The Christian
Understanding of Man (Chicago: Willett, Clark 1938), pp. 45-81.

18. Ibid., p. 75.

19. Ibid., p. 71.

20. God and the Common Life (New York: Scribner's, 1935), p. 93.

21. What is Man? (New York: Association Press, 1939), pp. 69-70.

22. Ibid., p. 73.

23. "Theology and the Humanites," in The Meaning of the Humani-
ties , ed. T. M. Greene (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
J 938), p. 129.

24. God and the Common Life, p. 125.

25. Ibid., p. 193.

26. Ibid., pp. 201-204.

27. Ibid., p. 242.

28. A. N. Whitehead, Nature and Life (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1934), p. 46.

29. Review of A. E. Haydon, Biography of the Gods, in Christian
Century , June 4, 1941, p. 755.

30. R. L. Calhoun, What is Man?, p. 62.

PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND THE
LORD'S SUPPER

By Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr.
Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.

Worship is the response of man to the holiness and the
creative and redemptive love of God. For Christians the
response of worship derives meaning from the revelation
of the nature of God's holiness and love as it is in Jesus
Christ. The entire experience of Christian worship is
conditioned by historic reference to the life and teaching,
death and victory over death of the Son of Man and Son
of God. This reference distinguishes Christian worship
from other forms of religious worship. In God's presence
Christians must face honestly: 1) the absolute demand
of God's righteous will that they be perfect even as He
is perfect; and 2) the equally absolute demand of the ex-
ample of Christ, completely obedient to the will of God
even to the death of the cross. Every Christian in his
profession of faith at baptism and confirmation promises
to seek to do the will of God by following Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior. In turn God offers the means of fulfil-
ling this obligation so solemnly assumed in the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the spiritual Christ, who is communicated
through the fellowship of Christian believers, the Church.

In worship the Church, the company of faithful people,
lays itself bare before God for His judgment of its offer-
ings and His strength to carry on its responsibility. Those
who share this experience generally agree that it involves
the following fundamental elements:

1) Thanksgiving — for the knowledge God has given us
of Himself, His will, His provident care, and His re-
demptive love through Christ.

2) Penitence and forgiveness — for our failures to live
up to His demands and to our obligation.

3) Instruction and Vision — that we may more fully
comprehend God's purposes, requirements and promises,

40 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the causes of our failures, and the means of overcoming
them.

■i) Commitment — to a more strenuous endeavor
to set forth in our lives the ideal of perfect love to which
we are called.

I

The experience of the Church in worship differs from
the private devotions of individual Christians in that it
is social and communal in character. The church offers its
praise and thanksgiving, makes its confession of sin, re-
ceives the Word of God, and dedicates itself to service
as a social corporate body, knit together by the common
bond of the Holy Spirit. The public worship of the Church
is not the sum total of many individuals' particular offer-
ings and prayers. Granted that the individual Christian
does and should come to worship with fellow Christians
bringing the fruits of his own stewardship and the re-
quests of his own need : none the less, in order to trans-
late particular, individual concerns into a social exper-
ience of worship, all the worshippers must share them one
with another. In so doing the individual worshipper learns
to interpret and modify his own Christian experience in
the light of the largest possible good of the whole Church.
Common worship thus gives perspective to each Christian
life by relating it to the total purpose of the Church's
mission.

If worship is to be social and common it must neces-
sarily be liturgical. Without liturgy worship becomes dis-
ordered, anarchic, and individualistic, and consequently
unedifying. The experience of the early Corinthian church
t aches this. The ecstatic utterance of many of its mem-
bers though in itself a genuine and sincere expression of
individuals' experience of God, was nevertheless unedi-
fying because it was not translated into terms which
built up the whole body of the church. Protestant wor-
ship today has often been accused of excessive individual-
ism and subjectivism. The charge is not altogether just.
Congregations do have an active part in worship (though

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 41

choirs often tend to monopolize it) ; and the minister does
endeavor to offer prayer and instruction that is relevant
to the intentions of the whole worshipping body. Yet it
must be admitted, there is a tendency in much Protestarn
worship for the congregation to become purely passive
to the devotions of their minister. Liturgy preserves wor-
ship from such a danger by establishing a means of inter-
communication among all the worshippers. It demands the
active participation of all who are present, without at
the same time allowing any individual to invade or in-
trude upon the spiritual freedom of his neighbor. It es-
tablishes an order of worship which requires every mem-
ber to contribute his or her proper share to the total of-
fering.

Sacerdotalism has always been a dangerous pitfall for
true common worship. By this we mean the monopoly
which the clergy assume, willingly or unwillingly, with
regard to the conduct of Christian worship. It results in
worship being performed on behalf of people instead of in
their name. The later Middle Ages afford an excellent
lesson in this regard. Contrary to much popular opinion,
the medieval Church was marked by steady liturgical de-
cline. The lay folk lost any sense of responsibility and
vital participation in what was taking place at the altar.
The presence of a congregation was unnecessary for the
clergy to conduct worship. People generally received com-
munion only once a year at Easter. Otherwise their at-
tendance at Mass concerned itself chiefly with the witness
and adoration of the consecrated host. Though it cannnt
be denied that this in itself was a high form of worship
experience, it was not social, common worship. For the
benefits of the adoration of the host were individually
sought and individually applied. The Eucharist becam?
very largely the vehicle of private devotion rather than
the solemn offering of the people of God. The greatest
achievement of the Reformation was its resurrection of
the primitive Christian conception of the priesthood of
all believers, and the emphasis upon worship as an act

42 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

understood by the people. Yet Protestant history has
shown that' the ideals of the Reformers have not been
realized. For the sacerdotalism of the medieval priest
there has often been substituted the sacerdotalism of the
reformed minister, who functions as a complete dictator
in the realm of the public worship. Protestant church
people have willingly acquiesced in this. Many consider
that they have done their duty if they have secured a tal-
ented and capable minister to discharge the office of
public worship. Their sense of obligation about attendance
upon public worship is thought of for the most part in
terms of its help to them personally and individually.
They are not keenly alive to the fact that, apart from any
personal help which public worship may give them, the
worship of the Church is not complete without them.
Social responsibility to fellow believers is as much a
principle of Christian worship as of Christian living.

Conditions of life in our modern age, well-known to all
of us, aggravate the problem of making Christians social-
ly-minded about worship. The complexity and imperson-
ality of our ordinary relationships leave literally thousands
without roots in a healthful community life. The very
primal social group itself, the family, has not escaped
forces of disintegration. All churches feel these difficulties
keenly, especially the large city churches. Members of
such churches are acquainted with only a fraction of their
fellow parishioners, and are intimately known to fewer
still. Often their closest friends are not members of the
same church at all ; sometimes they are not even profes-
sing Christians. It is inevitable that in such situations the
responsibility of conducting public worship becomes pro-
fessionalized. A sure sign of this is poor congregational
singing. Most people are timid about singing in the pres-
ence of strangers. A well-paid choir and magnificent
organ can be a great relief to their embarrassment!

Historical students frequently point out the parallels
in social conditions of our own time and the days when
Christianity arose and spread in the Graeco-Roman world.

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 43

The cosmopolitan individualism of ancient days led many
to seek religious worships marked either by emotionalism
or mysticism — two inevitable retreats of the socially-de-
feated individual. The mystery-religions furnished emot-
ionalism, with the aid of highly skilled, professional priest-
hoods. Philosophy became mystical for the intelligentsia.
Neither the mystery-religions nor philosophy afforded
men a society of mutual understanding, support, stimula-
tion and comfort. That is why Christianity won in the
ancient world. It gave men and women a sense of worth
to one another and to God, sympathy and forgiveness
amidst despair and failure, and encouragement and joy
with one another even in the most bitter persecution and
trial. No wonder Christians called their worship Thanks-
giving and Love-Feast! If Christian people today have a
high sense of belonging one to another and all together
belonging to God as His own people, Christian worship
today will be festal and joyful also.

The liturgical movement which is taking hold of
Christendom today, both Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism, is a welcome and hopeful sign of a new day
in Christian worship. In Protestantism, however, it faces
a danger which threatens to annul positive gains. This
is the danger of aestheticism (and it is related to both
emotionalism and mysticism). Phrases often heard these
days are the "barrenness" of Protestant worship and the
need of its "enrichment" from historic and artistic
sources. The enrichment, however, is thought of more
from the standpoint of taste than of theology. Let us not
forget the wise counsel of the Psalmist to worship God in
the beauty of holiness, and not in the holiness of beauty.
It is not necessary to have a Gothic church, stained glass,
altar and candles, monumental organs, robed ministers
and choir, and richly carved woodwwk to realize the pres-
ence of God in a worshipping body. These things may
help; but they may also distract. One's meditation may
wander far away from the central concern of the congre-
gation if one lets the ornamentation of many of oiir

44 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

■church buildings be "suggestive." How many of us have
not been tempted to enjoy the organ prelude and choir
anthem for the sheer beauty and excellence of the music
itself without any controlling sense of their real function
in worship? It adds little to the worshippers' vital sense
of participation in worship if choral responses are only
available to the choir; if they can only stand by and watch
the processional and recessional hymns and not march
too; if they do not have before them where they can see
and read and say together some of the great prayers and
selective readings which the minister has culled from a
rich store of Christian devotion. Despite the enrichment
that has taken place in much Protestant worship, the
man and woman in the pew are frequently left with as
small a part in public worship as before. To most of the
service they listen passively and, if possible, vicariously
to minister, organist and choir. It all may be very uplift-
ing, but it all may be only very entertaining. In many
cases entertainment has been the basis — thinly disguised
to be sure — for attracting people to church, whether it be
the fine building, the fine music, the fine sermon (or
address) or a combination of these.

We make the wrong approach to the liturgical arts if
we view them as inevitable helps to common worship.
Rather they are parts of our offerings which we bring to
God, offerings of appreciation and joy for the immeasur-
able beauty with which He has surrounded and endowed
us. They are a part of our total stewardship which we lay
before God in worship for His judgment. Ideally consid-
ered, the arts used in common worship should come from
the worshippers themselves as their own creations, sub-
ject of course to the best standards of taste at their com
mnnd. But worship should never give tne impressior of a
professional performance employed for effects.

II

Thus far we have set forth certain general principles
upon which the liturgical life of Protestantism should be
based. There is doubtless a large measure of agreement

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 45

about them. But the concrete problem immediately arises
as to how these principles may be actualized in the prac-
tice of public worship in Protestant churches. For an
answer to this question recourse will naturally be made
first to the historic tradition of the Christian Church. It
seems to me that there is only one conclusion that can be
drawn from this procedure. The primary and major task
of liturgical revival in Protestantism is the restoration
of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to its historic and
proper place in the worship of the Church. At the present
time this sacrament is, in most Protestant churches, an
occasional rite. If not occasional, it is subordinated in
emphasis to other forms of public worship.

The reasons for this situation are partly historical. Re-
cent investigators have done much to clarify this aspect
of the problem and it is unnecessary to repeat their find-
ings here. Suffice it to say that all the great Protestant
Reformers (Zwingli excepted) were insistent that the
Lord's Supper remain the principal service of worship on
all Sundays, as it had been since the very foundation of
the Christian Church. We have already mentioned the de-
cline in regular communion by the laity during the Middle
Ages. This habit of infrequent communion, acquired over
centuries, had a marked effect on the liturgy when the
Reformers translated the Mass into a vernacular service
understood by the people. It was impossible to revive
among the laity the practice of weekly communions. As
a consequence the latter part of the communion service
tended to drop out of use, and the benediction was given
after the sermon. This truncated service has persisted in
Protestantism to the present time; though few perhaps
are conscious of the fact that their Sunday morning wor-
ship service is based on the earlier part of the Lord's
Supper liturgy.

Equally significant, however, in the decline of frequency
of the sacrament in Protestantism is the way in which
Protestants have allowed the original meaning of the
rite, so rich and profound, to become restricted almost

46 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

entirely to the note of commemoration of Christ's death.
As a consequence, in many of our churches the rite is like
a funeral. Few people indeed would desire a funeral as
the normal expression of their common worship. Actually
the note of commemoration of Christ's death has been
only one out of many meanings which the Lord's Supper
has had in the early days of the Church and succeeding
ages. Nor has it always been the dominant theme by any
means. Otherwise the ea'ly Christians would never havt
called it a Thanksgiving, or a Love-Feast. To them the
commemoration of Christ in the Eucharist included not
only his death, but his entire ministry, including the re-
surrection and ascension. It is true that the climax of
Jesus' ministry and in a sense the seal upon it was his
passion and crucifixion. At the Last Supper with his dis-
ciples he was peculiarly conscious of its imminence, and
its anticipation cast a shadow of tragedy across the upper
room. Indeed the Supper itself was a part of his passion.
Yet the death of Jesus was not the completion of his sav-
ing mission. At the Supper he looked beyond to the fellow-
ship with his disciples about a common table in the Mes-
sianic kingdom. The early Christians never dissociated
the thought of Jesus' death from that of his victory over
death. That is why they could break their bread together
with joy and gladness; the experience of the living Christ
made all sadness impossible at the Lord's table. Indeed
some of the resurrection experiences of the earliest dis-
ciple^ were probably had at the table fellowship. The
Lords Supper is a solemn occasion, but not a melancholy
one.

Some writers have emphasized the Lord's Supper as a
dramatic representation — a mystery play, if you will — of
the Gospel story. The point can be over-stressed. Certainly
medieval interpreters of the Mass went to absurd lengths
in finding in every gesture of ceremonial and every
phrase of ritual some correspondence with an actual
event in the life and death of Jesus. There is, however, a
very real sense in which the Lord's Supper h a dramatic

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 47

proclamation of the Gospel. We would do well to consider
seriously this evangelical character of the rite. The Re-
formers were deeply conscious of it; to them the sacra-
ment was as much a setting forth of the saving Word as
was the sermon. Certainly its obseivance rivets the at-
tention of the worshipping body upon the central theme
of the Christian Evangel. It is both a witness to the
world of what Christians most solemnly p1 of ess and be-
lieve (and thus has missionary implications), and also a
challenge to the Christian conscierce of the supreme de-
mands of the example of Christ. So long as the sacrament
is central in Christian worship, it will keep Christian
worship close to its prime reference. It may also help to
keep preaching relevant to the Christian message.

One of the oldest and commonest names for the Lord's
Supper is Holy Communion. The phrase contains a double
meaning — communion with the spiritual Christ, who is
present at the sacrament as host, and communion with
our fellow Christians as brethren in Christ and joint-
heirs of his kingdom. The exact nature of Christ's pres-
ence at or in the sacrament has been much debated by
theologians; but all Christians at least believe that he is
present in a very real and peculiar way. This aspect of
communion is so familiar that it is not necessary to dwell
upon it here. On the other hand there is need for greater
attention to the social implications of table fellowship as
an expression of mutual brotherly love. Jesus had a
peculiar fondness for the figure of table fellowship to ex-
press the practice of love and charity to our neighbors. It
embraces all sorts and conditions of men. Is it not very
significant that it is only about the Lord's table that
Christians have never dared to make distinction of race,
class, education, social position, or any other of the marks
which tend to set people off from one another? The race
question came to the fore in the early Jerusalem church,
and at Corinth economic differences raised an ugly head.
Actually, the Lord's Supper is the most compelling wit-
ness of the Christian social gospel, the most potent sym-

48 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

bol of the community and fellowship of all men under
Christ which is proclaimed in the Christian Gospel. An}
Christian who consents to share in the high privilege of
that table commits himself thereby to the social teaching
of the Gospel in its widest implications. Lay people need
•to realize fully this important truth. Eating and drinking
together with Christ is as much a matter of social fel-
lowship and equality as eating and drinking in one's home.
The heart of God must grieve to see the hypocrisy with
which many gather about His table in His house. If our
Christian people believe that the Church is one family
and they are all brethren they will realize this. But if
church membership means no more to them than belong-
ing to an organization, then, of course, participation in
the Lord's Supper will be dismissed as idealistic and with-
out practical implications. Cannot we make the Lord's
Supper in Protestantism the center of that community life
for which men's hearts are hungry today?

Not only communion itself expresses the social ideal of
the Gospel but also the offertory of the communion ser-
vice. The early Christians brought to each service of table
fellowship the gifts of bread and wine which were to be
used in the sacrament. They also brought with these other
gifts of food and money to be expended for those in need.
They made the Lord's Supper an occasion of positive
charity; the social implications of the sacrament were
carried out then and there. Modern conditions perhaps
make it inexpedient actually to have the worshippers
bring their contributions of all sorts to the service itsell ;
though small parishes might very easily adopt the prac-
tice. At any rate the offering is not just a collection. It is
an opportunity for sacrificial giving — a giving inspired
by the complete giving of Himself which Christ made and
which we commemorate in the sacrament. If we empha-
sized more the benevolences which we support with our
offerings than the expenses of our parish organization,
we would make our communion offerings a more vital, in-
deed a necessary part of our common worship.

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 49

It is at this point that we see the real, fundamental
meaning of the sacrifice which is involved in this sacra-
mental worship. It is a great pity that Christians have
fought so bitterly over the doctrine of the "sacrifice of
the Mass." The sacrifice which takes place in the sacra-
ment is a double one: the sacrifice and complete self -giv-
ing of Christ which is there commemorated and re-pro-
sented in all its fulness, and the sacrifice and complete
self-giving of the Church, both as a corporate body and
as individuals, in response and gratitude for the sacrifice
of Christ. The two are inextricably bound together, one
calling forth the other. The sacrament is thus a dramatic
symbol of the union of offerings of Christ and his
people. Faced with the confrontation of Christ's complete
giving of Himself as it is set forth in the rite, the Chris-
tian bows in thankfulness for its benefits, penitence for
its unrequited challenge, and renewed commitment to the
fulfilling of its ideal.

Seen in. all these meanings the Lord's Supper fulfils all
the prime experiences of the Church in worship: thanks-
giving, penitence and forgiveness, instruction and vision,
and commitment. It probes their deepest meanings more
than any other form of Christian worship can do. It is an
act of faith, an act of charity, an act of worship. It sat-
isfies every demand of social, common worship; for it is
a rite of the people. It is something they do, as well as
something they say. The minister acts only as their
mouthpiece. The sacrament has the virtues of simplicity
and directness; its teaching, though profound, is plain
and clear. Protestants have not begun to exploit its pos-
sibilities, its evangelical character, its social spirit, its
religious power. Moreover it is the only worship wThich
Christ instituted and commanded Christians to observe.
Its origin was exceedingly simple and ordinary — a table
blessing of thanksgiving to God for the fruits of the
earth, the common daily food and drink. Christ made
these humble, daily gifts which all men enjoy the symbol

50 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of the greatest of all gifts, the gift of his Spirit, the bond
of a new fellowship and the earnest of the Kingdom of
God.

Ill

What is the best liturgical form to express this mani-
fold meaning and invoke this rich experience of Christian
worship? The best answer again will be found in the
historic liturgical tradition of the Church. Underlying all
the great liturgies which have been created during the
centuries is a basic pattern, which, reduced to its simplest
terms, may be outlined as follows:

(a) Introductory. Here there is considerable varia-
tion in the liturgies. Two elements, however, are more or
less constant: (1) some invocation of the presence 01
God, through introit, hymn or prayer; and
(2) prayers of confession and penitence. These may be
in the form of a common prayer of confession, or a litany
with the traditional cry, Lord, have mercy upon us.

(b) Lessons of Scripture. These have usually been
two or more in number, but the last one is always chosen
from the Gospels. In this way the whole revelation of God
that is contained in the Scriptures is centered in Christ.
In the traditional liturgies the people always stand when
the Gospel lection is read because of its prime signifi-
cance. This is a compelling bit of ceremonial, psychologic-
ally speaking, and is well worth observing. People as a
rule will give better attention to the reading if they are
standing. There is no reason why the minister should
read these lessons of Scripture. They may very well be
read by members of the congregation, selected because of
their ability to read well aloud. The early Christians did
this. They appointed readers from their number who were
especially skilled in the art. The art of reading aloud with
clarity and understanding is by no means universal today,
even among the clergy. The lessons may be appropriately
separated by psalms or hymns or other musical numbers
which brmg out the message of the lesson read.

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 51

(c) Sermon. This naturally follows the lessons, and
is often based upon them. The sermon should be consider-
ed as a part of the total worship and not the goal towards
which the worship leads.

(d) Offertory. The social meaning of this has al-
ready been stressed. In the historic liturgies it consists of
two parts: (1) the actual bringing to the holy table of
the bread and wine and other gifts, including money, and
the preparation of the table and elements for the com-
munion feast; and (2) prayers of intercession for all
sorts and conditions of men. It is a wholesome custom to
vary these intercessions from Sunday to Sunday according
to particular needs and intentions of the time. It is here
that individuals may most appropriately bring their own
personal needs and aspirations, and have them included
with the prayers of the whole church. It is unnecessary for
the minister always to offer these prayers of intercession.
Why not have one of the laymen do it, if he has a good
voice and a sincere interest in the work of the parish?

(e) The Thanksgiving, or Consecration Prayer. This
is always said by the minister. Some churches may prefer
that it be a fixed, invariable form. Others may desire the
more primitive custom of the minister giving thanks "as
he is able." The prayer should be a thanksgiving to God
for all his manifold mercies to men: for creation, provid-
ence and redemption — here calling to mind particularly
the life and work of Christ, and, if desired, a commemo-
ration of the institution of the sacrament. It should end in
the Lord's Prayer. This prayer is as much a hymn as a
prayer; its note should therefore be one of joy. It would
be a good idea to have the congregation stand while it is
being offered. This is not a customary procedure, but it
is primitive; and brings out the hymnal quality of the
consecration. It is, actually, a table blessing; this fact
should never be obscured.

(f) Communion. This is the climax of the rite. It
might be preceded by a ceremonial breaking of the breao,
with attention called to the symbolism therein conveyed.

52 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

During the communicating of the people the choir or
organ might suggest a basis for meditation. Yet there
is no harm in having silence. We do not need in worship
to have every period of silence covered with organ o»
vocal music. Perhaps everyone will not wish to commune.
Nonetheless they should have a lively sense of participa-
tion.

(g) Final Thanksgiving and Blessing. This should
be brief. Interest cannot be sustained long after the cli-
max has passed. A festival hymn of thanksgiving is a
fitting close. One would certainly not want a mournful
hymn here.

How much of such a service should be fixed and pre-
scribed? The answer to this question will depend largely
on the taste and the particular tradition of the worship-
ping body. However one should carefully distinguish three
things about the service: order, ritual, and ceremonial.
The order has to do with the arrangement of the service.
This should always be fixed so that the people know it
thoroughly and its mechanics be second nature to them.
If the order of a service is unfamiliar, there will be con-
fusion and wasted attention throughout. It is not sound
to shift constantly the pattern and arrangement of ser-
vices, for it confuses the people and places the worship
in the control of the minister rather than in the con-
gregation.

The ritual has to do with the actual rite itself, i. e. the
words said. There may or may not be considerable lati-
tude here. The opening confession might well be fixed, so
that all may join in; or at least it should be provided in
printed form. The lessons will naturally change from
Sunday to Sunday. They should be selected on a broad,
long-time basis, giving the people an opportunity to hear
the most significant passages of the entire Bible. This is
important today, as so few people read the Scriptures
regularly in private. The intercessions, as already hintea,
may well change from Sunday to Sunday; naturally some
items will recur constantly. The consecration prayer is

PROTESTANT WORSHIP 53

the duty of the minister. If he and his congregation do
not prefer a fixed form for this prayer, the minister
should study the historic prayers of Christian liturgies
for a clear understanding of the sort of prayer which is
suitable.

Ceremonial is the good manners of worship, and refers
to the way in which the ritual is conducted. In every
case it should be reverent and dignified, not fussy or
complicated, and appropriate to the solemnity of the oc-
casion and the dignity of Him addressed. Ceremonial also
has a close relation to the setting of the service, i. e. the
church building and its interior arrangement, and to the
resources, artistic and economic, at the command of the
parish. As a rule ceremonial reflects the manners of the
age whether servile, courtly or democratic. There is a
rich field for study today in the matter of ceremonial —
how can we make a democratic ceremonial for our wor-
ship which is reverent and dignified? Closely associated
with this problem is also the selection of appropriate sym-
bols which are comprehensible to all, unambiguous, and
evocative of genuine religious feeling.

IV
The following statement occurs in the official report of
the recent Edinburgh Conference on Faith and Order:
"We find that the obstacles most difficult to over-
come consist of elements of 'faith' and 'order'
combined, as when some form of church government
or worship is considered a part of the faith."
This statement clearly refers to the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper. Certainly all Christian communions, with
the exception of the Quakers, hold that this sacrament is
a part of Christian "faith," and not simply a matter of
"order." Their differences with regard to "order" large-
ly arise out of their differences regarding the nature of
their "faith" as it finds concrete expression in the sacra-
ment. Yet specific proposals looking towards the union of
Christian churches frequently take their starting point on
the question of "order." This seems to me an impossible

54 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

line of approach for it jumps over the fundamental ques-
tion which gives rise to so much difference in "order."
Would not a more fruitful avenue towards unity be in
the realm of sacramental worship as it centers in the
Lord's Supper? At least all Christians agree that it rests
on an institution of Christ and has played a central role
in the life of all Christian bodies. (The Quakers present
a peculiar problem which perhaps cannot be solved along
the lines of approach adopted by other Christian groups.)
Experience has shown that worship is a better ground of
unity than church government.

Our conversations about church unity will amount to
little unless the prime concern of the churches is to share
with one another their experience of God as it is in
Christ. All Christians have such an experience in the Holy
Communion, because the holy table is the Lord's, not
a priest's or a presbyter's. Of course, there are many
Christians who do not appreciate the fulness and richness
of grace that is in this sacrament. In fact, who among us
does? But we have to grow into this grace, not be argued
into it. And we cannot grow if we are unwilling to share.
Who will be the loser by our sharing? Will God, Who is
the Giver? I for one have come to believe that inter-com-
munion, far from being the goal of church unity, is the
very condition of its achievement. We modern Christians,
I fear, are still too much like the Corinthians. One comes
away from the Lord's table drunken, and another hungry.

In this paper I have tried to suggest a common denom-
inator, so to speak, of liturgical worship centered in the
Lord's Supper. The sacrament, I believe, should be the
norm of Christian public worship. If Protestantism will
address itself to the task of restoring the Eucharist to
its proper central place in the worship of the Church, it
will have a more promising and fruitful source of unity
than has heretofore been the case.

ARE THE EXORCISMS OF JESUS FOLKLORE?

By S. Vernon McCasland

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia

An affirmative answer to the above question has been
so often assumed by New Testament scholars and the en-
tire body of Gospel material which deals with the subject
so generally ignored, that one might be justified in re-
garding the possessed person as the "forgotten man" of
New Testament criticism. With this question in mind, let
us study these stories in the gospels in comparison with
similar material both of that time and of the modern
world. We readily grant that stories about demons have
been a favorite theme in the popular legends of the world,
but that is not to admit that all such stories are legendary.
It only shows that in considering such material one must
be on his guard and use discretion and discrimination. An
attempt must be made to arrive at objective criteria 01
judgment by means of which fact may be separated from
fiction. The problem in the Gospels is complicated by the
fact that the stories passed through a period of thirty
years or more before they were written down in Mark.

The period of oral tradition is a sort of no man's land
which has been difficult to occupy. Our problem is to de-
termine whether this tradition which comes to us av
onymously represents a creation of credulous popular
imagination, or the report of eye-witnesses, or originally
true reports which have been partly overgown with leg-
ends. There are thus three definite possibilities. In an ef-
fort to solve the problem, we shall present for comparison
cases of demon possession and exorcism which are beyo nci
question reported by eye-witnesses, so that the possibility
of legendary origin is eliminated altogether. Then we
shall present stories which provide a basis for recogniz-
ing legendary phenomena as well as the features which
are authentic.

56 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Testimony of the Christian Fathers

We turn first of all to the early Christian fathers. Our
first witness is Justin, the famous apologist of Roman
blood who was born about A.D. 114 at Neapolis, Palestine.
He was by training a Roman philosopher and is a writer
of high reputation. He lived for a time at Ephesus, then
also at Rome, where he suffered martyrdom about A.D.
165. He writes of Christian exorcism in his time as
follows :

"For he (Jesus) was made man also, as we before said,
having been conceived according to the will of God the
Father, for the sake of believing man, and for the de-
struction of the demons. And now you can learn this from
what is under your own observation. For numberless de-
moniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city,
many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name
of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving
the possessing devils out of the men, though they could
not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used
incantations and drugs."1

This statement of Justin is from his second apology
and is addressed to the people of Rome. He writes of ex-
orcisms with which both he and they are familiar: they
Lave occurred not only in the city of Rome itself but in
other parts of the world. These words were written not
far from A.D. 150.

Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa wrote of sim-
ilar things as being well known about A.D. 200. In an
apology addressed to rulers of the Roman empire, he at-
tempts to prove that the gods worshipped by the Romans
are demons. This he does by referring to Christian ex-
orcism as follows:

"Why, all the authority and power we have over them
(the pagan deities) is from our naming the name of
Christ, and recalling to their memory the woes with which
God threatens them at the hands of Christ as judge, and
which they expect one day to overtake them. Fearing

EXORCISMS OF JESUS 57

Christ in God, and God in Christ, they become subject to
the servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and
breathing, overwhelmed by the thought and realization of
those judgment fires, they leave at our command the
bodies they have entered, unwilling and distressed, and
before your very eyes put to an open shame."2

The point which Tertullian is trying to make is not to
convince the Roman rulers that Christians exorcize de-
mons from the possessed. He says that they have seen
that done and admit it. He challenges the rulers to give
just any Christian an opportunity to demonstrate what
he is saying. His real point is that the spirits under pres-
sure of the Christian exorcists confess that they are the
gods which the Romans worship. Therefore, argues Ter-
tullian, they are not gods at all but only demons. So there
is really only one true God, who is worshipped by the
Christians, and the charge of treason which Romans bring
against Christians for denying the Roman gods is false.
We are not concerned with the validity of his argument,
but it should be clear that Tertullian is describing real
exorcism here, not popular legends.

Other eminent early Christian writers who wrote about
similar things with which they were familiar were Iren-
aeus,3 Origen,4 Lactantius,5 and Augustine.6 Many others
might be named. These reports are similar to those in
the Gospels to a remarkable degree.

Modern Christian Exorcism
Numerous authors have brought together stories of
Christian exorcism from the Middle Ages and later,7 but
I have come upon some striking cases among Christians,
and Moslems of modern Palestine and Syria. I present
just one case by quoting from a description of it In a
letter from the Christian missionary who performed the
exorcism to his chief. It was written without any thought
that it would ever be published and is clearly a faithful
report. I give the story exactly as the author told it, only
omitting names of both persons and places by request.
The account follows verbatim: (Dated May 23, 1936).

58 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

"On returning from to— a request came to

me to go to and pray for a woman that was demon

possessed for a period of ten years. They had burned her
with hot irons, beaten her etc., etc., but with no avail. 1

could never get away from that call. When Rev.

and his wife came I spoke to him about the matter. We
prayed about it and the result was that we four (Mrs.

4th party) went. They told us the history of the

case and how a group would gather around in the even-
ing when she would go under the influence of these evil
spirits and talk with them, in audible voice. They said
they wanted prayer in Jesus name. We decided to have a
service. We sang one verse and half of the chorus of No.
1 Eg. and she was taken with great agony and we com-
manded them in Jesus name to speak. The information
gained was that there were 16. They affirmed that they
were stronger than Jesus but were told that they were
liars and were forced in the name of Jesus to confess
that Jesus was stronger. Four came out of her mouth with
great suffering to her but she was brave and anxious to
be free when she would come to herself. Later we asked
how many there were and they said ten. With continued
prayer and casting out in Jesus name they confessed that
they were five, four, three, and two. After continued pray-
er without success we learned that she had three charms
around her neck. They immediately took them off but re-
fused to let us burn them. Finally a large group said,
"What more evidence do you want that the Lord is work-
ing? Burn them." They made a fire and 'we burned them.

One was from the Greek Priest of , one from a

Mos. Priest, one from Druze. We started again to pray
and they told us there was still another charm. They
searched for it and we burned it. The two remaining spir-
its talked a great deal. They were from the Nejed. If they
went out they would kill her. The ministers should go

back to their land and the Priest of was to be

called. He spoke in broken Arabic, as an Armenian would
speak and said he was not afriad of Arabic but feared

EXORCISMS OF JESUS 59

Turkish. They said their names were Mohammed and Alie
king of old. After another season of prayer Mohammed
left. It was then evening. Alie had been a familiar spirit
with her for ten years and it was evident he was a stub-
case. We took the woman to and the believers

stood with us in a remarkable way. She was now able to
accept the Lord as her Savior also her husband. Each sea-
son of prayer she was greatly tormented. In the evening
she fell over and went to sleep and we thought she was
delivered. The next P. M. the same way. At the evening
seivice she said she was going to her room to sleep. The
church was packed and people outside. The entire town
including some Druze soldiers. I was glad she was not
there Tor fear she might not be delivered and cause a
?c-ene. I was intending to get up and explain that she was
tired and decided not to come. But just as I decided she
slipped off the seat on the floor and we rushed to her and
demanded the spirit to come out in the name of Jesus.
The spirit started to sing a love song to her and would
not stop. He sang how beautiful she was when he (first
came) to her but that because she was not content she had
become worn and of poor health ; if he had known that
he would not have come to her. He would never go to a
Christian woman again. I love you and your son, why do
you want me to go? Etc. We prayed all night until three
A.M. and fasted the next day. We decided not to pray witn
her until the Lord so led. After noon her sister came in
and said Ghazallie wanted to pray with us. In the midst
of her distress she was asked to speak the name of Jesus.
This she did with great difficulty as she had never been
able to say a word of her own will before. We prayed in
her ear in the first person until she was able to repeat
after us. Then the power started down from her head
through her body but slowly. Then she began to sing
about the Lord and salvation and was perfectly delivered.
She was not able to walk for some time. All this time
people were confessing their sins and accepting Christ
as their Savior. Her husband came and we gave them in-

60 RELIGION IK THE MAKING

struction about prayer and Bible study. He came again on
Sunday to go home with her on Monday. Needless to say

we had some good meetings in and souls were

saved.

"A man came from and asked us to come and

pray for his sister. They say she has over a hundred evri
spirits. She destroys every bit of clothing they put on her
except a loin cloth. We have been praying for over a week
about going. Pray much for those who have been delivered
as they must go on with the Lord or it would be better to
let them (remain) in their past state."

In transcribing this document I have made no change
in grammar, but have inserted in parentheses (first came)
and (remain), which had evidently been omitted acci-
dentally. The four persons who performed the exorcism
were the two missionaries and their wives. It is of in-
terest to note that four religions play a part in this
strange story — Moslem, Druze, Greek Orthodox, and
Protestant. The Moslem background is shown by the
names of Mohammed and his adopted son Ali. The evil
spirits are thought of as ghosts of the dead. The case in-
volves some type of sexual aberration and Ali is the wo-
man's lover. The incubus appears frequently in the liter-
ature of demon possession. The story of the girl Sarah in
the book of Tobit is another example. But there are num-
erous illustrations from more recent times.8

The woman possessed by over a hundred demons is only
briefly described with no attempt at exorcism. The first
woman was delivered of sixteen demons. This multiplicity
of possession is reminiscent of the New Testament stories
of Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons were cast
out, and of the demoniac of Gerasa, from whom a legion
went out into the herd of swine. The general similarity of
these cases to those described in the Gospels, not to men-
tion the geographical location, makes them sound like
another chapter from Mark. That is why I have given
them. Their authenticity which is beyond question ought
to be a warning to anyone who is skeptical of Jesus' e*-

EXORCISMS OF JESUS 61

ore isms of the same type. The modern case of exorcism
so fully described above is reported by an eye-witness who
was in fact the chief exorcist. It is a firsthand report with
no possibility whatever for folklore to have entered in.

It would be possible to give a large number of modern
illustrations of these phenomena. One of the best collec-
tions from the Orient is the book by John L. Nevius:
Demon Possession and Allied Themes, (New York, 1892).
This author had been a missionary in China for forty
years when he wrote his book.9 There is also much ex-
orcism among the Moslems of Palestine and other sections
of the Orient. The Dervishes are especially noted for it.
But aside from the fact that they use Koran verses and
Moslem terminology, their healings are the same in prin-
ciple as the Christian.10

A Neiv Testament Eye-Witness
Thus far we have presented eye-witness accounts from
the ancient Christian fathers and also from modern sour-
ces which are similar to the stories of exorcism in the
Gospels. This evidence makes the Gospel accounts look like
reports of persons who saw the events take place. At the
same time, we know that Mark, the oldest Gospel, was not
written until about thirty or forty years after the heal-
ings are said to have occurred; and it is altogether prob-
able that he has written down what he got from the
church tradition rather than from personal observation.
But it is unjustifiable to assume that tradition is un-
reliable. Tradition is not to be equated with legend ; it may
very well be an accurate record of what happened. Mark s
record of Jesus' exorcisms may be eye-witness reports
even if Mark himself was not the witness.

But there is beyond question one eye-witness report of
an exorcism in the New Testament. That is the account
of the exorcism of the Pythian spirit from the slave-girl
at Philippi by Paul related in Acts 16:16-18. The Greek
text says that this girl had pmuma pythona. Python was
the name of the serpent in Greek mythology which guard-
ed the oracle at Delphi, said to have been slain by Apollo

62 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

when he became the deity of the oracle. It was a divining
spirit and the girl earned money for her owners by the
practice of divination. In English the passage reads:

And it came to pass, as we were going to the place
of prayer, that a certain maid having a spirit of div-
ination met us, who brought her masters much gain
by soothsaying. The same following after Paul and
us cried out, saying, These men are servants of the
Most High God who proclaim unto you the way of
salvation. And this she did for many days. But Paul,
being sore troubled, turned and said to the spirit, I
charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out
of her. And it came out that very hour.
The striking feature of this exorcism in the present
connection is that it is described by a person who saw it.
At two points in the three verses the witness includes
himself among those present. He says " .... as we were
going. . . .the same following after Paul and us. ..." The
observant reader will note that up to chapter 16, verse 10,
of the Acts of Apostles, the story is told in trie third per-
son; that the writer speaks simply as the historian of
what takes place; but that beginning with 16:10 and fre-
quently to the end of the book, the narrative is told in the
first person. It is obvious that the author of Acts was
either himself present when this exorcism was performed
or has used the memoirs of some one who was there. In
either case, we have the firsthand report of a witness who
was present when the event occurred. Whether we know
his name or not, we have the story in his own words. The
report has nothing to do with folklore or popular legend.
It has not passed through an oral process. Here we have
the memoirs of an eye-witness which have been so litei-
ally copied and incorporated in the larger work that the
final author, whoever he was, has not even taken the
trouble to remove the first personal pronouns from the
original document. Here again the similarity to the ex-
orcisms of Jesus is so striking that if the story were

EXORCISMS OF JESUS 63

told about Jesus instead of Paul it would be perfectly at
home in the Gospel of Mark.

Real Legends

Above we have compared the exorcisms of Jesus with
accounts which are beyond question the testimony of
witnesses who were present and have reported what they
saw. Let us now turn to some accounts which are just as
obviously legendary. One ol the best illustrations of this
type is the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which was writ-
ten early in the third century by Philostratus. Apollonius
was a Pythagorean sage who was born about the begin-
ning of the Christian era at Tyana in Cappadocia. He
traveled widely over much of the Roman empire, and on
one occasion went as far as India, as a student, a public
teacher and healer, and died during the reign of Nerva,
who had shown him honor. Thus Apollonius was a con-
temporary of Jesus and of the first and second genera-
tions of Christians, although there is no indication that
he ever met any of them. Philostratus wrote the biogra-
phy more than a century after Apollonius died, but he
claims to have based his work on the memoirs of Damis,
the philosopher's traveling companion. But regardless of
its sources, much of the book is only a collection of amus-
ing legends. Let the contents speak for themselves."

On one occasion, Philostrates writes (IV. x), when a
plague was raging in Ephesus, the distressed people sent
for Apollonius to help them. As soon as he arrived the
sage discerned the plague-demon distinguished as an old
beggar. He commanded the people to stone the stranger
to death. This they did with such vehemence that a heap
of stones was raised on his body. Then Apollonius com-
manded them to remove the stones. Underneath they
found the body of a dog as large as a lion.

A somewhat similar motif appears in the story of the
lamia, or vampire, overcome by Apollonius at Corinth
(IV. xxv). The vampire had assumed the form of a
lovely woman in order to captivate and finally devour a
handsome youth. There is another tale of how Apollonius

64 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

relieved a village of Ethiopia of a ghost which assumed the
form of a satyr in order to insult their women (VI. xxvii).
Apollonius compelled the spirit to become intoxicated with
wine while he was still invisible; then later he pointed
him out to the villagers lying asleep in a cave as a harm-
less satyr.

The book of Tobit, an old Jewish romance probably
written in Egypt about B.C. 200, is another good illus-
tration of what folklore does with stories of demon pos-
session and exorcism. Here the angel Raphael appears in
person to deliver the girl Sarah from the incubus Asmod-
eus, who had slain seven of her husbands one after an-
other. The demon is routed and bound and the maiden
given in worthy marriage.

What the Jewish historian Josephus has to say about
demon possession also illustrates the legendary element.
He was a native of Jerusalem who settled in Rome after
the fall of Jerusalem and during the years A.D. 70-100
wrote his books under the patronage of emperors. Josepn-
us gives a remarkable account of a strange plant which
grew in the Baaras gorge near Macherus east of the Dead
Sea. This deadly shrub could not be secured without dan-
ger unless woman's urine or menstrual blood had been
first poured on it or a dog which immediately died had
first been tied to it.11 Then he tells the story of exorcisms
performed by a Jew named Eleazar in the presence of the
Roman generals and soldiers, who proved that the demons
went out of their victims by requiring them to overturn
basins of water while the spectators looked on.12

Lucian of Somosata, the well known sophist of the
second century, gives one of the best collections of stories
from folklore in his Lover of Lies, which may be read
with much profit by one who desires to learn the dif-
ference between facts and legends. In discussing exorcism,
one of the characters asserts that he saw a demon coming
out of a possessed person black and smoky in color. One
finds here numerous stories of spirits which became vis-

EXORCISMS OF JESUS 65

able, of dead who were called up, of statues which got
down off their pedestals and walked about and other
creations of ancient fancy.

Reliability of the Gospel Stories
The student who compares these obvious legends told
by Philostratus, Tobit, Josephus, and Lucian with the
simple accounts of Jesus' exorcisms will note the differ-
ence. The impression of credibility is overwhelmingly in
favor of the Gospels. Most of the Gospel stories have no
features at all which comparative folklore shows to be
legendary. There is, however, possibly one exception.
Mark's story of the legion of demons which entered into
the herd of swine and caused them to plunge into the sea
looks very much like a legend. This is the type of story
which one finds in folklore the world over. The Jewish
motif is evident. The demons as a desperate last resort
fled into the unclean pigs for refuge, but even in this
miserable abode they were outwitted when the animals
destroyed themselves in the sea. At the same time, it is
quite possible that the legend has an historical basis. Tt is
only necessary to suppose that a herd of pigs frightened
by the sudden commotion of the crowd did plunge into
the sea; and that this was given the demonic interpreta-
tion. Otherwise, the New Testament stories of demon pos-
session and exorcism have rational, historical and psy-
chological explanations and are entitled to be regarded as
fact. They look like the reports of eye-witnesses.

NOTES

1. Justin, Apologia Secunda vi; cf. v, viii; Apologia xxv; Dialo-
gtis lxxvi and lxxxv.

2. Tertullian, Apologeticum xxiii.

3. Ad Haer. II. xxxii. 4.

4. Contra Celsum I. vi; I. lxviii; II. xxxiii; V. ii; VII. iv.

5. Institutes Div. II. xvi : V. xxii.

6. Civitas Dei XXII. viii.

7. T. K. Oesterreich, Die Bessessenheit. (Halle, 1931), Eng. Tran.,
Possession, Demoniacal and Other, (New York, 1930) ; Louis
Coulange,77;e Life of the Devil, (New York, 1930); John L. Nevius,
Demon Possession and Allied Themes, (Chicago, 1894).

66 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

8. Cf. Louis Coulange, Op cit., p. 173 f.

9. Still more recent reports from Korea and China may be found
in Charles Allen Clark, The Nevius Plan of Mission Work in Korea,
1937, p. 112; and the Penyang Newsf Penyang, Korea, Sept., 1937,
p. 2.

10. Cf. J. A. Jaussen, Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, Vol.
Ill, pp. 145-157, for a notable account of a Moslem Sheik.

11. Bellum vii. 178-185.

12. Antiq. VIII. ii. 5.

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURAL EVOLUTION

By Shirley Jackson Case

Florida School of Religion

Lakeland, Florida

Today Christianity embraces a wide variety of organiz-
ed societies, practicing a diversity of religious rites, using
different rituals in worship, and professing distinctive
creeds. From an early date this new religion had bred
variations. By the close of the first century there were
"Petrine," "Pauline" and "Johannine" congregations. In
the course of the succeeding centuries eastern Christen-
dom had produced independent Armenian, Syrian and
Coptic branches, in addition to Orthodox Greek and Rus-
sian Churches. Passing westward one encounters the
powerful Roman Church which while organically a unit,
contains within itself different orders like the Francis-
cans and the Jesuits that might easily be treated as sep-
arate religious denominations. Among Protestants the
possibility of diversity seems to have no limits. There are
the Lutheran churches of Germany and the Scandinavian
countries, the Reformed Church in Holland, the Establish-
ed Church of England and the Presbyterian churches of
Scotland. Branches of these have spread to all parts of the
world. There are also Congregationalists and Baptists ana
Methodists and Disciples and Quakers and Unitarians and
Mennonites and Latter-Day Saints and Christian Sci-
entists and still other distinct groups too numerous to
mention.

A visitor from Mars might wonder how it is possible
to group all of these various religious movements under
the single word Christianity. If he were to ask for an ex-
planation of this diversity from representatives of each
of these separate bodies, beginning with the oldest and
most widely established and coming down to the most
recent and smallest, he would be given a uniform answer.
He would be told that one's own branch of the movement
represents true Christianity while all others are perver-

68 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

sions of the original. But this information would only add
to the confusion of our visitor. He would now have to
solve two problems instead of one. He would ask not only
why there are so many separate Christian bodies, but also
how it is possible that each of these branches of the move-
ment can regard itself as the only genuine representative
of the whole. He could scarcely fail to be impressed by the
sincerity with which the claim to originality is made, and
he might well suspect that if the adherents of one or an-
other group should become disillusioned as to the genuine-
ness of its particular branch of Christendom the result
would be disastrous for the believer's peace of mind if
not for his religious life itself.

How has it come about that the Christian movement
exists today in so many diverse forms? To answer this
question satisfactorily one must remember, in the first
place, that the Christianity of today has behind it nine-
teen hundred years of history- This history has been made
by a great variety of people living in different places over
the face of the earth and representing very different
types of personality and interest. If our hypothetical
visitor would take the trouble to make himself familiar
with the history of civilization, beginning back among
the peoples who inhabited the lands about the Mediter-
ranean Sea at the beginning of the Christian era, and
would follow its course on down among the different
European peoples of later times, and then would launch
out across the ocean during the period of discovery and
colonization in the new world, he would be in a much
more favorable position to answer his inquiries. Then he
would easily discover that Christianity throughout the
centuries has been in a continual process of becoming,
and that variations in the history of the movement are a
consequence of conformity to the vital interests of one or
another type of adherents involved in the course of an
ever-changing cultural development. In the case of each
of the different bodies of Christendom the form which the
religious movement assumed was that best suited to the

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 69

needs oi the members, hence their particular brand of
Christianity quite properly seemed to them the one gen-
uine type. The evolution of the movement throughout the
whole course of its history is thus inseparably bound up
with the process of cultural evolution among the dif-
ferent peoples who today represent one or another branch
of this historic religion.

The gentleman from Mars should not fail to make a
second observation. Indeed, it could hardly escape him.
He would note that Christianity has always been a dis-
tinctively aggressive movement. Its adherents, even though
sometimes differing widely from one another and existing
as separate and rival organizations, have usually been
dominated by the conviction that they were responsible
for spreading a body of truth indispensable not only to
their own welfare but to the well-being of humanity at
large. Christians have always believed that they were im
possession of a precious heritage from the past and that
each new age could profit immensely by heeding the
message of the Christian preacher and conforming to the
standards of the Christian society.

Thus while time and social conditions have been con-
stantly altering the historical form of Christianity, the
movement itself has been a perpetually aggressive and
creative factor in the history of civilization. From a very
early date it has been a powerful organization making its
influence felt over a wide range of social contacts. In the
course of its career it has also been served by numerous
individuals of a strongly creative temper, like Jesus, Paul,
Augustine, Gregory the Great, Hildebrand, Luther, Cal-
vin, John Knox, John Wesley and a host of others well
worthy of note, who from time to time have contributed
great vital energy to the progress of the cause.

The detailed story of Christianity's past has often been
told and need not be repeated in the present correction.
It will be our aim merely to indicate the chief stages of
c-ultural development by which the Christian movement
has been affected throughout the course of its expansion

70 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

and to appraise its significance as a shaping factor in the
making of history. We shall be especially concerned to
note the manner in which Christianity has met the dif-
ferent types of religious needs that have been most deeply
felt by mankind, particularly within western civilization
during the last nineteen hundred years.

I. Christianity and Jewish Culture

The religious movement that we now call Christianity
arose within a highly developed Jewish civilization in
Palestine about a hundred years after the Romans had
come into possession of the country. Palestine was un-
happily situated for any people who had an ambition to
maintain political independence. It was, so to speak, at
the crossroads of communication from east to west and
north to south in that ancient world. On account of its
strategic position this territory was coveted by every
ancient regime that aspired to world power. Assyrians,
Babylonians and Persians in turn possessed themselves
of the land as their armies moved westward to the con-
quest of Egypt and the seaports on the Mediterranean.
Then it fell a prey to Alexander the Great, and after hfe
death it became a bone of contention between his succes-
sors who set up rival kingdoms in Egypt and in Syria.
Scarcely had the Jews of Palestine shaken themselves
loose from their Syrian overlords when the Romans ap-
peared upon the scene and assumed responsibility for the
administration of the government. Sometimes they in-
trusted the task to a local prince such as Herod the Great,
while at other times a Roman official was placed m
charge, as was the case in Judea when Jesus was cruci-
fied by Pontius Pilate.

Jewish civilization reared itself around the belief that
the Hebrews were God's chosen people. Thus the political
as well as the moral and spiritual interests of society were
an integral part of religion. There was an inseparable
unity between church and state; since both had the same
divine origin, neither could be complete without the other.
In Roman times the temple at Jerusalem with its elabor-

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 71

ate ceremonies, and the services in the synagogues where
the scriptures were made availible for the guidance of
everyone, were of supreme religious worth. Yet the high-
est religious good remained unrealized while the foreign
overlord, who policed the land, collected taxes from the
people, maintained the supreme authority in the admin-
istration of justice, and filled the country with his idol-
atrous abominations, retained possession of the Holy Land.
He must be driven out to make way for a new regime to
be established by God himself, or by his representative
called the Anointed One, the Messiah. The longing for
deliverance from the yoke of the foreign oppressor was
especially strong in the years immediately following the
death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., and it continued to
increase in intensity until the outbreak of the great revolt
of the Jews against the Romans in the year 66 A.D. For
large numbers of Jews in Palestine during these restless
years the most crucial religious problem of the hour was
how and when the kingdom of God would be inaugurated.
The unrest that permeated Palestinian society in the
opening decades of the present era invited the activity of
adventurers and reformers with various proposals re-
garding the time and the manner in which God would
effect the deliverance of his afflicted people. It seemed to
many persons that the time had arrived for some moment-
ous occurrence, but all were not agreed upon the means to
be employed to drive out the Romans. Nor were all Jews
of the same opinion as to the conditions to be fulfilled in
order to bring about the divine intervention. Some ad-
vocated open revolution, declaring that if men would show
a willingness to take up the sword on God's behalf he
would give strength to their arms and insure their victory.
Others were no less confident of ultimate triumph, but
they were opposed to the policy of revolution and trusted
completely in God to take the initiative and to accomplish
the victory through a display of his almighty power. As
they viewed the situation, the proper way to prepare for
the coming of the new age was not to forge weapons and

72 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

train for war but to cultivate more assiduously the pious
life as preparation for membership in a new society to be
established in perfection when God himself, or his Mes-
siah, should appear on earth to assemble the faithful in
the restored kingdom.

It was in the interests of this second type of ideal that
the Christian movement arose. It was in an attempt to
prepare the Jewish people of Palestine for membership
in the coming kingdom of God that the representatives of
the movement sought to render their chief service to
their fellows. John the Baptist had admonished his hear-
ers to repent in preparation for the approaching day of
judgment to precede the establishment of the new reign
of God on earth. Jesus of Nazareth took up the message
and spread it abroad more widely among the people. In
the course of his activities he told his audience specifical-
ly what he thought to be the most worthy kind of life. He
must have been well aware of the fact that the Jews were
already equipped with an elaborate technique for guiding
them in religious attainments, but in his experience he felt
a recurrence of ancient prophetic fervor that gave him a
sense of dissatisfaction, if not of impatience, with the
conventional operations of the existing religious institu-
tions. His own personal emotions prompted a fresh em-
phasis on closer and more direct contact with the Deity as
the means of attaining to a new specialization in
righteousness in preparation for membership in the com-
ing kingdom of God.

Jesus and his friends thought to meet best the religious
needs of their day by advocating a very simple but sincere
manner of life. They stressed the cultivation of an attitude
toward God like that of trustful children toward a loving
father and the adoption of moral standards as high as
those assumed for the conduct of God himself. Men were
to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. In their
relations with their fellow-men the same simplicity and
candor were to prevail. Their ideal was to love one's neigh-
bor as one's self. If that neighbor happened to be a

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 73

violent person, as the Romans were, one was not to copy
his bad example but to return him good for evil. As for
the attitude toward the Roman government, taxes were
to be paid to Caesar so long as God permitted Caesar to
rule. Throughout the whole range of human thinking and
action a simple honesty of motive and kindness of feel-
ing were inculcated as the highest type of virtue by one
who wished to prepare for membership in the kingdom
of God. This was no easy-going attitude toward sin and
sinners, nor was it an expression of indifference as to
what political power should hold sway in Palestine. But
those matters were entirely God's concern and consequent-
ly they would be taken care of more quickly and more ad-
equately than could possibly be the case on any program
of man's devising. The will of God was accepted, not in
desperation or despair, but in confidence and in the full
expectation of an early and satisfactory solution of their
common problem.

Jesus threw himself into his work with zeal and aban-
don not unlike that of the ancient prophets who felt called
by God to summon their contemporaries back to a life of
renewed sincerity and heightened spiritual idealism in the
midst of the distressing facts connected with the worldly
society in which they were now living. Both the message
of Jesus and his personal character made a forceful im-
pression. Those who liked him were ardent in their ad-
miration and those who disliked him were generous in
their hatred. In contact with him his friends found an
assurance of help for their unhappy situation as Jews of
Palestine under Roman domination. But other persons, in
fact the great majority of his contemporaries, were not
favorably impressed with his activity and saw no promise
for the future in discipleship to him. This outcome need
not surprise us. A person who put himself forward as a
religious guide in a society where the interests of religion
had already been safeguarded by many carefully nour-
ished institutions might well have expected just the sort
of opposition that Jesus encountered. Professionally he

74 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

stood outside the established institutions. He could not
claim to express their will even had he so desired, and
he yielded his highest loyalty to an inner voice that might
easily run counter to their decrees. Similarly the older
prophets had stood without and above the institutions of
their day, and in the name of an immediate and impelling
religious conviction had set themselves to admonish prin-
ces or priests or any other formally constituted authority.

The friends of Jesus were doomed to disappointment.
They expected the early establishment of God's new
regime as a climax to the activities of their teacher, and
his death was a tremendous shock to their hopes. The
Romans were not driven from Palestine, but instead they
nailed Jesus to a cross, just as they had of late been doing
to hundreds of other Jews whom they thought a menace
to the stability of their government. Now that its leader
was gone the new movement was in a precarious con-
dition. Its future looked exceedingly doubtful. The fol-
lowers of Jesus, who apparently had been more concerned
with the founding of a new political regime than with
the religious values attaching to his message and personal
example in living, could hardly imagine any reason for at-
tempting to continue his work. As a matter of fact, when
they did revive their activity their chief interest centered
about a new phase of the hope of the coming kingdom.
They now pictured Jesus raised to a position of authority
at the right hand of God in heaven, whence he would
presently descend to earth to redeem Palestine and gather
together a new society of individuals from among his
kinsmen worthy of membership in the kingdom of God.
Christians went about preaching this doctrine among their
fellow Jews, first in Palestine and then in the synagogues
of the Dispersion around the Mediterranean, all the while
striving to solve the age-old problem of realizing the pol-
itical supremacy of the Hebrew God over the kings and
emperors of earth.

In all of their missionary activity the Christian preach-
ers attached chief importance to their announcement that

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 75

the crucified Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who would
soon come from heaven to restore miraculously a theocra-
tic kingdom in Palestine. It was still a long time before
later generations of Jesus' disciples were to learn that the
greatest abiding values connected with Jesus and his work
lay primarily not in the political imagery of a new king-
dom, so dear to the Jewish people when under Roman op-
pression, but in those more individual and personal relig-
ious attainments inspired by the words of Jesus regarding
sincerity of motive and purity of heart in the daily re-
lations of life.

In a strictly Jewish setting the Christian movement
made but slight impression, perhaps because it was felt
to meet no very pronounced need apart from its unfulfil-
led messianic promises. This political ideal soon proved
false, and the disaster that overtook Jerusalem in the
year 70 A.D., when the city and its temple were destroyed
by the Romans, resulted in conditions still more un-
favorable to the success of Christianity among the Jews.
Later Christians learned by experience that the truest
realization of the kingdom of God was not to be found in
a political institution, but in the transformation of men's
hearts and lives in conformity with Jesus' ideals of sin-
cerity and purity. Yet even then the movement made no
strong appeal to the Jews, who felt that they had other
and more adequate means of cultivating these ideals.
Christianity's future lay with the gentiles. In the opinion
of the Jews it was no longer capable of rendering them
any constructive and valuable service.

II. Christianity and Gentile Culture
When Christianity first entered the gentile field it was
not with any intention of seeking a new and permanent
home. On the contrary, its advocates, failing to win a
satisfactory healing among Jews of the Dispersion, con-
ceived the idea of offering gentiles an opportunity to
enter the new kingdom of God. Yet it was still to be es-
sentially a Palestinian and Hebrew establishment. Jesus
would return to Jerusalem and there set up the new

76 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

regime. Even so zealous a gentile missionary as Paul
never imagined that the Christian movement would in
future become a world-wide gentile enterprise severed
completely from Judaism.

The gentile society of the Roman Empire proved to
be a far more fertile soil for the growth of this new Ori-
ental religion than even its most ardent advocates had at
the outset anticipated. Already the syncretistic religions
of the Empire were attempting to meet a demand that
had been created through the rise of the new cosmopolitan
society. Ultimately Christianity proved more effective
than all of its rivals in the field. But its victory came
only after years of growth in the Christian movement it-
self as its preaching and organization were shaped to
suit the new environment. When it became the legal re-
ligion of the Roman state in the closing years of the
fourth century it presented to the world a very different
appearance from that which it had borne in the middle of
the first century when it was introduced to gentiles by
Paul and his companions.

Among the items in early Christian preaching that
proved most attractive to gentiles was the invitation to
believe in a prospective savior, a hero who had passed
through the trials of an earthly career and ascended
victoriously to heaven whence he would presently return
to pass judgment upon the living and the dead and bestow
on his followers the reward of eternal blessedness. By the
first disciples of Jesus this figure had been portrayed in
purely Jewish imagery, but in the gentile world it rapidly
took on new characteristics. The gentiles were already
thoroughly familiar with belief in heroic persons who by
their labors on earth had rendered distinguished service
to their fellow-men and had been rewarded by elevation to
a position of dignity among the gods. The contemporary
syncretistic faiths were permeated by this type of think-
ing and the Christian Jesus rapidly entered into this
heritage. Gradually he lost his distinctive traits as a Jew-
ish Messiah and, through the reverence paid him in the

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 77

rites of the Christian cult and in the speculations of the
Christian theologians, he became the one all-sufficient
mediator between God and man, fully divine and fully
human. Consequently he was capable of guaranteeing a
salvation that covered all the needs of mankind, while it
was backed by the full power of the supreme Deity.

One very significant change had to be made in early
Christian thinking about Jesus before he could meet a
particular type of religious need then prevalent in the
gentile world. In surveying the syncretistic religions of
that age one is struck by the growth of individualism.
Religions that men once thought adequate because they
insured protection for a race or a local community were
being rapidly superseded by another type of cult in which
personal experience was the feature of central importance.
By a voluntary act the worshiper attached himself to a
particular god and in return for his action received a
very realistic sense of the deity's interest in his personal
welfare. The accompanying emotional experience signified
for the new convert the cementing of a bond of union be-
tween himself and the god. The Jewish Messiah had never
been pictured in any such personal role. He was the savior
of a nation, or of a select group within the Jewish race,
rather than of individual men. If the gentiles wanted his
protection they must first join the Jewish race, else they
could not hope to secure membership in the messianic
community of the redeemed.

Already before the year 50 A.D. there were gentiles
who had heard about Jesus from preachers like Paul and
Barnabas and had attached themselves to him after the
distinctly gentile manner of appropriating the benefits to
be derived from the worship of a heroic savior. They were
quite satisfied with the results of the new experience that
had come to them through joining the Christian commun-
ity. In the initiatory rite of baptism the new convert ex-
perienced a sense of union with the savior, and in the
repeated observance of the Lord's Supper he renewed from
time to time his awareness of the divine presence as he

78 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

partook of the sacred food. In the assemblies of the be-
lievers, as they prayed or prophesied or spoke with
tongues, they felt the power of the new God in their
midst. He healed the sick and drove demons out of those
possessed. They could easily forget the Jewish pictures of
a messianic salvation, since through personal experience
they already felt the presence of the savior in their com-
munity.

This transformation from a messianic savior of Jews
into a hero-savior fully available for any individual, Jew
or gentile, whose personal faith fixed itself on him, cre-
ated for Paul and other missionaries one of the most
crucial problems that arose in the early history of the
new movement. It was only natural that Palestinian dis-
ciples of Jesus should feel that the gentile convert who
failed to join the Jewish society, which required the rite of
circumcision, would find himself in a precarious situation
when Jesus returned to set up the messianic kingdom in
Jerusalem. But men of broader experience, such as Paul,
knew very well that no religion could any longer serve
effectively in the gentile world at large if it adhered to
racial and national ideals and refused to place salvation
upon a personal basis. Henceforth gentile Christianity was
to be a religion of the personal type. Values were secured,
not through membership in any racial unit, but by means
of one's position in a new society of redeemed people who
had each obtained a new experience of assurance that his
life had been linked with God by suitable sacred rites.
Thus Christianity was no longer a Jewish messianic
movement, but was a new sacramental institution not un-
like the mystery religions that were functioning in a
similar manner.

Christianity contributed further to the making of gen-
tile religion through the ethical heritage which it carried
forward from Judaism and from the teaching of Jesus.
In this respect it was unique as a religion among gentiles.
In their world it had fallen to the lot of the philosopher
rather than the priest to provide society with its formal

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 79

ethical instruction, while it was the more specific busi-
ness of religion to deal with the supernatural. In Christ-
ianity these two very important services were now com-
bined, and in this respect the new religion made one of
its most significant contributions to the civilization of that
day. It derived materials for moral instruction from the
Jewish scriptures and from the collected teachings of
Jesus. To these heritages it added also contributions from
contemporary Stoic teachers, who were the great gentile
moralists of the age. By these means it sought to insure
purity of character and rectitude in conduct on the part
of every member of the church. But one must remember
that Christianity always presented itself as first a super-
natural salvation, and secondarily and consequently an
ideal ethics.

The success of Christianity in the Roman Empire was
also due in no small measure to the attention which it
gave to social welfare. The sense of brotherhood was very
strong among its members. At first opposition and per-
secution had helped to weld the brotherhood more solidly
together and had heightened the importance of its charit-
able activities. While its ministrations were directed prin-
cipally toward the unfortunate members of its own group,
they often extended to society at large. Amid the various
guilds, brotherhoods and religious associations that mark-
ed the social life of the Roman Empire, the Christian
church soon became the most conspicuous. It magnified
the virtues of brotherly love and charity, and it so organ-
ized its activities as to make possible the effective appli-
cation of its ideals.

While the Christian church opened wide its doors to
every class of society, and proudly boasted that ft could
take the worst sinners and through its divine energy
transform them into the purest of saints, there was still
a rather marked exclusiveness about the group. Chris-
tians appeared to be a. separate people, neither Jews nor
gentiles, but a "third race." They were like Jews in stoutly
refusing to pay allegiance to any of the pagan gods. But

80 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

as a matter of fact they appropriated a wide range of
religious functions and values that gradually undermined
the operations of their most formidable rivals. All other
cults were declared to be satanically inspired while Chris-
tianity alone was said to represent the only true God. Its
adherents refused to participate in any idolatrous cere-
monies. They would worship neither the emperor nor the
traditional gods of the Roman state. Thus they maintain-
ed their distinctive identity; they developed a strong sense
of social solidarity; and they successfully withstood all
opposition, even persecution by the Roman government.

By the middle of the third century the growing Chris-
tian organization seemed to the authorities a serious
menace to the state. Here was a powerful institution
which refused to worship the ancient gods who were as-
sumed to be the protectors of the Roman government. The
neglect of these deities was thought to be the cause of
those calamities that now threatened the overthrow of
the declining empire. Christianity must be eradicated if
the state was to survive. But an institution so thoroughly
rooted in society as Christianity had now become could
not be suppressed by a government as feeble as was the
imperial regime in the third and fourth centuries. This
the emperors themselves presently discovered. They had
long been accustomed to accept new gods whose growing
popularity seemed likely to offer new supernatural as-
sistance to the state. Similarly, the very fact of the
church's prosperity and growth in the Roman world led
to the natural conclusion that the Christian God might be
a real power among the other deities of the universe.
Thereupon emperors decided to seek his aid also in sup-
port of the state. At first Christianity was accepted on
trial as one of the approved religions, but before the close
of the fourth century it had become so well established
that it was made the only legal religion of the state.

Christianity had already assumed guardianship over a
wide range of Roman society's cultural interests and now
it took under its wing even the political order. It ex-

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 81

plained impending calamities as due to the failure of the
rulers to worship the true God. Henceforth this mistake
was to be corrected. Officials of the Christian church be-
came the most important personages in the state. Bishops
were the agents of the emperor in the discharge of public
duties and the disbursement of public funds appropriated
to the service of religion. They were advisers of emperors
and did not hesitate to call even the most powerful of
them sharply to account when their conduct deviated from
the standards of the church.

Christianity was now the guardian of the total cultural
life. It was the patron of all legitimate art and literature.
All philosophy became Christian theology. All social and
political activities were subject to its supervision. Church
and state fused and Christianity was on the way to be-
coming the City of God on earth.

77/ Christianity in Medieval Society

The Christian church had been accepted by the Roman
government as its sole religious support just in time to
witness the death agonies of the western empire. Itie
barbarian peoples of the north swarmed into southern
Europe in larger and larger numbers, bringing on a
period of decadence that we are wont to call the Dark
Ages. Perhaps the situation wras not so utterly bad as it
has sometimes been depicted, but it certainly was a time
of extensive breakdown in the customary values of civi-
lization. Its cities, its government, its industries, its com-
merce, its wealth, its entertainments, its intellectual and
artistic creativity, and its cultural interests in general
rapidly deteriorated. But collapse wras accompanied by a
slow process of reconstruction in which the church played
an important part.

Christianity had become so thoroughly integrated with-
in the Roman world at large that it participated both in
the processes of decay and in those of revival. Like other
institutions the new features that emerged within it were
shaped in accordance with the tastes and capacities of
the new peoples who were more or less ready to learn

82 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

from the past but who naturally enough made their activ-
ities conform in the main to the needs of the moment. A
new generation of members and leaders in the church
meant that even this ancient foundation should reflect in
no slight degree the temper of the times. Yet no one of
the older institutions carried over into the new state of
affairs the same measure of momentum — or perhaps one
should call it inertia — that characterized the church. Also
the situation offered Christianity a new opportunity to
show its efficiency in serving humanity at a time when a
display of fresh religious energy was greatly to be desired.

Christianity was the only institution that furnished
even the semblance of unity and common direction to the
civilization of early medieval Europe. It dominated, or
professed to dominate, every area of human interest
whether pertaining to this world or to the world to come,
and for several centuries no one ventured to question its
authority. A thoroughly disorganized society demanded
a new protector and no agency was at hand so competent
as the church to assume responsibility for this task. In
later times, when society had developed within itself new
agencies for directing its interests and activities, it re-
sented the aggressiveness of a church that by long habit
had come to look upon itself as the sole authority over
the whole of life. Then the church was charged with ar-
rogating to itself privileges that were not its rightful
possession and this criticism was read back into its earlier
history. But this was not wholly correct. While it is true
that the leaders of the church in the early medieval peri-
od were sometimes not averse to assuming unlimited re-
sponsibility for society's direction it must be admitted
that in a very real sense they were not impertinent ag-
gressors but were actual benefactors to the men of their
day. If a Roman bishop headed a delegation to meet a
barbarian invader it was not because the church was ar-
rogantly inserting itself into politics but rather because
its leader was the outstanding man of the community to
whom the populace naturally looked for direction and help.

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 83

Christianity was called upon for a wide range of sei
vices extending from the simple needs of the humblest
peasant to the more complex experiences of the medieval
noble. There was no area in this whole range of interests
where the church was unwilling to enter or where in fact
its presence was not demanded. From peasant to prince
the society of that day looked to Christianity for divine
guidance. While the church accepted this responsibility
not ungrudgingly, it did so with serious intent and a feel-
ing of assurance that it was walking in the path of duty.
When, later, men became convinced that they had better
ways of access to the will of God, and when princes grew
bolder in maintaining the divine . right of a king inde-
pendently of ecclesiastical authorization, it was not sur-
prising that the representatives of the long established
churchly institution should protest with all their might.
It was inevitable that they should be distrustful of those
new voices that people were hearing in later times and
interpreting as the whisperings of the divine will.

As a supernatural instrument in the service of human-
ity, Christianity enabled early medieval society to recon-
struct various areas of its shattered life with a large
measure of satisfaction and assurance. The parish priest
might be an illiterate person, and none too exacting in
his morals, but those facts did not mar the satisfaction
felt by the individual who, at one or another critical
moment in life, needed the divine ministrations which the
priest alone could render. The important thing was that
the power of the divine church should be mediated, at
birth, at marriage, at death, in times of sickness or pest-
ilence or in any other significant act of life. In this way
the welfare of both the individual and the community was
supernaturally protected.

Even in what would now be called purely secular af-
fairs the medieval church was inevitably involved. In a
society inadequately equipped with courts of justice to
try civil cases the church assumed a large measure of this
responsibility. Had this justice been less arbitrarily di-

84 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

vine it might at times have been more generously temper-
ed with mercy, yet one was sure to fare better in an
ecclesiastical court than at the hands of a medieval
brigand.

The influence of Christianity upon the political recon-
struction of medieval society was of great importance. In
an age of regnant supernaturalism neither a new king
nor his subjects could feel entirely satisfied that his
regime had been properly launched until the mark of
heaven had been set upon his brow. But unfortunately
there were two types of political ideal that rivaled one
another for ultimate recognition in the new European
society. One, taken over from Roman civilization and
sponsored by the Bishop of Rome, exalted the notion of
an all-pervading imperialism. But among the barbarian
settlers there developed in the course of time a powerful
trend in the direction of nationalism. While the church ou
occasion was willing to make kings it was never entirely
happy in the thought that European society was to lose its
imperial unity and be ruled by a number of independent
monarchs. The ecclesiastical pattern called for an em-
peror who should be supreme among temporal powers and
subject to the supremacy of the spiritual power represent-
ed by the pope. For centuries medieval thinking agonized
over this issue but never arrived at a final solution.

In the realm of artistic production the Christianity of
medieval times has left one of its most abiding contribu-
tions to civilization. In a more material age it would hard-
ly have been conceivable that a none too pecunious society
would contribute so large a proportion of its means for
the building of those magnificent monuments that remain
in the form of medieval cathedrals. But in a day when
men fixed their gaze intently upon the life beyond they
could gladly devote their time and substance to creations
of the artists's ideal world. Medieval art is largely the
expression in form and color of the extravagant super-
naturalism that elicited the devotion of peasant, pries C

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 85

and prince alike in their respective areas of activity. They
lived in fleeting and transitory time, but they built for
eternity.

Were we to choose a single word to indicate in general
the type of influence exercised by Christianity over all
spheres of life in the Middle Ages it would be the term
authority. All human conduct and thinking were subject-
ed to this ideal. For men of that day this order of things
was not altogether an evil. It might provide no very
strong incentive toward creative moral and intellectual
attainments, but it had excellent disciplinary value. And
that age was much in need of police supervision, all the
more effective because exercised in the name of Heaven.
In a day when as yet empirical and scientific observation
had provided no tools for any other mental procedure, it
could have meant only chaos had men attempted to think
through the problems of life and history in any terms
other than those of authority and revelation Today we
may not like the postulates on which Thomas Aquinas
wrote his system of theology, any more than we accept
the reality of the angels painted by Michelangelo, and yet
we may admire the mental seriousness of Aquinas as well
as the artistic feeling of Michelangelo.

IV. Christianity and Modern Culture
By constituting itself a supreme authority over every
sphere of human interest Christianity had become the
universally recognized guardian of medieval civilization.
But ultimately there came a day when the needs of man-
kind began to change. First in one and then in another
sphere of interest the ideal of authority began to break
down. By the opening of the fifteenth century the spirit
of liberty was already awakening and in succeeding cen-
turies it rapidly gained momentum. The agitating in-
fluences were varied in character. From the twelfth to
the fifteenth centuries new developments within medieval
society had already begun to change the pattern of lift
and make inevitable the coming of a new age in cultural
evolution.

86 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The estate of a feudal noble could no longer remain the
chief territorial unit. With the increase of population
came the growth of trade and commerce. A new
machinery of government had to be devised to stabilize
larger geographical areas and to establish between these
units more permanent and orderly relations. Thus began
the interest in national and international affairs with
which we are so familiar today. This movement in the
direction of nationalism furnished the Christianity of the
Middle Ages one of the most serious problems with which
it had to deal. The ultimate consequences of this develop-
ment necessitated on the part of the Christian movement
a radical re-interpretation of its task in relation to the
total processes of cultural evolution. Inevitably, different
types of culture arose in different centers like England
and France and Germany. A Christianity that had been
adequate to the needs of a united medieval Europe, ap-
pealing to the pope of Rome as the highest source of
authority over all of life's interests, could no longer be
expected to serve competently the new world where sep-
arate and distinct nations were arising and prospering.

Even within the church itself there were indications ot
disintegration tending to weaken the power of the in-
stitution. It lacked a broad-visioned leader in the papal
chair who could sense the spirit of the times. Once it had
been possible for a pope to defy successfully a king or an
emperor by threatening to withhold the church's ministra-
tions from the subjects of the prince. But now that was
no longer possible. In the opening of the fourteenth
century the king of France took possession of the pope
and removed his residence from Rome to Avignon. It
was a century before his prestige began to recover itself
in Europe at large. Then, too, the awakening moral
sense of society was offended by the evidences of world-
liness that were to be found in the church. Simony, the
sale of indulgences, financial abuses, and even the charge
of immorality against many of the clergy, no longer es-
caped attention. Even a series of general councils <J1

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 87

Christendom, held with the professed intention of accom-
plishing reformation within the church, proved incapable
of satisfying the current demand.

The rising stream of new vital energy was fed by many
tributaries. New values of both a spiritual and material
sort were recognized. The business of feudal society had
been conducted in a very simple manner. Men traded in
goods and in services, and land was the chief form ot
property. Money was unknown ; it had no current value.
But with the increase of population more laborers were
available and they produced more articles than could be
used in a local medieval village. Thus trade with other
villages arose and towns grew up as manufacturing and
trading centers. Men's horizons began to expand as con-
tacts with other localities enlarged. Previously society
had taken account of only two principal classes, the nobles
and the clergy. But now there appeared a prosperous
middle class, the bourgeoisie, the so-called "third estate,"
with which both church and nobles had to learn to reckon.

The growing independence of a middle class was only
one of the forces that menaced the authority of an estab-
lished church. A new spirit of individualism was also
awakened. Just as in the Roman Empire, the mingling
of peoples together in the world at large and the rise ot
the individual's feeling of responsibility for his own wel-
fare generated a new type of society, so now there was a
great stimulus toward initiative on the part of aggressive
persons. This urge might express itself in some new in-
vention like that of printing or in a voyage of explora-
tion that would open up new worlds, and every advance-
ment added to the new sense of resources and power at
the disposal of mankind. The accumulation of wealth
meant more leisure for study and reflection, contacts with
other peoples furnished new ideas and intellectual stimuli,
and the invention of printing made possible the wider em-
ulation of knowledge. Thus many interests and activities
over which it had been the privilege of the church
previously to preside now moved in channels of their own

88 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

making and with a force that could not be resisted even
by this powerful institution.

Christianity itself was too closely integrated with these
new cultural developments to remain unaffected by the
awakening temper of the times. While there were indeed
ample evidences of worldliness within the church itself,
the spiritual interests of the period were not dormant.
They found new expression in the exalted piety of the
medieval mystics, who felt no conflict between themselves
and the church, but who in reality had caught the vision
of the new day that was about to dawn. At the same
time there were others readier to break with, or at least
to criticize sharply, the conventional operations of re-
ligion. One recalls such movements as were represented
by the Albigenses and the Waldenses, or the activities of
a Wyclif and a Huss, or the fiery preaching of a Savon-
arola. This swelling stream of revolt against the author-
ity of the ecclesiastical institution finally overflowed its
banks in the sixteenth century and rapidly permeated
northern and central Europe. We usually call it the Pro-
testant Reformation.

The Reformation, as a revolt against the authority of
an ancient institution gave right of way to the new cul-
tural interests of sixteenth-century Europe. But at this
point it is easy to misread the mind of the reformers.
They were still thinking of religion fundamentally in
terms of an authority laid down in the past. They dif-
fered from the pope chiefly in denying authority to his
office and claiming it instead for the ancient scriptures.
In reality they were tremendously influenced by forces
operating in their immediate environment, but when they
attempted to rephrase the significance of the Christian
movement for the civilization of their time they adopted
the customary procedure of applying norms derived from
antiquity. Fortunately, however,, the bible was an ancient
book whose original meaning was not always clear ana
therefore was capable of being adjusted to the require-

CULTURAL EVOLUTION 89

ments of a new age. Interpretation could quite uneon
sciously read new interests into the sacred text.

At the outset both Catholicism and Protestantism oc-
cupied common ground in offering to mankind the
guidance of a supernatural authority. The former found
this guidance in an ecclesiastical organization headed by
the pope while the latter located it in the bibb as inter-
preted by the authorized theologians of the church. Cath-
olicism has maintained its original stand down to the pres-
ent moment, while large numbers of Protestants still ad-
here to the biblical theory propounded by their ancestors
in the sixteenth century. But once the Protestant principle
had been established, that individuals or groups were at
liberty to follow the dictates of conscience, the doctrine
of an ultimate and infallible authority was virtually un-
dermined for all time to come. The cultural situation of
the individual now became determinative for his thinking,
and a religious institution had to justify its existence in
terms of its functional efficiency as an instrument for
nourishing and perpetuating spiritual values.

Whether the effectiveness of Christianity in modern
civilization has been increased or diminished in con-
sequence of the diversity in the movement resulting from
the application of the Protestant principle of liberty, is a
question that different persons may answer in different
ways. But what religion thus loses on the side of un*
versal authority it gains in the realm of personal tastes
and satisfactions. Where there is much variety in cul-
tural attainments and personal inclinations, different re-
ligious activities and organizations are necessarily re-
quired in order to meet the total range of men's needs.
Since Protestantism has made this variation possible it
has really given a greater vitality to the Christian move-
ment. Some observers predict the early demise of Pro-
testantism on the ground of its diversity and lack of
central authority. But this judgment implies the validity
of a totalitarian rather than of a democratic philosophy
of life. From the standpoint of democracy one might pre-

90 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

diet that a Christianity capable of expressing itself as di-
versely as are the characteristics of modern human cul-
ture would have the best of chances to endure.

Whatever the future may bring forth, at least one
thing is clear. The highest service which Christianity
renders to mankind no longer rests fundamentally upon
the maintenance of an infallible church, but upon the
power of religious ideals to make themselves effective in
the lives of men. Since the dawn of the Reformation ec-
clesiastical establishments have gradually been forced to
retire from various areas of culture. They no longer
speak the final word in politics, in art, in literature, in
philosophy, in science, in civic affairs, or for some of us
even in the area of personal religious opinions. But if
Christianity lacks formal authority in these spheres of
modern civilization we are not to conclude that it there-
fore lacks function. To pervade all of these areas of cul-
ture, not by the utterances of an ecclesiastical fiat but by
the inspiring leaven of high ideals, is still a worthy task
for the Christian church.

Christianity cannot hope to endure if it interprets itsell
as something extraneous to normal cultural evolution. Itc
moral and spiritual ideals must find concrete embodi-
ment in human activities and institutions. One some-
times asks whether Christianity can save our modern
civilization. Certainly it cannot unless civilization is al-
lowed to become the vehicle by which the Christian re-
ligion is carried forward in the concrete processes of cul-
tural life.

NOTES and NEWS

THE FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION

So many inquiries have recently come to us about the
Florida School of Religion that it would appear to be a
matter of sufficiently general interest to justify a printed
statement regarding its present work. The School is of
comparatively recent origin and is thus far largely in the
experimental stage. But after a little more than a year
of operation its function is becoming more clearly de-
finable and the need it has met is more fully appreciable.

Organization

The Florida School of Religion was established under
a charter granted by the State of Florida on March 15,
1940. The charter empowered it to "conduct a religious
institution of learning, possessing all the powers incident
to such institutions, including the right to prescribe proper
courses of study and confer proper degrees upon the com-
pletion thereof." Steps were promptly taken to carry out
the provisions of the charter through the organization
of a group of trustees composed of S. J. Case, E. E. Kelley,
R. B. Gilbert, Robert Tolle, Dana Coman and L. H. Terry.
The officers elected by the trustees were R. B. Gilbert,
President; Dana Coman, Vice-President; Robert Tolle,
Secretary-Treasurer. An executive Committee was ap-
pointed consisting of R. B Gilbert, Chairman; Dana
Coman, Robert Tolle and S. J. Case.

Faculty
The members of the faculty carrying on instruction at
the present time are Shirley Jackson Case, Dean and
Professor of Biblical and Doctrinal Studies; Charles T.
Thrift, Jr., Secretary of the Faculty and Professor of
Historical Studies; Charles Warren Hawkins, Professor
of Linguistic and Educational Studies; and George Lee
Tenney, Professor of Music. During one week in the year
the School brings in a special lecturer for a series of
addresses that subsequently appear in book form. The

92 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

first of these series was given in 1940 by Dean Willard
Learoyd Sperry of Harvard Divinity School and they are
now available in his volume on What We Mean by
Religion. In 1941 Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Boston
gave the lectures which have just appeared in his recent
book, The Ethical Ideals of Jesus in a Changing World.
At the same time the Dean of the School of Religion de-
livered a supplementary series of addresses that have also
appeared in book form under the title Christianity in a
Changing World. The lecturer for 1942 is to be Dean Lynn
Harold Hough of Drew Theological Seminary.

Purpose

In general the purpose of the School of Religion is:

First, to meet the needs of those who desire to
become intelligent about religion as an aspect of our total
cultural heritage. In consequence of the American prin-
ciple of separation between church and state, educational
institutions supported by the state have found it difficult
to make religion an essential part of their curricula. The
result is that many educated persons are left without any
intelligent awareness of the conspicuous place occupied
by religion in our modern civilization. The School of Re-
ligion seeks to correct this defect.

Second, many students who expect to engage in secular
callings desire at the same time to acquire an education
that will enable them to participate actively and effect-
ively in the life of the churches in their respective com-
munities. The School of Religion aims to meet their needs
by offering general courses of an untechnical and non-
professional type portraying religion in its functional
aspects in modern society.

Third, the School seeks to serve those students who may
be preparing to enter the Christian ministry as a profes-
sion. They will be introduced to the various fields of study
leading up to specializing in ministerial training. They
will be given an understanding of the methods of study
to be pursued, the scholarly approach to problems, and the
tasks involved in the professional education of the preach-

NOTES AND NEWS 93

er and pastor. This preparation should greatly enhance the
value of their subsequent study in the theological semin-
ary, but it is not intended as a substitute for such study.
Fourth, provision is also made for helping persons now
in the active ministry to pursue further study in guided
reading courses carried on by correspondence or by oc-
casional conferences with instructors.

Degrees

The only degree for which provision has yet been made
in the School of Religion is that of Master of Arts. The
requirements for this degree are:

First, candidates must previously have obtained a Bach-
elor of Arts degree, or its academic equivalent, from an
accredited college.

Second, a candidate must complete at least fifteen cours-
es, each constituting the equivalent of three term hours,
and secure an average of not less than B grade for his
work in these courses.

Third, a final examination, oral or written as may be
determined by circumstances, covering the entire area of
work presented for the degree must be satisfactorily
passed.

Fourth, an acceptable thesis on some topic connected
with the student's special field of interest must be pre-
sented.

Courses of Instruction

The aim of the courses of instruction is to furnish a
comprehensive understanding of the position and function
of religion in the making of our modern civilization.

First, there is a historical survey of the evolution of the
Hebrew and Christian religions from earliest times down
to the present day. To this is added also a sketch of the
various other religions that have survived to modern times
in the Near East, India, China and Japan.

Second, attention is given to biblical studies designed to
show how this body of religious literature arose, and to
interpret the work of great creative personalities.

94 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Third, the development of the Christian type of relig-
ious beliefs will be outlined from the beginnings down to
the widely varied types of thinking current in modern
times.

Fourth, students will be made acquainted with the op-
erations of the Christian religion in the present-day
world through educational activities, the organization of
churches and denominations, and the adjustment of re-
ligious thinking to the various aspects of modern culture
and social life.

Fifth, should a sufficient number of students desire to
begin the study of Hebrew or New Testament Greek, in-
struction in these languages will be provided. A class ii
beginning Greek is now in operation.
Informal Courses

In addition to formal classroom instruction as announ-
ced in the class schedule each term, a series of so-calied
"informal" courses is made available for private study.
These are designed to stimulate the student to cultivate
habits of study on his own account and skill in reading
the literature on the subject. In each course he is provided
with a syllabus indicating the main lines to be pursued,
the general method of study, the distinctive features of the
several books to be read, the chief problems to engage his
attention in the acquisition of knowledge, and the specific
issues that invite his reflective thinking and judgment.
There are periodic consultations, either in person or by
correspondence, with the instructor as a means of checking
up on the student's progress and furnishing such guidance
as he may need in the pursuit of his work. No course will
be completed until a final examination has been passed,
and when completed each course will carry a credit of
three term-hours.

All of the informally conducted courses are available
at any time, according to the needs of the individual
student, and may be completed quickly or leisurely as his
time for study permits. These courses are grouped ac-
cording to four main types, namely, historical, biblical,

NOTES AND NEWS 95

doctrinal and practical. The letters after the course num-
bers (H, B, D, P) indicate respectively, each of these
types and a student may choose any of these fields as his
special interest.

These courses have apparently met a very definite need.
Since they were inaugurated a little over a year ago 130 of
them have been taken by 80 different students and the
demand is constantly increasing. Following are the in-
formal courses at present available:

201H. Christianity in Roman Society. The two text-
books prescribed are S. J. Case, Social Origins of
Christianity and S. J. Case, The Social Triumph of
the Ancient Church.

210H. Outline History of Christianity. The first text
used is A. G. Baker (editor), A Short History of
Christianity. This will be supplemented by some other
book in line with the student's area of interest.

213H. Christianity in America. Text: W. W. Sweet,
The Story of Religion in America.

302H. History of Methodism. Text: W. W. Sweet,
Methodism in American History, supplemented by a
second book chosen in line with the student's special
interest.

332H. Non-Christian World ReKgions. Texts: C. S.
Braden, The World's Religions, and a second book
later to be determined.

201B. Modern Biblical Study. Texts : E. C. Colwell, The

Study of the Bible and a second book in accordance

with the student's preference.
203B. New Testament Beliefs. Text: E. W. Parsons,

The Religion of the Neiv Testament.
301B. Life and Religion of Jesus. Texts: S. J. Case,

Jesus, a New Biography, and S. J. Case, Jesus

Through the Centuries.
302B. Life and Religion of Paul. Text : B. W. Robinson,

96 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The Life of Paul, and readings in the Pauline Epist-
les.
303B. Literature of the Old Testament. Texts: I. G.

Matthews, Old Testament Life and Literature and J.

A. Bewer, The Literature of the Old Testament.
304B. Literature of the New Testament. Text: E. F.

Scott, Literature of the New Testament.
201D. Growth of Christian Ideas. Text: S. J. Case,

Highways of Christian Doctrine, supplemented by a

book in the ancient, medieval or modern field as the

interest of the student may determine.
202D. The Nature of Christianity. Text: S. J. Case,

Christianity in a Changing World.
304D. Modern Religious Philosophies. Text: E. A.

Burtt, Types of Religious Philosophy.
201P. The Work of the Minister. Texts : A. W. Palmer,

The Minister's Job, and an additional book dealing

with some special aspect of the minister's task that

may be of special interest to the student.
202P. The Work of the Church. Text: W. C. Bower

(editor), The Church at Work in the Modern World.
81 IP. Christianity and Modern Social Problems. Texts:

selected pamphlets.

Fees

The charge for tuition is $12.00 per course. This is
the same for both formal and informal courses. Normally
a student must purchase his own textbooks, but a rental
library is gradually being accumulated for the informal
courses. When a book is available it may be rented for
from 35 cents to 50 cents per month, depending on the
price of the book.

Information
For information address:
Shirley Jackson Case, Dean, Florida School of Religion,
Box 146, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida.

RELIGION

In The Making

VOLUME II JANUARY, 1942 No. 2

KEEPING SANE IN A WORLD LIKE OURS

By Shatter Mathews

NAZIISM AND THE GERMAN CHURCH

By Gerald B. Switzer

SOME BASIC CONCEPTIONS OF CHRISTIAN
THOUGHT TO THE REFORMATION

By Ray C. Petty

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS

By Roy H. Johnson

THE ATTITUDE OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
TOWARD THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

By Herbert H. Stroup

FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION, LAKELAND, FLA.

98 TABLE CONTENTS

Albert E. Barnett, Paul Becomes A Literary Influ-
ence . . . 180

J. 0. Dobson,W orship 181

G. Bromley Oxnam, The Ethical Ideals of Jesus in a

Changing World 182

Marguerite T. Boylan, Social Welfare in the Catholic

Church 183

J. B. R. Walker, Comprehensive Concordance to the

Holy Scriptures 184

Henry C. Link, The Return to Religion 184

Winifred Kirkland, Are We Immortal? 184

Henry N. Wieman, Now We Must Choose 184

Arthur E. Holt, Christian Roots of Democracy in

America 186

Karl Ruff Stolz, Making the Most of the Rest of

Life 187

Marguerite Fellows Melcher, The Shaker Adventure,

An Experiment in Contented Living 188

Arthur Wentworth Hewitt, God's Back Pasture .... 189
Austin L. Porterfield, Creative Factors in Scientific

Research 190

Harry Emerson Fosdick, Living Under Tension 191

ANNOUNCEMENT

The subscription price for RELIGION IN THE
MAKING remains the same as last year. We invite
you to renew your subscription. The subscription
rate is $2.00 per year, or sixty cents for a single
copy. One may remit by personal check or Post
Office Order, made payable to The Florida School
of Religion, Box 146, Florida Southern College,
Lakeland, Florida.

— — 1MB TBingiirra^ui. u iJia.iiJ -«mwp ■KAiLa*»w»a1 m

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

SHAILER MATHEWS was, at the time of his death
last October, Dean Emeritus of the Divinity School of
the University of Chicago. He had been Professor of
Historical Theology and Dean of the Divinity School for
many years before his retirement in 1933. Dr. Mathews
was associated in an editorial and executive capacity with
many of the major religious organizations and movements
in this country. He was president of the Federal Council
of the Churches of Christ in America from 1912 to 1916,
and of the Northern Baptist Convention in 1915; trustee
of the Church Peace Union from 1914, and Director of
Religious Work at the Chautauqua Institution from 1912
to 1934. He wrote numerous books during the last half
century, and did much to shape the social philosophy of
American Christianity. His article published in this num-
ber was written about two weeks before his death and was
the last to come from his pen.

GERALD B. SWITZER is Professor of Church History
in Union College of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C.
He holds the Ph. D. degree from the University of
Chicago. Dr. Switzer has contributed a number of arti-
cles to the various religious publications in Canada.

RAY C. PETRY is Assistant Professor of Church His-
tory in the Divinity School of Duke University. A native
of Eaton, Ohio, he received his A. B. degree from Man-
chester College, his A. M. and Ph. D. degrees from the
University of Chicago. He was formerly Assistant Pro-
fessor of History in Manchester and McPherson Colleges,
and Professor and Head of the Department of Religion
in McPherson College. He has published numerous criti-

100 OUR CONTRIBUTORS

eal 3 eviews and several articles in such leading scholarly
journals as Church History and The Journal of Religion.
He has recently published his volume on Francis of Assisi:
Apostle of Poverty.

ROY H. JOHNSON is Professor of History in Thiel
College, Greenville, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph. D.
degiee at the University of Chicago in 1929. He has done
considerable reseaich on the subject he treats in his
aiticle on "The Language Missions," and has from time
to time presented some of the results of his research to
various learned societies.

HERBERT H. STROUP is a graduate of Union The-
ological Seminary in New York City. He is now working
on his Ph. D. degree at The New School for Social Re-
search, and is planning to write his doctor's dissertation
on the work of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

KEEPING SANE IN A WORLD LIKE OURS

By Shatter Mathews

University of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

Living in a world like ours is like being lost in a forest.
No one who has had that experience wants to repeat it. If
he is not a trained woodsman, when he finds himself off
the trail in a forest, he wants to run. The more he runs,
the more panic-stiicken he becomes. Around camp fires
guides will tell stoiies of lost men who threw away their
guns and coats and tore through the woods bent on getting
back to camp, but having no idea where the camp was.
They paid no attention to landmai ks ; they climbed no trees
to get a view of the terrain. Such panic-stricken people
must be rescued, the guides say, within forty-eight hours,
or they will giow insane and die from panic and exposure.

Anyone is liable to get lost in the woods, but a good
woodsman knows what to do. He will sit down and take
account of the situation. He may climb a tree to look for
familiar landmarks. If the sun is hidden and he has no
compass, he will study the bark of the trees, the flow of
brooks, and other signs that indicate direction. Then, with-
out panic, he goes on his way back to camp.

This paiable is applicable to our present situation. The
world which seemed so familiar looks strange and
threatening. We a:e lost in the forest of propaganda,
social change, international intrigues, economic struggle.
racial enmities, religious and moral disillusion, war. If
we want to keep our heads we need to use our common
sense.

I am not at all sure that all people want to be sane in
a world like ours. There is luxury in emotional excesses,
whether they be chose of optimism or pessimism. It is
easy for one's logic to reach into all soits of desirable and
undesirable conclusions. In many cases this emotional re-
lease is camouflaged under a claim of moral sincerity. Eut
sincerity is no test of wisdom. Too often conscience may
become a combination of passions and obstinacy.

102 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

It may sound hopelessly Philistine to say that for the
rank and file of us there is little to be gained from psy-
chology. True, there are those sufficiently detached from
life to be able to tell us why we are panic-stricken and
point out the causes of our panic. They are physicians
studying their patient. The difficulty is that most of us
are the patient. Sociological diagnosis may disclose what
is going on in the world, but such knowledge may simply
add new problems to those we already face. We are sicker
than we thought. A sense of futility seems a welcome an-
aesthetic.

But there is a practical treatment of the condition which
the social psychologist describes. The man who is lost in
the woods may not know the geological history of the ter-
rain he must cross, but if he keeps his head he knows that
water runs downhill and the sun does not rise in the west.
Common sense need not be unintelligent. For those who
really want to maintain a sane attitude in the midst of the
uncertainties of the present situation there are some con-
siderations which have weight.

The first of these considerations is the fact that we are
not living in an insane world but in a Titanic struggle be-
tween ideologies. The development of mass production and
the unification of life by new methods of communication
and transportation have inevitably resulted in different
conceptions as to how group action, whether it be of eco-
nomics or politics, shall be organized. There results more
than a struggle between capitalism and its rivals. It is real-
ly a struggle as to the relative importance of the in-
dividual and the state. On the one side is a nationalism
made supreme by coercion, and on the other side is an
individualism adjusted to group action. When we realize
that the confusion with which our day seems filled is not
born of anarchy but is an aspect of the struggle between
two rival conceptions as to how human life should be or-
ganized, we can see that action based upon intelligent
choice is saner than lamentation and panic.

A second aid to sanity is the habit of criticizing or, as
accountants would say, "breaking down" daily news and

KEEPING SANE 103

propaganda. We need to remember that the news service
is more or less perfunctory. Much of it, necessarily, is
hardly more than gossip and guess work. If one were to
compare the prophecies which many commentators have
made during the past year, their mistakes and prejudices
would be at once apparent. It is only common sense to
treat them with skepticism. Foreign correspondents are
under direct or indirect censorship, and stories which they
send us can be treated as only approximately accurate.
Certain cities are hotbeds of gossip and conjecture, and
any statements that come from them are fair objects of
suspicion. The nearest approach that we can get to facts
is post cventum news. Even official communiques have to
be taken with a very considerable caution. They are of the
nature of propaganda and are not likely to give informa-
tion which would be valuable to the enemy or discouraging
to the nation they represent. It is easier to believe some
communiques than others, but they all should be sifted to
discover facts.

One must recognize also the technique of those who wish
to stir the emotions by the use of slogans and descriptive
terms. It is an elemental method to arouse prejudice and
hostility by the use of terms which arouse passion.
Every demagogue smears an opponent by some term which
arouses passion and prejudice. That same critical attitude
which leads one to distinguish facts from interpretation
will keep us from letting vocabularies rule our sympathies.

It may be objected that such an attitude of skepticism
or criticism will leave us in uncertainty as to actual sit-
uations. That is true. But the refusal to be gullible will
keep one from being submerged in forebodings. And, on
the whole, it is better to be uncertain than to be a prey
to prophecies of doom too often based on ignorance of
history and discernible propaganda.

But it is not impossible to discover enough facts to di-
rect judgment. It is too much to say that all news Is col-
ored, and I do not mean to say that all propaganda is
vicious, but it is easy to see that there are plenty of in-
fluences which would like to have the United States take

104 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

sides in European and Asiatic conflicts. In fact, one of the
chief dangers which threaten our futuie is the tendency
for European enmities to reappear in organized fashion
among our own citizens. If one once realizes this fact, it
will prevent one's being ch awn into panic or partisanship.
We may have our sympathies or we may have our uncer-
tainties about the justice of other people's policies, but we
can acquire the habit of allowing for self-interest on the
pait of those who want our support, and either because of
policy or their own sympathy do not present the facts in
a disinterested way.

Eut it is not enough to realize that we face an issue be-
tween waning ideologies lather that social insanity. We
should also become historically minded. One of the chief
enemies of mental balance is the habit of judging events
as if they were independent situations unconditioned by
the past and not subject to complicated influences. Some
philosopher of long ago, when a difficult situation arose,
was in the habit of saying, "This too will pass." Of course,
such an attitude might in some cases mean mere passive
submission to fate but it may also be a formula for calm
judgment. ^01 history is something more than a record
of past events. It is a disclosure of t" ends and influences
which are constantly repeating themselves and continu-
ing in our present. If we could only bieak loose from the
past and annihilate our memory of the injustices and
enmities of the past, our prog" ess might be more easy.
But we can no more eliminate history from our present
than we can eliminate the physical characteristics of our
ancestors. And the tragedy is that men are so often swayed
by their past national, economic, and racial conflicts
which persist. Whoever would keep his head in our world
ought to take all such facts into account and determine
that, so far as he is concerned, he will not succumb to in-
heritance. He will look to the future. He will be an ances-
tor as well as a descendant.

But in today's conflicts historical mindedness, which
comes fiom a realization of process, leads to a conviction
which will keep one from panic or fanaticism. It is the con-

KEEPING SANE 105

viction that we are living in an orderly universe in which
human history is not a succession of chances; that it is pos-
sible to discover the conditions under which human wel-
fare can be advanced. Thanks to our scientists, we have
come to understand pretty well what we call the natural
laws. We can foretell when the moon will rise, when
eclipses will come. Even the most simple-minded among
us know that day follows night and spring follows winter.
Such understanding of the universe in which we live is,
however, no more within our grasp than our ability to
trace the operations of what we may call social laws in
the course of human history.

In the interests of sane judgment Americans should
realize that, while our democracy needs to be made ef-
ficient, it yet carries within itself something which the ef-
ficiency of dictatorship cannot endure. The struggle be-
tween ideologies is more than the conflict of tanks and
airplanes. The success of nations that never were really
democratic must not make us forget that the instruments
and methods of dictatorships have been appropriated from
the experimenting of democracies. Liberty means more
than the freedom to follow our desires, or criticize or laugh
at our government. It means an opportunity for men to
develop their personal responsibility. That is revealed by
historic process. We may have to recognize the fact that
we are animals ; but as human beings we are more than
accidents. The conditions under which we can carry out
our human development are set by the universe in which
we live. The cooperation of persons for common good is
something more than sentimentality. It is the extension
of cosmic activity itself into human relations. It can no

more be disregarded than any cosmic activity.

WTith such a belief we can face the world in which we
live without the panic which is born of confusion. We will
act as those who believe in the possibility of directing
process towards greater human welfare. We steady our-
selves by a belief that the orderly universe did not become
anarchic when men appeared within it.

106 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Such a point of view is sanely religious. It is by no
means the same as saying that since God is on our side the
outcome may be trusted to him. Such a faith may be hardly
mere than defeatism. The divine will works through
human processes and is one of destruction as well as con-
st: uction. A basic 1 eligious faith involves a conviction that
any course of action hostile to the supremacy of personal
worth of individuals in social relations will cause suffer-
ing. To oppose it is to conserve values worth conserving.
The1 e is in religious faith a heroic element which is more
than a passive waiting for the divine action. It is a sacri-
ficial social-mindedness that would express and cooperate
with the personality-producing activities of the universe
discoverable in society. Who directs that social mindedness
with intelligence, to use the words of Jesus, buiMs his
house upon the rock, and winds may blow and floods de-
scend, but the house stands.

NAZIISM AND THE GERMAN CHURCH

By Gerald B. Sivitzer

Union College of British Columbia

Vancouver, B. C.

(This article was an address delivered at the annual
convocation of Union College on Apiil 29, 1941. But its
interest and timeliness are such that we take pleasure in
passing it on to our readers. — Editor)

A peculiar thing happened some time ago. About the
close of the World War a young officer just thirty years
of age received an unexpected invitation to join a political
party which had no representatives in pailiament and
only six supporters. Out of curiosity he united with the
group and was given the ticket of membership numbered
"7". There was no one of prominence in the group, but
the little coterie nevertheless decided to hold a public
meeting. One of them rattled off a few invitations on
the typewriter on slips of paper and the rest set to writ-
ing theirs by hand. The young army officer went out and
delivered eighty of them himself. At the appointed time
the seven hopefuls made preparations for the great public
meeting and awaited eagerly the big event. The hour
passed and no one appeared. Refusing to be beaten they
decided to call another meeting and subscribed enough
money to put an advertisement in the paper. This time
one hundred and twenty-seven attended and offered a
very considerable collection. One month later another
meeting was called and two hundred persons attended ;
one month later, and four hundred attended. It was decid-
ed to call a great mass meeting. This time an audience
of two thousand appeared. The young army officer, not
thirty-one years of age then, in his story about it, says:
"Ah, my heart nearly burst with joy! Two thousand
people!" He rose up to speak to the great assembly, and
lo, he discovered he was somewhat of an orator. When he
spoke, people listened. Hope leapt within him.

A few years rolled by and the general election of 1928
was pending. The group decided to run a number of can-

108 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

didates for parliament. Twelve were elected. Two years
later they again ran a number of candidates and one hun-
dred and seven were elected. Two years later that young
army officer, now forty-two years of age, decided to run
for president and polled eleven million votes; a few
months later in a run-off election, thirteen million ; a year
later seventeen million, and a few months after that over
forty-one million votes. That young army officer, aged
forty-four, turned to the nation south of his, mighty
France, and coldly announced : "I would remind you that
more people have voted for me — Herr Hitler — than your
whole French nation has population." Since then all
Europe and the world has been sitting on a powder keg
and it has recently ignited.

As Professor of Church History, I thought that it would
be as timely a thing as we could do in this field to spend
the twenty-five minutes allotted to me in this Convocation
Address in considering what Herr Hitler and his Nazi
cohorts have sought to do with the Christian Church in
Germany, taking as title, "Naziism and the German
Church."

I think that no historian can seriously doubt that
Adolph Hitler swept into power in Germany in 1933 with
the overwhelming or at least a majority support of a
joyous and expectant nation. After long years of post-
war humiliation, economic depression, collapse of the
monetary system, unemployment, and the ever-present
threat of Communism hanging like a great pall over the
nation, the long-awaited deliverer had arrived with his
challenging slogans :

Away with the chains of Versailles !
Down with the demons of Capitalism !
Out with the sins of the fathers!
Away with slavery to interest!
Productive work for everybody!
Large industrial profits, not to the few,
but spread among the many!
Above all, Germany, unite!

GERMAN CHURCH 109

"For," said the new Chancellor, "Germany was never de-
feated in the last war. She disintegrated from within be-
cause of a lack of unity. This shall not happen again!"

Is it any wonder that the hearts of a long disillusioned
people Jeapt with anticipation? After years of misery and
humiliation the new day was about to dawn, the great
vindication. In many places pastors sprang to their pul-
pits to herald the new day of release. It was an hour of
sensitive, almost morbid, patriotism.

If there is to be a wholly unified nation driving toward
one end and one end only, every organization and person
will have to conform. A totalitarian environment is a
sorry place for minorities and dissenters.

To this supreme end of German unification, Hitler and
the Nazi state bent every effort in as concerted and prob-
ably as ruthless a programme of regimentation as has ap-
peared in our time. In five years they crushed all politi-
cal opposition, including the powerful Social Democratic
party which had formerly held office with one-third of
the seats in a Reichstag of eight parties. They liquidated
or wholly suppressed Communism, which had polled no
less than six and a half million votes in an earlier election
in Germany. They commandeered the Youth Movement
to the Nazi banner. They regimented the one hundred
and sixty-eight powerful and wealthy labor unions in
Germany and an unknown number of employers' associa-
tions into a single labor front. They whipped the uni-
versities into humiliating compliance with their standards
and aims. They succeeded in driving from the land an
estimated one hundred thousand Jews, and banned Free-
masonry, the League of Nations, Boy Scouting, Pacifism,
Democracy; but for all their vigor there is one institution
they have not wholly cowed — the Christian Church. As
Albert Einstein has said recently,

"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution
came in Germany, I looked to the universities to de-
fend it, knowing that they had always boasted of
their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the uni-
versities immediately were silenced. Then I looked

110 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming
editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love
of freedom; but they, like the universities, were
silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to the
individual writers, who, as literary guides of Ger-
many, had written much and often concerning the
place of freedom in modern life; but they, too, were
mute. Only the Church stood squarely across the
path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I
never had any special interest in the Church before,
but now I feel a great affection and admiration be-
cause the Church alone has had the courage and per-
sistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral
freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once de-
spised I now praise unreservedly."*

Let U3 summarize the Church and State struggle
through the years. When in 1°33 Hitler swung into
power he found in Germany twenty million nominal
Catholics and a much larger group of Protestants — over
twenty-seven million. This great Protestant edifice was
regarded as a public or State institution. Unlike the vol-
untary system of maintenance in Canada, it was support-
ed by obligatory taxes collected by the State, which voted
large subsidies and paid the pastors' salaries. The clergy
had the prestige of state officials and their office was re-
garded virtually as a wing of the civil service. There was
not a single united Protestant organization throughout
Germany, but rather there were more than twenty sepa-
rate and virtually independent state churches in each state
— Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtenburg, Prussia, and the like — as
though here in Canada we were to have a United Church
of British Columbia, a United Church of Alberta, another
of Saskatchewan, and so on, independent of each other
but supported by state taxes. Moreover, there were three
bodies or denominations in each of these state or territor-
ial churches : Lutheran, Reformed, and United, with dif-
ferent creeds but all having the same administration and
state support. In addition there were some smaller free
sects like the Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and Mennon-

GERMAN CHURCH 111

ites, having only about eight hundred thousand members.

Obviously the Naziism that was swinging employers'
associations, trade unions, universities and the Youth
Movement into line would not rest easily until the great
Piotestant Church, the largest single organization out-
side the state itself, was brought into at least reasonable
conformity.

There were several indications which might have led
Hitler and his cohorts to imagine that the Church would
readily align herself with the new Nazi renaissance.

(1) The Church was of Lutheran tradition and ever
since Luther it had staunchly supported the State. After
the war the majority of its leaders had favoured the re-
turn of the Kaiser and the old monarchical system and
the clerical members of the Reichstag were of this persua-
sion. Why should not the Church continue to support the
State which paid the ministers' salaries and subsidized
its needs?

(2) A large number of the clergy saw in the rise of
Hitler a spiritual rebirth of the German people. Up to
this time even Martin Niemoller had consistently voted
for Hitler. To be sure it would mean suppression of
freedom for a time, but, said the average pastor, we
must remember that this is a revolution. Such methods
are only temporal ily necessary and will not continue when
things are restored to normal.

(3) The factor, however, which must have most en-
couraged the Nazi leaders was the appearance, a year be-
fore Hitler's elevation, of a new movement calling upon
the Church to rally behind Hitler's so-called "positive
Christianity" which urged all believers "to hold the race
and folk heritage pure, to remain Germans and not be-
come a bastard folk of Jewish-Aryan blood." It also in-
veighed against unchristian humanitarianism, pacifism,
international Freemasonry, and the Christian world citi-
zenship. Here was a movement the Nazis could sponsor.
Fast growing, it seemed the logical centre for the unifica-
tion of Protestantism into a single Protestant Reichs-
church. Hitler named the movement the "German Chris-

112 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

tians" and recognized Rev. Hossenf elder as the spiritual
leader of these new spiritual storm troopers.

As ho was then a Roman Catholic, Herr Hitler was too
discreet to act directly, but appointed Military Chaplain
Ludwig Mueller as his delegated authority and represent-
ative in all questions concerning the Church. When
Mueller, wMh all the prestige of the Nazi Chancellor be-
hind him, came out whole-heartedly for the German
Christian movement and put his signature to their delara-
tion calling for a single unified German Protestant
Church and a single Reichs-leader of that Church, and
urging the repudiation of the democratic method of elect-
ing officials and absolute subscription to the Aryan myth,
the Protestants of Germany awakened to see that this new
movement of Rev. Hossenfelder was far more closely al-
lied to the Nazi party programme than they had ever
dreamed, and that it meant a subtle attempt to dictate
Christian doctrine, Christian polity, and even the nature
of Christian organization.

Hoping to forestall the rising storm of protests, the
German Christians hastily announced that they nominated
Chaplain Ludwig Mueller, Herr Hitler's friend and con-
fidant, for the position of Reichsbishop of the great uni-
fied German Protestant Church about to be inaugurated ;
but the German Christians and Hitler and Mueller him-
self were all destined to disappointment for the plebiscite
was held in all twenty-eight of the great state territorial
church bodies and an overwhelming majority of votes
were cast, not for Hitler's appointee and the German
Christian nominee, but for a much beloved and respected
Christian leader of opposing opinion by the name of Dr.
von Bodelschwingh.

Nazis and German Christians were alarmed. Here was
virtual defiance of the Nazi policy. The government acted
quickly. It appointed a State Commissioner for the
great Evangelical Church of Prussia, who promptly order-
ed the abolition of the consistories of that vast Church.
In the Republic which had preceded Hitler's rule, the
Protestant Church had built up a system of democratic

GERMAN CHURCH 113

courts not unlike our United Church system of Church
Boards, Presbyteries, Conferences and the General Coun-
cil, and with one fell swoop this was ordered abolished by
the state. Imagine our consternation here were the Otta-
wa government suddenly to order the abolition of the
United Church courts. The action aroused a storm of op-
position from loyal churchmen, some of whom organized
the Young Reformation Movement to protest this assault
upon the freedom of the Church to determine its inner-
most policies.

The Rev. Martin Niemoller, of the fashionable Dahlem
Church of Berlin, and Dr. Von Bodelschwingh were leaders
of the new movement. In protest against this autocratic
state action Dr. Bodelschwingh resigned as Reichsbishop
and the situation became so serious that the aged Hinden-
burg rushed a letter to Chancellor Hitler expressing his
deep concern both as a Protestant and as President of the
Reich, and urging that pacific means be adopted to bring
together the two great wings of the new Church. Herr
Hitler acted on the principle of the letter, but opposition
grew. In retaliation a state order went out that all
churches, rectories, parish houses, must fly the Nazi
swastika flag and that all pastors must express thanks-
giving for the Nazi revolution and pray divine blessing
upon its continuance. Most pastors obeyed. Some re-
fused.

Outspoken in opposition to Nazi methods in the Church
was Dr. Karl Barth, Germany's leading theologian, who
openly challenged the legitimacy of reforms forced upon
the Church from without. He uncompromisingly opposed
the German Christian doctrine that the German Reichs-
church must be the Church of Christians of Aryan race
only. His arguments might have had greater wreight in
Germany had he been a German rather than a Swiss who
was steeped in the long tradition of Swiss democracy.

Meantime the German Christians, adopting Nazi
methods of propaganda and intimidation, campaigned
again for the election of Ludwig Mueller as Reichsbishop.
On the eve of the election Chancellor Hitler appealed over

114 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the radio for all Protestants to vote for nominees of the
German Christian party because it was based primarily
on the fact of the Nazi revolution and the new state re-
quired the unqualified support of a united church body.
Result — Ludwig Mueller was elected Reichsbishop and the
German Christians soon took possession of virtually every
office from this supreme post down even to the member-
ship of the individual parish boards. Jubilant over their
success, thev made plans for a great national Synod to be
held at Wittenbu' g, centre of Luther's early ministry and
birthplace of the Reformation. It met, confirmed Muel-
ler's election, announced that the official policy of the
Church from now on would be that of the German Chris-
tian party, with everything in strict conformity with the
tenor of the new Nazi State. Rev. Martin Niemoller and
two thousand protesting clergymen scattered protesting
leaflets in the pews and walked out of the church.

However, the German Christians were running too fast.
Determined to swing the whole of Protestantism into line
with Nazi thinking, they called a rally of twenty thousand
who packed the Sportspalast of Berlin. One Dr. Krause
was chosen speaker. He declared in a violent address that
the purpose of the new movement was to complete the
racial mission of Martin Luther in the Second Reforma-
tion, of which three commandments were: "To love one's
native land and stamp out anything un-German ; to elim-
inate the Old Testament as a most questionable book
about cattle-dealers and concubines ; and to wipe out the
teachings of Rabbi Paul, that Jew!"

Protests and resignation followed in such an avalanche
that the Reichsbishop had to repudiate Dr. Krause and his
speech and he was removed from office. As the storm
seemed abating it was announced that all pastors must
preach on the same text, and seven thousand rose in op-
position.

In February, 1934, Reichsbishop Mueller spoke in the
Berlin Sportspalast to another throng of twenty thousand,
and warned, "The time will come when only Nazis will

GERMAN CHURCH 115

conduct services and only Nazis will occupy the pews. We
want one people, one State, one Church."

For all his virulence the Reichsbishop was failing to
end opposition and in the autumn of 1935, he passed from
the scene and the state took another great step in curtail-
ing religious freedom. It appointed a Minister of Church
Affairs, just as we have a Minister of Education or a
Minister of Labor in British Columbia, and it empowered
this Minister of Church Affairs to issue ordinances having
binding force. Herr Kerrl, the new appointee, selected
an efficient churchman named Dr. Zollner to direct af-
fairs, but a great wing of the Confessional group of the
Church rose in opposition to state domination and in re-
prisal the state forbade lecturing, suppressed circular
letters, closed their theological colleges, threatened and
sometimes withheld state grants, forbade the collection of
money and openly encouraged the German Christian
minority and the Rosenberg pagan religion, confiscating
Dr. Zollner's journal. In despair, the doctor resigned and
on February 12, 1937, Herr Kerrl, Nazi Minister of
Church Affairs, furious, threatened dictatorial powers.
"What Protestant Confessional Group leaders and the Ro-
man Catholics want," he said in a public speech, "is the
acknowledgment of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God,
and that is absurd. There is now arising a new authority
concerning what Christ and Christianity really is. This
new authority is Adolf Hitler."

Alarmed, the Roman Catholics smuggled a Papal Ency-
clical into Germany on Palm Sunday and declared it was
wrong to put any man on a level with Christ. There fol-
lowed in retaliation the Nazi smuggling and immorality
trials of priests and nuns.

The spear-head of Protestant opposition has been Rev.
Martin Niemoller. In November of 1933, he had appeared
in the Brown Synod in a grey suit. In the Wittenberg
Synod he had distributed leaflets affirming the right of
the church to religious freedom. In June of 1934, he had
appealed to Hitler, saying that it was his concern for the
Third Reich which made him oppose regimentation of the

116 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Church, and Hitler had replied, "You can just leave con-
cern for the Third Reich to me." As pastor of Berlin's
aggressive Dahlem Church of ten thousand members, he
had among his hearers three Nazi cabinet ministers, and
until two months before his arrest, Dr. Schacht, the Nazi
Minister of Finance, was one of his best supporters, sit-
ting every Sunday with his wife and eight children in the
front pew.

On June 7, 1937, however, Niemoller apparently com-
mitted the unpardonable sin. After a telling sermon on
"Nations come and nations go, but the Church of God
shall abide forever," he called for a collection for the Con-
fessional Church Synod, and urged generosity. The Hitler
Jugend burst into the church crying, "Cease collecting for
this club!" The congregation rose and sang "A mighty
fortress our God is still, a bulwark never failing." Four
days later Niemoller was arrested for inciting to disobe-
dience and for materially aiding the anti-German foreign
press. (His church in summer was attended by many
foreign tourists.) He was kept in jail awaiting trial for
eight months and in February of 1938 his trial was con-
ducted secretly against the open protest of the Federal
Council of Churches of Christ in America, with which our
United Church of Canada is affiliated, the World Alliance
for Friendship among Churches, and other bodies, which
pled for old time German justice. The representatives of
the press were excluded, an observer of the Confessional
Church was refused admittance, and the Bishop of Chi-
chester, who had come from England to attend on behalf
of the World Alliance of Churches, was denied entry.
Finally a small fine was imposed and seven months' im-
prisonment in a fortress, the lightest and most honorable
form of imprisonment. As he had already served eight
months, normally he would be released after paying the
fine. Instead he was hurried to a concentration camp and
at last accounts was still there. Whether Scandinavian
reports that his mentality is breaking under the strain are
dependable we do not know. In the Christmas of 1939 it
is reported that eight hundred prominent laymen and

GERMAN CHURCH 117

eighty naval officers signed petitions offering themselves
as hostages for his return to confinement that he might
be permitted to attend the golden anniversary of his par-
ents. The petition was denied.

While Niemoller was awaiting trial Herr Kerr], Nazi
Minister of Church Affairs, took one more decisive step
in secularizing church control. He announced that all
state grants to the Confessional Church would be discon-
tinued and that he had delegated dictatorial powers over
Prostestant Church af fails to Dr. Werner, a lawyer whose
antagonism to Christianity is notorious.

It is difficult to locate reliable material on the subject
covering the months just before the outbreak of war and
during the war. The Readers' Index of Periodical Lit-
erature lists hardly more than twenty-five articles, most
of them in the English "Spectator" and comparatively
short.

However, certain facts appear to emerge at the present
time. The Nazi attempt to regiment the Church into one
unified Protestant body wholly sympathetic with its move-
ment has been only partially successful. Rather the
Church has split into three groups. Out of eighty thou-
sand Protestant parishes in Germany,

(1) Two thousand may be termed of German Chris-
tian type, whole-heartedly backing Nazi rule and methods
within the church. We might call them supporters.

(2) Sixty-six thousand accept the power and policy of
the state but not ideology and try to build between
Church and State a kind of theological bridge. We might
call these compromisers.

(3) Approximately twelve thousand are of the Con-
fession:-1 group which is in turn divided into four groups,
only one of which, it appears, is willing to go as far as
Niemoller for conviction's sake.

Since the war the policy of the government seems to be
to lessen the severity of its treatment of the Church, and
Dr. Werner, Minister of Church Affairs, as a concession
to Confessional scruples, has eliminated certain points in
the oath required of pastors and many of the recalcitrant

118 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

clergy have acquiesced, feeling that they can now take it
without violating their oath of ordination. Karl Barth,
greatly disturbed, has written from Switzerland to urge
the clergv to stand firm as the concessions are mere
trifles. However, many of the old married ministers
have children and families and are finding it extremely
difficult to resist any longer. At last account nine hun-
dred recently ordained young clergymen were standing
J.irm, refusing to take the oath.

In conclusion, what shall we say about the German
church situation?

(1) In fairness to the Geiman government it must be
acknowledged that the German Chui ch is and has been for
years a State Church. According to Nazi figures re-
ligious organisations own twenty-seven percent of all Ger-
man land and church taxes amounting to two hundied
million marks a year were collected by the State for
chu ch use, and an additional subsidy of one hundred mil-
lion marks was divided between Protestant and Roman
Catholic denominations in a ratio of three to two. Sup-
port of the theological seminaries and the salaries of army
chaplains, was also furnished by the state. This is a
wholly different situation from ours in Canada.

(2) Let us take warning from the present plight of
Geiman Protestantism over there. The reason the so-
called German movement took so strong a hold on the al-
legiance of men and became the ready tool and running
mate of the Nazi government was because in no small
measure the Protestant Church was failing in her trust.
The rank and file of ordinary folk had drifted from her
in droves because, as was all too evident, she had lost
touch with the real life of the people. Swamped with
venerability, tradition and over-ecclesiasticism, she had
suffered serious losses. Statistics show that seveial mil-
lions had left her in the space of a few years. Young
people vvere little encouraged and the average age of the
bishops was over sixty-four. This might be explained
by the fact that thirty-six percent of German theological
students were killed in the First World War. There was

GERMAN CHURCH 119

allegedly a real danger of Protestantism dying altogether
from lack of social vision and leadership. Any Church,
in Germany, Canada, or anywhere else, that will not move
on will eventually have to move off.

(3) Of one other thing, however, I feel we may be
sure. Whatever the arbitrament of war, in the long, long
last, Naziism cannot win her fight against the freedom of
the Church. "The mills of God grind slowly" — but they
grind. It may yet come to pass that the Rev. Martin
Niemoller, suffering his Calvary as he looks out through
the bars of cell number 448, may prove a greater force in
human annals than Herr Hitler in his seat of power. In
any case I cannot forget the reputed words of a dictator
of an earlier age. As Napoleon Bonaparte stood one day
where the waters laved the locky shore of St. Helena's
Isle, looking back over the ruins of the dreams of world
empire for which he had sacrified the lives of almost
countless thousands, it is recorded that he was heard to
say, "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself have
built great empires but upon what did the creations of our
genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone built His King-
dom upon love and to this clay millions would die for
Him."

*From "Metropolitan Church Life."

SOME BASIC CONCEPTIONS OF CHRISTIAN SOCIAL

THOUGHT TO THE REFORMATION

By Ray C. Petry

The Divinity School

Duke University, Durham, N. C.

Christianity and Social Thought
There has been a growing interest, recently, in the social
character of Christian thought from the Protestant Ref-
ormation to our own day. Our social problems as Chris-
tians are in inspiring continuity with those of our six-
teenth-century forebears. But our social viewpoints owe
their vitality not only to the Reformers but also to an un-
broken line of spiritual ancestors stretching back fifteen
hundred years farther to the very sources of Christian
social theory.

From its very beginnings Christianity possessed a de-
cided social sensitivity. Only gradually, however, did that
which it sensed become conscious in its thought. Out of a
growing awareness of common human needs and unique
Christian resources, a few basic conceptions of social life
gradually emerged. As the precipitate of unnumbered and
often obscure minds, these were repeatedly emphasized by
leading Christian writers from Jesus' day to that of
Luther. The long process of development through which
each conception passed, and the rich variety of interpre-
tations supplied by the great thinkers of each succeeding
era, cannot here be dealt with. But a brief survey of rep-
resentative social views which predominated among
Christians for a millennium and a half may be found in-
structive.

The Kingdom and Ultimate Sociality
The vitality of early Christianity did not issue from a
consciously social passion to perpetuate and to reform ex-
isting society. Paradoxically enough, the motivation for
Christian service to the temporal world was a prior loyalty
to something which arose from without, and proceeded
beyond, all human association.

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 121

The real heait of the earliest Christian community was
Jesus. His fundamental dedication was not to any social
project of our modern kind. It was religious commitment,
unqualified and unyielding, to God and his kingdom. No
human mind could devise that kingdom, and no mere or-
ganization of man's efforts, however noble, could bring
it to completion. Christ himself could not create, though
he would help to usher in, this consummation of the divine
Father's will for his universal family. The royal sway of a
loving God in the whole universe was the object of Christ's
final dedication and the end to which he pledged every
follower. He permitted no relativism in the loyalties of his
disciples. He caused them to subordinate their temporal
attachments and made them pilgrims to a fatherland be-
yond— to the pat via of God.

This kingdom God alone could create. But it came to
partial realization in every life which consecrated itself
in Christ to the actualization of his ideals. Its full and
ultimate realization, on earth as in heaven, was the ob-
jective for which he lived and died. For its preparation
he rejoined the Father. In anticipation of it, he promised
his disciples, at his departure, a full reunion with him and
the Father upon his return. The continuation of his vol-
untary company was based on their belief in his own res-
urrection and imminent parousia. The reception and re-
tention of his spirit in their midst was their assurance of
his reappearing in the vanguard of God's universal rule.

The entire literature of the New Testament, and of the
early Christian centuries, was woven about this faith in
Christ's perpetuation and the Kingdom's ultimate victory.
The synoptic gospels record Jesus's purported teachings as
to the last days. The Son of Man would then come to
punish disobedience, to claim his chosen for eternal fel-
lowship with the Father, and to unify in him everything
on earth and in heaven.

The early and medieval church continued to stress this
belief in the imminent coming of Christ and the Great Day.
The time was long deferred. The sense of immediacy was
deadened. The belief, however, not only persisted but

122 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

functioned, also, as a living article of Christian faith.

But, it may be asked, what significance has this lor
social thought? Has not eschatology always been at far-
thest remove from social concern ? It cannot be denied that
in eaiiiest Christianity there was little social focus of a
conscious sort. There was then, and later, some rejection of
the present for the future world. Such unsocial, or appar-
ently antisocial, conceptions have never lacked spokesmen.

Nonetheless, the story of representative Christian
thought is far otheiwise. For the most striking thing
about the kingdom as Christ taught it, and as both the
ancient and the medieval church believed in it, was its
social quality. The kingdom was not a private matter. It
permitted the maximum in individual development be-
cause it was the ultimate in that spiritual community of
life by which all true persons must be nurtured.

No impartial reader of the Christian sources — biblical
and extra-canonical, ancient and medieval — can fail to be
impressed by the mounting and versatile emphasis upon
the kingdom as consummately social. Those elected to it
were called to an eternal solidarity as God's heirs and the
brethren of Christ. God himself invited them to that ul-
timate fellowship with his Son. All those repenting and
seeking the kingdom were thus reclaimed from a condition
of hopelessly dissipated unity to the status of God's own
people. As such, they were anticipating already, in their
eaithly sojourn, the perfect community of the royal city
yet to come. Theirs was a destiny of joyous companionship
with Christ and his Father.

Not all the natural involvements of these men in the af-
fairs of earth could obscure wholly the marks of their des-
tined citizenship in the heavenly kingdom. No more could
the pretensions to piety of those not so destined join them
to God's special company. Any such earthly confusion
would surely be dispelled when the true constituency of
the royal family should be finally revealed.

In every era of the ancient and medieval church this
societal character of the cosmic kingdom was stressed.
However incomplete might be the fraternity of God's

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 123

chosen in their terrestrial pilgrimage, their ultimate
society would be sanctified in peace and perfect unity. As
the citizens of a free city, they would exemplify not the
private love of self-seekers but the mutuality of a true
community. No purely human association could even ap-
proach this social life of kingdom members .

In Augustine and in Thomas Aquinas, the emphasis was
the same, The kingdom was primary. Its character was
that of a society of men happy in the association of Christ,
God, and each other. Theirs was a fatherland shared in per-
petuity; a community of the elect, firm and tranquil; a
reign with God, vital and eternal. How happy, indeed, as
Hugo of St." Victor observed, and how indissoluble would
be this solidarity of creatures with their creator, wherein
the splendor which the creator possessed in all fullness
would be given his creatures by their participation in his
plentitude !

Therefore, surprisingly enough, Christianity was most
social because it was most transcendent in its loyalties.
Because Christians were called to an ultimate destiny
which was most characteristically societal, they found it
incumbent upon them to begin at once the cultivation of
such sociality. The not fully realized, but already living,
kingdom was to be the culumination of all communities.
It therefore demanded, at once, a community action among
its future constituents. The kingdom stimulated their
sense of special vocation, their fellowship ; it obligated
them to invite repentant sinners from an ephemeral world
to their pilgrim society. Last, and most gloriously, it
showed them the necessity of challenging and transform-
ing the whole of human society in accordance with the
mandates of the kingdom which was already in operation.

Christianity and Temporal Solidarity
The final destiny of Christians thus evoked in them a
temporal solidarity. Because early Christianity was dedi-
cated to the ultimate of all fellowships, it was drawn to-
gether on earth in the mutuality of a common life.

Summing up the plea of twelve Christian centuries,
Thomas Aquinas reminded his brethren that there should

124 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

be a union of affection among those who have a common
end. Men, therefore, with their common end of eternal
blessedness in God's companionship, owe each other the
unity of mutual love.

In Paul, Clement of Rome, Hernias, the author of the
Epistle to Diognetus, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Ber-
nard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and countless others,
the dominant note of Christian social thought was sus-
tained. By every token of solidarity found in animals,
among natural men, and, consummately, in Christ's broth-
erhood, Christians must bear in this world the first
fruits of their royal association of love.

With cumulative emphasis, Christian homilists ex-
tolled the concord observable in the natural heavens, and
the special regard of even the most ferocious beast for his
own kind. One such writer even observed, with more
picturesqueness than relevancy, that water fights fire but
has peace with water. Not a few Christian writers cited
ancient philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and the
Stoics, especially, as to the normal fraternity of natural
man. As a social animal on his most fundamental bases of
human existence, man could not but observe the mutual
obligations and opportunities of his species.

But Christians were called to a spiritual fraternity
transcending all such considerations. Though they were
brethren by virtue of their humanity, how much more
were they such by reason of their being Christians! As
men they were sprung from one father, Adam, and one
mother, Eve. But as Christians they had one father, God,
and one mother, the church. Their brotherhood exceeded
natural fraternity by the measure of their superior pa-
ternity. Their mother surpassed carnal motherhood to the
extent that celestial heredity is better than a temporal
one.

Most soul-moving and exemplary of all unitary forces
was the heavenly love with which God gave his son for
their salvation, out of which Christ gave his life for
their reconciliation to God and each other, and by which
the very angels joined in the work of human-divine con-

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 125

solidation. Thus, by the bonds of association, natural and
spiritual, the Christian was strengthened in his love for
other members of Chiist's body and gradually dispatched
on a mission of reclamation to all society. Not only in
Augustine, though in few others so eloquently, did the
claims of Chiistians upon each other, and of all men upon
the brethren of Christ, come to repeated expression.

Endless was the reiteration of the sentiment, if not of
the literary effectiveness, of the Epistle to Diognetus.
Christians wei e to the world what soul is to the body.
Though not of the world, they were in it for its redemp-
tion and sustenance. Elected to a perfect society of love,
they gave themselves in a community of service to all hu-
manity. Consequently, by reason of being men, Christ's
brethren were drawn to each other and to all the world
in common need. But by virtue of being Christians, they
were united as those who answer a special call to ultimate
glory through dispensing, to all, Christ's saving graces.
Diverse in gifts, they were one in the greatest endowment,
love. Empowered by the spirit, they were admonished to
bear not only the burdens of their inner circle but also of
sinners without. Chastened in spirit and body, they were
prepared for the communal life of the kingdom. United
in the faith and hope of a final beatitude, they might set
no limits to the charity with which they served the whole
world.

Social Continuity Behveen the Temporal and Eternal
Christians were exhorted to entertain no sense of actual
separation between the community of the ultimate king-
dom and the body of Christ's faithful on earth. Both were
vigorously alive. The kingdom with its company of God,
his Son, his angels, and his saints in heaven, was not yet
consummated. But it was the pattern and the source of
Christ's followers in the world. They had been formed be-
cause of the eliciting unity of its celestial citizens. Its in-
vitation, its demands, and its spirit, were already upon
them. Even while they were on a pilgrimage to it, they
were servants of its life and the recipients of its bene-
factions. The community of God's elect on earth and in

126 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

heaven was regarded as being joined in one unbroken
continuity. The city of God was "one both in heaven and
on earth, though in part. . . .militant on earth, and in
part reigning in heaven."

God's sons were co-mingled for a time, in this world,
with the unholy, turbulent, seditious, divisive, domineer-
ing supporters of evil. But his chosen were, even then,
proving themselves holy, pacific, tranquil, social servants
of the supernatural kingdom of God as well as the natural
order of men. They were "moving forward, already, as
those destined to be citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem."
in this social continuum the Christian devoutly believed.
Chirstianity and Ecclesiastical Community

But how, according to Christian social thought, was this
continuity between a supernatural community and an
earthly society maintained? What agency preserved the
social integrity of each in a common solidarity? The
Christians' answer was : the church. Here was the founda-
tion of God's dwelling among men. The church was con-
ceived of as a fellowship evolving in history from the old
Israel of the Jews. It was the koinonia elicited by Jesus,
the new Israel receiving and perpetuating God's rev-
elation in Christ.

This ecclesia was the community of those participating
in him through mutual love. Its members gathered around
him in his earthly career ; they met after his death to hear
his Word through the Spirit and to plan for his reappear-
ing; they worked, loved, and worshiped as Christ's spirit-
ual body. As such, the church shared mystically, while on
earth, the heavenly society of God, Christ, and the angels.

Only a unity in duality could incorporate the men of
Christ in the world with the victorious citizens of heaven.
The church was that one in two. In it, two communities,
earthly and heavenly, were destined to become wholly
united in the transcendent kingdom. As a terrestrial,
natural institution the church was thought of as being
subject to the exigencies of time and circumstance, it
grew, organized, and evolved symbols, traditions, a clergy,
and a missionizing program. It challenged, advanced, re-

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 127

treated, compromised, sinned, and did penance. It was re-
garded, always, as a society, a community of faithful in-
dividuals, adapting, suffering, achieving, and responding
to their own and other human needs. Within this fellow-
ship there developed an esprit de corps, a reciprocating
experience, a communicating love, and a common loyalty
to Christ.

However, the growing social consciousness of this organ-
izational church was felt, by representative Christians, to
L>e derived from its divinely instituted resources. The Holy
Spirit, the spirit of Christ, was its constitutive foice; its
reservoir of history-transcending and individual-trans-
forming life, its soul of unity. The Spirit's voice was
heard as Christ's own Word. By it there was created a
supernatural organism in which each person was a mem-
ber of Christ's mystical body. By the divine organism the
human organization was engendered and sustained.

Christ and his church were thus one in their life. His
saving graces were mediated through it, alone, to the
world in which it now dwelt but to which it could never
really belong. It was a community of transcendent or-
igins and destiny. It would one day be perfected in its
society of love.

But how were these two aspects of the one church
reconciled? Undeniably, there were sin and erro/
in the earthly church. Yet, its faithful members, who
»vere humanly fallible to be sure, were alluded to, confi-
dently, as saints by reason of their heavenly destiny and
their participation in the redeeming grace of the church
transcendent. The church might appear, at times, to be
the prey of purely temporal forces. But it received from
its communication with the living Christ a dignity and
power which were more than temporal. The lack of the
church terrestrial was compensated by the transforming
power of the church transcendent.

Thus, the two aspects of the one church were thought
of as being reconciled in immortal energy. According to
such a conception, it was God's supernatural, heavenly
community that gave life to the Christians' natural,

128 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

earthly society. Men might see a reflection, in history, of
the celestial community that was later to be consummated,
universally and eternally, in God's kingdom. In dedication
to that kingdom the church of earth was born ; in the full
appealing of that kingdom, and its perfect community,
the cnurch of men would be purged and made fit for the
ultimate society of the future.

The Church's Names and Definitions Socially Suggestive
This unity and solidarity of the two-fold church was re-
flected in the very names, definitions, and connotations
associated with it by early and medieval writers. Over
and over, almost monotonously, the social character of the
one church in all of its empirical and transcendent aspects
was asserted. It was the convocation of all men called out
of the world, and the collection of all faithful. At times, it
was designated as the ''society of those joined in one body
of religion by profession of doctrine and of the precepts
of Christ under legitimate pastors, the Roman pontiff es-
pecially."

It was the assembly of the faithful, the city of God's
own, a heavenly company set upon his mountain. Here was
a congregation, universal and holy; the synagogue, taber-
nacle, and temple of God ; the dwelling place of God's
spirit among men. The church of Christ was a body — his
body of which he was head — with his Holy Spirit as its
soul and his faithful as its inter-communicating members.
The church was his spouse and the mother of all Chris-
tians. Or, again, it wras the society, the guild, the congre-
gation of those believing in the Master. No more fully
socialized body has ever been envisaged than this house-
hold of faith, this hostel of concord, this family of God,
this brotherhood of man in Christ under the fatherhood of
the Divine.

The Church's Social Characteristics Analyzed

In their analyses of the church's character Christian

writers were even more explicit as to its sociality. This

church, or congregation of the faithful, was one body with

many members under the headship of Christ. Its cohesive-

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 129

ness was manifest under four conditions, namely : unity,
sanctity, catholicity, and apostolic stability.

Unlike the heretics, the church was one. This unity was
one of faith, subscribed to alike by all true members of
Christ's body; of hope, common to those looking forward
to eternal life; and of charity, interfused among all those
serving humanity in God's name. Nothing must be per-
mitted to rend the body of that one true church beyond
which, like Noah's ark, there was no salvation. This was
the unity for which Christ suffered, the inviolable oneness
which his seamless robe signified, the force which led the
world to faith, the sole abiding-place of God's pilgrim
children on earth and of those reigning in heaven's glory.

In this true, catholic church reigned the peace and love
common to one God, one Christ, one faith, and one people
moulded in an indisseverable corporateness by the cement
of concord. Only thus, united about its shepherd, might
the church hope to escape mutilation by the beasts of
worldly dissension. In the church alone might a diversity
of souls become one in Christ.

The chinch was holy. This was not by reason of any
moral infallibility which its members gave it. Rather wTas
it by virtue of God's supernatural graces conferred upon
those leceiving, together, the divine Word and Sacrament.
Imperfect now, with evil in its midst, the church was,
nevertheless, holy in its community of redemptive life. It
would stand forth triumphant in the glorious future. This
congregation of the faithful was washed in Christ's blood
and anointed with his spirit. It was inhabited as God's
temple and consecrated in the Lord's name. Its holiness
was the communicating oneness of the divine society.

The church was, likewise, held to be catholic or uni-
versal. The emphasis of medieval Christians on this point
was versatile and vigorous. It was universal, first, as re-
gards place and extent. For as the faithful were diffused
throughout the whole world so was the church ramified
throughout the entire earth. This church, furthermore,
was regarded as having three all-encompassing parts. One
was on earth, another in heaven, and a third in purgatory.

130 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Again, the church was universal with respect to the con-
dition of men. From it none was cast out; neither master
nor servant; neither mah nor female. It was also univer-
sal as to time. The society of those believing in Christ
was even antecedent to his nativity. It was from Abel to
the end of the ages and to the judgment of the world by
Ch.] ist. Not even then was it to cease, for it was to re-
main eternally. Its catholicity existed, furthermore, by
reason of docto ine and the preservation of the faith. In
it there was maintained the faith "believed everywhere,
always, and by all." Its universality existed for the
eternal salvation of souls, incapable of redemption out-
side it.

This church was stable and apostolic, firmly grounded in
Christ. It was a city of twelve foundations, namely, the
apostles and their doctrine, indestructible whether by
persecution or error. Here rose a citadel of refuge for
those contending against the devil. Against this church of
Peter, grounded in the faith and delivered from fatal error,
Satan might war, but the gates of hell should not prevail.
Its stability was the firmness and stalwartness of God's
own company.

The apostles had seen Christ and believed in this church
whose greatest triumphs they had not beheld. Their spirit-
ual descendants now viewed the growing church and be-
lieved in Christ whom they nad not seen in the flesh. All
were built into the time-defying edifice of God's beloved
community.

The Social Character of the Church's Constituency

The corporateness of the church had been suggestively
treated by Paul under the similitude of a human body.
With endless variations and minor refinements, ancient
and medieval writers discussed the church as a great, liv-
ing organism in terms of head, body, and members. Christ
was regarded as both head and body, for he and his
church were "one flesh, one person, one Christ."

The soul of the church was the Holy Spirit, which vivi-
fied the faithful with saving grace. The elect, who were
established in faith and charity, constituted the inner

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 131

church. Taken generally, the body of the church, in terms
of its membership, comprised all men who were joined to-
gether by the profession of true faith and the proper use
of the sacraments. Viewed according to their various
states, these members were triply classified as those mili-
tant on earth, suffering in purgatory, or reigning as saints
and angels in heaven. Thus the church's membership em-
braced not only those who entered it in the time of Chiist
or subsequently, but also those who, living before him, an-
ticipated him in faith.

The members of the church militant were viewed as all
those, of the Christian faith, whether good and holy or
evil and reprobate, who were united by external profes-
sion, under the government of lawful pastors. This
temporal mixture of evil and good would continue to exist
together until the day of judgment, lest any earlier sep-
aration should occasion the disruption of the church. At
the final reckoning, those who were in the church corpor-
ally, but outside it spiritually, would no longer be permit-
ted to compromise its reciprocating unity.

Viewed in its truest light, the church was a cohesive
unit, knit in a mystical solidarity. As such, its body of
angels and men, past, present, and to come had at its
head the one Christ, who communicated his divine life to
all. In that sense of kinship close and indestructible, lay
the heart of an associative loyalty never surpassed in the
history of man's social consciousness.

And, although the similarity between spiritual organism
and physical body was grievously overdrawn, the powerful
suggestiveness of such a figure could not easily be ignor-
ed. For the mystical body of Christians was seen as no
mere abstraction of thought but a vital, inter-communicat-
ing experience of the many in one. With a flexibility of
appeal, and a descriptiveness of interdependency, truly
amazing, Christian writers exhorted their brethren to
that functional cooperation, in the body of Christ, the like
of which makes the human organism sound and whole.
With analogies based undeviatingly on Pauline prototypes,

132 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

they brought a varied homiletics into their emphasis upon
Christian consociation.

Communicating in Christ's spirit, body, and blood, his
brethren of all kinds and conditions cemented their fra-
ternity of love. For though they were many, and Christ
was one in his headship, they enjoyed a true unity; they
participated with him in a genuine and enduring commun-
ity. Whatever the needs and the griefs of the individual
member, the resources of the whole body were his. Just
as the spiritual sickness of each brought impairment to
the whole, so the soundness of each member, in vital faith,
preserved the common health. To that end, the church
was the body of Christ vivified by one spirit, sanctified
and united by one faith. What else, indeed, should it be
but the whole body of faithful Christians breathing in
Christ's spirit and feeding on his supernatural life!
The Church and the Communion of Saints

It is small wonder, therefore, that the spiritual solidar-
ity of this mystical body with its faithful on earth, its
souls in purgatory, and its saints in heaven, came to be
their partaking of the fruits of redemption." The truest
of communions was theirs as they shared with each other
the fructifying unity of Christ's cosmic life.

Saints of the church militant knew what it meant to
communicate with each other in the same faith, sacra-
ments, and government, as well as by examples, prayers,
and merits. Between them and their brethren in purga-
tory and heaven lay the vast inter-communicating vitality
of suffrages, invocations, intercessions, and venerations.
Thus, in a society not only of earth but also of heaven,
was Christ's church represented as comprehending all
that community of the saints from the beginning of time
through the reaches of eternity. In this alone could there
be perfect individuality, wherein all labors, merits, invo-
cations, and intercessions were for all in common.

The saints were therefore all things to each other.
Those of earth prayed for their brethren in purgatory
and implored the efficacious intercession of saints and
angels in heaven. "The universal church in heaven and

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT 133

on earth was one single Temple of God." The very three-
fold breaking of Christ's life-giving bread was the symbol
of the three-fold church made one in him.

In every aspect of its existence the church was poitray-
ed as joining the lives of men in a natural and supernat-
ural unity. Its sacramental graces, mediated by its
properly ordained priesthood, gave unitive purpose to the
temporal existence of all Christians and provided the
guarantee of their final beautitude in the society of God.
Hierarchical ordering, however much it might employ
erring men, was seen as the guardian of the common faith,
hope, and love. In the middle ages, the supreme pontiff,
the vicar of Christ, was accepted as the custodian of the
church's unity and the co-ordinator of its participating
membership.

Christian Social Thought, Historical and Contemporary

Medieval Christians had a deep-seated conviction that
the unity of the Godhead itself was the pattern for all life,
celestial and terrestrial. They sought to instill its so-
cializing concepts into every phase of economic, political,
and educational life. Whatever the disparity between the
church's social theories and practices, its passion for the
common life was sure. In the iconography of its cathe-
drals and in the mystery of its altars, man's ultimate
solidarity was proclaimed. In the international corpor-
ateness of its universities and in the life of its cloisters,
the common life was served. In its political philosophy
and its theory of business, the role of communality held
sway.

Despite their pointed criticisms of the church's defi-
ciencies, the Protestant reformers appealed, with cause,
to its best traditions of social life. The continuity, which
they could not disavow, with the unifying heritage of the
Christian ages, is ours to recognize and re-establish in our
time. So that, in no servile obeisance to principles dis-
credited, but in transhistoric fellowship with the true
church of all eras, we may continue in its many vindicat-
ed traditions of practical social thought.

134 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

For, if ever a world pleaded for a social theory trans-
latable into social action, that world is ours. And if
ever a living tradition could claim an unsevered lifeline of
social concern, that vital tradition belongs to the church.
For Christianity, in its first fifteen hundred, as in its
last four hundred, years was theoretically and actively
social. Its basic conceptions were wrought into the very
subconsciousness of the Reformation mind as they may
well be reborn in the thought and experience of Chris-
tians today.

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS
By Roy H. Johnson

Thiel College
Greenville, Pennsylvania

According to the 1920 census, just before the great
torrent of foreign immigration had been reduced to a
mere trickle by the quota laws, more than one third of
the one hundred five million inhabitants of the United
States were foreign born or children of foreign born par-
ents. The assimilation of this polyglot army with such a
varied racial, linguistic, political and religious heritage
has continued to be the most important social problem
confronting the nation since the Civil War. Catholic and
Protestant churches and independent agencies of evangel-
ization and reform early saw the portent of this mass
immigration to the moral and spiritual life of America
and shaped their programs to care for the new arrivals.
The "language missions," as they are called, have condi-
tioned the development of nearly every church auxiliary
and have initiated and given impetus to federated efforts
both within and among the denominations.

Significant changes in the national origin of the im-
migrants have called for frequent adjustments in the per-
sonnel and technique of evangelization. Before the Civil
War Germany, England, and Ireland accounted for most
of the newcomers. In the closing decades of the century
the influx from southern Europe began, and it continued
until the Great War closed the passenger lanes. Recent
decades have seen the overflowing of the Mexican reser-
voir and the rise of Spanish speaking missions. Prior to
the twentieth century most immigrants with Protestant
or Catholic connections in Europe were responsive to
evangelization. In contrast, the southern Europeans, al-
though nominally Greek and Roman Catholic, were often
indifferent or openly hostile to Christian missions.

For many of the immigrants, settling in America meant
a simple transfer of church membership. Before the Ro-
man Catholic or Lutheran adherents left the mother coun-

136 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

try harbor missionaries in the principal ports gave direc-
tions to pastors and churches in America. In New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston immigrant homes made the
sti angers welcome. Traveling missionaries speaking the
native languages of the settlers visited scattered com-
munities and started parochial schools and regular preach-
ing. The 1916 religious census revealed that three out of
four Lutheran churches utilized the German or Scandi-
navian languages, two out of five Reformed congregations
employed Dutch or German, and one out of three Roman
Catholic churches was foreign speaking. Many of the
above groups were entirely self-sufficing, forming inde-
pendent synods and conferences. On the other hand, the
English speaking Protestant bodies must redefine policies
and train new leaders if conveits were to be won among
the new arrivals from continental Europe.

Two vital questions demanded immediate consideration.
First of all, should the foreign influx be permitted to con-
tinue, or should Congress be petitioned to close the gates
on the alien hordes? The early decades of the nineteenth
century had witnessed a crusading nativist movement,
f.nti-foreign and anti-Catholic, which had influenced na-
tional politics, and which a recent writer has dubbed, The
Protestant Crusade." By the middle of the century the
nativist movement, never officially supported by Protes-
tant bodies, had declined. American Protestants with
scarcely a dissenting voice welcomed the incoming multi-
tudes and opposed the efforts of Congress to pass restric-
tive or prohibitory legislation. Christian leaders shared
a strong faith in the redemptive qualities of the so-called
inferior races, and approved such statements as that of a
prominent Baptist leader calling for a Pentecostal revival
"wherein the Chinaman on the Pacific coast, the Negro of
the south, and the semi-atheistic German, the superstitious
Celt, and the wild red man shall unite."2 When, in the
closing decades of the nineteenth century, Congress passed
laws excluding Chinese immigrant labor, local and nation-
al bodies of Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians
and Methodists protested. Officials of twelve great mis-

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 137

sionary organizations of various denominations met and
appointed a committee to work to secure the repeal of
anti-Chinese legislation.3 At its 1924 convention the
Methodist Geneial Conference passed a resolution con-
demning the Japanese exclusion act and named a commit-
tee to present it to President Coolidge. Nearly every na-
tional Protestant body would endorse the Address of the
Methodist Bishops, "We see no better way than to continue
to guarantee all the benefits of our free institutions to all
who seek an asylum and a home among us. . . .our sympa-
thy is the same for all, whether they enter our land at the
east or west gate, from heathen or from Christian lands/'

A second important decision had to be made. Should
the work be conducted in English or in the language
familiar to the new settlers? Without an exception the
major denominations decided to utilize native tongues. It
was realized that adults would not respond to evangeliza-
tion in English, and it was feared that their alien and sub-
vei sive ideals, untouched by Christianity, would not only
be inculcated in their children, but would destroy Chris-
tianity and democracy, it was reported to the Presby-
terian Geneial Assembly that foreign business men did
not know such religious terms as faith, repentance, and
justification in English, and the wives and mothers did
not know even the language of business.4 Leaders must
be trained in America for bilingual work. Ministers
Germany brought German views of Sabbath observance.
temperance and the sacraments, out of harmony with t
sister churches in America.

Denominational colleges and seminaries revised their
curricula and added to their faculties in framing a train-
ing program. The German Presbyterian seminary at Du-
buque, Iowa, was established about 1885 by the Reverend
Adrian Van Vliet, who emigrated from Holland. A sec-
ond seminary was instituted at Newark with four years
in the preparatory and three years in the theological de-
partment. Instruction was in both German and English,
and graduates were required to be "in full sympathy with
our American Presbyterian life." The Methodists estab-

138 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

lished German colleges at Eerea in Ohio, at Galena in Illi-
nois, and at Mt. Pleasant in Iowa. Foreign language de-
partments were organized at the leading Baptist seminar-
ies, German at Rochester, French at Newton, and Scan-
dinavian at Morgan Park. The report of the Chicago
Theological Seminary in 1886 revealed German, Danish-
Noiwegian and Swedish departments. Training in Slavic
was given at Oberlin. The concentration of foreign lan-
guage work in a single seminary was denounced in a re-
port to the National Council of Congregational Churches :
"It is well for these brethren that they should know our
American students, and it is well that our American stu-
dents should know them. It will aid greatly in the work
of the future if the prejudices of nationality can be bro-
ken down."6 Preaching in a foreign tongue was regarded
as a temporary expedient. If prosecuted with some force,
a Presbyterian committee reported in 1876, it might
cease in half a century.

Various means have been employed to bridge over the
transition period. According to the findings of a Meth-
odist commission which made a careful study of the prob-
lem, English is usually first introduced in the Sunday
school and young people's societies. These groups are
then invited to attend an occasional English service in the
evening. American born adherents soon come to out-
number the older members in most language missions, so
that, after some years of alternate language sessions, all
Sunday services are conducted in the language of the
land. The foreign tongue continues to be used for prayer
meetings, and in the ministry to older persons by means
of pastoral work and special services.6

Americanization and evangelization were the two com-
mon objectives of all the language missions. The Ameri-
can "Home Missionary Society informed the National
Council of Congregational Churches of a significant
change. For many years the missionary problem had
been simple, merely to follow American families from
New England and the middle states to the newer west.
Put, the report continued, "That problem today is a com-

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 139

pound one. It is not only to provide, for our own,, the
means of a Christian civilization, but also to absorb and
assimilate a great mass of strange crude material, not our
own, except by adoption."7 The Standing Committee on
Home Missions, in its report to the Presbyterian General
Assembly in 1888, pointing to a prospective annual immi-
gration total of 900,000, concentrated largely in the new
west, warned that Christian civilization must assimilate
those multitudes or be assimilated by them. In develop-
ing his theme, "What to do with the Foreigner," before
the Baptist Congress that same year, the Reverend D. C.
Potter declared the aim was clear, "to make Americans in
the shortest possible time by disclosing the character of
our institutions." A special committee on foreign lan-
guage publications of the Methodist General Conference,
after recommending a long list for missionary and evangel-
istic purposes, specified that such publications must "in
each case contribute to the development and strengthening
of American ideals." The Bloomfield Seminary of the
Presbyterian Church originally trained only Germans. By
1919 changes of population made it necessary to teach in
five foreign languages, German, Italian, Hungarian, Rus-
sian and Ruthenian. It was expressly stipulated, how-
ever, that all students must learn to read, write, and
speak the English language fluently so as "to absorb
through it the learning, the culture, and the idealism of the
true native born American." The World War tended to
accelerate the work of Americanization by placing foreign
speaking groups under suspicion.

Following 1850 continental Europeans came in such
numbers as to lead Protestants to believe that the Puritan
foundations of America were crumbling. The new arriv-
als were sympathetic with political and industrial radi-
calism and had ideas of religion, especially of Sabbath ob-
servance, that differed widely from traditional American
standards. Religious leaders rallied to defend cherished
ideals and moral codes. Contemporary sources indicate
that Teutonic nationals were among the first to give
cause for general alarm. It has been estimated that ov

140 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

1909 there were eighteen and a half million persons oi
German descent in the United States.8

Certain cultural practices of the Germans were held to
be inimical to New Testament Christianity. The Germans
believed in the continental Sunday, a day of general merry
making. To American Christians of English or New Eng-
land origins, this was a blow at the very foundation of the
Republic-puritan morality. The denominational news-
papers and quarterlies, the meetings of state and nation-
al organizations, and the pulpit became agencies of pro-
test. Warnings were given that beer drinking, theatre
going and Sabbath violations were leading to moral ruin.
The editor of the Jiaptist Standard, under the caption
"What are we coming to?'' stated, "It has long been ap-
parent that the infidels from Germany who are flooding
our shores have entered upon a systematic crusade against
the Sabbath. Their social habits are of that low, sordid,
animal kind which tends to sink human nature lower and
lower until it reaches a point alike disgusting and dis-
graceful."9 A special committee reported to the Pres-
byterian General Assembly in 1876 that the Germans were
strongly organized and aimed "to overthrow the Sunday
Civil law, the Church of God, the authority and inspira-
tion of the Scriptures, and the foundations of belief in
immortality and existence."

The controversy intensified as the Germans assumed
the aggressive and won control in the larger cities. As
A. B. Faust has pointed out, the more recent German
immigrants were practically without exception "on the
side of personal liberty."10 In July 1872 the Germans in
Chicago dedicated their Turner Hall and boldly announced
in the press that they were going to allow Chicago, "the
honor and felicity of an European Sabbath." The re-
ligious press reported a perfect orgy of godlessness and
drunkenness. A perusal of the official proceedings of re-
ligious conferences and conventions of the major denom-
inations, state and local, together with a survey of press
and pulpit utterances, reveals that no moral problem was
stressed more than Sunday observance. Joint efforts

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 141

were made to secure Sunday closing of the Centennial Ex-
position at Philadelphia and the Columbia Exposition at
Chicago. Congress was petitioned to prevent the railroads
from carrying mail on Sunday. The issue was clear cut;
the choice lay between the continental Sunday and the
American Sabbath. Let the former prevail and puritan-
ism was doomed. Defeat, however, was inevitable. Ur-
ban-industrial America simply would not conform to the
old standards. European godlessness took the blame.

As southern European immigrants came to America in
large numbers, socialism, communism, and atheism were
added to the list of imported ills. The Jubilee Volume of
the Baptist Home Mission Society in 1882 told of the
dangerous elements in the new immigration such as nihil-
ists, boycotters, Molly McGuires, brigands, and lazzaroni
of southern Italy. The immigrants who came to America
in the latter half of the nineteenth century brought with
them the radical political and social theories current on
the continent. Advocates of the state socialism theories of
Karl Marx, and of various forms of anarchy and com-
munism endeavored to get an American hearing for their
doctrinas. Christian leaders were quick to sense the peril.
The Illinois Federal Union in 1878 considered, "How to
meet materialistic and rationalistic influence in this coun-
try." Communism was branded "a barbaric fag-end, a
ragged, dirty, poisonous remnant of the barbarism which
civilization is seeking to drive out of the world."

By 1890 over a million Bohemians had come to the
United States and had settled in populous centers such as
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Militant atheism was
now added to the list of perils. The Reverend H. A.
Schauffler who labored for the Bohemian Mission Board
of the National Council of Congregational churches made
a survey of the forty-two Bohemian newspapers published
in the United States. Seven were found to be religious
(five Catholic and two Protestant) ; of the thirty-five
secular papers, one was favorable, one was neutral, and
the remaining thirty-three were all propagators of infi-
delity that heaped contempt on Christianity with a fanat-

142 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

leal intensity. He also reported that about two hundred
Bohemian infidel Sunday schools had been established.11
Valiant effoits were made to win the Poles and Bohem-
ians to Christianity. Of the Protestant groups the Con-
gregationalists were most successful. Bible study classes
were formed in the Cleveland area, and a school for wom-
en Bible readers organized. A department at Oberlin
Theological Seminary was devoted to the training of con-
verted Bohemians.

Foreign immigration conditioned the development of
urban Christianity. The phenomenal growth of American
cities in the last half of the nineteenth century was large-
ly due to the influx from continental Europe. At the turn
of the century the Chicago school census revealed twenty-
five nationalities represented, and the children born of
German parents, numbering nearly a half a million, ex-
ceeded those born of native white parents. The resources
and personnel of the home mission societies were inade-
quate in the face of unprecedented demands for evangel-
ization and education, so the stronger city churches
founded chapels, Sunday schools, and mission stations at
strategic points. The North Star Mission, established by
the First Baptist Church of Chicago in a German speaking
area, within ten years had a Sunday school enrollment of
more than thousand, an industrial school for girls, a read-
ing room, a monthly paper The North Stay- and a full
schedule of "sociables" and prayer meetings in the Ger-
man language. Work was being done among the Welsh,
the Swedes, and the Danes, and there were missions at
the Stockyards, the Union Glass Works, the Rolling Mills,
and the Bridgeport Iron works all financed and officered
by the First Baptist Church. 12

In cities wheie there were several strong churches of a
given denomination efforts were generally pooled. Thir-
teen city and six subuiban Congregational churches in the
Chicago area united under a committee of Missionary Ef-
fort and hired a superintendent to work among the Bo-
hemians, Welsh, Germans, and Swedes. Acting on a res-
olution of the Methodist General Conference of 1896 a Na-

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 143

tional City Evangelical Union was formed, composed of
"representatives from all the local organizations or unions
by whatever name known, in cities of the United States
working for city evangelization in city church extension
under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church."
In 1872 the Chicago Baptist Union was formed and a co-
operative home mission program under a paid secretary
inaugurated.

Soon there came to be the following six distinct types
of city missions in the foreign speaking areas : the arm of
a well established church, the independent mission backed
by a wealthy individual, the neighborhood church, the in-
stitutional church with its provisions for domestic science
and vocational training, and the regular denominational
missions. In addition there were immigrant houses in
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Each denomination has developed an immigrant pro-
gram peculiarly adapted to its organization, geographical
distribution and resources. Baptists, Congregationalists,
and Presbyterians have placed their main reliance on the
home mission societies. Soon after the new settlers arrive
colporteurs visit the homes distributing tracts. Later the
home missionary calls urging attendance at meetings pre-
paratory to the organization of mission congregations.
The foreign speaking fields of the Methodists are first
exploited by an established conference under presiding
elders familiar with the language. As the language
churches grow in numbers they are organized into distinct
conferences. Although it is not the denominational prac-
tice to organize separate linguistic synods, German Pres-
byterians have formed two conventions, Western and East-
ern, to foster work among their own class. The Swedish
and German churches among the Baptists are formed
into conferences. The Congregationalists have been par-
ticularly successful among the French of New England
and the Germans, Scandinavians and Slovakians of the
west and northwest. They have pioneered in Slavic work,
establishing numerous Bohemian and Polish churches in
the Cleveland area.

144 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The demands of the language fields helped shape the
policies and stimulated the growth of nearly all the estab-
lished agencies of the churches. These organs of evangel-
ization and education antedate the great immigrant in-
vasion, but they have responded so well to the challenge
of new fields that they have been transformed in the
process. Fortunately by the middle of the nineteenth
century the major denominations had home mission socie-
ties, Sunday school associations, publication boards, and
colleges and seminaries organized on a regional and na-
tional basis. These have directed their energies to a com-
mon goal. Special and standing committees on the foreign
population have been commissioned by the national bodies,
and the pages of denominational journals are replete with
hortatory and statistical articles.

While the work of home mission societies must be giver,
due emphasis, the Sunday school associations were often
the real pioneers. The report of the Sunday School Union
in 1900 revealed that the Methodist Episcopal Church had
schools among the Germans, Swedes, Norwegian, Danes,
Bohemians, French, Italians, Portuguese, Chinese, and
Japanese. A full time German Sunday school agent and
a German editor for Sunday school publications were em-
ployed. The Presbyterians established a special mission-
ary department of the Sunday school, and the Cougrega-
tionalists sent out missionaries among the foreign lan-
guage groups to establish schools under the auspices of the
Sunday school and publication society.

The denominational publication societies produced large
numbers of foreign language books and tracts. The Meth-
odist Book Committee supervised the publication of a Ger-
man hymn book and an official translation of the Disci-
pline. German, Swedish and Bohemian weeklies are pub-
lished by the Cincinnati publication house. Each year
numerous books are published in languages other than
English. The Sunday School and Publication Society of
the Congregationalists publishes German, Norwegian, and
Bohemian papers in Chicago, French in Springfield, and
Italian in Boston.

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 145

Today with the gates closed to immigrants, the original
impetus to language work has ceased, and the anglization
trend predicates an early end to the language missions.
Perhaps this may be a propitious time to evaluate the ef-
fects of immigration on American Protestantism.

First and foremost, the work among foreign speaking
groups has greatly furthered interdenominational co-
operation. More than half a century ago, when the in-
coming tide was strongest, the New York State Christian
Convention, representing eight denominations, proposed
a union of evangelical Christians for home missions.13
Delegates to a convention of the American Home Mission-
ary Society were u iged to "unite about the largest nucleus
of a Christian sect — Presbyterian, Congregationalist, or
Methodist — whichever is strongest."14 The twelve mem-
ber denominations of the Council of Reformed Churches
in America early agreed to cooperate in work among for-
eign speaking people. Mention has already been made of
the cooperative efforts of urban churches. Shortly after
its formation in 1908 the Federal Council of Churches of
Christ endorsed a plan of individual efforts under a fed-
erated council which provided that, "local federations in
district, city, or state should survey the field, study con-
ditions and plan the work to be undertaken, leaving its
prosecution to the church or denomination assigned to
that particular service, the council standing ready with
counsel and encouragement to reinforce denominational
enterprise." That this cooperative spirit continues is in-
dicated by the fact that during the past year an interde-
nominational conference on "the Italian Church of Tomor-
row" was held in New York City.15 Recently the Interde-
nominational Council on Spanish-speaking work made a
survey that indicated that a quarter of a million Mexicans
•vere in northern and eastern parts of the United States.

In a much broader field the emigration of members of
the national communions has led to fraternal relations be-
tween kindred groups in the United States and conti-
nental Europe. Fraternal letters were exchanged between
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and the

146 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Bohemian Church of the Helvetic Confession in 1870, and
the former body pledged its Sunday school and home mis-
sionary facilities for the work among Bohemians in
America, and hailed the exchange of delegates as the be-
ginning of a permanent union. The Swedish Mission
churches or Mission Friends were greeted as subscriber?
to the same faith and practices "which our Congregational
fathers founded through the blood of martyrs" by the Na-
tional Council of Congregational Churches and were wel-
comed as "new-found sister churches in the Lord."16 It
was agreed that Swedish churches, ministers and student*
should have perfect liberty to join the association of Mis-
sion Friends or of the Congregationalists or both as they
might choose.

In various ways, as has been depicted above, concern
for the foreign born and their children has enriched the
activities of urban churches. The institutional church is
a splendid example of the social gospel in action.

The infusion of new blood not only strengthened the na-
tive chinches numerically, but the immigrants made val-
uable contributions to institutions, scholarship and evan-
gelical fervor. The deaconess movement which has been
sponsored by the Lutheran Church is an example. German
Methodism developed a unique series of schools, hospitals,
and homes in the city of Cincinnati. Just as immigrants
rose to high positions in public life and private enterprise,
so they became leaders in American Protestantism.

Foreign language work has been a main objective of
all Protestant groups. Numerically, the results obtained
are disappointing. The immigrants for the most part
have continued the church affiliation, begun on the con-
tinent, with a kindred body in America or remained in-
different to a program of evangelization. The challenge
of the unchurched millions, however, has been answered
with a quickened zeal stimulating every agency of the
church and bi oadening their activities. Although the de-
termined efforts to perpetuate a puritan civilization have
failed, neither have the Protestant churches been assimil-
ated by an alien culture. Like objectives and the facing

THE LANGUAGE MISSIONS 147

ot common dangers have developed a Protestant con-
sciousness and have prepared the way for ultimate unity.
At present the Atlantic and Pacific gateways to the
United States are closed, but the world conflict may be
ended by a Christian peace ushering in an era of interna-
tional good will. Once again there will be free migration
of peoples. Then there will be a revival of the language
missions. American Protestantism is ready. Home mis-
sionaries, publication boards, Sunday school associations,
and colporteurs will greet the incoming masses, shelter
them, evangelize them, and teach them the American way
of life.

1. Ray Allen Billington, (New York, 1938)

2. The Baptist Quarterly (Vol. XI, 1880), p. 140.

3. Annual Report, American Baptist Home Missionary Society (Vol.
61, 1893), p.ll.

4. Minutes of the General Assembly of th-e Presbyterian Church in
the U. S. of A. (1892), p.181.

o. Minutes of the National Council of Congregational Churches of
the U. S. (1886), p. 274.

6. Journal of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church (1924), p. 1686.

7. National Council Minutes (1886), p. 120. Cf. S. H. Doyle,
Presbyterian Home Missions (New York, 1902).

8. A. B. Faust, The German Element in the United States (Ne*
York, 1909), II, p. 23.

9. July 18, 1868.

10. Op. cit, Vol. II, p. 178.

11. National Council Minutes (1901), pp. 277-284.

12. The Standard (Jan. 21, 1869), p. 4.

13. Op. cit (July 12, 1878), p. 3.

14. D. B. Coe, "Commity Between Denominations In the Home
Field," National Council Minutes (1874), p. 59.

15. General Assembly Minutes (1940), p. 156.

16. National Council Minutes, (1889), p. 465. Cf. General As-
sembly Minutes (1870), p. 52.

* * * *

THE ATTITUDE OF THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

TOWARD THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

By Herbert H. Stroup

Neiv York, N.Y.

The literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses indicates an
intense antipathy toward the Roman Catholic Church.
This feeling of hatred has developed increasingly in the
last four or five years. The rise of the resentment is clear-
ly revealed in the various books which have been written
by the group's leader, Joseph Franklin Rutherford.

The year 1926 marks a decisive change in the purpose
and organization of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Before 1926,
the movement was confined in its missionary activity, and
the leadership of Mr. Rutherford was not generally ac-
cepted. In this year the movement which had its start
among the few followers of "Pastor" Charles T. Russell
split. The Witnesses who had known Mr. Russell thought
they had definitively expressed their religious obligations
by attending group meetings, reading the Bible and the
writings of Mr. Russell, praying for the Last Day, pay-
ing dues, feeling and being charitable. Mr. Rutherford,
who assumed leadership in this year, following the death
cf Mr. Russell, thought that these duties comprised true
faith, but he also added the greatest of all virtues (to the
Witnesses) : the systematic, persistent evangelization of
the entire population of the earth. The Witnesses who be-
lieved that Mr. Russell was next to Saint Paul and Jesus
in the estimation of Jehovah took issue with Mr. Ruther-
f 01 d and refused to aid him in his grandiose scheme. From
that day the modern Jehovah's Witnesses were born.

This historical background is necessary in order that
we may understand the attitude of the Jehovah's Witness-
es, in this period of their development, toward the Roman
Catholic Church. Since 1926 there has been an interest-
ing change in the focus of the group's hatred. At first
the hatred was in the generalized form of Satan, but grad-
ually through the years that followed, it was levied more
directly at such particular objects as the Roman Catholic
Church and other religious organizations.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 149

In 1926 Mr. Rutherford published a book, Deliverance,
which attempts to give "a vivid description of the Divine
Purpose particularly outlining God's progressive steps
against wickedness and showing the final overthrow of the
Devil and all of his wicked Institutions; the deliverance
of the people; and the establishment of the religious gov-
ernment on earth." Over three million copies of this book
have been distributed. The book tries to provide an "out-
line of history." Its first chapters are concerned with the
creation of the earth by Jehovah, the rebellion of man
against Jehovah, and man's subsequent afflictions under
the various cruel kings supplied by Jehovah for man's
salvation. The last chapters tell of the end of the world,
when "the wicked ruling system, designated by the title
'beast' and made up of profiteers, politicians, and clergy,
is taken." These evil ones will be cast into "the burning
flames of everlasting destruction." Afterwards, a new
world will be "established" in which the "reconstruction
and restoration of man" and his social institutions will
take place.

In this book Satan is the foremost opponent of the Wit-
nesses. Satan is the rebellious archangel, Lucifer, who en-
joyed all the privileges of the celestial realm until his
pride led him to jealousy and finally to revolt against
Jehovah. History records the effort of Satan to thwart
Jehovah: Satan tried to kill David; he defied Jehovah
through Pharaoh ; he entered into Judas, the betrayer of
Jesus ; he sought to prevent the resurrection of Jesus and
afterwards told the enemies of Jesus of it. Satan's influ-
ence has not lessened even today. He is the cause of and
is responsible for all crime, all religious animosity, all war:
"Now it is due time for the people to see and to under-
stand the truth; and particularly to see that all the
warfare amongst themselves, the conflicts between
religious systems, and the crimes and wickedness that
stalk about in the earth, all these unrighteous things
originated with Satan who has used these agencies to
turn the minds of the people away from God."
Satan's strength is unlimited and often it seems to the

150 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

pious Witness that Jehovah is overwhelmed and defeated.
In our times three factors in society are inspired by
Satan ; the commercial, the political, and the ecclesiastical :
"At times it might have seemed that the power of
wickedness had completely overwhelmed and defeated
the God of righteousness. But not so. The Almighty has
permitted Satan and his angels to pursue a course of
wickedness without let or hindrance until such time as
he sees it good, and therefore necessary, to interfere
and manifest his power, that the people might not en-
tirely forget his name. In all these world powers the
three elements mentioned, to wit, commercial, politi-
cal and ecclesiastical, have appeared prominently. In
these latter times the three elements, under the super-
vision of the Devil, have united in forming the most
subtle and wicked world power of all time. They oper-
ate under the title of 'Christendom', which is a fraud-
ulent and blasphemous assumption that they consti-
tuted Christ's kingdom on earth."

The Roman Catholic Church, according to Mr. Ruther-
ford's judgment in Deliverance, is an expression of Satan,
but, generally speaking, the metaphysical conception of evil
consumed the major interest and energy of the Witnesses.
The Roman Catholic Church is not attacked with any
special significance except as it is the most unified and
dominant conception of Satanic influence. It is Satan's
policy to work in an organized manner. This assumption
underlies the idea which the Witnesses possess of all
social organization. Organization is evil because it is or-
ganization. Nowhere is this more true to the Witnessess
than in the area of religion:

"It seems quite clear that this (Genesis 4:26) was a
scheme of Satan to have men call themselves by the
name of the Lord and yet pursue a course in opposi-
tion to God, thereby to ridicule God and hold up his
name in scorn. These men were tools of Satan, the
Devil, and were therefore hypocrites. This discloses
a scheme of Satan which he has ever followed since;
namely, TO HAVE HIS SYSTEM OF GOVERN-

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 151

MENT AN ORGANIZED RELIGION BY WHICH
MEANS HE COULD DECEIVE THE PEOPLE AND
RIDICULE JEHOVAH GOD. This is mentioned here
because it discloses the fixed policy on the part of the
Devil to use religion as a part of his deceptive and
fraudulent schemes."

From Deliverance one gets the idea that the Roman Cath-
olic Church is a wicked institution. Put it is only o^e of
many historic and present evil institutions. It is an ex-
pression of Satan, not Satan himself.

The relationship between Satan and the Roman Cath-
olic Church is shown in its historical perspective by Mr.
Rutherford in Deliverance. Beginning with the life of
Jesus, he traces the efforts of Satan to thwart Jehovah
through the successive stages of the history of western
Christianity. The following survey is introductory to an
understanding of the attitude toward the Roman Catholic
Church today.

Ninety-five pages of the book, Deliverance, are con-
cci ned with Satan's efforts to meet Jehovah's challenge in
the form of the life of Jesus. Satan heard the angel an-
nounce the coming birth of Jesus ; he sought to have the
infant Jesus killed by Herod ; he tried to seduce Jesus
from serving Jehovah ; he used the Pharisees to oppose
the witness of Jesus; he blinded the Jews and many Gen-
tiles to the significance of Jesus; he conspired to kill
Jesus; he killed Jesus; he rejoiced over the death of
Jesus.

According to Mr. Rutherford's interpretation, the death
cf Jesus was followed by a period of rather pure religion.
We must not conclude, however, that Satan was not fam-
iliar with the wonder-working power of the fresh faith
or that he did not try to impede its progress. "It is reason-
able to presume that he (Satan) was familiar with the
instructions given by the inspired apostles to those of the
church." This being the nature of the situation with which
Satan was faced "he realized that he must do something
to counteract the influence and power of those who were
being brought to Christ, if he would thwart the divine

152 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

purpose.*' Very cleverly, Satan devised a plan to defeat the
seaily Christians at the point of their greatest strength.
""Satan saw that it would be profitable to his scheme
to have the Christians become more popular; there-
fore the Christian religion became ostensibly the
leligion of his wicked world. The Devil thereafter
planted amongst the Christians ambitious men, those
who had a desire to shine amongst themselves and
who m the course of time had themselves appointed
or elected tc the positions of bishops and chief elders;
and in due time there was established a clergy class,
as distinguished from the laity or the common people.
The clergy thus organized introduced into the church
false doctrines taught by heathen philosophers, which
of course were the Devil's own doctrines. These wei e
uceel to coriupt the message of the Lord God. The
clergy and the i tilers in the church then established
theological schools wherein men were tiained for the
clergy for the purpose of carrying on the wo 1: of
their system already organized and in operation.
In due course statements of belief, or creeds, were
formulated and presented to the professed Christians,
1 anyone who taught contrary to these creeds was
considered a heretic and was dealt with accordingly.

False doctrines were freely introduced and substitut-
ed for the truth. Amongst these were and are the
doctrines of the trinity, immortality of all souls, eter-
nal torture of the wicked, the divine right of the
clergy, and the divine right of the kings to rule. In
the course of time, Mary the mother of the child
Jesus, was deified; and the people were called upon
to worship her as the mother of God. Satan's pur-
pose in all this, of course, was to turn the minds of
the people away from Jehovah. Crucifixes were erect-
ed, and the worship of the people was turned to
these rather than to let them intelligently worship
the Lord Jehovah and the Lord Jesus Christ. Beads,
so-called 'holy water', and like things were used and
are still used, to blind the people. Gradually, seduc-

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 153

tively, subtly and wickedly the Devil, through willing
instruments, corrupted those who called themselves
Christians "

This, then, is the simple story of the rise of the Roman
Catholic Church, according to Mr. Rutherford. It was at
this point that the original Christian message was cor-
rupted. Christ was converted to the antichrist. Satan was
worshipped as God. This, to the Witnesses, is the supreme
achievement of Satan. This interpretation of the rise of
the Roman Catholic Church is basic to any understanding
of the nature of the early antipathy of the Jehovah's Wit-
nesses. The important item to remember is not that the
Witnesses hated the Roman Church as much as Satan,
but that Satan was the chief opponent to true religion
and that Satan's present and historical expression is the
Roman Catholic Church.

The systematizing of the Christian religion took place at
Rome where its bishop was recognized to be the temporal
representative of Jehovah. Thus Christianity was sec-
ularized. The position of the Roman pope is particularly
obnoxious to the early Witnesses of ''the second dispen-
sation."

"Satan the enemy was at all times in control of Pagan
Rome. The religion of that world power was the
Devil's own religion; he now adopted hypocritically
the Christian religion ; his world power took on the
name of Papal Rome, having a visible representative
of the Lord Jesus Christ but who in fact was the rep-
resentative of the Devil, whether he knew it or not.
Millions of good people were deceived by this hypo-
critical move. Probably many of the clergy were de-
ceived, but some of them were not deceived. The
pope presumptously assumed to rule as the visible
representative of Christ."

The effects of the rule of the popes were not admirable
to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Indeed, "there have been some
of the blackest crimes of history committed in the name
of and by that system."

154 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

But, the evils of the Roman Catholic Church brought
revolts against its authority. Wycliff, Huss, and Luther
made open warfare against the papacy. This rebellion
against ihe Roman Church led to the Protestant Refor-
mation and the Protestant denominations. This protest
sought to restore the purity of the ancient faith, and it
succeeded for a time. The denominations contained many
God-fearing men, but "it was only a matter of time until
Satan overreached these." The Protestant systems have
organized themselves into real "political companies." Mr.
Rutherford points out the Methodist Church as being "one
of the strongest political organizations in the world."

The idea that Satan was able to overreach various
social organizations is well-known to the Witnesses, even
today. Actually it expresses a powerful criticism of the
persistent misuse of power which is characteristic of all
social leadership. In one of the chapters of Deliverance,
Mr. Rutherford shows how Satan was able to "overreach"
the coiuts at the time of Jesus, thus making the agency
of law the tool of evil.

So it is that the greatest pretense covers the greatest
evil and all reforming attempts become evil when power
fe gained. Man's highest expression of his aspirations in
religion are the result of demonic force outside both him-
self and nature which controls the world. Jehovah does
not dominate the human scene ; sometimes he attempts to
edge his way into human life — then only to give men the
assurance that he is yet responsible for the forces which
can defeat evil and restore man to his original goodness.
This is the form of evil which Jehovah's Witnesses hated
in 1926. They hated evil in high places; they fought with
principalities, power, and spiritual darkness.

Following the year 1926, the movement grew and made
more enemies than it had in its earlier stages. Persecution
of true believers is mentioned in Deliverance, but only in
the usual manner of religious groups, namely, that a
believing person should not be popular with the world and
should expect to suffer for the sake of the truth. Grad-
ually the Enemy became less and less Satan and more and

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 155

more Roman Catholic Church or the Roman Catholic Hiei-
archy. A survey of the Indices of the books written by
Mr. Rutherford during the years 1926-1940 indicates that
merely in the number of references given to Satan and the
Roman Catholic Church the matter is now quite the re-
verse of the situation then. Jehovah, written by Mr. Ruth-
erford in 1934, reveals how concrete the enemy had be-
come by that time:

"This (the desire on the part of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy to destroy the movement) was particularly
made manifest by the recent actions of the Roman
Catholic hierarchy and their public press, and further
at Plainfield, New Jersey, when their 'strong-armed
squad' appeared on the scene at a public meeting of
Jehovah's Witnesses, armed to the teeth, when there
was no danger to anyone except those who could be
hurt by the plain proclamation of the truth. That
sti ong-armed squad was doubtless there at the in-
stance of cruel Catholic priests, and to this day mem-
bers of that strong-armed squad cannot understand
why they did not commit murder."

Mr. Rutherford's book Riches, published in 1936, is of
significance because it contains the first expression of
another attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church. In
this book Mr. Rutherford uses a propaganda technique
which is familiar, namely, to "drive a wedge" between the
governed and the governing. He still insists that the
Roman Catholic Church is a Satanic expression. Yet there
is a qualification. The common people that comprise the
Roman Catholic Church are not to be condemned overly
much. They are unfortunates, intellectually ignorant, pol-
itically docile, spiritually subservient. As such they are
to be excused from responsibility for the wickedness of thu
Roman Catholic Church. The real responsibility lies, so says
Mr. Rutherford, with the priesthood. The hierarchy is
evil. "The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is the strongest
visible foe on earth of Jehovah's Witnesses and that or-
ganization is fighting desperately to keep the people in
ignorance." With a subtle, half-pleading tone, Mr. Ruth-

156 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

erford seeks the confidence of the Roman Catholic laity:
"Nothing is here written for the purpose of offending
or holding up persons to ridicule because of their re-
ligion of for any other reason. The sole purpose is to
call to the attention of the people the truth of God's
Word, to the end that those who desire to be enlighten-
ed may have that blessing. There are millions of sin-
cere persons on the earth who are designated 'Cath-
olic population' and who are entitled to hold their
views. Those persons are not at all responsible for
the false doctrines held forth by the Catholic organ-
ization known as 'the Hierarchy.' "

The common people which comprise the Roman Catholic
laity are not responsible for the teachings of the Roman
Catholic Hierarchy. The Hierarchy proceeds "upon the
theory that there are just two general classes of people,
to wit, Communists and Roman Catholics, and that all who
do not line up with the Roman Catholic side are therefore
necessarily to be classed as Communists." It is interest-
ing to note that although 121 references are made in the
Index to Riches to the Roman Catholic HIERARCHY, not
one is listed of the Roman Catholic CHURCH.

In 1937 Mr. Rutherford thought that the importance
of the corruptness of religion had not received sufficient
attention. In that year he wrote a book, Enemies, in which
he sought to show that the Witnesses have many enemies,
but none more powerful or hated than organized religion
of any description. Throughout the book he uses the word
"religionist" with a particularly bad connotation. He gen-
erally means by "religionist" a person who is a "supersti-
tionist" or a "traditionalist."

It was in this year (1937) that the Witnesses coined a
phrase which they have used ever since; "religion is a
racket."

"Put aside now preconceived opinions, and with an
unbiased mind examine the facts concerning the great-
est of all rackets that has ever been practiced
under the sun, to understand the truth of which is for
your personal welfare. . . . The most dangerous and

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 157

destructive kind of racketeering is that which has the
appearance of honesty but which is operated in such
a subtle, deceptive manner as to blind people to the
real truth .... The greatest racket ever invented and
practiced is that of religion. . . . There are numerous
systems of religion, but the most subtle, fraudulent
and injurious to mankind is that which is generally
labelled the 'Christian religion,' because it has the ap-
pearance of a worshipful devotion to the Supreme
Being, and thereby easily misleads many honest and
sincere persons. Strange as it may seem, the two
words 'Christian' and 'religion' are diametrically op-
posed to each other. . . . Religion labelled 'the Christ-
ian religion' is a racket invented by the Devil to de-
fame the name of Almighty God and is practiced by
men, some of whom are honest and practice it be-
cause they have been induced to believe it is right,
while others know that they are wrong and are work-
ing a fraud upon the people."

Religion per se is evil. Each world political power has
adopted a religion whereby it has been able to command
the respect of the masses. Religion, murder and war are
associates. Religion was not originated by primitive peo-
ple who feared their natural environments, but it is the
eternal means by which Satan seeks to deceive and re-
proach Jehovah. Religion does not give depth and scope t*
human aspirations for security and perfection; it degen-
erates the individual wherever its scrofulous touch is felt.
Religion is one of a triad of evils (commercialism, politics,
religion) which with their combined force have enslaved
men from the first.

Although Mr. Rutherford nursed his new-found hatred
of all religion until it became a rallying-point for his fol-
lowers ever since, he still did not diminish his special ha-
tred of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. "The chief visible
enemy of God and therefore the greatest and worst public
enemy, is the Roman Catholic religious organization ....
The day of the wicked organizations must come to an end."
The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is to be destroyed before

158 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

commerce and politics in the Day of Armageddon. Mr.
Rutherford thought in 1937 that the Roman Catholic
Church was in a political alliance with the rulers and busi-
ness men of the world to take over the control of the whole
earth.

"The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is a selfish and
devilish organization, operating under the misleading
title of 'Christian religion,' and desperately attempt-
ing to gain control over all the peoples of the earth
in order to satisfy its selfish and ambitious desires."
This is a theme which recurs throughout Enemies.
Mr. Rutherford's last book, Religion, was published in
the summer of 1940. In it he gives more attention than in
previous years to the intense persecution which the Wit-
nesses have undergone. This persecution is presented as
a hydra-headed monster completely under the control of the
Roman Catholic Church. Satan has fallen into the back-
ground, but is still recognized as being the ultimate source
of affliction (only five references to Satan in the Index
to Religion). Communism, atheism, Protestantism, Roman
Catholicism, are the tools of the devil :

"The Devil practices all manner of fraud and de-
ception. He organized the chief religious systems on
earth, now under the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and
falsely designates that as 'the Christian religion.'
Even the so-called Trotestant' systems of religion
claimed to be opposed to Romanism, but, in fact, they
all work together. The Devil then organizes and brings
into action Communism, which openly fights the so-
called 'Christian religion' and also true Christianity.
He uses atheists likewise to fight against those who
serve God, and thus the Devil uses all these means and
organizations to fight against God and against God's
faithful servants on the earth, and to deceive men.''
Mr. Rutherford claims that the leaders of "Christen-
dom" howl and declare that the Jehovah's Witnesses are
communistic and that they have seditious aspirations. This
talk, however, he feels comes straight from the "papa" in
the Vatican, who realizes that the communist cry will be

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 159

a very effective means of dispersing the Witnesses. But,
the Jehovah's Witnesses are not communists because they
will have nothing to do with any political system. They
are entirely separated from all political parties, giving all
of their devotion to the one, true Jehovah.

Religion in general and without definition is a snare
and a racket. This doctrine which came into the Witnesses'
literature in 1937 is one of their most popular beliefs in
1940. Christianity is directly opposed to all religion and
in itself is not a religion :

"Christianity and religion are two sepaiate and dis-
tinct things, and the two are in complete opposition
to each other. Those who practice religion are numer-
ous; those who truly are Christians are few."
All religion will be completely destroyed at the Day of
Armageddon ; indeed, "the end of all religion has come"
in the year 1941. What we today think of as religion is
merely a faked substitute which the rulers need to en-
force their wicked ways.

Since the beginnings of the present war, a new factor
is combined with the evil triad of Satanic forces, namely,
the military. War is evil to the Witnesses and definitely
is contrary to the will of Jehovah. Therefore, the present
war is regarded in parts of the literature as a further ex-
pression of the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to
destroy the Witnesses. In the book, Religion, war is
thought to be of such a destructive character in itself that
it is classified as a fourth fundamental evil.

According to Mr. Rutherford, everyone now recognizes
the need for "more and more religion," but not for the
truth which the Witnesses teach.

"Religion, politics and commerce, the three elements
visibly ruling this world, step to the fore and with
one accord proclaim to the people, 'We must have
more religion, else our civilization will perish.' "
The cry for "more religion" is an effort on the part of
the rulers of the world to avoid the discovery by the com-
mon people of the evil nature and effects of their rule.
The rulers require the Witnesses to salute the national

160 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

flag against their consciences because the rulers need some
scapegoat to divert the attention of the populace from
their failures. The clergy cry for more religion because
many people have already realized the demonic character
of religion. Their ciy is an attempt to camouflage their
evil.

In Religion, as in previous books, the Roman Catholic
Church is an evil institution, originating in Satan. The
Roman Catholic religion is a modern form of an ancient
demonism. To worship man-created idols is pagan; thus
the Roman Catholic Church breaks one of the essential
commandments of Jehovah in worshipping saints, pictures,
and statues. The conception of purgatory in Roman Cath-
olic theology is incorrect and wicked simply because it has
pagan origins. Purgatory is based upon the unscriptural
pagan belief involving the immortality of the human soul.
The Eible, according to all true Witnesses, denies the im-
mortality of the soul.

"The doctrines and practices of the Catholic religious
organizations are specifically constructed by the Bible.
That is particularly true with reference to 'purga-
tory;' to the primacy of the pope; to the dead as being
more alive than ever, and prayers for the dead; to
the doctrine and the claim that the church of God is
founded upon Peter; to holy water; to images and the
veneration of saints ; and to many other doctrines ;
and these prove that the Catholic religion is demon-
ism; and by the practice of demonism the people are
led fully into the snare of the Devil and ultimately
into destruction."

It is this demonic influence which makes deluded re-
ligionists stubbornly resist the truth of God's Word.

The Roman Catholic Church is seeking world domin-
ation. It uses many means for the attainment of this end.
All movements, such as the Witnesses, that oppose the
totalitarian claims of the Roman Church are declared
evil by it. The Roman Catholic persecutes all those who
tell the truth. Furthermore, it has aligned itself with the
totalitarian forces in politics. In fact, the Roman Catholic

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 161

Church uses the various dictators in its plot to rule the
world.
"Cruelly and subtly the totalitarian or dictator
schemes move forward, and now the dictators have
become bold and arrogant and have formed a bloc of
nations, including Germany, Italy, Japan and other
states, and on top of which bloc or combine the so-
called 'spiritual' Roman Catholic Hierarchy sits in
state and struts her stuff, administering supposed
doses of soothing remedy in a studied effort to make
Satan's rule or wine of this world appear a sweet
wine.''

In another passage which tells of the plan of the totali-
tarian nations to place the whole world at the feet of the
pope at Rome, Communism is given equal mention with
Fascism and Nazism. It would seem that the final victory
ever the Roman Church will be effected by "the radical
elements." They will rush in (after the dictators and the
Roman Catholic Hierarchy have finished robbing the
Jews) and pillage the Vatican of its fabulous riches:
"The dictators now permit the Roman Catholic Hier-
archy to work with them, and all together they en-
gage in robbing the Jews, who have been prosperous
in commercial things and otherwise in obtaining
money and property. When that radical and delud-
ed element have finished with exploiting and robbing
the Jews, it appears, then they will give their atten-
tion to the big religionists. It is said that Vatican
City has stored up more gold and other riches than
any other nation or organization. It may be expect-
ed that the various deluded radical elements will
swoop down on the Vatican and Hierarchy after they
have finished off the Jews."
The dictators support the Roman Catholic Hierarchy
principally because they too hate Jehovah's law and wish
to supplant Jehovah. The religious leaders have not told
the political leaders how Jehovah will destroy them in the
Last Day. This is because they are both ignorant of the
ways of Jehovah:

162 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

"The religious leaders, particularly the Roman Cath-
olic Hierarchy, have failed to tell the political rulers
anything concerning God's purpose to destroy them,
and this manifestly because the religionists are allies
of the political rulers, and being under the influence
and power of the demons, are blind to God's purpose.
All of the dictators of the world have their religious
advisors. The ruler of Germany is a Catholic and is
constantly advised by the Vatican. He also freely
consults the demons through their visible representa-
tives. Other political rulers follow a similar course.
Even in the democracies, the chief politicians do the
same thing; and this shows that all such are in the
darkness and hence blind to God's purpose and are in-
duced to abuse and persecute the servants of God, who
bring to them the message of truth."
This view explains to the Witnesses why both religious
and political leaders are persecuting the movement.

Today "Catholic Action" is extremely vicious in per-
secuting the Witnesses. "The Roman Catholic-Nazi combine,
in their bitter oppositon to the Theocracy, make war upon
Jehovah's Witnesses." The Hierarchy gets itself praised
by the newspapers through threats to commercial dealers.
"The clergy send out the vicious young Nazi element
to commit assaults upon Jehovah's Witnesses. The real
criminals, guilty of such vicious assaults, are the
higher-ups of the Hierarchy."
The Witnesses are opposed by a "world-wide conspiracy"
headed by the Roman Church. This "conspiracy" does not
obey the laws of God; in fact, it obeys only those laws
which make for its strength and security.

The Witnesses are not altogether defenseless against
the onslaughts of the Roman Catholic Church. They be-
lieve that it is proper and necessary to repel attacks with
physical force. In Religion the example of the Witnesses
on the 25th of June, 1939, at Madison Square Garden is
given :

"Persons (Roman Catholic) who oppose God's king-
dom Lad repeatedly made threats that they would

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 163

break up that assembly, and these threats had been
brought to the attention of the Lord's people. Even
the police officers had been notified of such threats.
On the day of the meeting several hundred of such
wicked ones entered Madison Square Garden meet-
ing after the program had begun, and made a violent
attempt to 'break-up' that meeting. Ushers, whose
assigned duty was to keep order, commanded the dis-
turbers to stop their disturbance or else leave the
building. Instead of complying with that request the
disturbers violently assaulted the ushers. Some of
the ushers in their God-given and lawful rights re-
sisted such assaults and used reasonable and neces-
sary force to repel such wrongful assaults. In doing
so the ushers acted strictly within their rights and in
the performance of their duty and certainly have the
approval of the Lord in so doing. The ushers were not
using carnal weapons in order to preach the gospel,
but they were using force to compel the enemy to
desist in efforts to prevent the preaching of gospel."

The Witnesses aie advised never to act hastily and always
with the highest motives in using physical force. They
are reminded that Christian always obey the law. The
Christian should Lire other methods of meeting evil, if such
are available, befoie resorting to physical force. The
Christian should never purposely seek physical combat.

Moreover, the Witnesses are not alone in defending
their lights. Jehovah is not blind to the sacrifices which
the Witnesses are making to the truth. He will not for-
get those who now persecute them. The Witnesses look
forward with great expectation to the Last Day, the Day
of Armageddon, at which time Jehovah will utterly de-
stroy all those who at present persecute the Witnesses.
"The battle of that great day of God Almighty will forever
put AN END TO RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS PERSE-
CUTORS." "The enemy, the religionists and their allies,
have repeatedly shed blood of the inocents, and for that
they shall be fully paid by the Executioner of Jehovah."

MOTES and NEWS

FLORIDA MINISTERS' WEEK

The third annual Florida Ministers' Week will be held
at Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, January
11-15, 1942. Dean Lynn Harold Hough, of Drew The-
ological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey, will deliver the
mam lectures of the week. Dean Hough has announced
his general theme as "intellectual Patterns." Dr. Elmer
T. Claik, editor of the World Outlook, will lecture on "The
Small Sects in America." President Ludd M. Spivey, Dean
S. J. Case, and Roy L. Smith, editor of the Christian
Advocate, are among the other lecturers announced for the
week. Some of the lectures will be published in full in the
next issue of RELIGION IN THE MAKING.

Dean Willard L. Sperry was the lecturer for Ministers'
Week in 1940. Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, of Boston, and
Dean S. J. Case, of the Florida School of Religion, were
the lectuiers during Ministers' Week in 1941. These
lectures have now been published.

THE FLORIDA RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION

The fourth annual meeting of the Florida Religious
Association will be held at Florida Southern College,
Lakeland, April 20-21, 1942. This association is rapidly
becoming the chief medium for inter-faith religious ac-
tivity in Florida. At an earlier session, the Association
defined its purpose to be:

(1.) The promotion of fellowship among persons who
are interested in religious studies and activity.

(2.) The gathering of information on the history of
religious movements in Florida.

(3.) The consideration of religious education in ed-
ucational institutions, churches, synagogues and other
community groups.

NOTES AND NEWS 165

We expect to carry a brief transcript of the proceed-
ings of the annual meeting in a later issue. The following
statement about the Florida Religious Association has
come to our attention, and we take pleasure in publish-
ing it for our readers, especially those in Florida.

Our Inquiring Reporter, having heard of the Flor-
ida Religious Association, called upon its President,
Professor Anna Forbes Liddell, of the Florida State
College for Women.

"Dr. Liddell, the name of your organization is very
general. What is the object of the Association?"

"To provide for fellowship and interchange of views
among men and women of all faiths, and to en-
gage in such religious research as may from time to
time seem practicable."

"Is the Association trying to promote or 'put over'
something?"

"Not a thing, unless it be fellowship and good will.
We are not trying to spread any particular religious
beliefs or practice. The fact that our membership in-
cludes Protestants, Catholics and Jews is a guaranty
that propoganda is utterly foreign to our aims."

"But can a group of such diversity have much in
common?"

"Oh yes. We may never fully understand one an-
other, but we realize that we are all children of God
and that we are all trying to serve Him, each in his
own way. Moreover, the problems we encounter in our
work — for example, in religious education, are basic-
ally similar, and so we find that we have something
to learn from one another's experiences. We also seek
to cultivate that all inclusive good-will which is the
only defense against the rising tide of Anti-Semitism
and other prejudices in this country."

"Where does the Association hold its meetings?"

"Our first meeting was held in Winter Park, the
second at Florida Southern College, Lakeland, and the

166 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

third at John B. Stetson University, DeLand. Next
April we are to meet again at Florida Southern.
Thus far we have met only once a year, but as our
membership grows in numbers and territorial extent
one or more regional meetings each year will be-
come desirable."

"What has been the nature of your programs?"
"We usually concentrate on some religious or ed-
ucational problem. For instance, at the DeLand meet-
ing we considered the question of religious education
in the public schools. Professor Harrison S. Elliott,
of Union Theological Seminary, was our discussion
leader. The year before, our theme was 'Religion in
Relation to Security of Life.' The program of our
next meeting will probably deal with character edu-
cation."

Thank you, Dr. Liddell."
"You are very welcome. Here is a copy of our con-
stitution. You might mention that our Secretary, Miss
Janet Daugherty, of Winter Park, is glad to receive
applications for membership accompanied by one
dollar in payment of dues for one year from the date
of payment."

* * * *

BOOKS REVIEWED

CHRISTIAN REALISM. By John C. Bennett. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. 198 pages. $2.00.

The -.void 'realism" in this title is used primarily in the
practical rather than the philosophical sense. The author
seeks to steer a middle course between the extremes of
optimism and pessimism in the interpretation of the
Christian task. He finds reality most truly in the actual
facts of immediate experience, although he is enough of
an idealist to allow reason to operate upon the given ele-
ments in experience. Accordingly, in the early part of
the book he vividly portrays the eviis of the modern sit-
uation before proposing a program for their alleviation.

The present is a time of great perplexity for the re-
ligious thinker. All of his ideals seem to have been shat-
tered, particularly by recent events in Europe that also
cast shadows upon the American scene. These happen-
ings tend to shake our former faith in both man and God.
One might infer that men are hopelessly evil and that God
is indifferent to their perversity. But Professor Bennett
cannot accept this deduction of the pessimists. He is keen-
ly awake to the fact of evil but he believes that there are
still redemptive possibilities resident in human nature and
capable of realization through divine assistance. The
major portion of his book deals with the program of
Christians in society and the scheme of redemption rep-
resented by Christ and the Church. The key to suc-
cess is believed to be a more complete recognition of the
necessity of a social rather than a merely individual sal-
vation.

Yet one must not suppose that it will be sufficient to
identify Christianity with particular social programs and
enterprises. The individual Christian must become social-
ly minded before the movement itself can become socially
effective. Evidences that this procedure is in process of
growth are seen in the developing recognition that justice
and moral integrity should characterize any social order,

168 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

and that every man regardless of race or status should
."share equally in privileges. There is also a helpful recog-
nition among modern men that their own favored groups
^are not free from the sins which they so readily ascribe to
their rivals. And a broader outlook upon history enables
one to see the total historical scene as the arena of God's
activity. In spite of temporary darkness one is still able
to perceive that the most powerful forces in the world are
in line with God's intention.

Thus faith in the forces of redemption can be revived
<even in a peiiod of gravest discouragment. Hope still
centers in Chiist and the church. The author is some-
what less emphatic than he was in his earlier book on
Social Salvation in affirming that the teaching of Jesus
provides an explicit program for modern salvation, but he
still believes that Jesus and the place he has held in the
historic Christian faith are the souice of our best social
insights and inspirations. And the church is believed to
be the institution that gives greatest promise of success
in realizing the ideals of the social gospel. Admittedly
this institution has many defects and deserves much
frank criticism. But by and large it is still our most de-
pendable basis for the hope of a better world in the future.
Reforms are needed but evidences of their coming are al-
ready apparent. These are seen, first, in the fact that the
church, especially in Russia and Germany, is still capable
of standing up against persecution. Moreover, within re-
cent decades a much keener social conscience has mani-
fested itself within large sections of the church. A third
indication of revival is seen in the new interest in the-
ological questions that has grown up since the first World
War. Still other hopeful aspects of the situation are the
trends toward unity among the different branches of
Christendom and the awakening of an ecumenical con-
sciousness.

Such are Professor Bennett's reasons for believing that,
notwithstanding the dark hours through which we are now
passing, there is light ahead. It will come by a more per-
sistent pursuit of the ideals of the social gospel. In this

BOOKS REVIEWED 169

respect he stands sharply opposed to the advocates of the
now much-heralded Barthian type of theological specula-
tion that expostulates vociferously against social activity,
derides human capacity to aid in setting up the kingdom
of God upon earth, and denies the ability of the rational
man to apprehend and pursue the divine will.

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH. By
Marion J. Biadshaw. New York: Columbia University
Press. 254 pages. $2.50.

This is a descriptive treatment of the attitude toward
Christianity of six seventeenth century philosophers. After
an introductory essay commenting upon the present situa-
tion and delineating some features of seventeenth century
society, each philosopher is presented largely in language
from his own works, but under sectional headings design-
ed to display his significance. To each name is also at-
tached a distinguishing epithet. Descartes is "the great
dualist," Hobbes "the great materialist," Locke "the great
empiricist," Pascal "the great mystic," Spinoza "the
great rationalist," Leibniz "the great individualist." The
treatment throughout is highly appreciative. There is no
disposition to "debunk" these characters and each is
found to possess some distinctive element of greatness.

The interest of these philosophers in Christianity is
thought to have been much more extensive and vital than
has commonly been assumed. In fact, Professor Brad-
shaw would have us believe that they were all staunch de-
fenders of the Christian faith. But even his persuasive
words may not prove universally convincing. And that
the faith of these thinkers was founded in their respec-
tive philosophies seems still more doubtful. Is it not more
likely that they derived their faith from heritage and en-
vironment and pursued their philosophical speculations as
a supplement to, or independently of, their traditional in-
heritance of Christian or Jewish beliefs? Even Pascal,
who was the most religious of them all, really felt it nec-
essary to renounce his philosophy in the interests of re-
ligion. The others were not ready openly to renounce re-

170 ~ RELIGION IN THE MAKING

ligion in favor of philosophy, but they made no very ser-
ious effort to reconstruct a new system of Christian the-
ology in accordance with their philosophical postulates.
Even Locke, rigid empiricist that he is, was not willing to
trust explicity to reason for religious truth and turned
to biblical revelation as the ultimate source of knowledge.
We might call these thinkers, or some of them, philosoph-
ical apologists for the faith of their day, but it is
stretching the point to call them philosophical "founders"
of the faith. That task had been performed much more
thoroughly by the schoolmen than by the later rationalists.
Of course much depends upon what one means by
"faith." If it means the acceptance of a definite form of
belief, or is only a vague attitude of reverence for that
which lies beyond the ken of human wisdom, different
answers might be given to the question of how far any
man kept the faith. If it is meant only in the latter sense,
as Professor Bradshaw seems to use it in his final chap-
ter, then it will be true of every person, however rigid
his thinking, who faces the mystery of the cosmos. We
follow reason as far as it leads, and thereafter we walk
by faith. But this is what multitudes of Christians, ac-
cording to their several lights, have done all through the
ages. In this respect the seventeenth century philosoph-
er, like the present-day theologian, was running true to
type.

GOD AND PHILOSOPHY. By Etienne Gilson. New
Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 147 pages.

;$2.00.

In the modern age, where the concrete happenings of
daily life smite us with great severity, only a few men
have the inclination or the leisure to indulge in meta-
physical speculation. The physical world of daily ex-
perience impinges so mightily upon our consciousness that
we have no time to theorize about the laws or principles
that operate in those areas of the cosmos that are beyond
our immediate perception. But in recent years several
Roman Catholic philosophers and theologians have re-

BOOKS REVIEWED 171

vived interest in metaphysical problems, and Professor Gil-
son is one of their most distinguished representatives.

Christians have usually taken for granted the reality of
both a visible and an invisible world, but have trusted to
revelation for their knowledge of the latter and confined
the operations of human reason to the observable phe-
nomena of experience. Not until the thirteenth century,
with the appearance of Thomas Aquinas, did a Christian
thinker attempt to show that certain items of metaphys-
ical wisdom formerly ascertained through revelation only
were also capable of demonstration by the processes of
human reason even without resort to revelation. Thus
Aristotelian concern with metaphysics was baotized into
Christianity and is being vigorously refurbished by pres-
ent-day Roman Catholic writers. This is the instrument
employed by Professor Gilson in expounding the relation
which obtains between our notion of God and the demon-
stration of his existence.

rJ he book contains four lectures delivered at Indiana
University. Greek thinking about the gods is the subject
of the first lecture. After sketching the evolution of
Greek notions from Thales to Aristole, the lecturer con-
cluded that to Aristotle must be given credit for stating
in his metaphysical conception of a prime mover, a prin-
ciple that makes possible a correct conception of God. But
this god could have no concern with the world of human
affairs aiicl hence could not sponsor a religion. Christian
philosophy, adopting the living God of Hebrew religion,
adequately supplemented Greek speculation. From being
"something" God now became "somebody." The philosophi-
cal problem now became not simply "What is nature?" but
"What is being?" But Christian philosophy was slow to
perceive that concern with God's essence, rather than pure
belief in his existence, was a fatal bondage to pagan Greek
thinking. This limitation still attached even to Augustine
and Christian thinking did not obtain deliverance until
Thomas Aquinas appropriated the speculation of Aristotle.

Later Christian philosophy, beginning with Descartes,
was deflected from its true course by failure to view God

172 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

in his absolute self-sufficient perfection. Instead, it made
him essentially the object of religious faith, and thus gave
him only those attributes that accounted for the existence
of the world. Instead of being "He who is" God became
the "author of nature." This has been a tendency in mod-
ern philosophy that our author would correct by restor-
ing the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. Science seeks a
rational explanation of what the world actually is but
metaphysics is concerned with why it is. This latter ques-
tion involves a religious, as distinct from a scientific, in-
terpretation of nature, and it can be answered only by
the light of a metaphysical principle. Thought, being the
only principle of order known to us in experience, requires
us to point to the existence of a purposeful God to account
for purposive intelligibility in the Universe. Thus God is
not a scientific probability, as some scientists might af-
firm, but a metaphysical necessity. Yet religion requires
one step beyond metaphysics. The religious man recog-
nizes that the "He who is" of the philosophers is He who
is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

One who finds it difficult to pursue the close-knit ar-
gument of this book will do well to remember that the
task of comprehension is futile without a clear apprehen-
sion of the postulates which it holds to be axiomatic. These
are the Thomist doctrines of metaphysical truth attainable
by reason yet in perfect accord with the traditional truth
of revelation.

CAN WE KEEP THE FAITH. By James Bissett Pratt.
New Haven : Yale University Press, 1941. 216 pages. $2.75.

In this book a philosopher speaks in defense of a liberal
type of Christian belief. As a teacher of philosophy for the
last thirty-five years at Williams College, he has reflected
long and deeply upon the subject under discussion. He has
written several earlier works, notably the Psychology of
Religious Belief (1907) and The Religious Consciousness
(1920), that indicated the trend of his mind. More re-
cently his Personal Realism (1937) and Naturalism
11939) have expressed the further maturity of his think-

BOOKS REVIEWED 173

ing, and now he sums up the results of his reflections up-
on the valid content of Christian faith. He restates not
only the content of this faith, but forecasts the prospecrs
for its endurance in the future. He is not interested in
defending the tenets of any particular Christian denomin-
ation, but writes as a sympathetic observer who would
sift the wheat from the chaff over the total range of
Christian beliefs and practices.

The book is addressed to a particular type of person,
namely the intelligent man who reveres human rationality,
accepts without reserve the discoveries of modern science,
and yet is genuinely religious and appreciative of the
main body of Christian tradition. The author fears that
this heritage is in great danger of being lost amid the
confusion and diversity of thinking that have overtaken
the present world. He laments the lack of interest in re-
ligion that marks the younger generation of today and
the decline of stress upon religious instruction in mod-
ern times. He sees a danger that historical criticism of the
Bible, the trends in naturalistic science and philosophy,
and the political situation in large parts of Europe and the
far East may threaten the collapse of Christianity. This ca-
lamity He would avert by providing a deeper insight into
the real nature of Christianity and a keener appreciation
of its essential values.

Professor Pratt is careful to state at the outset what he
means by "Christianity." In the last analysis he finds
it to be neither a creed, nor an institution, nor a body of
moral precepts, but a movement in the spiritual life of the
race. Yet this movement has been marked by certain
distinguishing and decisive characteristics in the sphere
of experience, activity and belief. Its adherents have an
experience of love for God and for man, its typical activity
is an outgoing expression of that love in service for
others, and its beliefs are distinguished by a spiritual in-
terpretation of the universe. Although the specific forms
of these beliefs may be altered with time and varying
conditions, their essential nature is thought to be constant.

174 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Changes are the mark of true vitality while life itself re-
mains the same throughout all variations.

The author recognizes that Christianity in its historic
expression has not only sponsored certain beliefs but has
employed many symbols that have acquired high emotion-
al value. Familiar creedal formulas, scriptural verses,
long-used hymns, stained glass windows, the bread and
wine of the sacrament, and all other liturgical acts or
forms, have behind them a meaning which may change or
be completely lost in the course of time. The meaning of
the symbol may escape logical definition, yet the symbol
itself may retain its power to stimulate the imagination
and move the will for the good of the individual and so-
ciety. This aspect of Christianity has a survival value for
the enrichment of leiigious feeling that can never be com-
pletely supplanted by any redefinition of ethical or the-
ological tenets.

The gieatest menace to the continuity of Christianity
is found, not in the perpetuation of its possibly outworn
symbolism, but in two types of present-day dogmatic as-
sertion. The first of these is materialistic naturalism
that limits reality to physical existence and the operations
of natural law. This position is vigorously attacked on
the ground that it fails to recognize the reality of mind
and ignores the spiritual side of the existential universe.
So long as one does not lose sight of the supra-material
aspects of existence there will be room for the essential
truth of the Christian faith however extensively specific
items in that faith may have to undergo revision in the
interests of rational accuracy and scientific evidence. Be-
yond the range of observable material phenomena there
will always be the wider regions of spiritual reality ac-
cessible to faith but impervious to empirical observation.
And Christian faith is not demonstrable knowledge but a
belief about that which lies beyond demonstrability. It
must be rationally consistent and must not deny the estab-
lished facts of science, but it reaches into the wider areas
of the unknown where it claims no finality but only a oai-
ance of probability. Ultimately, it is faith rather than

BOOKS REVIEWED no-

knowledge, but a faith that does not insult the intelligence
of the educated man who allows a place in this thinking-
tor the reality of the spiritual world.

The second type of dogmatism, thought to be a more
dangerous foe to the survival of Christianity, is the appeal
to authority represented both by Fundamentalism and' by
the theological movement connected with the name of Karl
Earth. To deny, as the Barthians do, the worth of human
reason as an instrument of religious knowledge, and to
refuse to recognize the imminence of God in a world that
he has created, will in the opinion of Professor Pratt
mean ultimate suicide for Christianity. One of the most
incisive sections of his book is directed against this recent
attempt of the Barthian theologians to revive the suprem-
acy of supernaturalism and irrationalism as the essential
aspects of genuine Chi istianity.

If the Christian faith is to survive it must be perpet-
uated by religious people who do not lose sight of spiritual
reality while at the same time they admit the full rights
of human reason and scientific knowledge in the area of
religion. They need not doubt the divine transcendence
but they will also find God most realistically in the realm
of their own experience as they live in a universe wher*
matter and spirit are both believed to be essential realities.
And since men are creatures of free will, whether or not
they keep the faith rests with them. The author is not
too optimistic yet he is hopeful that the faith will be kept,
and anyone who gives his book a careful reading will find
it an exceedingly helpful medicine for the perplexed in
these troubled times.

METHODISM AND THE FRONTIER: INDIANA
PROVING GROUND. By Elizabeth K. Nottingham. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1941. 231 pages. $2.50.

Here is a volume that intermingles the general with the
particular without doing injustice to either phase. The
story of the rise of Methodism in America is carefully in-
termixed with the rise of Methodism in the southeast por-
tion of Indiana. Methodism in America has of course been

176 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

modified constantly by its environment but thorough-going
studies of how divergences of environment affected the
subsequent development of the denomination have not been
made. This lack of local studies is true not only of the
Methodists but of practically all denominations. Miss
Nottingham's study of a portion of Indiana should serve
as an inspiration and a model for similar studies of other
areas of the United States.

The author points out that she is only passingly con-
cerned with how Methodism was Americanized but spe-
cifically with how it has "frontierized." It is in develop-
ment of this theme that she draws her illustrative mater-
ial from southeast Indiana. Three of her ten chapters are
devoted almost exculsively to a consideration of what
frontier Indiana did to Methodism. These three chapters
constitute the major contribution that the volume makes
to the history of Christianity in America. The frontier,
for example, profoundly influenced the hymnody of the
church. The stately hymns sung in the churches along the
eastern seabord gave way to "rough and ready words set
to rousing popular tunes." Hymnals still in use bear tes-
timony to the survival of this influence.

In the more general chapters interest centers largely in
the way in which Methodism of the Wesley pattern was
altered in America by factors of geography, communica-
tion, occupation, tradition, habits, and ideas.

THE CHURCH OF OUR FATHERS. By Roland H.
Bainton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. 248
pages. $2.50.

This is an unusual book. Here is a one-volume history
of Christianity for children written by an outstanding
historian. One-volume histories of Christianity are in
themselves generally unsatisfactory; likewise, the few
previous efforts to present the history of Christianity to
children have not been altogether satisfactory. In this
volume Professor Bainton, of the Yale Divinity School,
does the unusual by writing a book that is satisfactory in
each of these areas. Of course the book has its limitations

BOOKS REVIEWED 177

for it is not a compendium of church histoiy, but such it
was not intended to be. Used within the range for which
it was Intended, the book has no equal. Not only will the
children for whom it was written find it interesting but
so will many adults who have never been initiated into the
great history of the Christian church.

The illustrations p.re copious and usual. Nearly all of
them are drawn from contemporary sources — from min-
iatures in manuscripts, from carvings, from old woodcuts.
These, reduced to line drawings, are not only decorative
but illustrative. Here, for example, are the church's ear-
ly symbols as painted on the walls of the catacombs and
carved on tablets and sarcophagi in honor of the dead.
The influence of the church on architecture is shown
through numerous drawings. One not only reads that "Goth-
ic architecture grew out of the Romanesque by making
the vault pointed and by setting supports for the pillars a
little distance away with arms called flying buttresses
reaching across," but he sees exactly what the author
means by this in an illustration placed alongside the text.
The whole pageant of popes, monks, saints, crusaders,
preachers, kings, peasants, and reformers unfolds along-
side the text of the volume.

The author has done far more than collect interesting
and colorful episodes and string them together. He has
written an authentic history which is at the same time a
book of wonderful stories. As a means of giving children
some knowledge of their Christian heritage and of the
processes by which it has come to them, and of cultivating
in them a receptive attitude toward it, this book is recom-
mended without qualification.

LANDMARKS FOR BEGINNERS IN PHILOSOPHY.
By Irwin Edman and Herbert W. Schneider. Cornwall,
New York: The Cornwall Press, 1941. 1008 pages.

This is the type of book that every teacher would like to
have available for the use of his students in every area
of historical investigation. There is no tool more useful
than one that makes accessible the original sources of in-

178 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

formation in any field of inquiry. But ordinarily these
sources are so vast in scope and so widely scattered that
it becomes practically impossible to introduce them to the
student in the initial stages of his education. An adequate
source-book, such as is here supplied for students of phi-
losophy, seems to be the best answer to the problem.

The task of selection was an arduous one where only a
single volume of a thousand pages was permitted. There
had to be large omissions and some users of the book may
regiet the absence of names that stand high in their es-
teem. The editors were not unaware of this possibility.
But they adopted as a principle for guidance those phi-
losophers who could most truly be regarded as "land-
marks" representative of the total range of the main
problems of philosophy. Thus they represent not merely
high points in the history of philosophical thinking but
landmarks in the permanent landscape. The selections are
believed to represent perennial issues and recurrent prob-
lems in western philosophy and to be eminent for clarity
and cogency. Whenever possible, complete works, or at
least continuous portions, have been printed, thus avoid-
ing the atomistic character of many source-books. An ex-
planatory introduction is prefixed to each author but this
is always brief and is no substitute for the perusal of the
original text.

Following are the contents. Plato's "Protagoras" and
"Symposium" are reprinted in full. Aristotle is represent-
ed by selections from his "Physics" and his "Nichomach-
ean Ethics." There are selections from Augustine's
"Enchiridion" and his "City of God." Thomas Aquinas is
represented bj^ selections from Summa contra gentiles.
Descartes "Discourse on Method," Parts I-IV, is given
in full. Selections are made again from Hobbes' "Elements
of Philosophy" and his "Leviathan," from Berkeley's "Of
the Principles of Human Knowledge," and from Hume's
"Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and "En-
quiry Concerning the Principles of Morals." Kant's "Fun-
damental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals" and
Hegel's "Introduction to the Philosophy of History" are

BOOKS REVIEWED 179

given in full. Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and
Idea" has been handled more freely and is presented in
a compilation of extracts. Essays I and II of Nietzsche's
"Genealogy of Morals;" portions from "The Sentiment of
Rationality." "Reflex Action and Theism," and "Pragma-
tism" by William James ; and chapter I of Bergson's "Two
Sources of Morality and Religion" complete the volume.
And its value is further enchanced by an excellent top-
ical index.

CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT. By Soren
Kierkegaard. Princ2ton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1941. 579 pages. $6.00.

In the May issue of Religion in the Making Walter
Lowi ie's translation of Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way
was reviewed. There mention was made of this Danish
author's situation and point of view. Previously Professor
Swenson had published an English translation of Kier-
kegaard's Philosophical Fragments and now the rendering
of the Postscript, begun by Professor Swenson and com-
pleted by Dr. Lowrie, makes available for English readers
a fairly complete presentation of Kierkegaard's type of
philosophical thinking. He is the father of the so-called
"existential" philosophy that has been revived today to
interpret the disrupted status of the modern world. In the
first instance it was put forth as a protest against the
Hegelian absolute idealism that fitted all phenomena into
a unified system free from all contradictions and diver-
sities. On the contrary, the existential type of thinking
accepts as ultimate reality "the mess we are in" without
endeavoring to eliminate its contradictions by the arbi-
trary methods of a unifying logic. A dialectic of opnosit'\s
rather than a close-knit system of logical uniformities is
thought to be the proper technique of discussion. It is the
philosopher's task to take the world as it is and to deal
with its diversities without any ambition to construct a
uniform system of thought that would eliminate con-
flicting variations. The outcome is pessimism rather than
optimism, and the latter is thought to represent the only
true picture of reality.

180 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

PAUL BECOMES A LITERARY INFLUENCE. By
Albert E. Barnett. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1941. 277 pages. $2.50.

The author has undertaken a laborious task which he
has performed with unremitting diligence and pains-
taking accuracy. He has examined with microscopic care
all of the extant Christian writings to about the middle
of the second century with a view to ascertaining the ex-
tent of their acquaintance with the letters of Paul. The
conclusions reached are to the effect that Paul's letters
attained popularity as a collection during the last decade
of the first century, but lost their popularity during the
first quarter of the second century, because of the use
made of them by heretics. During the next quarter-cen-
tury, however, they recovered their prestige and thus
became an integral part of the New Testament canon of
scripture. This general conclusion, which might be ap-
parent even to the casual observer, has now been given
a scientific demonstration that will be heartily welcomed
by all scholars interested in the subject.

Dr. Barnett has had a more specific purpose in mind.
He aims to marshal his data in support of the special
thesis of his former teacher, Edgar J. Goodspeed, under
whose direction he pursued this study in candidacy for the
Ph. D. degree. This hypothesis assumes that the publi-
cation of Luke-Acts awakened a fresh interest in Paul and
led to a collection of his letters for which the collector
composed Ephesians as a general intioduction. Thereafter
the Pauline corpus became an influential body of writings
acquaintance with which is more or less evident in the
subsequent literature. This supposition is readily conceded
when an author makes specific reference to Paul but that
phenomenon rarely occurs. Hence the argument for de-
pendence has to rest upon the discovery in the later writ-
ings of words, phrases or ideas that appear also in one or
another of Paul's letters. Of course, under these circum-
stances one can never be quite sure that actual literary
dependence has to be assumed. There is always the pos-
sibility, perhaps even the more likely probability, that

BOOKS REVIEWED 181

this language had become the current oral phraseology of
many churches after Paul's day and had survived not as
literature but as the habitual language of one or another
type of Chi istian thinking. And, as usually happens, when
a writer shows acquaintance with the terminology and
ideas of only a limited number of Pauline letters it might
seem more likely that he derived his knowledge from the
oral tradition of some specific locality than from the pe-
rusal of a complete Pauline collection of epistles. Dr. Bar-
nett is too good a scholar to be unaware of the tentative
character of his findings. With admirable caution he
concludes that sometimes literary dependences seem
"practically certain," but more often he is content to
maintain only a "high degree" or a "reasonable degree"
of probability. In both method and temper this book is a
model of exact scholarship.

WORSHIP. By J. O. Dobson. New York: The MacMiilan
Company, 1941. 190 pages. $1.25.

Worship is here interpreted from the Anglican point
of view. Hence the book is marked by insights and ap-
preciations that are especially characteristic of that com-
munion. The basal elements in worship are said to be
two-fold. Each act represents an offering to God on the
part of man and a receiving of God's grace. There is a
two-way process. The media of expression are prayer,
symbol and sacrament, and the Holy Communion. Hence
the importance of liturgy which provides not only a means
by which man approaches Deity but a mechanism by which
God communicates himself to the devotee. Thus the book
is less well suited to the purposes of the non-liturgical
communions, but the information it exhibits is thoroughly
reliable and the attitude of the author is one of fair-
minded objectivity.

The discussion opens with two edifying chapters on the
necessity and nature of worship. These are followed by a
historically descriptive account of worship as it has de-
veloped within Christianity. There is an informative
though rather sketchy chapter on the manner of worship

182 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

as it was variously displayed from early Christian times
down to the sixteenth century. The use of art in worship
and the function of the sermon are considered, although
the latter is assigned a relatively unimportant place. This
must necessarily be so when ritualistic ceremony is
thought to be primary. The author recognizes that wor-
ship has fallen into some disrepute in modern times but
he still has faith in its future notwithstanding present
decline in church-going. He concedes that changes in form
and phrasing may become necessary under altered con-
ditions if worship is to maintain a functional reality.
This is particularly true of the younger churches estab-
lished on the mission fields. It is unwise to transplant
from the west rigid liturgical forms upon this foreign
soil. The new churches ought rather to learn to express
their Christian life in forms that are of their native
heritage.

A final chapter on the fulfilment of worship enjoins
the necessity of carrying ever into practical life the
vision of God and the knowledge of his will derived from
the experience of worship. The Christian life should be
one of self-forgetting social service, but this must be
constantly purified and inspired by renewed acts of
worship.

THE ETHICAL IDEALS OF JESUS IN A CHANGING
WORLD. By G. Bromley Oxnam. Nashville: The Abing-
don-Cokesbury Press, 1941. 135 pages. $1.00.

The lectures given by Bishop Oxnam during Ministers'
Week at Florida Southern College in January, 1941, are
here presented in print. A summary of their contents ap-
peared in the January issue of Religion in the Making
and this need not be repeated. But the privilege of read-
ing the lectures in full, and at one's leisure, provides an
opportunity for a most gratifying experience. The
charming style in which this wealth of practical wisdom
is phrased, the lecturer's firm intellectual grasp of moral
and social problems, the clarity of his spiritual vision,
and the force with which he drives home his message,

BOOKS REVIEWED 183

hold one's undivided attention from the first to t'. e last
page. Eveiyone who heard the lectures will want to read
the book and those who were not privileged to hear the
lectures will find it indispensible. It is a fresh attack
upon modern social, industrial and international problems
by one <,vho brings to his task an abiding conviction that
the ethical ideals of Jesus are still pertinent to the crucial
moral and spiritual issues than constantly re-emerge in our
changing world.

SOCIAL WELFARE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By
Marguerite T. Boylan. New York: The Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1941. 363 pages. $3.00.

We have here an intensive study of the social welfare
program of the Roman Catholic church. The book is not
concerned with theories or schemes for social reform.
Rather, it is descriptive of the work of Catholic charities,
particularly as they have been operating during the last
decade. The author is herself Executive Secretary of
Catholic charities in the diocese of Brooklyn which she
draws upon for much of her illustrative material. But she
is also widely familiar with the development of other dioc-
esan bureaus that have been organized extensively by
Roman Catholics since the year 1900. She shows how
the bureaus have developed in line with the needs of dif-
ferent localities and under diverse conditions in ac-
cordance with size of population, economic and social
status, and the general character of a diocese. The book
is packed with information, carefully selected and some-
times tabulated or charted, that is of first-rate importance
for social workers, whether or not they happen to be
connected with the Roman Catholic Church. Social work
under religious auspices is not thought to eliminate the
need for lay workers. There are many types of activity
that can best be performed by them, such as social case
work, probation and parole. But the ultimate goal of
effort should be a spiritual motivation derived from the
Christian philosophy of life that elevates love and human
brotherhood above the hatred, intolerance, violence and
persecution so conspicuous in our present civilization.

184 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

■COMPREHENSIVE CONCORDANCE TO THE HOLY
SCRIPTURES. By J. B. R. Walker. New York: The Mae-
Millan Company, 1941. 957 pages. $2.00.

This useful concordance to the Bible was first published
half a century ago. It has been frequently republished
and is now reissued at a moderate price that makes it
available for a wider circle of ministers and biblical stu-
dents. Although it is based upon the King James version
of the English Bible, it has not yet been superseded by
any more recent book. It is still an indispensable tool
for those who wish to locate specific words and passages
of scripture.

THE RETURN TO RELIGION. By Henry C. Link. New
York: The MacMillan Company, 1941. 181 pages. $1.00.
This lias been a widely read book since it was first
published in the year 1936. It is now reissued at a re-
duced price in the hope of reaching a still larger circle
of readers. Religion is here conceived of primarily as a
therapeutic for the sick minds. For people whose lives are
enslaved by their temporary mental aberrations, the ways
of thinking and acting prescribed by the Christian religion
are believed to offer the surest relief from mental distress
and the most helpful guide for conduct.

ARE WE IMMORTAL? By Winifred Kirkland. New York:
The MacMillan Company, 1941. 43 pages. $.90.

This brief literary essay defends faith in the immortality
of the human soul. At least to live now as if we were to
endure hereafter, and to have faith in that about which
exact present knowledge is impossible, is thought to make
life most worth living.

NOW WE MUST CHOOSE. By Henry N. Wieman.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941. 245 pages.
$2.00.

This is an attempt to undergird our tottering democracy
with a redefinition of its real nature and a program of
procedure that will insure its survival. It seeks to make
clear the manner in which true democracy is to be con-

BOOKS REVIEWED 185

ceived, and by choosing or refusing to accept this philoso-
phy of democracy we determine its fate in the future. The
temper of the discussion is throughout expository rather
than dogmatic. Readers already familiar with Pro-
fessor Wieman's type of thinking will still find him the
same tolerant person, who is almost reverential toward
those with whom he disagrees while at the same time he
advocates his distinctive opinions with persuasive zeal and
conviction.

A large part of the book consists in analyzing the forces
that have operated to defeat the democratic process. It
tends to lose its dynamic when the united energies of the
people aie channeled into the plans of a dictator. This
means death to democracy since it smothers the generative
foices that make possible further democratic growth. This
distinctive principle applies not only in politics but over the
total range of organized society's operations. Whenever
individuals rise to power in the economic, industrial, ed-
ucational or religious areas of life they trend to establish
a disruptive independence that militates against a fully
operative democratic way of life. Stress upon the independ-
ence of individuals, the pursuits of absolute idealism, and
centralization of control in business and industry are
thought to be the dangers 01 the hour in modern times.
What is needed to checkmate this menace is not the sup-
pression of individualism but a larger recognition of the
inevitability of conflict and a determination to practice
mutual consideration for conflicting interests and points
of view.

Accordingly, the author proposes two rules for the at-
tainment of true democracy. These are "creative inter-
action" and the "compounding of perspectives." This is
only the philosopher's way of saying that human beings
of all classes, races and types need to learn to live togeth-
er cooperatively and peaceably while working out as best
they can procedures that will permit them to realize for
all concerned the highest measure of common good. More
attention should be given to the purpose than to the mech-
anisms of the democratic operations. The only coercion

186 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to be permitted is an inherent drive emanating from one's
sense of belonging to the common human family and con-
stituting a "functional member of a sensitive, responsive,
creative community of other human beings." This is the
faith that will save democracy; otherwise we shall lapse
into the tyranny of dictatorship.

Underlying Professor Wieman's thesis is a faith in the
ordinary run of people that may seem to some of his
readers almost naive. At times he appears to entertain an
almost romantic confidence in the virtues of humanity in
the raw, and would trust our salvation to the creative ac-
tivity of human beings on the level of primitivity. At
such moments he might be classed as a disciple of Rous-
seau or of Gerald Heard. But this would be to do him a
grave injustice. He is keenly conscious of the fact that
society must have effective and intelligent leadership.
What he is pleading for is a realistic appreciation of the
elemental human factors that must enter into the creation
of a genuine democracy and an attitude of wider tolera-
tion and deeper comprehension on the part of leaders who
give themselves to the task of helping to bring in a new
day for the democratic way of life. The book does not at-
tempt to prescribe detailed agenda. Rather, it aims to
clarify purposes and sensitize minds to the task in hand.
As such it has a distinctly therapeutic value.

CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
Ey Arthur E. Holt. New York: Friendship Press, 1941.

187 pages. $1.00.

"It is the contention of this book that . . . when we
establish churches, we are saving democracy from within."
The reference is to Protestant churches, for "Democracy
in political life and democracy in religious life reinforce
each other or die together." This forthright thesis the
author maintains first by a novel analysis of the democratic
ideal which pervades biblical literature, and second by an
inquiry into the relationship of religious concepts and
democratic philosophy at crucial moments in American
history. The author concludes that while democracy and

BOOKS REVIEWED 187

Christianity in this country have never equated, each irr
its present form owes a vital debt to the other.

This symbiotic relationship of democracy and Protest-
antism in America is now threatened by the growth of
organized prejudice, by the concentration of economic
power, and by world imperialism. Will it survive? The
author believes it depends on "whether or not democracy
can maintain its central core of values .... Even though
Germany and Italy should be beaten into the ground, the
basic problem of democracy would not have been settled.'*

This is an interesting book. Its style is discursive
rather than expository, and the relevance of some of its
pages to the main theme is difficult to discover. But it is
suggestive, fresh and realistic.

MAKING THE MOST OF THE REST OF LIFE. By
Karl Ruff Stolz. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press.
416 pages. 1941. $1.50.

This book is intended to tell middle-aged people or
"those of riper years and experience" "how to live grace-
fully and wholesomely during the second half of life."
The period of adolescence has long been recognized as one
of stress and strain with physical changes, new mental
horizons and spiritual urges that affect all of later life.
Doctors, lawyers and some preachers have also recognized
that a similar period of adjustment faces mature men and
women. We have talked, some of us, about the "foolish
forties," the "fatal fifties," and some have referred to the
"sexy or senile sixties," but there has not been much un-
derstanding of early middle age nor have ministers had
much material to pui; in the hands of people facing the
beginning of the second half of life. Dr. Stolz's most re-
cent book faces in frank and interesting fashion many of
the problems of middle life and old age.

A husband and wife had returned home from a party

given by elderly friends. The hostess had retained much

, of her youthful beauty which was crowned not only with

I eyes alight, but with a beauty of character and sweetness

of disposition that endeared her not only to the members

188 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of her family, but to friends and casual acquaintances.
The young wife said to her husband, "I wouldn't mind
growing old if I could be as beautiful and gracious as Mrs.
So and So." To which the husband replied, "You can be,
but if you are to have a beautiful old age, you must begin
now."

This book is an excellent one to put in the hands of
men and women who are disturbed by certain physical
and other changes they begin to meet in the forties. Such
ordinary affairs as money, rules of health, rest, exercise
are among the topics interestingly discussed. Second
marriages, adult education, the making of new friends and
solitude are also included. The author is insisting that
success in the second half of life depends on recognition
of those elements that will make life normal. He says :
"Basic activities and inteiests make and keep an individ-
ual normal. First, the normal man is usefully if not gain-
fully employed. Second, he is wholesomely related to other
people, Third, he is honest and capable enough to exam-
ine and improve himself. Fourth, he has a sympathetic
understanding of the situations others face. Fifth, he
cultivates a tension reducer in the form of an avocation
or hobby. Sixth, and finally, he has a sound philosophy
of life which gives meaning to his world and support to
his conduct. These six competencies and developments
are not luxuries without which a man can live normally,
but indispensabilities. Furthermore, they interpenetrate.
The first five are regulated and controlled by the sixth."
Along with this there is a deep undertone in this book
rising out of the definite assurance that "'life can be
good," with all the deep significance that can be read into
the tei m.

THE SHAKER ADVENTURE, an Experiment in Con-
tented Living. Ey Marguerite Fellows Melcher. Princeton,
N. J.: The Princeton University Press, 1941. 319 pages.
$3.00.

This account of the Shakers is a well documented, sym-
pathetic narrative of the origins, doctrines, economy, arts
and fa': j of the Shaker communities in America. The

BOOKS REVIEWED 180

author uses mostly Shaker sources a^c! emits some of the
critical material available on Mother Ann and the ea^ ly
history. But the story is none the less as authentic as
any account of the Shakers is ever apt to be, and gains
much from the author's personal acquaintance with the
communities.

The theme of "adventure" is emphasized for a double
reason : to bring out the element of pioneering adventir e
in the Shaker faith, and to point out than when this love
of adventure ceased, and the new members sought 7 ather
security, the life went out of the movement. The history
of the Shaker movement is indicative of this loss of life :
at first the dances were vigorous sublimations of energy
and sex; then they became curiosities for the entertain-
ment of "the world ;" and lastly they became lifeless rit-
uals. The author regards the whole experiment as an ad-
venturous but persistent pursuit of a perfect life, per-
fection implying the devotion of the member to the group
(family) and of the body to the spirit. The author points
out convincingly that a real perfection was attained in
their agriculture, architecture, and handicrafts, but that
the Shakers had a different conception of "spirit" than
the spirit of art implies, and that instead of continuing
to adapt their economy and arts to a changing world, they
adhered steadfastly to prophetic spiritualism.

Spiritualism and the hope of Christ's coming were both
the inspiration and the cause of failure. Irresponsible
spirit messages and teachings sowed the seed of distrust.
One of the most curious and instructive episodes in the
narrative is the enthusiasm for a decade or more in out-
door worship (and dances) on "holy hills."

The list of sources and the information regarding the
present state of Shaker properties are valuable features
of the book.

GOD'S BACK PASTURE. By Arthur Wentworth Hewitt.
Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1941. $1.50.

Those who read Highland Shepherds, published two
years ago, will be eager to share further in the author's

190 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

experience as he discusses other phases of the rural min-
istry in his new book, God's Back Pasture. The former
book dealt with the rural pastor's "professional" work;
this one discusses his sociological parish responsibilities.
For the title of the book, Mr. Hewitt uses an expression
of scorn for the rural parish that is made by some who
have ambitions elsewhere — "the back pasture" — and he
turns to good account as he explains that the back pasture
is the one high up on the mountain from which the widest
landscape is seen. This book is another testimony of the
conviction that the pastor who serves in the rural sec-
tion is really privileged of God.

Mr. Hewitt describes the conditions and problems that
are present in the rural parish and indicates what the
Church can do to Christianize the situation. Why the
Church does so little about it he summarizes under six
headings: Invincible ignorance, ecclesiastical manslaugh-
ter, fantastic pessimism, pious immorality, economic
stringency, and the fact that the Church is a "colony" in-
stead of a "state."

Continuing, Mr. Hewitt discusses with cnaracteristic
wit and wisdom the arrangement and management of the
sanctuary as a place for the worship of God. He gives at-
tention to the parish house, rural church finance, the ed-
ucational work of the Church, and rural philosophy.

The great value of the book lies in the fact that the
author -hares with his readers the principles that have
made his long ministry in the rural parish conspicuously
fruitful. The volume will tend to develop within the read-
er a wholesome attitude toward and respect for the rural
parish as a field for a significant life work. This is one of
the really important books about this field, and should
be in the library of every rural pastor.

CREATIVE FACTORS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.
A Social Psychology of Scientific Knowledge Studying
the Interplay of Psychological and Cultural Factors in
Science with Emphasis on Imagination. By Austin L.

BOOKS REVIEWED 191

Porterfield. Durham: Duke University Press, 1941. 282
pages. $3.50.

This is an orderly, logical, concise, concrete critique of
scientific methods, useful to social scientists in every
field, and not without interest to biologists and physical
scientists. It should be particularly useful as a ref-
erence book in all classes in social research.

The study develops a social psychology of scientific en-
deavor by studying the interplay of psychological and cul-
tural factors in the development of science. It shows how
the assumptions of the scientists are related to his cul-
tural backgrounds and demonstrates the dependence of
his techniques upon his methodological assumptions; indi-
cates "that culture itself is the product of creative in-
sight, and requires the same mental processes for its study
and interpretation as were originally required for its
origination and development;" emphasizes the fact that
"the dynamic factor in research consists in the creative
control of observation, experimentation, and reasoning/'
It illuminates its principles by drawing them out of and
applying them to concrete materials.

LIVING UNDER TENSION. By Harry Emerson Fos-
dick. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941. 253 pages.
$1.50.

The public has come to expect something of unusual
value whenever a new book or collection of sermons by
Harry Emerson Fosdick is announced. There will be no
disappointment with reference to his latest volume
Living Under Tension, between the covers of which may
be found twenty-five of the recent sermons by one of the
most popular preachers of modern times.

The subject of the first sermon in the volume furnishes
the title of the book, which is appropriate, since most of
the sermons reproduced here were prepared and preached
in the atmosphere of the days of stress and strain in
which we are still living. However, Dr. Fosdick has pre-
ferred to deal with eternal principles rather than with

192 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

temporary issues. Yet, he has not avoided current sit-
uations, and again and again he reaffirms briefly his
well-known convictions regarding the futility of war, its
evil consequences, and the impossibility of getting peace
by unpeaceful methods, or democracy by undemocratic
methods, or liberty by illiberal methods.

One could not even characterize each of the twenty-five
sermons in an ordinary review. It is enough to say that
they are up to Dr. Fosdick's recognized standard of ex-
cellence and will richly repay an unhurried reading, per-
haps one at a time on Sunday afternoons. To this re-
viewer the following sermons were especially impressive:
"How to Stand Up and Take It," "What Does the Divinity
of Jesus Mean?" "The Cross, an Amazing Paradox," "A
Great Year for Easter."

* * * *

RELIGION

In The Making

VOLUME II MARCH, 1942 No. 3

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES

By M. C. Otto

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT TO THE RENAIS-
SANCE

By John T. McNeill

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM IN
I CLEMENT

By Martin Rist

THE SAMARITAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
TRADITION

By Frederick M. Derwacter

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS

By Elmer T. Clark

AN ANALYTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT

By William H. Bernhardt

FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION, LAKELAND, FLA.

RELIGION IN THE MAKING

VOLUME II No. 3

Shirley Jackson Case, Editor

Religion in the Making is published four times a year,
in May, November, January and March. It is sponsored by
the Florida School of Religion and edited by the dean of the
School.

The subscription price is $2.00 per year, or sixty cents
per single issue. Remittances should be made by postal or
express money orders or by check and made payable to the
Florida School of Religion.

All communications, including business correspondence,
manuscripts, exchanges, and books submitted for review, should
be addressed to Shirley Jackson Case, Editor, Florida School
of Religion, Lakeland, Fla.

Published by the Florida School of Religion, Box 146
Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, four times a year,
May 15, November 15, January 15, and March 15. Entered
as second class matter at the Post Office, Lakeland, Florida.

RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Shirley Jackson Case, Editor
VOLUME II Contents for March, 1942 No. 3

OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 195

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES 197

By M. C. Otto

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT TO THE RENAIS-
SANCE _ 207

By John T. McNeill

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM IN

I CLEMENT . 222

By Martin Rist

THE SAMARITAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

TRADITION : 236

By Frederick M. Derwacter

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS .. 241

By Elmer T. Clark

AN ANALYTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD-
CONCEPT — 252

By William H. Bernhardt
NOTES AND NEWS 264

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

M. C. Otto is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Wisconsin, where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1911, having
joined the faculty the previous year. He has been a frequent
contributor to scholarly periodicals, and among his published
books are Things and Ideals, Natural Laws and Human Hopes,
and The Human Enterprise: An Attempt to Relate Philosophy
to Life.

Frederick M. Derwacter is well known to scholars through
his book, Preparing the Way for Paul, published a decade ago.
He is at present Professor of Greek in William Jewell College
and holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Uni-
versity of Chicago.

Elmer T. Clark has for many years been engaged in educa-
tional and literary activity in the service of the Methodist
Church. As an editor and author he has been responsible for
a score of books, one of the most recent being The Small Sects
in America. He received his , education at Vanderbilt and
Temple Universities and holds an honorary LL.D. from South-
ern College.

John T. McNeill is Professor of European Christianity
in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He is
?.lso the author of several learned volumes and numerous articles
in the standard religious periodicals. He holds degrees from
McGill University, Westminister Hall, and the University of
Chicago.

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Martin Rist, who occupies the New Testament chair at the
Iliff School of Theology, received the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy at the University of Chicago a few years ago. He
has already written a number of scholarly papers that have been
published in different journals.

William Henry Bernhardt has already been introduced to
our readers by the article he contributed to these pages in the
issue of January, 1941. We heartily welcome a second product
of his pen.

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES

By M. C. Otto

University of Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Religion is nearly as old as man. It came out of pre-history
with aspiring wonder in its eyes and the blood of innocent
victims on its garments. The spirit of brotherhood has at-
tended it down the centuiies: so have hardness of heart and
narrowness of mind. Moral integrity has been its watchword
and moral compromise its frequent practice. Sometimes it has
deserved to be called an "opiate of the people"; nevertheless it
has persistently aimed to arouse and strengthen the best in
human beings. Although it has become stiff with tradition,
it still embodies the ageless hope of a better life in a better
world. Because of this history, this involvement in humanity's
struggle, we may safely assume that some form of religion
will survive as long as man — man the creature who initiated
devotion to ideals as a function of life.

But ours is a critical time for religion. Deflection from
religious institutions, enforced by state authority, has been ad-
vertised for the world to see. In Europe and in America religion
is on the defensive. In the eastern hemisphere where oriental
religions have for almost two thousand years withstood Chris-
tian dogma and latterly Christian guns, religious conceptions
:ire suffering from the impact of secular events. This is true
even among the isolated, backward peoples who have managed
to adhere most closely to primitive beliefs and practices. They
are being enticed into the ways and views of more sophisticated
races. Everywhere religion is in a crucial state, and no re-
ligion will come out of this crisis unscathed.

A phenomenon of such magnitude and one that in certain
important features has no historical parallel is not to be compre-
hended in all its fullness. It can however be well enough
understood to leave no doubt that profound religious changes
are going on and that further changes of a similar nature are

198 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

inevitable. Moreover, we can perhaps select from the immense
complexity of the. causal factors the one that is most dynamic.

What is this factor? To this question not everyone will
give the same answer. For my part I find it to be the attractive-
ness of the life-economy produced by the union of inventive
genius and a highly .perfected scientific technique. Radios,
automobiles, devices of birth control, large scale commercial
products, gadgets of applied science — such things as these are
finding their way to every part of the globe. From this life-
economy no one plans seriously to be free, in spite of its ad-
mitted and deplored shortcomings. Its comforts and opportu-
nities are wanted for what they are, and they are looked upon
almost universally as necessities of civilized existence. The
result is that habits, customs, desires, and ideas which were
foreign to those who gave shape to our inherited religions are
taking commanding place in the lives of contemporary men and
women.

This vital and inescapable situation has created the problem
which religion has to solve in the human interest. Religion
must willingly enter into the growing togetherness of men in
what they seek and the ways and means of their seeking. It
must willingly become part of the active, daily, normal business
of living, and on this basis work for the best and noblest in
human nature. That is to say, religion is challenged to trans-
form itself; so to transform itself that the inherited distinction
between the secular and the religious will disappear, and all life,
rather than a detached part of it only, may be thought sacred;
so transform itself that to be religious will mean that the entire
man, whatever his race or social status, or however he makes his
living, may be engaged in advancing the dignity and happiness
of mankind.

To make this ideal more specific let us consult two passages
of New Testament scripture, one in the Gospel of John, the
other in the Epistle of James. Not that these passages are to be
taken as final authorities, or that we are to confine our hopes
to their original interpretation. On the contrary, we are to
transcend their earlier import and search them for suggestions
relevant to the present religious exigency.

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES 199

John omits some of the most familiar and best-liked por-
tions of the gospel account. He says nothing of the Good
Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Rich Young Ruler, the drama
of Gethsemane, or the principles of conduct enunciated in the
Sermon on the Mount. But he does tell of events to which
no other writer refers. Among these is the story of a man
prominent among the Jews who came to Jesus for a personal
interview, and who came by night, probably not wishing to
have his visit noised about while he was still uncertain what
to think of the religious innovation called the Good News.
There in a dimly lighted room where big shadows moved and
gestured as the two talked, Jesus spoke the words that have
found their way into all languages: "Ye must be born again."

Nicodemus was baffled by what he heard. The proposal
struck him as fantastic. But Jesus was insistent. The wind
blows, he said, but you do not know where it started nor where
it is going. So. is everyone who is born from above. His life,
from the viewpoint of the uninitiated, is an insoluble mystery.
Yet its demand in the way of practice is clear. You are not
asked to begin again the life you have lived, the life in which
success is failure and victory defeat: you are asked to enter
upon a new life which you have never yet begun to live and
which, if you lose, you have lost everything, no matter what
you 'seem to have won. "Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again."

In line with this admonition we may draw a preliminary
conclusion. Religion is a life: a life st> ,different in moral
disposition from the commonly prevailing ambitions and pur-
poses that to enter upon it amounts! to a new birth. Jesus
stressed the unbridgable difference in a memorable sentence:
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit."

We cannot make sure what Jesus himself had in mind, but
the saying was soon given an interpretation which for most
people it has carried ever since. According to this interpretation
body and soul are two entities absolutely distinct in origin and
destiny: the one is composed of natural elements doomed to fall
apart again into dust: the other is a simple, indivisible substance

200 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

forever indestructible. And religion consists in caring for the
eternal "wellbeing" of that soul.

Today we are under no necessity to accept the traditional
interpretation. Indeed, in the light of modern knowledge this
would be difficult to do. We need not think of the soul as a
ihing. We need not regard it as the spiritual double of the
physical body. We may think of soul as an attitude in living,
as the essential personal element refined in the laboratory of
daily action and daily relations. But in any case the religious
life is in some sense a life of the spirit. It is the antithesis of
the conventional materialistic life. In that respect the words
spoken to Nicodemus are still authentic: "Marvel not that
I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."

So far, so good. Religion implies interests diametrically
opposed to those ordinarily pursued. Its aims and rewards
are utterly different from the aims and rewards of the unreli-
gious life. Stated in these terms, however, the ideal is still
too general or even abstract. It must be rendered more specific
and concrete. The Epistle of James will take us a step in that
direction. James had little respect for religion in the abstract.
He judged a man's religion by the specific things it led him to
value and to do. "Pure religion," he declared in a well-known
passage, "and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world."

If it were our task to determine precisely what James meant
by this definition, a number of words would give us trouble:
pure, undefiled, God, Father, world. And in each case we
should have to decide whether James thought of religion as
primarily a natural or a supernatural allegiance. But we
happen to be interested in his particular usage only in so far
as it may aid in clarifying the meaning of religion for our own
time and situation. Examined with this intention, the quoted
passage sets forth two requirements: responsiveness to human
need and avoidance of degrading influences. Fatherless and
widows in affliction — what is this but a symbol of distress?
Spotted by the world — what is this but a metaphor depicting

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES 201

the blotting out of a man's finer nature in the contacts of day
to day living?

Two requirements: but so intimately and inseparably
lelated that as we think about them they fuse into one. Sensi-
tiveness to human need will not survive in a personality sur-
rendered to dehumanizing impulses, and a personality genuinely
humane will resist surrender to those impulses. Hence, uniting
the two requirements, we may say that religion is active de-
votion to the common welfare and, at the same time, active
opposition to every tendency that would coarsen men's motives
and harden their hearts.

A great mystery could be made of this definition by those
who are more keenly interested in conceptual refinements than
in the refinement of life. Others will not be much puzzled.
They know without being told what it means to be helpful
where help is needed. They are aware of degrading aspects
of their environment without having them labeled. But we
cannot stop with the close at hand or the familiar. Religious
opportunity and obligation reach beyond the nearer into the
wider environment, reach into "the world" which is after all
the context of every man's doing and being. The proposal
must therefore be sufficiently particularized to indicate where,
in that broader sphere, the religious issue is most accute.

Foremost among these particulars is resistance to increasing
moral cynicism. Various reasons have been assigned for its
increase among us. Science has been blamed for it. Intensi-
fied competition for material gain has been blamed. So has
the successful ruthlessness of the dictators. But whatever the
cause may be, the effect is unmistakable. Moral conviction
has weakened; moral energy has decreased.

Is this really so? The air seems full of moral invective.
Blame, if not praise, is handed out with a bountiful hand.
Nor are we slow to punish what we regard as crimes. If a
man throws a brick through a store window he is put in jail.
If he robs a bank he goes to the penitentiary. If he kills a
man with malicious intent he is hanged, electrocuted, or in-
carcerated for years or for life. It is, however, just as true
that a man may destroy, rob, counterfeit, kill in the moral.

202 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

realm, in the realm of truth, justice, beauty, ordinary decency,
and go scot free. He may exploit the intellectual and moral
resources of his fellow men, leaving the area of his exploitation
spiritually arid, and not only escape all social penalty, but be
honored, extolled, called to positions of trust, elected to public
office with improved opportunity to repeat the progress on a
larger scale.

Let us look more closely at this disturbing issue. Every
home, every school, every church in the land is expected to
train the young in elevated practice. Parents, teachers, minis-
ters of religion arc to inculcate principles of fair-dealing and
honesty, of unselfishness, chastity, devotion to country and
God. But no such responsibility operates on the men and
women who set the current standards of practical success. Day
by day we learn what is done by business leaders, industrialists,
bankers, newspaper owners, men in political office, and the
composite picture is not engaging. The idealism which homes
and schools and churches are to nurture is blandly ignored. Not
merely ignored, but betrayed, derided, ridiculed, made to appear
futile and childish. A stream of moral poison thus flows into
every community from sources which most of us are tempted
to look up to with respect.

The religious person will avoid this contaminating stream.
That is one thing it means to keep himself unspotted from the
world. And it means another thing. The religious person
will refuse to succumb to an even more obstructive trend of
contemporary life — the glorification of might and might-
philosophy.

The might-pattern of life goes back to those ages when the
lower animals competed for animal supremacy; yes, it goes
back to the still remoter times when inorganic forces were
building the stage on which the animal contest was later acted
out. Human beings appeared on the scene with the heritage
of those aeons of struggle in their bones. They had some-
thing else in them, too, the derivation of which remains un-
explained, something that gradually lifted them above the
struggle for sheer physical survival. Slowly they acquired
enough mastery of their environment to discard the rawer brut-

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES 203

ish instincts. They learned to respond to ideals of conduct in
opposition to those which had dominated their earlier career.

From then on human nature was a battle ground of two
vital attractions, savagery and civilization. Here and there
in the span of history a moral and aesthetic level was reached
which almost seemed to indicate that the savage past had been
outgrown. And again and again upsurgings of barbarism
wiped out great achievements of civilizing effort and at times
threatened to make an end of civilization altogether. By this
zigzag road we have come to where we are.

No one needs to be informed that the will to might is
once more on the march, and that it is armed with weapons
of destruction never approximated in the bloody conflict of
the past. "Blessed are the powerful." its champions declare;
"Blessed are the powerful, for they shall inherit the earth."
Let it be so for the moment. They will not keep the earth
they inherit, not even the earth, since it is inherent in the prin-
ciple of might that the fruits of victory shall presently be
snatched away by a new might, a stronger or a cleverer might.
And what is gained by inheriting the earth and losing the values
of life that make the inheritance blessed?

Considering the philosophy of might, all of us naturally
think of dictators and of war. Many of us think no further,
as if its exemplifications were confined to these. Of course
it is not. War and dictators are spectacular eruptions of a
fighting will that is always at the eruptive point in some area
of our social order. Indeed reliance upon might regardless of
consequences beyond those immediately aimed at is an out-
standing characteristic of our scheme of life. Pressure-group
tactics pervade our economic and political activities. All over
our country individuals are united in militant groups to ad-
vance their own welfare in defiance of the welfare of anyone
else. Even persons engaged in pursuits ostensibly far removed
from the battle for material success act as if might were right,
differing from comrades in ruthlessness solely in the art of
self-deception or public disguise.

Religious men and women can have nothing in common
with this morally devastating attitude. They are unalterably

204 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

opposed not only to wars of aggression and to dictators and all
their works, but to the wide-spread and deep-seated vice from
which war and dictators arise — ordinary, day to day un-
spectacular might-philosophy and might-behavior. Open op-
position to these ingrained habits and customs will cost a price.
To be religious .implies a readiness to pay that price; to pay it
in money, in social standing, or intellectual reputation, in
anything and everything it takes to reject might as an individ-
ual or social principle of living.

To these qualities of religion — repudiation of moral cyni-
cism and resistance to the infatuation exerted by physical might
— must be added the quality of feeling which was given first
place in the definition we have chosen. Religion implies out-
going good will. It means warmth of heart, quickness of
sympathy, willingness to lend a hand where needed. But good
will has two sides, an inner and an outer side. It combines
disposition and act. Mere good will is the ghost of a reality.
Actual good will lives in the body of a deed, a process, a pro-
gram.

Now if we follow this clue into society we see the necessity
of incorporating good will in social instruments. Many peo-
ple are so situated that aspiration can scarcely rise above the
hope of caring for bare physical needs. These people and these
situations are of direct concern to religion, especially to a reli-
gion which refuses to be put off by promise of compensating
satisfaction in the hereafter. It is therefore a primary religious
obligation to help incorporate good will in social institutions,
to take an active part in the establishment of a social order
which, in the words of Alice James, is "the embodiment of a
huge chance for hemmed-in humanity."

But social machinery left to itself will not establish or
maintain a beneficent social order. There happens to be no
substitute for good will in public affairs, as there is none for
thoughtfulness and affection in personal relations. And the
very multiplication of statutes, regulations, and bureaus tends
to withdraw attention from the critical appraisal of their moral
function. Therefore in our time, when we are prone to meet
new problems by multiplying such devices, it must be a pri-

RELIGION IN OUR TIMES 205

mary obligation of religion to infuse social mechanisms with
good will. True as the warning was when the citizens of
Corinth were advised of it in terms of their day, true as it
has been throughout history, so it is true for us in terms of our
world. Though we talk with the tongues of worldly wisdom
and understand the mystery of all knowledge and all machinery,
and have not good will, we are become as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. Though we distribute jobs to the unemployed
and give our bodies to be shattered by bombs, and have not
good will, it profits us nothing. For worldly wisdom will
fail, and machines will cease running, and knowledge will
vanish away. It is good will alone that is made to abide, and
abiding can give rise to better instruments and designs of human
happiness. We have knowledge, machinery, good will, these
three; and the greatest of these is good will. The greatest
but greatest among equals, and powerless alone. And be-
cause it will take yet a long while to bring the three into bal-
anced working unity, religion has plenty of work to do.

We in the United States and all mankind are now inescap-
ably involved in the most momentous crisis that has so far
threatened the human venture on this planet. We are engaged
in bloody conflict compared with which all previous wars seem
provincial struggles. As we give ourselves with determination
and fortitude and loyalty to the trial of might which we have
been unable to avoid, we can still hope and work to achieve,
even out of the stress and strain and suffering of the present
tragedy, a better social order and a more rational and humane
way of living together as peoples and races. If to be religious
does not mean at least this, it will not mean much that a reflec-
tive person will bother about.

In a time of great national danger and confusion Abraham
Lincoln sent a message to his countrymen. "The dogmas of
the quiet past," he wrote, "are inadequate to the stormy present
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with
the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think and act
anew. We must disenthrall ourselves."

We must disenthrall ourselves — this is the final message
of religion in our time as it has always been the message of

206 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

religion at its best. We must disenthrall ourselves as a people;
free ourselves from the low, the cheap, the false, the brutal,
the ugly in our environment, and draw upon the inner resources
of the human spirit, release its latent powers of intelligence and
good will, to build a happier and nobler world. And we must
disenthrall ourselves individually, live as we can in the world
we would build, whatever we can or cannot do with the world
about us.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty. We cannot
circumvent or run away from that difficulty. Our case is
new, and we must think and act anew. But if we think and
act as our times require we shall reestablish, in a form indigenous
to our age, the religious motivation characteristic of great civili-
zations in the past, before men had been misled into setting up
religion as a separate and specialized commitment antagonistic
lo the interests and occupations of life as a whole. So doing,
we shall heal the deepest wound from which modern civiliza-
tion has suffered and suffers — the rift between the actual and
the ideal. And healing that wound we shall set the feet of
man, woman, and child on a new pathway toward happiness
and worth.

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT TO THE RENAISSANCE

By John T. McNeill

University of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

The use of the word "debt'' in our title suggests the limits
within which we are to treat the intricate relationships of these
two movements. The Reformation has been represented as
the religious aspect of the Renaissance, and, on the contrary,
it has been described as a reaction against it. Both these
characterizations are so oversimplified as to express more error
than truth. There were individuals who moved easily from
the Renaissance to the Reformation, and some who were par-
ticipants in both movements at once. But in certain realms
cf discussion controversy arose between the protagonists of the
one movement and those of the other. Much of the Renais-
sance was indifferent to Christianity, while the Reformation
was primarily concerned with the church, the Christian life,
and theology. These divergences may not be examined here:
nor are we now concerned with anything the Reformation or
the counter-Reformation may have done to the later Renais-
sance. The question to engage our attention is briefly this:
In what ways did the Renaissance help to make the Reformation
possible and to determine its nature and its course?

Perhaps the most obvious point of indebtedness has to do
with the linguistic basis of Bible study. The Renaissance
attention to the Hebrew and Greek scriptures was first definitely
advanced by Gianozzo Manetti and Lorenzo Valla, under the
patronage of Pope Nicholas V. Nicholas, indeed, appointed
Maretti to translate the whole Bible into Italian, but the pope's
death ( 1455) brought the project to an end. The reformers,
from the beginning, sounded the appeal to Scripture, and to
Scripture in the original tongues. Luther's notes on Lombard's
Sentences, written at the outset of his lectures in theology
(1509-1511), already show some awareness of the importance
of Greek and Hebrew. He had procured a copy of Reuchlin's
Rudimenta which contained in three volumes the Hebrew Lexi--

208 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

con and Grammar, shortly after its publication in 1506. His
student friend, Johann Lang, now like Luther, an Augustinian,
was to assist his study of Reuchlin and to encourage the begin-
nings of his work in Greek.

It is; not suggested that Luther became a reformer because
he read the Bible in the original tongues. The reverse is nearer
the truth. His effective use of Greek and Hebrew came only
after his new opinions were well advanced. In his translation
of the Seven Penetential Psalms, April, 1517, he made only
limited use of Reuchlin's Septem psalmi poenitentiales, which
appeared in 1512. Similarly in his lectures on the Psalms,
1515-1516, he shows an elementary knowledge of Hebrew
and the Septuagint Greek. Lang's edition of the Psalter in
Hebrew, 1516, may have stimulated his Hebrew studies. His
expositions of the Psalms began to appear in print in 1519,
and at the Leipzig Disputation in that year he gave to a pro-
fessor of classics the impression of a competent knowledge of
both Hebrew and Greek. He based his later studies on the
Psalms defintely upon the Hebrew text.

Luther labored on with both languages for years thereafter.
In 1518, under Melanchthon's instruction, he renewed his
efforts in Greek; Homer swam into his ken, and so captured
his interest as to sprinkle his writings with a fair number of
Homeric words, phrases, and allusions. Lorenzo Valla's An-
notations had been published by Erasmus in 1505. In the
early years of Luther's revolt the works of Valla and Eramus.
of Reuchlin and Lang led him to regard the Vulgate as an un-
safe translation, and to form the habit of appealing from it to
the original languages.

In the actual work of translation Luther used in the Wart-
burg Erasmus' Greek text of the New Testament. His use
of the second edition of the work is probable, since it is known
that Luther had already made its acquaintance at Wittenberg.
Before this translation appeared, Melanchthon, a much better
Grecian than Luther, cooperated in its revision, no doubt with
full use of the up-to-date textual apparatus.

When, in early March, 1522, Luther was on his way back
from the Wartburg to Wittenberg, some Swiss students en-

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 209

countered him at the Black Boar tavern, Jena, in the attire of
a knight, poring over a Hebrew psalter. The Old Testament
was soon to follow the New into German. In this difficult
task Luther had the assistance of Melanchthon, Mathew Auro-
gallus, the new professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg, and others.
Though he himself did much of the hard labor, the translation
profited by the cooperation of abler Hebraists than himself.
The main textual basis for the Old Testament was the Brescia
Bible of 1494, which Gershom, son of Rabbi Moses, had printed
in small octavo "so that it may be with every man night and
day to study therein." A copy of this Hebrew Bible with
Luther's autograph is in the Royal Library, Berlin.

Luther's Bible appeared in complete form only in 1534.
The text incorporated revisions of previously published sections.
Incidentally, the book was a printer's masterpiece. A number
of revised editions followed in Luther's lifetime. The revisions
were determined on by the Wittenberg scholars in conference,
Luther taking the lead. The German Bible of the Reformation
was linguistically fortified by adequate mastery of the original
languages of the Scripture on Luther's own part, and by the
labors of men of sound humanistic learning.

But the first complete Protestant German Bible was not
Luther's. It was prepared by Zwinglian scholars of Zurich,
and published at Worms in 1529. It made free use of Luther's
earlier translations but employed the German-Swiss dialect.
Zwingli and Leo Jud brought out a second Swiss Bible in 1530,
published by Froschauer in Zurich. It was called The Entire
Bible According to the Greek and Hebrew Under Conrad
Celtes in Vienna and Thomas Wyttenbach in Basel, Zwingli
had become a humanist. Wyttenbach had led him to Bible
study, and with him Leo Jud and Wolfgang Capito, who also
became Protestant scholars. Zwingli calls Wyttenbach "my
patron and very dear preceptor." But for Zwingli the study
ripened under the influence of Erasmus, of which more later.
He made a copy with his own hands of Erasmus' Greek text
of the Pauline Epistles, 1517. Prior to coming to Zurich,
January 1, 1519, he had been engaged in close study of the
Greek New Testament, and he came, as he said, resolved "to
preach Christ from the fountain."

210 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Tyndale, the English translator, probably began Greek in
Oxford, where for more than a generation before his student
days, that language had been taught by men who had studied
it in Italy. The competent humanists, William Grocyn, Wil-
liam Lilly, William Latimer, Thomas Linacre, and John Colet
had returned from Italy as respectable students of Greek. Their
religious interests had not been weakened by contact with the
Italian Renaissance, but rather strengthened and redirected
through the influence of Pico, Ficino, and probably, in Colet's
case, of Savonarola. There is some reason to think that William
Latimer may have been Tyndale's instructor and that he was
that "ancient doctor" to whom Tyndale went for counsel
when intent upon his translation in 1523, and who then
confided to Tyndale his belief that the Pope is antichrist. Now
William Latimer had assisted Erasmus' labors on the Greek
Testament. There is no evidence that Tyndale met Erasmus;
he went to Cambridge some years after Erasmus had there
written most of his New Testament. But while in Glouces-
tershire, before his translation of the New Testament, Tyndale
translated Erasmus' Enchiridion. About this time he hotly
replied to one who in a learned company objected to his zeal
for the Scriptures: "If God spare my life ere many years I
will cause that a boy that driveth the plow shall know more
of the Scripture than thou dost." This outburst reveals the
fact that Tyndale had been reflecting upon the pregnant lan-
guage of Erasmus' preface to his New Testament of 1516, as
will appear from this familiar passage of the latter:

"Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as
possible. I would wish even all women to read the
gospels and the epistles of St. Paul, and I wish that they
were translated into all languages of all Christian people,
that they might be read and known, not only by the
Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Sara-
cens. I wish that the husbandman might sing parts of
them at his plow, and that the weaver might warble them
at his shuttle, that the traveller might with their narra-
tives beguile the weariness of the way."

For the New Testament Tyndale had the use of the third
edition of Erasmus and of the third edition of Luther's German

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 2 1 1

version. His latest biographer, J. F. Mozely, says: "By the
level of his day Tyndale was a good Greek scholar, fully as
good as Erasmus or Luther." He was deeply indebted to both.

The records of Tyndale's hunted life do not permit his
biographers to determine the means by which he learned He-
brew, but the fact that he learned it for his translation of
the Pentateuch is now placed beyond dispute. The evidence
does not rest upon the affirmation of a chance acquaintance,
the humanist Hermann von dem Busche, though that may
be quoted for what it is worth. Spalatin, secretary of Fred-
erick the Wise, says that at a supper on August 1 1, 1526, von
dem Busche stated that he had met at Worms the Englishman
who was having the New Testament printed there, and that
this scholar had such familiarity with "Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
Spanish, English, and French that whichever he speaks you
would think it his native tongue." The evidence for Tyn-
dale's scholarship rests rather upon the numerous passages in
his translation in which he departs from both the Latin and the
German versions at his disposal. Many of these are of superior
accuracy, and have been utilized in the authorized and revised
versions familiar to us.

Linguistically John Calvin was well equipped before he
became a Protestant. From early childhood he was fortunate
in his teachers and he early became an exceptionally good Latin-
ist. For Greek he was first indebted to Melchior Wolmar,
and later to Pierre Danes. A Latin rhyme was circulated that
affirmed Danes to be superior to the great French Grecian,
Guillaume Bude himself. Calvin learned Hebrew probably
from Francois Vatable, who shared with Danes a post in the
Royal College instituted by Francis I in 1530. Both these
scholars were charged with heresy before the Parletnent of Paris
in 15 33, but there is no evidence that they were affected by
Protestantism.

Calvin was a friend of the Cop family in Paris; the senior
Cop, the King's physician, was on friendly terms with Reuchlin
and Erasmus. Beyond his immediate circle Calvin felt with
other young humanists the stimulus of the deep and accurate
scholarship of Bude, respected the scriptural learning of Lefevre,

212 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

some of whose pupils were his friends; and responded to the less
immediate but no less challenging voice of the prince of human-
ists, Erasmus,.

As a full-blown humanist Calvin wrote his Seneca commen-
tary in 15 32. It was suggested by Erasmus' 1529 edition of
Seneca, and was something of a defense of Seneca's moral philos-
ophy against the severe judgment of Erasmus. The author's
conversion to Protestantism followed perhaps two years later.
Calvin's cousin, Pierre Robert Olivetan, may have aided his
language studies. By 1535 Calvin had assisted Olivetan in
the translation of the Bible for the Waldenses published at
Neuchatel in that year.

A graduate from humanism, Calvin remained a meticulous
student of words. This is best seen in his commentaries, where
an interest in words combines, one might perhaps say, contends,
with an interest in theology. In dealing with Greek words
he has a consciousness of mastery, and is free to agree or disagree
with Erasmus to whom he often refers. Thus he commends
Erasmus' rendering sermo, speech, instead of Vulgate verbum,
word, for the Greek logos in John 1, 1, but in, John 3, 3, he
says Erasmus was clearly wrong in rendering another, "from
above.'' It must mean "again, " else Nicodemus' question that
follows does not make sense. "The Greek word, I admit,"
he notes, "is ambiguous; but we know that Christ conversed
with Nicodemus in the Hebrew language." Again I Corinth-
ians 8, 4, he disagrees with Erasmus in favor of the Vulgate
rendering, "An idol is nothing." As a reader of Greek Calvin
travelled under his own power, thanks to his earlier humanist
studies.

These facts must suffice to illustrate our first point — that
the Reformation demand for the recognition of the authority
of the Scripture was supported by the fullest use of the linguis-
tic tools provided by humanism. This involved changes in
the meaning of the text of Scripture at many points where the
Vulgate rendering had been used to support doctrines abandoned
by the Reformers. There can be no reasonable doubt that the
illumination of the meaning of Scripture by humanist study
was an indispensable factor in clarifying the doctrine of the

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 2 1 3

Reformation and in giving the power of conviction to its
propaganda. Renaissance scholarship was at this point essen-
tial to the success of the Reformation.

II

More complicated is the problem of indebtedness in actual
content of thought. The Platonic, anti-Aristotelian and anti-
scholastic trend of the Renaissance corresponds to the Reform-
ation Augustinianism and repudiation of scholastic theology.
Luther's distaste for Aristole dates from notes made on Augus-
tine's works as early as 1509. He was then lecturing on
Aristotle, very unsympathetically. By 1510, he calls Aristotle
"a rancid philosopher." By 1515 he can speak of the scho-
lastics as "pig-theologians." At times, it is true, Luther pays
tribute to Aristotle's Metaphysics and Physics, but he is in-
consistent here, and in general he deplores the use of Aristotle
for the support of theology. "Aristotle," he observes, "knows
nothing of the soul, of God and of immortality, and Cicero
far excels him in these subjects." Here Luther is not far from
the Occamism in which he was nurtured, which drew a clear
Vine between philosophic and revealed truth and made the latter
the province of theology. Luther is never so vehement against
Aristotle as when referring to the use made of Aristotle's con-
ception of substance and accidents in the doctrine of the Euchar-
ist. "What shall we say when Aristotle and the doctrines of
men are made to be the arbiters in these divine matters? ....
The Holy Spirit is greater than Aristotle." (Babylonish Cap-
tivity) .

Luther was no Platonist or Neo-Platonist, but he was not
militant against Renaissance Platonism. His ardent and early
study of Augustine must have given him a favorable slant on
Platonism. Mutianus Rufus. who led the humanists of Erfurt,
was an admirer of Pico della Mirandola and a pronounced
Neo-Platonist. Pico's ideas were remarkably widespread and
influential and Luther felt their influence through German
friends like Lang and by direct study of Pico's works. H.
Boehmer. in listing the authors familiar to Luther, remarks
that he "had gone very thoroughly into the humanistic theology
of Lefevre, Erasmus and Pico della Mirandola."

214 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

It is difficult to say which of these three had most influence
upon Luther. From time to time there have appeared animated
discussions of his debt to Erasmus. For instance, G. Ritter
and J. Haller have contended over the matter in a series of
contributions to the Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengeschichte. Haller
is accused by Ritter of having represented Luther, as merely
setting the match to explosives prepared by Erasmus. Haller
had actually said: "Martin Luther was held by many a disci-
ple of Erasmus, and Zwingli himself for one. And this was
no misunderstanding. Erasmus himself at first treated Luther
as his spoilt pupil." In moderate restatement he contends that
Luther, like most of the learned and many of the educated of
the time, was much influenced by Erasmus and learned much
from him. This seems a justifiable position, though Luther
would not have admitted so much. In aserting that "faith is
the only door that leads to Christ" (Enchiridion) and in his
condemnation and ridicule of scholasticism, superstitious cere-
monies and obscurantist beliefs, Erasmus certainly anticipated
Luther, and may have influenced him more than the younger
man realized. But it is not surprising that Luther and Eras-
mus fell into contention. Erasmus did not like Luther's ur-
gency and clamour, and Luther did not like Erasmus' com-
placency and laughter. Melanchthon vainly tried to reconcile
them. The nature and the limit of the debt to Erasmus that
Luther was willing to admit is expressed in words uttered in
1533: "Erasmus has fulfilled the mission to which he has
been called. He has introduced the classical languages and
withdrawn us from Godless studies." In Luther's Table Talk
we find his pointed characterization of four men:

Matter and words, Melanchthon;
Words without matter, Erasmus;
Matter without words, Luther;
Neither words nor matter, Carlstadt.

One must be on one's guard against asserting an intellectual
debt where one has proof only of an anticipation in thought.
A case in point is Luther's recognition of the fact that Wessel
Gansfort, who died when Luther was six years old, had been
thinking his thoughts before him. Wessel, he said, was "truly
taught of the Lord." "If I had read his works earlier," he

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 2 1 5

adds, "my enemies might think that I had absorbed everything
fiom Wessel: his spirit is so in accord with mine." What
follows in the preface of Luther to Gansfort's Letters (1522)
from which these words are quoted, makes it clear that Luther
was encouraged by his late discovery of Wessel to firmer belief
that he himself was right. Erasmus saw the difference between
Wessel and Luther as that between a gentle and a violent spirit.
They were both saying the same things. Wessel was a well-
trained humanist whose Greek and Hebrew studies had been
begun in the fifties of the fifteenth century, and in theology
he was a Protestant before Protestantism. His books aided
the propaganda of the Reformation, but imparted none of the
content to Luther's theology. It is unsafe, too, to relate such
Neo-Platonic elements as are found in Luther entirely to the
revival of Neo-Platonism in the Renaissance. Some of them
may have been imparted to Luther from the persistent Neo-
Platonism of the Middle Ages through the writings of the
mystics which he read.

However, Luther's limited, but very real, indebtedness to
Guillaume Lefevre d'Etaples is not in doubt. The subject
has been amply investigated by Fritz Hahn (1938). He
shows Lefevre's theology to have, been molded on Neo-platonic
ideas under the influence of Pico and Nicholas of Cusa. In
Lefevre's statement, "By the faith of Christ alone justifi-
- cation is infused," there is a Thomist conception of the infusion
of grace but an un-Thomist absence of the sacramental in
justification. God takes the initiative in justification, which
is caused by his benignity and righteousness, not by merit. For
Lefevre good works indeed precede justification, not however,
as its cause, but as the opening of the eyes precedes seeing,
They likewise follow justification; and he wants to harmonize
St. Paul and St. James by the explanation that James is speak-
ing of the works that follow justification, Paul of those that
precede it. Moving on from Neo-platonic allegorization, Le-
fevre pointed to a "literal-spiritual" sense of Scripture, as dis-
tinct from the allegorical, and likewise from what he called the
'literal-carnal" sense; and here Luther followed him. He defi-
nitely anticipated Luther, too, in the doctrine that the spirit of
God alone can rightly interpret the Scripture and that the Bible

216 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

is brought to life by men activated by the Spirit of God.

Here it may be remarked that apart from borrowings in
matter, the peculiar attention given to Sf. Paul by Ficino, Pico,
Colet, and Lefevre undoubtedly prepared the way for Luther's
concentration on the Pauline Epistles. Lefevre's edition of
the Epistles of St. Paul with notes appeared in 1512. His
edition of the Psalter in five Latin versions, including his own,
had already appeared in 1509. Luther made industrious use
of both these works, less as a textual aid than as an aid to in-
terpretation.

Zwingli was educated outside the cloister, and was a natural
humanist. During his pre-Zurich period he fell under the in-
fluence of Pico and Erasmus. While at Basel he shared Pico's
views in some of the thirteen theses which Innocent VIII con-
demned, out of the 900 which Pico ambitiously propounded in
Rome ( 15 87). Pico in these statements confuted the Thomist
doctrine of transubstantiation, and this may have had its effect
on Zwingli's mind. Zwingli possessed a number of Pico's
books. But Zwingli was only ten years old when Pico died
(1494). Erasmus was his older contemporary. A poem of
Erasmus in which Jesus is made to expostulate with men for
their neglect of him, led Zwingli to question belief in the
supplication of saints. In a spirit of exultant admiration he
visited Erasmus in the spring of 1516, and later wrote him a
letter full of superlative, but probably sincere compliments. It
is notable that the thing which he most praised in Erasmus
was his humanist service to scriptural learning. Wyttenbach
had already given him a zeal for the Scripture, and Erasmus
weaned him quite away from scholasticism. Indeed in his
early pastorates he drew sermon illustrations from classical
authors. And he read, no doubt gleefully, a copy of the
Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum sent him by Glareanus, distin-
guished Swiss humanist, who also shared the favor of Erasmus.

Zwingli informed Melanchthon that he was indebted to
Erasmus for his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but his doctrine
is not identical with that of Erasmus; and perhaps what Zwingli
principally meant in his ascription of it to Erasmus was that
Erasmus had started him thinking on the subject. In his

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 2 1 7

Notes on the New Testament Erasmus compiled a list of changes
introduced by the Papacy since the days of primitive Chris-
tianity, an d asked of the popes concerned: "Were they justified
in so doing?" The list includes transubstantiation. If
Zwingli at any time held the vague spiritual view of the Eucha-
rist to be derived from Erasmus' writing (the consecrated bread
is "living and confers true life") he moved on from this by
stages in which he felt the influence of Carlstadt and Hoen to
the position which W. Kohler has called Fiductals-Praesenz,
that is, presencc-to- faith. Lcfevre seems to have leaned to
the memorial view which is also an element in Zwingli's
thought.

When at Zurich through varying experiences and responsi-
bilities his religious life deepened, Zwingli remained an un-
reconstructed humanist in his ceaseless reading of the Greek
and Latin classics, and in his efforts to improve his Greek.
That he read humanist criticisms of the papacy is evident from
his note entitled "Christ's Defense of Martin Luther," written
in 1520 (after the Papal bull Exsurge Domine) in which he
mentions the warnings of Petrarch, Richard Pace, Pico, Platina
the historian, and others. His close friend Leo Jud translated
Erasmus' Complaint of Peace (1521) and Zwingli was indebted
to this pacifist work in his Solemn Warning against the traffic
in mercenary troops, in which, by the way, he quotes Euripides,
Cicero, Caesar, Livy, and Homer. Zwingli held Plato worthy
"to be numbered among the great prophets," and thought pos-
sible the salvation of good pagans like Socrates. A direct in-
fluence of Plato on Zwingli has been recognized by scholars in
the method of his dialectic, in his sharp antithesis of spirit and
sense, and in his political theory. But he has no hesitation in
using Aristotelian terms and concepts. Perhaps he owed more
to Stoicism, as represented by Cicero, Pliny, and Seneca, than
to Plato. He calls Seneca "Animarum agricola," the husband-
man of souls. Yet he criticizes the materialistic basis of the
Stoic philosophy: and his zeal for getting things done in the
world was out of accord with Stoic apathy. Of poets, he
seems to have liked best Pindar and Horace. Zwingli was, in
fact, nobody's intellectual disciple, but he sharpened his wits

218 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

and replenished his arsenal of controversy by wide humanistic
reading.

Calvin's "sudden conversion" about 1534 changed his
lelation to humanism. The classics yielded to the Scriptures.
But Calvin did not repent of humanism, he only graduated
from it. We have already noted that the new studies were
pursued with the language equipment gained in his humanist
days. This extends to his own Latin style, one of the aids to
the European success of his books. He may have owed a
special debt here to Maturin Cordier, an inspired grammarian.
But in any language Calvin would have been eloquent. Not
merely did he write the best Latin of his time; he wrought in
unintended association with Rabelais to bring to effectiveness
a literary French. His French prose has been acclaimed by a
chorus of modern critics. I hesitate to add that in the College
de Montaigue the use of French was prohibited in Calvin's
undergraduate days.

Calvin's devotion to biblical theology never quenched his
humanism. Quirinus Breen, in John Calvin, a Study in
French Humanism, refers to the "precipiate" of humanism in
Calvin's later work. Precipitate, perhaps, but we might call
it a ferment. It was something active and activating. Breen
refers to aspects of the revival of Stoicism in the Renaissance,
and shows the influence of Stoic writers; on Calvin. In the
Seneca Commentary Calvin links Stoic and Christian ideals
and dwells upon the Stoic emphasis on conscience; yet he points
out the polarity between Stoic apathy and Christian sympathy.
Certainly Seneca and other Stoic writers quickened Calvin's
awareness of universal moral ideas which have validity independ-
ently of ecclesiastical structures. Some sections of the Institutes
abound with references to the classical writers. Sometimes
these are used to point an argument by objection; e. g. I agree
not with Cicero," (I, iii, 3) ; "that frigid dogma of Aristotle."
(I, v, 5). Even Plato is not always right, though he is
"the most religious and judicious of them all." But often Cal-
vin uses the ancients in direct support. He affirms the strength
of man's "sense of the deity" and that "to know God is man's
chief end. Of this the heathen philosophers themselves were
not ignorant. This was Plato's meaning when he taught that

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 2 1 9

the chief good of the soul consists in similitude to God.'' It
is not in their teachings about deity that Calvin is most apprecia-
tive of the writers of antiquity. Yet his point of view here is
not that they were wholly wrong, but that they missed a higher
truth. Calvin freely adopts the Stoic-Paltristic doctrine of
natural law and equity. "The law of God which we call the
moral law is no other than a declaration of natural law, and
of that conscience which has been engraven by God in the minds
of men" (IV, xx, 16). State laws may vary but to this
natural law they must conform. For checks on royal abso-
lutism Calvin refers to the institutions of Sparta, Athens,
and Romet — the ephori, the demarchi and the consuls.

Of the schools of the ancients only the Epicureans are con-
demned without qualification by Calvin, both for their do-
nothing gods and their hedonistic morals. Probably Valla's
Elegantiae and De voluptate had occasioned this emphasis in
Calvin. Valla's edition of Livy was known to Calvin, as
well as his critical works on the New Testament and the Dona-
tion of Constantine. He cites Valla, Lefevre and Erasmus
against the Council of Trent's decision to make the Vulgate
the authoritative text. Calvin was a great admirer of William
Bude, a scholar of greater achievement than reputation, who
in Calvin's eyes gave France the palm for erudition. The real
greatness of Bude is known to students of the Renaissance.
Calvin used his celebrated work on coinage ( de Asse) to explain
references to money in the Scripture commentaries. (Not Bude,
but his widow and children, became Calvinists.)

I referred above to Calvin's close attention to words in his
commentaries on the Bible as a product of humanistic study.
He occasionally lights up Scripture passages by citations of
Greek and Roman literature. Thus on Exodus 21:18, "If
men strive together, etc." he cannot refrain from using Aulus
Gellius' yarn about Lucius Veratius who behaved like the
modern nursery child's "Bad Sir Brian Botany" and went about
cuffing people's ears. On Deut. 21:1, he shrewdly reports,
apparently from Aristotle, the reply of Theopompus to his
wife who lamented the reduction of her husband's power by
the appointment of the Ephori: he would have less power but
it would last longer. And on Lev. 25:39, he cites the view

220 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of heathen philosophers (Seneca?) that masters ought to treat
their slaves as if they were hired servants.

Ill

We have examined only a little of the large body of avail-
able evidence on the debt of the Reformation to the Renaissance.
The subject is at once more complicated and more far-eaching
than these illustrations suggest. We have not discussed, for
example, the broad historical question of the revolutionary
leaven and psychological preparation for the fall of the medieval
church that lay in the Renaissance literary work of a century
and a half before Luther. In particular the satires of Boc-
caccio, of Chaucer, of David Lyndsay, of Erasmus, and of Hut-
ten have to be considered in that light.

A certain number of humanists besides Zwingli and Mel-
anchthon, commited themselves to the Reformation. Numer-
ous second line leaders, like Buccr, Justus Jonas, Capito, Peter
Martyr, a Lasco, Oecolampadius, Bibliander, Bullinger, Beza,
are entitled to be called humanist scholars. To attempt to
show how far such men retained the intellectual liberalism of
humanism would prove a long task. The divisions in religion
left disciples of Erasmus in all camps, and a liberal indifference
to the dividing confessions of faith took various forms. This
liberalism is discernable in many efforts to reunite the severed
churches through the subsequent period. It also finds expres-
sion in Lutheran Syncretism, in the Arminian phase of Calvin-
ism, in Cambridge Platonism and Latitudinarianism, not to
mention its later manifestations. So far as England was con-
cerned, her Reformers never broke from the humanist as Luther
did. They habitually mention Erasmus with favor and respect.

We cannot here examine the science of the Renaissance and
its reception by the Reformers. They were about as slow as
the professional scientists in accepting the teachings of Coper-
nicus, although it was a Lutheran theologian, Osiander, who
wrote the preface to his book.

Pierre de la Primaudaye was a French Protestant of the
second generation who wrote a book saturated with Platonism

THE REFORMATION'S DEBT. 221

entitled The French Academy, 1582; it was translated by "T.
B. C." into English in 1586. In the "Epistle Dedicatorie"
we read, appropriately, the following quotation from Augus-
tine's De Doctrina:

"As for those that are called philosophers, if they have
uttered anything agreeable to our faith and doctrine (especially
the Platonists) we are not only not to feare it but rather
to challenge it from them as unjust possessors thereof ....
So the doctrine of the Gentiles hath not only counterfeit and
superstitious forgeries and heavy packs of nedeles labour ....
but also liberal arts meete to set forth the truth by, and cer-
tain profitable precepts of manners, yea, some true points . . .
concerning the worship of the one onely God."

This quotation from Augustine accords well with the words of
Calvin (Institutes II, ii, 15) which give a clue to his own use
of the litterae humaniores:

"Whenever, therefore, we meet with heathen writers let
us learn from that light of truth which is admirably dis-
played in their works, that the human mind, fallen as it
is, . . . is yet invested and adorned by God with ex-
cellent talents. If we believe that the Spirit of God is
the only fountain of truth, we can neither reject nor de-
spise the truth itself, wherever it appear, unless we wish
to insult the Spirit of God."

If the bringing together of these two quotations suggests
that the attitude of the Reformation to Renaissance classical
learning was much like that of the church fathers to Hellenistic
thought, the impression will not be erroneous. The Reformers
did not seek out every flower in the humanist meadow, but
selected blossoms laden with the honey of "liberal arts meete to
set forth the truth by," and "profitable precepts of manners.

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM IN
I CLEMENT

By Martin Rist

The Iliff School of Theology
Denver, Colorado

In his book Agape and Eros Nygren regrets the failure of
writers in general to pay adequate attention to the actual mean-
ing of the word "love" as used by Christians from early times to
the present, "as though the meaning and structure of the Chris-
tian idea of love were clear and self-evident; as though it were
only necessary to mention the word 'love' for its meaning to be
perfectly understood." In 1930, the year in which the Swedish
edition of Nygren's work appeared, Moffatt made a similar
observation concerning the vagueness with which the term is
used by Christians in his book, Love in the New Testament:
"Men speak of Christianity as the religion of love, commonly
without any need of examining their terms. Yet the phrase
may become inaccurate and even misleading by its very vague-
ness. 'Love' is a great dictionary word, and in the religious
vocabulary of the world Christianity has been indentified with
it so loosely that it is well to ask what this definition or descrip-
tion really means, and how far it is true."

Both Nygren and Moffatt are correct in their observation
that Christians have used the word "love" so loosely and vague-
ly that its true meaning can with difficulty be ascertained. It is,
perhaps, unnecessary to devote much attention to Nygren's at-
tempt to remove the ambiguities by differentiating between
eros and agape, the former assertedly representative of the Greek
and Platonic concept of salvation in which man seeks the Divine,
the latter the Christian and Pauline whereby God seeks man;
nor is it certain that this distinction, in so far as the early Chris-
tian sources are concerned, is valid. Indeed, it would appear
that the Lutheran doctrine of unmerited grace, which Nygren
practically equates with agape, has controlled his conclusions to
too great an extent.

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 223

Moffatt's detailed study of the meaning of "love" in the
various books of the New Testament deserves more attention
than can be accorded it here. Although he finds considerable
variation in usage, with no small amount of vagueness and am-
biguity, nevertheless he observes that in the main the New Test-
ament use of the term comprises three mutually interdependent
relationships: God's (or Christ's) love for man; man's love for
God (or Christ) ; and man's love for his fellow man.

Since Moffatt's investigation was confined almost exclu
sively to the New Testament, this study of the usage of "love"
in I Clement, which is contemporary with a number of the
canonical writings, may serve to clarify still further the meaning
of this important concept for the early Christians. It will be
preceded by a brief consideration of its meaning for Ignatius,
the ecclesiastically-minded bishop of Antioch who suffered
martyrdom early in the second century. As Richardson has
shown in his recent monograph, The Christianity of Ignatius
of Antioch, this early bishop of the church attached an institu-
tional, ecclestiasical, meaning to the term.

A summary of the Ignatian usage, agreeing in general with
Richardson's conclusions, will serve as a background for the
discussion of I Clement which is to form the main portion of
this paper. It will be remembered that Ignatius wrote the
extant letters bearing his name to promote Christian uniformity
in practice and belief under the leadership of the divinely ap-
pointed officials, and, as a necessary corollary, to circumvent
those heretics and schismatics who were threatening the institu-
tional unity which he held so dear. In fact, he is rightly con-
sidered to be one of the important architects of that imposing
edifice of Christian unity and uniformity, the highly organized
Catholic Church of the early centuries.

In consequence we are not surprised to find Ignatius using the
term "love" to denote the complete unity and harmony of all
believers in doctrine, liturgy, and worship in submission to
God and Christ and to their representatives on earth, the bishops,
together wih the presbyters and deacons, of the several churches.
Although "love" is at times coupled with "faith," i. e., correct
belief, when used alone it quite logically includes the second

224 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

term, for unity and submission to the bishop of necessity involve
doctrinal conformity. Moreover, just as the members of a
given church are united to one another through "love," likewise
the bishops (and their churches) are joined together by this
same bond. Although Ignatius seldom mentions deeds of
benevolence, philanthropy, and charity, he no doubt was prac-
tical enough to realize that the care of the needy, the widow,
the orphan, and the prisoner for the faith would serve to tighten
the bonds of "love."

The mystical relationships embodied in the concept "love"
are renewed if indeed they do not originate in the celebration of
the eucharist. Both "faith" and "love" are in fact closely
associated with this sacrament through which the believers are
united with the divine and with each other in one body, "faith"
being indentified with the flesh and "love" with the blood of
Christ. Significantly enough, in one passage the term agape
is explicitly applied to the eucharist. Not only are "faith" and
"love" associated with the sacrament; they are, it would seem,
sacramental in their own nature; for like baptism and the euchar-
ist they are indispensable ways to salvation; without them there
is no salvation. There is, of course, no "love" for heretics
and schismatics, none for those outside of the Christian fold.

Thus, for Ignatius, Christianity is a divine community, a
theocracy, pervaded and held together by a mystical, sacramental
"love" by which all believers are harmoniously united in obedi-
ence to God and Christ and to their representatives and deputies,
the duly appointed bishops and their assistants. It is this in-
stitutional, ecclesiastical concept of "love" which in general
diffenentiates the Ignatian usage from that of the New Testa-
ment; although as Moffatt has observed in passing, there are a
few passages in Paul and in the so-called Johannine writings in
which "love" is used to denote Christian unity characterized by
a harmony devoid of internal strife and disunity.

With this resume of the Ignatian usage in mind, let us turn
to a contemporary Christian source, I Clement, in which the
term "love" is employed in a similar manner. This epistle, it
is generally conceded, was composed in the last decade of the
first century. Tradition assigns its actual composition to a

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 225

certain Clement, one of the Roman college of bishops. Whether
or not this is a correct ascription.it is certain that the latter was
written in the name of the Roman church to the church at Cor-
inth to persuade the members of the latter to compose their in-
ternal differences and strife and to reinstate certain presbyters
(equivalent in rank to the Roman bishops) who had been de-
posed in a factional dispute. A single theme, that of "love" as
defined in the summary of the Ignatian letters, runs through the
entire epistle, although the actual word itself is seldom used
in the first part of the document. This conclusion can best
be demonstrated by a running commentary of the text.

Following the customary opening salutation, the writer,
who will be called Clement for the sake of convenience, expresses
deep regret that a few self-willed and rash individuals have
created an abominable and impious schism in the Corinthian
church, thereby slandering its good name which had been held
in love by all men. He recalls that the Corinthians had been
noted for the steadfastness of their faith, for their piety, hospi-
tality, gnosis, blameless conduct, humility, good works, and
hatred of all rebellion and schism. Indeed, the ordinances
and commandments of the Lord had once been inscribed upon
their hearts. Now, in tragic contrast, through jealousy they
were divided by dissension and schism and were no longer walk-
ing in 'the divine ordinances and commandments. It was
through such conduct, he warns, that death had come into the
world (i-iii). In the lengthy section that follows he cites
examples of the dire results of jealousy, and summons the
offenders to repent, as others had done, and to abandon the
strife and jealousy which lead to death, becoming humble and
obedient in imitation of Christ and other noble souls
(iv-xix. 1 ) .

To be sure, there are no explicit references to "love" such
as occur later on in the letter. However, the qualities which
are praised, humility, peace, unity, harmony, steadfastness in
faith, and obedience to their leaders and to the ordinances of
God, are all comprised not only in the Ignatian concept of
"love," but are also included in the Clementine usage, as will be
shown in the proper place.

226 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

In keeping with his main theme Clement next exhorts the
Corinthians to hasten on towards the goal of peace provided
from the beginning, looking steadfastly upon the Father and
Creator of the entire universe in contemplation of his long-
suffering purposes and his freedom from wrath towards all
his creatures (xix.2-3). Next he introduces a liturgical pas-
sage which combines Old Testament phraseology with Stoic
concepts of the general order in the cosmos: The heavens
move at God's direction and are subject to him in peace. The
earth brings forth its produce at the appointed time without
changing God's decrees. The unfathomable realms of the lower
world are held fast by the same divine ordinances. The sea
remains as it was created without passing its appointed bounds.
Spring, summer, fall, and winter succeed each other in peace,
while the winds blow and the perennial springs flow without
fail. Further, even the smallest of living creatures live to-
gether in concord. For the Creator of the universe ordained
that all creation should exist in peace and concord, most especial-
ly those who have sought refuge in his mercies through the
Lord Jesus Christ ( xx) .

It is important to note that this liturgical section has been
identified as a free rendering of the eucharistic anaphora of the
early Roman church. It has not been casually introduced into
the epistle; nor is it a disgression as some have maintained.
Quite on the contrary, it forms an integral part of the main
argument in that it gives a divine sanction to the writer's plea
for unity and harmony in Corinth: just as the entire cosmos
exists in peace and concord in obedience to the divine ordinances,
so much the more should Christians who have sought refuge
in his mercies live peaceably and harmoniously with one another
in obedience to God's commands (which, as will be shown,
include the commands of the divinely appointed officials of
the church ) . Not only are Christian unity, harmony, and
obedience given cosmic and divine sanction through the in-
troduction of this liturgical passage, but in addition they are
related to the celebration of the sacrament of the eucharist, if
the identification with the Roman eucharistic liturgy is indeed
valid. This association with the sacrament will b&, more
evident later on.

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 227

Clement next proceeds to utter a dire warning to the dis-
obedient schismatics: "Take heed, beloved, lest his many good
works toward us become a judgment on us, if we do not good
and virtuous deeds before him in concord, and be worthy
citizens of him" ( xxi ) . Further admonitions to fear God
and to obey him in holiness and humility (with a passing
reference to the power of pure "love") are reinforced by ad-
ditional threats of a future judgment for wrong-doers in
marked contrast to the promise of a blessed resurrection for
those who serve him in holiness ( xxi-xxvIII ) . This inclusion
of the resurrection hope, which Clement attempts to prove by
relating the strange tale of the fabulous Phoenix which rises
from its own ashes, is not a deviation from his theme as some
suppose. Instead, Clement has introduced (the doctrine of
future punishment and rewards to give a solemn sanction
to his exhortation to live harmoniously together in submission
to God.

This same theme of Christian unity, harmony, and obedi-
ence is pursued in the ensuing section ( xxix-xxxvi) , which is
pervaded with liturgical phraseology. Indeed, it begins with
a formal call to worship, as if Clement were actually conducting
the worship service in Corinth: "Let us then approach him
with holiness of soul, lifting up holy and undefined hands to
him, loving our gentle and merciful Father who made us his
chosen portion" (xxix). After reminding the Corinthians
that they are required to perform deeds pertaining to holiness,
avoiding certain vices which he names, Clement alludes again
to the schism by exhorting them to cleave to those to whom
grace had been given by God (i.e., in all probability, to their
presbyters) , and to put on concord, being humble-minded, self-
controlled, and free from all gossip and backbiting (xxx) . To
be sure, justification is by faith (xxxii), but if they are to
imitate God, whose beneficent cosmic activity in ordering
the universe is cited once more, they will not be slow to perform
these good works, they will not cease from "love" (xxxiii).
Here, for the first time, Clement specifically equates "love"
with concord, humility, and other attributes which further
Christian unity.

He next proceeds to relate "concord" to the eucharist as

228 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

he includes himself with the Corinthians as they are about to
partake of the sacrament. Just as myriads of angels worship
God singing "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Sabbaoth, the
whole creation is full of his glory," so we too, he continues,
"must gather together in concord in our conscience and cry
earnestly to him, as it were with one mouth, that we may share
in his great and glorious promises" (xxxiv). Following a
hortatory disgression, the litgury resumes and reaches a climax
in a High Priestly passage:

This is the way, beloved, in which we find our
salvation, Jesus Christ the High Priest of our offerings,
the defender and helper of our weakness. Through him
we fix our gaze on the heights of heaven, through him
we see the reflection of his faultless and lofty countenance,
through him the eyes of our hearts are opened, through
him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms
towards the light, through him the Master wills that
we should taste the immortal gnosis (xxxvi.1-2).

Although it is generally assumed that Clement has derived
this High Priestly passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews,
Knopf, following Drews, believes that Clement and the writer
of Hebrews are both using a common liturgical tradition. < At
any rate, its eucharistic character cannot be seriously questioned,
for the phrases "that we should taste the immortal gnosis" is all
but an explicit reference to the immortality that results from
partaking of the sacred elements of the sacrament (cf. Ignatius,
Ephesians xx.2; Hebrews vi.4-6a; John vi.27; and especially
the eucharistic prayer in the Didache ix.l-4;cf. x.2). Further,
the "offering" mentioned in the first sentence may include not
only the prayers of the worshippers but also the eucharistic
gifts which were a part of the celebration of the sacrament,
as Lightfoot has observed.

Clement's inclusion of this liturgy of eucharist in his plea
for Christian unity is quite understandable; for since Paul's
time, at least, it was through this sacrament in which the wor-
shipers actually partook of the body, of the flesh and blood of
Christ, that they became mystically united with him (and God)
and with one another, becoming one body in Christ. Clement

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 229

illustrates this unity with a military analogy, in which he calls
attention to the discipline, submission, and readiness of all
ranks in an army to obey the commands of who in turn obey
the commands of the king, their supreme commander (xxxvi. 1-
4). The application to the Corinthian situation is obvious:
in the Christian army, the church, all members must be disci-
plined like soldiers in an army, obeying their officials who are
earring out the will of God, their king and supreme leader.

Next, in an allusion to I Corinthians xii, which no doubt
was well-known to his readers, he shifts the figure by comparing
the Christian community to a human body: "Let us take our
body; the head is nothing without the feet, likewise the feet
are nothing without the head, the smallest members of our body
are necessary and valuable to the whole body, but all work
together and are united in a common subjection to preserve
the whole body" (xxxvii.5). The mystical, if not sacra-
mental, nature of this union is stressed in the next sentence
"Let, therefore, our body be preserved in Christ Jesus and let
each be subject to his neighbor, as also he was placed by his
spiritual gift" (xxxviii.3). This is followed by one of the
few passages in which Clement relates Christian unity (i.e..
"love") to philanthropic and charitable deeds.

Focusing attention upon the schismatics once more, he warns
them, using quotations from Job to strengthen his admoni-
tions, that no mortal man in his conceit can withstand the
power and might of God (xxxix). He continues his appeal
to these leaders of factional strife by insisting upon the divine
origin of the organization and sacramental practices of the
church, fortifying his argument with Old Testament proto-
types. For just as God had appointed the priesthood and laity
of Israel, with provision for sacrifices at stated times under the
direction of the priests, in like manner he had appointed the
bishops (presbyters) and deacons, through regular succession
from the apostles and Jesus Christ himself, to be in charge of
the Christian liturgies at stated times and places (xl-xliv).
Accordingly, everyone must be well-pleasing to God (or, to
follow a var^nt reading, must join the eucharist to God) in
his own rank, not transgressing the prescribed rules of the
liturgy (xli. 1). As those in Israel who transgressed the ordi-

230 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

nances were punishable by death, so Christians, who have been
entrusted with a greater gnosis, run even greater risks (xli.3).
For they are guilty of dividing the body of Christ with their
strife, causing it to be torn asunder (xlvi.7). Clement, there-
fore, is clearly warning the dissidents, who have displaced their
divinely ordained leaders and are apparently celebrating the
eucharist without proper supervision, that they are actually
opposing God himself and may be provoking him to punish
them with death itself for dividing the church, the body of
Christ.

By now Clement has developed his argument, step by
step, to the place where he is ready to introduce the term "love"
{ normally he uses agape but on occasion Philadelphia, brotherly
love) as the equivalent of his institutional ideal of Christian
unity and obedience with sacramental connotations. For up
to now, with but a single exception noted above, he has studi-
ously avoided this ecclesiastical use of "love" while developing
the concept itself: but in the section to follow (xlvii-1), which
is actually the climax of his letter, he freely introduces the term
"love" with little deviation from the Ignatian usage.

Accordingly, referring his readers to I Corinthians once
more, he reminds them that the blessed apostle Paul had once
rebuked the Corinthian church for an earlier dissension. But
this factional dispute was less reprehensible than the present
one, for the partisians of Paul's day had at least been followers
of apostles of high reputation. The current schism, lacking any
apostolic sanction, was a deplorable evil which was diminishing
their reputation for "brotherly love" (philadelphia) . Not
only were they blaspheming the name of God by their actions.
but they were also creating no little danger for themselves
(xlvii) .

While Clement does not explicitly define "brotherly love"
in this passage, nevertheless it is clear that since the "love" of
the Corinthians has been decreased by their disunity and dis-
obediences, there must be some vital connection between "love"
and Clement's concept of Christian unity, concord, and obe-
dience, if indeed they are not identical in meaning. Further,
since the Corinthians by diminishing their "love" through

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 23 1

their dissension and disobedience arc inviting divine punish-
ment, it would appear that a supernatural, almost sacramental,
power is also included in the concept.

With this threatened danger confronting them, Clement
urges the dissenters to repent, to become reconciled to the rest
of the church, and to restore "the holy and seemly practice of
"brotherly love' (Philadelphia) ." For this "brotherly love,"
in marked contrast to the current dissension, "is the open gate
of righteousness leading to life, i.e., immortality" (xlviii.2).
In a further allusion to Paul's letter he admonishes: "Let a man
be faithful, let him have the power to utter guosis, let him be
wise in the discernment of arguments, let him be pure in deeds;
for the more he appears to be great, the more he ought to be
humble-minded and to seek the common good of all and not
his own benefit" ( xlviii.5-6 ) . The implications of this echo
of Paul's teaching are obvious; when dissensions and disunity
exist, not even the possession of those highly prized spiritual
gifts which he has mentioned can be substituted for "love."

This introduces a eulogy on "love" which is deliberately
reminiscent of Paul's celebrated hymn in I Corinthians xiii:

"Let him who has 'love' (agape) in Christ perform the
commandments of Christ. Who is able to explain the
bond of the 'love' of God? Who is sufficient to tell of
the greatness of its beauty? The height to which 'love'
lifts us is not to be expressed. 'Love unites us to God.
'Love' covers a multitude of sins. 'Love' bears all things,
is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base,
nothing haughty, in 'love.' • 'Love' admits no schism,
'love' makes no sedition, 'love' does all things in concord.
In love' were all the elect of God made perfect. With-
out 'love' is nothing well-pleasing to God. In 'love' did
the Master receive us; for the sake of the love' which he
had towards us, did Jesus Christ our Lord give his blood
by the will of God for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and
his soul for our souls" (xlix) .

This panegyric on "love" is almost self-explanatory, in
view of the theme which Clement has been developing. Ob-
viously, those who possess "love" will obey the commands of

232 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Christ, that is, the commands of those appointed by him.
"Love" unites the Christian to God, and is a way of salvation,
since it covers a multitude of sins. "Love" admits of no sedi-
tion, no schism ; quite on the contrary, it leads to concord.
While this is less clear, the mention of the "blood" and "flesh"
of Christ in the last sentence may be a reference to the eucharist.
If so, in Clement as in Ignatius, "love" is explicitly associated
with the eucharist, if indeed it does not possess sacramental
efficacy of itself.

Clement repeats some of these emphases in the next chapter
(1). "Love," he asserts, is great and glorious; there is no
adequate way to express its perfection. He prays that we may
be found in "love" without partisanship, without blame. He
points out that "love" is an assurance of the resurrection; for
all men since Adam have passed away, save those who have
been perfected in "love" through the grace of God. These are
now dwelling in the abode of the pious and will become mani-
fested (i.e., resurrected) at the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Accordingly, he asserts, we are blessed "if we perform the com-
mandments of God in concord of 'love' that through 'love'
our sins may be forgiven."

Thus, in this section (xlvii-1), which forms the climax of
his entire argument, Clement, citing Paul rather than the Old
Testament as his authority, equates "love" with his theocratic
concept of Christian unity, concord, and harmony in submis-
sion and obedience to God and to the duly constituted officials
of the church. Whereas disunity, schism, and disobedience
result in divine retribution and punishment, "love," which
unites the believers to God through Christ and to each other
in a mystical body as in the eucharist, leads to forgiveness of
sin, to salvation, and to the resurrection. Unlike Ignatius,
Clement does not explicitly couple "love" wih "faith" or cor-
rect belief; however, since "love" includes obedience to the
church officials it of necessity involves adherence to doctrines
and those only, approved by them. Furthermore, while
Clement does not stress brotherly affection, charity, and phi-
lanthropy in connection with "love," no doubt he considered
these a natural result of this Christian attitude. It should be
noted that Clement has introduced no new idea in this section

'LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 233

on "love": instead he has merely given a label to all those
factors which contribute to ecclesiastical concord and unity.
Accordingly, in his use of "love" he differs but little from his
contemporary, the bishop of Antioch.

What is more, his special usage may have originated with
Paul, whose "first" letter to the Corinthians he quotes so
effectively. It will be recalled that I Corinthians is an ex-
tremely practical letter, dealing with social and institutional
problems and written in part to promote harmony, good order,
and unity in Corinth. Certainly the letter gives evidence of
factions, jealousies, and disorders which had developed in the
church. While he deplores the existence of factions which
claimed to be following Apollos, Cephas, and himself respec-
tively, and insists that they were all one in Christ, nevertheless
Paul does not hesitate to press his claims as a divinely elected
apostle and as their founder and legitimate leader. They are
to follow him as he follows Christ. Since sexual freedom on
the one side and asceticism on the ather were causing dissension,
he gives his opinion on sexual conduct and marriage. Like-
wise, he urges discretion in the eating of meat sacrificed to idols
lest the more scrupulous become offended. He also requests
that members of the group refrain from suing each other in the
pagan courts. In the interests of solidarity they should place
their case before the brethren, or better yet, suffer wrong or
injury rather than sue each other.

Towards the end of the letter he shows his concern about
certain abuses in connection with the church worship and the
celebration of the Lord's supper. In his discussion he presents
his basic view that they had all become united to Christ and
God and to each other in one mystical body, the church, through
the sacraments, especially through the eucharist. Those who
were disloyal to Christ and the church by participating in the
sacramental meals of pagan deities as they did of the Lord's
supper are threatened with punishment by a jealous God.
Likewise, others who profane the sacrament through cliques,
selfishness, and other disorders (including, perhaps, the use of
an incorrect liturgical formula) are warned that they too may
suffer sickness or death as a result of their temerity. Women
have caused offense by attending the church service with un-

234 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

covered heads and by assuming too prominent a part in the
worship. Jealousy may have been created by those who
claimed superior spiritual gifts. At any rate, the excessive
practice of glossolalia and other forms of ecstatic speech had
created disorder during the worship service. Paul, accordingly,
gives directions concerning the dress and conduct of women
in church, the proper exercise of spiritual gifts, and the conduct
of public worship, including the correct formula to be used
in celebrating the eucharist.

In the midst of this discussion he introduces his celebrated
panegyric on "love." Is this to be treated as a digression with
no vital relationship to these pressing institutional problems
which have engaged Paul's earnest attention? Or is Clement
correct in considering Paul's concept of "love" in this connec-
tion as a mystical, sacramental bond which preserves the church,
the body of Christ in unity and harmony in obedience to him,
their divinely appointed apostolic leader, with divine punish-
ment, even death, for the disobedient. If so, then the origin
of both the Clementine and Ignatian use of "love" as a sacra-
mental, ecclesiastical concept can be traced to this letter of Paul's
to the Corinthians.

To return to I Clement, the rest of the letter is largely an
anticlimax. Clement again urges the leaders of the schism to
repent, confessing their transgressions, since those who harden
their hearts will be punished (li) . In keeping with an early
practice, he may have intended this confession to take place
during the celebration of the eucharist. He goes so far as to
suggest that those on whose account the schism had arisen
should leave the Christian church that it might enjoy peace
under its presbyters (liv) . He urges the schismatics to submit
themselves both to God (lvi. 1) and the presbyters (lvii.l) , in
keeping with his view that obedience to God involves obedience
to the officers of the church. Clement, who now claims that
God is speaking through him, (lix.l) , promises that the obedi-
ent will be saved, but warns that the disobedient are placing
themselves in danger.

All the commentators agree that the long liturgical prayer
which follows (lix.2-lxi.3) preserves the actual phraseology

"LOVE" AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL TERM 235

of the intercessory prayer of the eucharistic liturgy of the early
Roman church. Up to now Clement has presented forceful
arguments and warnings to the trouble-makers at Corinth.
They may refuse to heed his words; nevertheless, as he had
promised before (cf. lvi.l) he will pray earnestly to God in
their behalf. Through his use of this eucharistic prayer at
this juncture he once more gives a sacramental sanction to his
concept of "love."

This prayer is followed by a brief summary of the epistle
which is worth quoting, since it practically confirms the inter-
pretation presented in this paper:

For we have touched on every aspect of faith and repen-
tance and true "love" and self-control and sobriety and
patience, and reminded you that you are bound to please
Almighty God with holiness in righteousness and truth
and long-suffering, and to live in "concord," bearing no
malice, in "love" and peace with eager gentleness, even as
our fathers, whose examples we quoted, were well-pleas-
ing in their humility towards God, the Father and Creator
of all men (lxii) .

A final plea that the sedition come to an end is reinforced
by his claim for a second time that he is writing through divine
inspiration (lxiii.2). He highly recommends the Roman dele-
gation that is to take his message to Corinth, and expresses the
hope that they will speedily return with a final benediction and
doxology (lxv.2). Since we learn from a letter written toward
the end of the second century by Dinoysius, at that time the
bishop of Corinth, that the Corinthian church of his day
treasured and read Clement's letter, it is fair to assume that it
was effective in restoring peace, harmony, unity, and obedience,
or, in a word, "love" in the ecclesiastical and sacramental mean-
ing of the term, to the church at Corinth in keeping with
Clement's fondest expectations.

THE SAMARITAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
TRADITION

By Frederick M. Derwacter
William Jewell College
Liberty, Missouri

Nothing is more striking as one studies the developing liter-
ature of the early Christian movement than the broadening
racial and national attitude of the followers of Jesus. Assum-
ing as probable that the tone of the picture of Christianity
found in the various writers is congenial with the circle within
which it arose and for which it was first of all intended, we
may trace with some degree of assurance the changes that took
place from time to time. Since the attitude of Jesus himself
is represented with some difference by the early writers, we
must assume that each writer selected his material and inter-
preted it as he understood it and had the mind and heart to
appreciate it: or, what amounts to much the same thing, that
such selection had taken place along the avenues by which the
material had come to him. In this paper it is my purpose to
examine as one aspect of this development the attitude of early
Christians toward the Samaritan.

When did Samaria and the Samaritans enter into the gospel
traditon? What were the circumstances and motives of this
development? These questions impress one as he reads the
records of the first century of Christianity. These records
betray an increasing interest in the people of Samaria, a growth
in sympathy with them, as they furnish us a constantly in-
creasing amount of material dealing with them.

In the earliest Christian literature extant, that is, the Pauline
epistles, there is no mention of Samaria or Samaritans. This
may be of no great significance, however, as there is no mention
of Galilee or Galileans. In fact Pauline references even to Judea
are rare indeed. All these references (Rom. 15:31; II Cor.
1:16; Gal. 1:22; I Thess. 2:14) are subject to question as to
whether Paul refers to the Roman province, or to Palestine as
a whole. He does not anywhere clearly indicate geographical

THE SAMARITAN 237

divisions in the land of the Jews. In the letters, as is true also
in the Acts, Paul's work is seen as lying outside Palestine, and
his visits, like the references indicated, are casual and incidental.
Even travel to Jerusalem gives us no detail (Gal. 1:18: 2:1).
We do not know from Paul himself what routes he took in
Palestine. Jerusalem is the sole point of interest.

The Gospel of Mark, by common consent the earliest, is
like the Pauline epistles in having no mention whatever of
Samaria or Samaritans. This, however, is of more concern
to us. For Mark tells the story of the work of Jesus, whose
life, unlike Paul's, was spent in Palestine, and whose work is
by other writers described as including contact with and ministry
to Samaritans. The Source Q or Logia is likewise silent in
regard to this phase of Jesus' ministry, unless the passage dis-
cussed in the following paragraph be derived from it.

The earliest references to Samaria or Samaritans in the New
Testament and the only one in Matthew's Gospel occurs in
the commission to the Twelve, a passage having no parallel in
the other Gospels. It is noteworthy because of its typically
exclusive Jewish tone. In his own words Jesus limits the
ministry of the disciples strictly to Jews and along with the
Gentiles expressly eliminates the Samaritans: "Go not into
any way of the Gentiles and enter not into any city of the
Samaritans but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel." (Matt. 10:5: see also 15:24). It is difficult to
imagine any motive for the invention of this passage. On the
other hand its omission from the Gospel of Luke may not
indicate thot it is unknown to the writer or not a genuine pas-
sage from Q. It is out of harmony with the universal tone of
Luke's Gospel. But it is quite in keeping with a stage of Jesus'
ministry when limitations in the disciples' viewpoint had to be
taken into account.

The Gospel of Luke has three passages peculiar to it regard-
ing Samaritans and these passages are taken here in an ascending
scale with reference to their appreciation of the people of
Samaria. All occur in the so-called Perean section which con-
tains so much material peculiar to this gospel. In the first
(9:51-56). we read that when Jesus planned his last journey

238 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to Jerusalem he sent messengers ahead to prepare a place for him
to lodge in a Samaritan village. "And they did not receive him
because his face was as though he were going to Jerusalem."
This represents the Samaritans in an unfriendly light. But the
Samaritan rejection and the outburst of James and John, "Lord,
wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven and con-
sume them?" simply represent the traditional attitude of Jews
and Samaritans toward each other. The point particularly
worth rioting here is that Jesus' rebuke of the two disciples is
the first passage in the New Testament in which a different
attitude is suggested.

In a second passage in Luke (17:11-19) Jesus, travelling
with his disciples along the border between Samaria and Galilee,
meets a band of ten lepers, of whom one at least was a Samari-
tan. Upon their cry for help, Jesus heals them all, but one
turns back to praise God and to thank Jesus, "and he was a
Samaritan." Jesus in turn singles out for a special word of
commendation "this stranger" who alone "returned to give
glory to God," and who thus in his opinion surpassed in piety
the other nine, who presumably were Jews. Not only is it
suggested here that discrimination against the Samaritan is out
of place, but also that the Samaritans even prove more responsive
to Jesus' ministry than the Jews themselves.

The other passage to be considered is the familiar Parable
of the Good Samaritan (10:30-37). The Samaritan in the
Parable stands out in sharp contrast to the Jewish religious
leaders. He has no official rank like a "priest" or a "Levite,"
but he is set up as the ideal in kind and generous conduct, as
the one who best obeys the law "thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself."

These three passages in Luke reveal in the teaching of Jesus
a new attitude toward the Samaritan. First, the Samaritan's
inhospitality is not to be taken as an excuse for summoning
divine wrath. Second, the, Samaritan's faith and gratitude
are to be recognized, even in contrast with many Jews. Third,
the Samaritan's attitude toward the Law may be more human
and more pleasing to God than that of many Jewish religious
leaders. It should be noted that the contacts of Jesus and his

THE SAMARITAN 239

disciples with Samaritans in the Gospel of Luke are casual meet-
ings on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem.

The Gospel of John presents a still higher development.
In the fourth chapter, we find that Jesus and his disciples are
going through Samaria on their way from Judea to Galilee.
Stopping to rest beside a well, Jesus talks freely with a Samari-
tan woman, even accepting a drink of water from her, and
finally spends two days teaching his gospel in a Samaritan
village. A number of the people become his disciples. Im-
bedded in this passage and setting it in greater relief is the ob-
servation of the author or editor, for the benefit no doubt of.
a Gentile public unacquainted with Palestinian customs: "For
Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."

The only other reference in this gospel to Samaria or Samar-
itans is the passage in which the Jews hurl at Jesus in the heat
of controversy the stinging words: "Say we not well that
thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon?" (8:48). Again
appears the traditional attitude of Jews toward Samartians:
the very word Samaritan is a term of opprobrium. From its
appearance here, however, we may infer that at the time of
writing and in the mind of its readers, this is no longer true.
On the contrary the Gentile Christian may find comfort in the
fact that Jesus himself had been assigned his place outside the
Jewish circle.

Thus, from the complete silence of Paul and of Mark,
from the practical silence or unfriendly reference of Matthew
(or Q) , advance .is made through recognition and appreciation
of the Samaritans in Luke to evangelization in John. It is
interesting to note that this last stage continues in the Acts,
where it reaches its highest point.

There are a number of references in Acts to Samaria merely
as a territory, in expressions where it is joined with other geo-
graphical names: (a) Judea and Samaria as places to which the
disciples, in striking contrast with Matt. 10:5, were enjoined
to carry their message (1:8); (b) Judea and Samaria as places
to which the disciples were scattered after the death of Stephen
(8:1): (c) Judea and Galilee and Samaria as places where
believers lived (1:31): (d) Phoenicia and Samaria as places

240 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

through which Paul and Barnabas and others passed on their
way from Antioch to Jerusalem (15:3).

The other references in the Acts are all in the eighth chap-
ter and have to do with the visit of Philip at Samaria for the
purpose of evangelization, the subsequent "follow up" visit
of Peter and John, and the encounters the disciples had with
Simon Magus. These represent Samaria as one of the earliest
missionary objectives and Christianity as successfully planted
among the Samaritans. It should be noted also that while in
the Gospel of John Jesus was simply passing through Samaria
,when he met the woman at Sychar and turned aside for a few
days teaching in her village, in the Acts the city of Samaria is
the center of deliberate evangelistic effort.

The conclusion of this study must be that the farther we
get from the earliest records the more common is the reference to
Samaritans; that the earlier references reflect the traditional
hostility of Jew and Samaritan; that Luke's Gospel first
breaks this down with records of Jesus' expressions of apprecia-
tion and praise; that first in the Gospel of John do we find any
efforts at evangelization, efforts of Jesus himself which have
their later counterpart in the early chapters of Acts in the dis-
ciples' extended missionary labors in Samaria.

Obviously Christian tradition as seen in the New Testament
went through a process of emancipation from Jewish narrow-
ness. If we set aside for a moment the Gospel of Luke and
the Acts and look carefully at the rest, we begin to realize how
much we owe to one man's record and its influence. • Is it
possible that Luke in the research which he made in preparation
for his writings (Luke 1:3) discovered, perhaps in Palestine,
some valuable traditions congenial to a disciple of Paul but long
buried under national and racial prejudices? At any rate, the
Samaritan interest, if a little late, found through the writings
of Luke and the Fourth Gospel a secure place in the New Testa-
ment. And a generation laboring in the spirit of Paul for the
universal gospel and the Gentile mission no doubt welcomed
this new light, thanked God and took courage.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS

By Elmer T. Clark

New York, N. Y.

The problem of small sects is "home mission problem
number one." There are approximately 300 little denomina-
tions in the United States and the number is increasing rapidly.
The religious census of 1936 located 58 new groups which had
not been in existence ten years before. The actual membership
of these bodies is not over two or three million, but there are
probably ten or twelve million people in the country who re-
ceive all the religious guidance they ever receive from sects so
obscure that most informed people never heard of them. In
every community in America these groups are reaching the
people which the great churches are failing to reach, and they
are flourishing in the communities, in the very buildings, which
the Methodists and other denominations have abandoned. The
problem of evangelism, the problem of the country church, and
the problem of the industrial community are all bound up with
the psychology of the small sects.

Many of these groups are very peculiar. Most of us are
familiar with the "Holy Rollers," who shout and talk in un-
known tongues, and the Saints, who handle rattle snakes and
hot lamp chimneys, but there are many other types with which
we are not so familiar.

More than one Negro denomination insists that the colored
people are really Jews and descendents of the lost tribes. The
Church of God and Saints of Christ take this so seriously that
to the customary Christian observances they add the old Jewish
rites. They circumcise as well as baptize. They sprinkle
blood all over the place at Passover and lay all their earthly
goods at the feet of the apostles, represented by Bishop William
H. Plummer. G. F. A., which means Grand Father Abraham.
The Church of the Living God, Christian Workers for Fellow-
ship, insists that the prophets of Israel, the apostles of the early

242 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

church, and all other biblical characters were black; Jesus was
certainly a negro, for he was the son of David, who confessed
his color in a Psalm: "I became as a bottle in the smoke."

The Amish Mennonites do not wear buttons, neckties, or
coats with lapels, neither do they have telephones, radios, top
buggies, carpets, pictures, or other worldly items: they choose
their preachers by lot and hold their services in barns. The
Dukhobors are always wandering around to meet Christ some-
where, and not infrequently they go entirely nude in order to
meet him in pristine purity. The River Brethren split over the
momentous issue of whether in the foatwashing ceremony
the same person should both wash and dry or whether two
saints should perform the two operations; whereupon we have
the One-Mode and the Two-Mode Brethren. Mennonites and
some others make the women cover their hair and the House of
David will not allow men to cut their hair, and the two groups
justify the divergent customs by the same passage of Scripture.
Paul said it was a shame for the head of the woman to be un-
covered, wherefore women must wear the covering; but Paul
also said the head of the woman is the man, so that he really
meant it is a shame for the head of the man to be uncovered.

Two Mennonite denominations split over a horse trade,
and two more originated because an enthusiastic brother in-
sisted on holding revivals. Some of the Brethren groups broke
up over the issue of baptism: one holds it can be performed only
in running water, another that it must be performed indoors,
several others insist on dipping three times face forward. There
have been schisms over the communion meal and the elements of
the sacrament: one sect thinks the meal and the elements should
be placed on the table together, another that the elements must
be prepared after the meal, still another that the elements should
be ready in the room during the meal but on a separate table.
Intrumental music, the use of modern hymns, the acceptance of
a missionary subsidy, the state of the dead, and even the cut
of a preacher's coat have disrupted churches and given birth
to new denominations.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS 243

II

Studied from the standpoint of beliefs and practices and the
types of mind attracted by them, and speaking quite generally,
there are six different types of small sects in this country.

1. Communistic sects draw apart from the world and
organize self-contained socialistic colonies in which they practice
community of goods and sometimes community of women and
children. In the course of our history there have been large
numbers of such colonies, most of them religious, but few have
been able to survive. Among those still in existence are the
Amana Society or the Society of True Inspiration, the House
of David, the recently defunct Llano Colony, Church of God
and Saints of Christ, the Church Triumphant, and the expiring
remnant of the Shakers.

2. Esoteric sects possess deep dark secrets of mystic nature
into which the elect must be initiated. Many of these are off-
shoots of Hinduism. Among this class may be mentioned the
Rosicrucians, Theosophists, and Spiritualists.

3. Egocentric sects cater to the physical body and offer
comfort, personal exhilaration, peace of mind, freedom from
pain and disease, and prosperity as the goals of existence.
Among such are the Christian Scientists, the Great I Am, Divine
Scientists, New Thought devotees, and the followers of the
Unity School of Christianity.

Pessimistic sects are those who despair of social processes
and expect God to intervene in the world-order and shape things
to his liking by a cosmic cataclysm. These are the premillen-
arian or second-coming sects, such as the Adventists, Jehovah's
Witnesses and the various groups of the so-called Fundamental-
ists. Thesej rely upon apocalyptic literature, especially the
books of Daniel and Revelation, and find prophecies of coming
events in the strange figures and cryptic references with which
the persecuted Jews in the days of Antiochus Ephiphanes and
Christians in the early centuries hid their meanings from their
enemies and strengthened the faithful by assurances that their
persecutors would be overthrown.

5. There is a large number of Perfectionist sects. These

244 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

are the people who seek after holiness, freedom from tempta-
tion, a satisfactory inner state, and various personal experiences
and blessings. The Perfectionists claim that in addition to
justification and regeneration there is a second work of grace or
sanctification and that without this none can be a perfect Chris-
tian. Such a work is always accomplished by God alone and
is attested by a personal experience of an emotional character.
Practically all of these are offshoots of Methodism directly or
indirectly. The word that best describes them is subjective.
The point on which they lay supreme emphasis is personal reli-
gious experience.

There are right wing and left wing Perfectionists. The
right wing is represented by the moderate second blessing holi-
ness people like the Church of the Nazarenes. The left wing
is the Tongue-talking "Holy Rollers" who indulge in extreme
emotional excesses and are found in nearly every rural and
mountainous community on this continent.

The left wing Perfectionists are the charismatic sects, so
characterized because of their insistence on divine gifts, or charis-
mata. They are found throughout the nation. They seek
spiritual blessings and enduements of various kinds. Spirit
guidance is fundamental to them and this is sometimes carried
to absurd extremes. In Kentucky a few years ago a woman was
murdered by her own son as a human sacrifice in obedience to
the promptings of the spirit. The almost universal charism of
this group, however, is that of the gjossolalia, or the gift of
tongues. The phenomenon of tongues is a most peculiar motor
exercise which has been discussed by many persons who have
written on the psychology of religion. Several sects insist upon
it as the sign and seal of Christian perfection. Among these
are the Catholic Apostlic Church, the Assemblies of God, Pente-
costal Holiness Church, International Church of the Foursquare
Gospel, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, several varie-
ties of Churches of God, and such negro sects as the Apostlic
Overcoming Holy Church of God, House of Prayer, and many
others.

6. The other group of sects I have called Legalistic. If
the v/ord subjective characterizes the Perfectionist group, then

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS 245

the word objective describes those now under consideration.
The characteristic element is the presence of some observance to
which the people cling. They do not care much about spirit-
uality, as understood by the Perfectionists. What they desire
is something definite which they can see, handle, do, or oppose,
and which is made the test of religious regularity. Sometimes
this craving for objectivity takes the negative form and the peo-
ple find satisfaction in opposing something which other people
utilize.

The craving for objectivity is seen in the attachment of
certain Baptist groups to baptism and peculiar modes of ad-
ministering the same, which is so important that it becomes the
mark of the true Christian Church. Others satisfy the same
craving by covering the heads of the women, letting their hair
grow long, wearing clothes of peculiar cut of pattern, anointing
each other with oil, foot washing, and similar observances.
Negatively, it finds expression in opposition to church organs,
hymn books, missionary and other Church organizations, and
the Puritan type of morality which opposes tobacco, theatre
going, novel reading, wearing gold and costly apparel, dancing,
and other worldly practices.

In setting up these objective things to do or to refrain from
doing, these sects persuade hemselves that they are reviving
primitive Christianity. None of them regards the things it
does or refuses to do as aids to worship, but as actual and nec-
essary elements of the Christian faith. No primitive Baptist
would contend that he washes his brother's feet because it up-
lifts the soul or creates an atmosphere conducive to holy medita-
tion. He performs the rite because it is a part of the Christian
system as revealed in the Bible, and the omission of which
would constitute a denial of the faith. Members of the churches
of Christ do not think the absence of the organ produces a
more beautiful service or conduces to a more spiritual state of
mind. They hold to the theory "we speak where the Bible
speaks and arc silent where the Bible is silent." They hold
that what God in the Bible has not expressly commanded, he
has expressly forbidden, and since they do not find anything in
the New Testament about having organs in churches, therefore
this silence is proof that God has no ear for organ music, and

246 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the presence of an organ in a church dedicated to his service is
displeasing to him.

It appears, however, that it is the psychological craving for
objectivity, rather than reverence for holy writ, that is the crux
of the whole matter. This is seen in the very interesting fact
that no sect practices all of the observances mentioned in the
Bible, and none of them, of course, opposes all the things the
Bible does not mention. All of them profess to do so, how-
ever. As a matter of fact, they pick out two or three things
which satisfy the peculiar bent of their minds and ignore all
the others though they are equally plain.

Baptist sects baptize in various ways and wash each oher's
feet, but they do not cover the heads of their women, anoint
with oil, or greet each other with a holy kiss. Mennonites use
the head covering but do not commonly wash feet. The Bible
has no more to say about tuning forks than about organs, but
the Churches of Christ use the one and despise the other. While
professing to speak where the Bible speaks, they do not wash
feet, anoint with oil, or cover the heads, nor do they pay any
attention to the silences of the Bible except in the matter of
organs and missionary societies. So it is with all these sects.
Professing to follow the Bible thoroughly and accurately, they
proceed to. pick 'out two or three observances or oppositions
that are congenial to them. This satisfies their craving for
an objective something to which they can cling, so they calmly
ignore a hundred things quite as plain as those they adopt.

Ill

In America, however, we have witnessed a peculiar exception
to the early universal rule that sects are the refuges of the poor
and the ignorant. Here we have produced several groups which
are the refuges of prosperous middle-age people who are afraid
of growing old and who desire to escape the inevitable hard
realities of this life without waiting for a heaven beyond the
grave. Such are the egocentric sects, Christian Science, Unity,
The Great I Am, New Thought, and the various "new psychol-
ogy" groups. We seem to have contributed these to the world,
since practically all of them originated here, and most of them

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS 247

flourish here and nowhere else. They are products of our
prosperity, and the philosophy and manner of life engendered
by it. These, however, cut such a small figure in the general
religious pattern that only a mention of them is necessary here.

IV

Let us now turn to a consideration of a few psychological
and theological factors that are basic among the sects, and which
may throw some light on the religious problem they present.

The Sects arc strongest at these points of doctrine and prac-
tice where the denominations are weakest. They flourish by
taking up the things which the great churches drop. An analy-
sis of their outstanding characteristics reveals the fact that all
f them were once characteristic of the greatest religious bodies
in this country but have now been neglected or discarded. This
is a fact of the utmost importance, signifying as it does that
the churches are growing away from multiplied millions of our
population and gradually widening the breach between them-
selves and the plain people. Time and again it has been
necessary for great religious leaders like John Wesley to lead
a revolt against the helpless, conventionalized religion of the day
on the part of the submerged millions. It is probable that the
stage is being prepared in this country for another such move-
ment. Should a prophet appear who should be able to bring
together and organize the religious discontent in the nearly two
hundred small sects of his country, he would immediately
have at his disposal a body larger than the greatest Protestant
denomination and a message suited to the psychological and
spiritual needs of the plain people. He would be able to domi-
nate the religious life of the country.

1 . The most flourishing sects employ the method of the
mass movement which has been so effective in this country and
which the great churches have practically abandoned. The
revival technique is characteristic of nearly all those groups
which are experiencing any large growth. They are able to use
this device effectively because of their small size, the simple faith
which they preach, the devotion to their cause which is character-
istic of new religious movements, thj> like-mindedness of their

248 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

people, and the intellectual and social status of the people with
whom they deal.

At this point it may be well to point out the historical fact
that there has never been any religious ingathering above the
normal increase of the population except in connection with
some kind of mass movement which influences the public psy-
chology. Usually it has been a far-flung evangelistic move-
ment, such as the early revivals of Edwards, Whitefield, the
Tennants, the Methodist circuit riders, the camp-meeting revivals
of the first years of the nineteenth century, the revivals of the
Civil War period, and the campaigns of Moody. The increase
in church membership went above the norm in connection with
all of these. But religious mass movement of an altogether
different nature may produce the same results, as was the case
during the Parliament of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair,
and the Methodist Centenary, the Presbyterian New Era, the
Baptist Seventy-Five Million, and the other great financial cam-
paigns after the close of the World War in 1918. It would
appear, therefore, that any social movement which focuses public
attention on religion and creates a favorable public psychology
is likely to result in a supernormal increase in church member-
ship.

2. The sects place supreme emphasis upon the super-
natural, and the gospel they preach is entirely other- worldly.
This note has all but disappeared from the great denominations,
but it flares up with great intensity among the small sects. God
is intensely real and intensely active. Prayer has objective
physical results. The devil exists as a personal figure close to
every man at all times. There is a definite heaven. Conver-
sion, which is always insisted upon, is a real miracle.

Here again the small sect capitalizes the lack of emphasis
on the supernatural which is characteristic of the large churches
at the present time. The plain man expects from the church
a word which is definite and authoritative upon spiritual ques-
tions. He wants to know how to be saved from sin, to secure
inner peace and a sense of security, to know what will happen
to him when he dies. He will desert any religious leader who
cannot give him definite and certain information about these

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS 249

subjects. Ho will go to the Labor Union, the ballot box, or
the W. P. A. for an improvement of his material life, but he
will not listen to the preacher who offers him social benefit
or fails to offer him a sure hope of heaven.

In view of the fact that the sects thrive mainly among the
disinherited, it seems strange that not one of them makes any
attempt to ameliorate the physical condition of its adherents.
The modern social gospel is entirely alien to them. In fact,
it is resented as proof that the churches preaching it have for-
saken the true gospel. None has any program of social reform
except frugality, industry, temperance and opposition to the
liquor traffic. Some of the sects even forbid their members to
vote or hold public office, and regard the Constitution of the
United States as an atheistic document because it does not rec-
ognize the kingship of Jesus Christ. The modern social gospel
as preached by the great and progressive denominations of
Americans is a product of those who do not need it. It is
preached almost exclusively by persons quite well placed who
have tasted the fruits of mammon and found them good. But
it makes no appeal to the disinherited who really need it. It
seems plain that the millions of the world cannot be won by a
gospel which offers them an improvement of economic status.
Their God looks with high favor upon poverty.

3. The small sects lay great emphasis upon the feeling
element in religion. These churches are the refuges of the
emotionally starved. They are in large measure denied the
activities through which the prosperous find outlets for their
emotions. They have not established rational control over
their feelings. Yet being emotionally inclined and having no
other outlet, these people revel in their religious experiences.
Most of the great Protestant bodies hold in some indefinite way
that the seat of authority in religion is experience, but after
reading their learned books on the subject the average person
is likely to remain in doubt as to the exact meaning of this
doctrine. There is no such doubt among the small sects.
Most of them believe that personal experience constitutes a
certain and only touch with God, and personal experience with
them always means emotion. John Wesley declared that he
wanted a faith that none could have without knowing that he

250 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

had it, and he once declared that feeling was the test of religious
truth. "I know because I feel."

That is exactly where the small sects stand. Hence they
covet blessings, gifts, and outpourings of the Spirit. They have
developed an elaborate technique of stirring the emotions and
inducing these blessings, and lacking the control which comes
with mental culture they not infrequently run to terrible ex-
tremes of frenzy. These need not be described here, but they
can be witnessed in extreme forms at any of the conventions
held by the Church of God in Cleveland or Chattanooga, Ten-
nessee, or Bishop Grace's House of Prayer at Augusta, Georgia,
Bishop Phillip's Apostalic Overcoming Holy Church of God
in Mobile, or Father Divine's "Heaven" in Harlem.

Here again the sects are strong where the great churches are
weak. The feeling element has all but passed out of American
denominational life to the great detriment of the churches, I
am afraid. It has been seized upon by the sects and made the
instrument of their power over the masses.

4. The sectarian mind demands definiteness in religion.
It must have a note of absolute certainty and an authority
that is infallible. This is found among all the sects. Among
the Perfectionists, it is a certainty of an inner assurance. With
the Legalists, it lies in the belief that if certain objective physi-
cal acts are performed, God will be pleased and the devotee will
be in the right relations with him.

Here again the great denominations are weak where the
sects are strong. We are no longer as certain as we once were
as to where authority resides, the exact nature and implications
of the inspiration of the Bible, the nature of God, immortality
and the future life, the meaning, nature and method of salva-
tion, and what it means to be lost. But the ordinary religious
mind demands an authoritative word on these things and the
sects give it to one. They know exactly what they mean when
they use the words lost and saved, and they can tell a penitent
without a moment's hesitation exactly what he should do to be
saved. Herein is the secret of the strong hold which the small
sects have on the minds and hearts of the plain people.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMALL SECTS 25 1

V

In summary and conclusion, it may be said that the psychol-
ogy of the small sect is characterized by four deep human
hungers.

1 . There is a craving for the direct intervention of God
to correct the ills and inequalities of his world. This is marked
among the Pessimistic or Adventist groups, who despair of
social processes.

2. There is a craving for the supernatural and for a sal-
vation which man cannot achieve and which this world cannot
provide.

3. There is a craving for an emotional outlet and a direct
touch with God.

4. There is a craving for definiteness, for objectivity, for a
real act which man can do, the doing of which will be pleasing
to God, and a word of dogmatic certainty on spiritual and
eternal subjects.

These are the four strong points of the small sects in
America. They are the four weak points, if we may use that
term, of the large denominations, and the weakening of the
emphasis at these points on the part of the big churches in large
measure explains the fact that they are losing the masses of the
plain people of the churches. It is worthy of note that the
Roman Catholic Church has suffered little from the sectarian
spirit and it may be that the explanation is in the fact that this
church has not weakened at either of the four points mentioned.
Catholicism has laid no great stress on the modern social gospel.
Its pageantry is as tawdry as the plainest of the plain people
could desire, and it provides a considerable emotional feature.
It certainly stresses the supernatural, and is exceedingly other-
worldly, and it satisfies the craving for definiteness, objectivity,
and a certain word of authority on religious matters. If these
points give us insight into the reason for the sectarian revolt
in this country, probably they also afford a view as to what
the great denominations should do to halt that revolt and win
back the ordinary people they are so rapidly losing.

AN ANALYTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT

By William H. Bernhardt

Iliff School of Theology

Denver, Colorado

Discussions of the God-concept are normally confined to
one or more of the following questions: (i) What is the nature
of God? (ii) Does God-as-defined exist? (iii) What is the
relation of God-as-defined to man and the world? Occasional-
ly some one will attempt to dismiss one or more of these
questions as irrelevant or unanswerable. Professor Wicman,
in one of his earlier works (Religious Experience and Scientific
Method, 1926) sought to eliminate the third question listed
above. He defined God as that "Something upon which
human life is most dependent for its security, welfare and in-
creasing abundance," and stated that the existence of "Some-
thing" was not open to question. In his next volume, how-
ever, (The Wrestle of Religion with Truth, 1927) he defined
the God-concept more specifically. When he did this, how-
ever, he faced the necessity of 'testing' the concept. This 'test-
ing' consisted in attempting to prove that God-as-defined
actually existed. It may be stated categorically that whenever
one defines God in specific terms he faces the question: Does
God so defined exist? To the present, then, it appears to be
impossible to evade the three- fold question of nature-existence-
relation when one considers the problem of God.

There is a preliminary question, however, which must be
answered before one is in position intelligently to consider
these three related questions. What is the fundamental cate-
gory or general class to which all entities named Deity belong?
Or, to what class of realities does Deity belong? An analogy
from physics may clarify the meaning of this question. When
the physicist is asked about the nature of his basic problem, he
may answer in the words of J. Arthur Thomson that "physics
is mainly the science of the transformations of Energy (Ener-
getics)." (An Introduction to Science, New York: Henry Holt
and Co., 1911, p. 105). The physicist, in other words, has

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 25 3

selected some phase of the universe about him and subjects it
to critical examination. He confines his attention to motion,
and attempts to answer the questions which emerge from its
consideration . He does not ask whether or not there is Motion,
spelled with an upper case M. He begins with common-sense
experiences of motion and subjects them to progressively re-
fined and complex analyses. The other sciences follow a
similar procedure: they select given areas or phases of the world
about them, and investigate these areas as thoroughly as pos-
sible.

The religious thinker has no such clearly defined field.
He may not assume that the object of his study exists: no other
inference may be drawn from the fact that he must prove its
existence. Furthermore, religious thinkers are not in agreement
as to the category to which God-as-reality belongs. Some con-
temporary thinkers believe Deity belongs to the class of essen-
tially and absolutely non-sensible or imperceptible realities (as
does C. E. M. Joad. Matter, Life and Value. Oxford, 1929) :
others believe Deity belongs to the category of perceptible ob-
jects, and to that specific group which includes those of highest
value (as does H. N. Wieman in several of his books) ; others
view Deity as the Dominant Phase of all reality (as does F. S.
C. Northrop, in Science and First Principles, Macmillan,
1931) . Each of these thinkers has selected a different category
for the entity or being designated by the term God. God is
Subsistent Value (Joad), Existent Value (Wieman), or De-
terminant Power or Control (Northrop) .

The various schools of theological thought with then
widely divergent conceptions of Deity are normal consequences
of the selection of different categories for Deity. If one be-
lieves that the realm of subsistent objects contains all that is
needed in the way of information concerning Deity, he has, by
that choice, determined in advance the general character of any
God-concept he may develop. Likewise, if he selects for ob-
servation and examination that which probably represents the
dominant or controlling phase or phases of reality, he has by
that selection predetermined the basic character of the God-
concept which will emerge from his investigations.

254 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The answer which one makes to the preliminary question
of general class or category to which all God-concepts belong
is thus of major importance in any attempt to define God.
The specific significance of such choice will become more evident
as we analyze two such categories. This preliminary analysis
should throw some light upon the whole set of problems which
cluster about the problem of God.

I. Agathonic Realism

The term 'agathonic' is derived from the Greek expression
to agathon, which means "good in its kind." Agathonic is
defined to mean whatever may be of use and (or) enjoyment
to human beings. The term Realism is used in its normal
philosophical meaning to denote that which has independent
existence or subsistence; that which is not dependent for its
being upon either human or divine experience or thought. Aga-
thonic Realists, then, are those who believe that God belongs
to the category of value, defined in terms of what is of use
and (or) enjoyment to humanity. The data accepted as ad-
missible by Agathonic Realists in the derivation and validation
of theories concerning the nature of God consists in behaviors,
events or entities (existent or subsistent ) which are believed to
support and (or) enhance human values.

This approach found an early exponent in Plato. He
stated that God as creator had created only that which is good,
and that he himself .was perfect and changeless in character
(The Republic, bk. II, 380,381). Plato, as one may recall,
viewed all changing, observable entities as quite deficient in
reality. When he defined God as a perfect, changeless reality,
he discarded the world of perceptible entities from all serious
consideration. One of Plato's numerous successors in this
tendency is C. E. M. Joad. In an important volume, Matter,
Life and Value (Oxford, 1929), he presented his theory of
reality. Reality consists in three levels. The first and lowest
is matter. Matter is defined as an entity devoid of life or
mind and exhaustively explicable in physico-chemical terms.
The second level is Life, described as an indefinable principle
which appeared in matter in some mysterious way at an un-
known time. Life is characterized as a Protean thrust or im-

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 255

pulsion (Ibid., pp. 138 f . ) . The third level, and the only one
to which Joad appears to apply the term reality, is value.
He characterizes it in Platonic terms as permanent, perfect and
changeless. It contains all that may be designated at its lowest
levels by the terms truth, beauty and goodness. The term
God may be used to symbolize this realm of value when it is
conceived of as one and individuated. (Cf. his Present and
Future of Christianity. New York: Macmillan Co., 1930, p.
287).

Knowledge of value or God is not to be obtained by ex-
amination or experience of either matter or life. Knowledge
as such is always a matter of awareness. Awareness is defined
as the directional activity of living beings accompanied by the
feeling of immediate certainty. All forms of knowing are thus
forms of awareness: awareness of matter is called sensation;
awareness of subsistent objects (such as thoughts) is called
thinking (Matter, Life and Value, p. 3 78). At its highest
level, awareness is called mysticism, or the vision of God or
Value. It is still a form of awareness, but a much higher and
rarer form. Those who possess it may be called 'sports', and
their vision may become the means whereby lesser folk grope
their own way closer to the light. (Ibid., p. 363 ff).

It may be possible for some folk to catch indirect and fleet-
ing glimpses of value (God) in the esthetic experience. How-
ever, the chief source of information is and must remain the
mystic vision. This means that the primary source of informa-
tion, the basic data for determining the nature of God. is
mysticism or awareness of the Third Level of Reality. No in-
formation is attainable, directly, through sensation or thinking.
To all intent and purposes, the whole spatio-temporal con-
tinuum is irrevelant to the quest for knowledge of God.

Professor Wieman adhers to the Agathonic category. Like
Plato, he insists that God did not and does not create the
'mechanical' universe. In his debate with R. L, Calhoun, he
specifically denied that God created mechanisms. He defined
a mechanism as whatever "has its parts externally related to
one another," or as that in, which "the natures of the several
parts are not determined by their relations to one another. " (Cf.

256 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Wieman, "Faith and Knowledge," Christendom, I (Autumn
1936), p. 774). God may use mechanisms in the realization
of values, but he is not responsible for them as such. This
implies, if we understand Mr. Wieman, that when one seeks
information concerning the nature of God, he may safely dis-
regard the study of the astronomical universe as pure fact, or in
its existential dimension. Such an investigator will have all
of the data admissible if he confines his observation to values
and the value-making or value-increasing aspects or phases of
reality.

The Agathonic Realists, in terms of this preliminary analy-
sis, believe that the term God refers to that in one's total me-
dium of existence, or his Existential Medium, which is of use
and enjoyment to human beings (Wieman), or which, accord-
ing to Joad, is of no practical use to us but which serves as
the highest object of appreciation and contemplation. Their
theories concerning the nature of Deity are thus dependent upon
data selected from what is of use and (or) enjoyment and ap-
preciation.

//. Pure Realism

The term 'pure realism' is used to designate that approach
to Deity which agrees with agathonic realism in its acceptance
of the independent existence or subsistence of the Existential
Medium viewed cither as a whole or as a multiplicity of entities,
events or behaviors, but which disagrees with it in its principle
of selectivity. Agathonic realism accepts as admissible data
only those facts (entities, events, behavoirs) which are of use
and (or) enjoyment and appreciation to persons. Pure real-
ism accepts as admissible data whatever may aid one to determine
what is dominant or controlling in' the Existential Medium
without considering (at first) whether or not this may be of
value or significance to human beings. The category or gen-
eral class to which all God-concepts belong, for the Pure Realist,
is that of Dominant Phase or Determinate Behavior Pattern of
the Existential Medium as a whole. The term Deity, in other
words, refers to "the Determiner of Destiny" in Pratt's phrase-
ology, without implying that this destiny must be desirable to

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 257

man. The data admissable in determining the nature of God
for the Pure Realist is thus inclusive. Whatever may provide
information concerning the cosmos is acceptable as data relevent
to the attempt to discover what, if anything, is dominant or
controlling in it.

The term 'pure' in the name Pure Realist may require a
word of explanation. It is used here to denote an attitude
on the part of the investigator, an attitude of disinterested
search for the most valid understanding of Dominance in the
Universe. The term 'pure' has as one of its numerous mean-
ings that which is "taken in its essential character and apart
from relations and applications.'' It is precisely this meaning —
the meaning of the adjective in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason —
which is meant here. One who approaches the problem of
God from the point of view of Pure Realism must put aside
resolutely all questions of personal or human interest in his
attempt to understand the nature of God categorized as Domi-
nant Phase of the Total Existential Medium. He must be
nonpragmatic in his primary approach to God. Once he has
reached his conclusions concerning the nature of God. then
the question of the relation of God as defined to human values
becomes relevant.

This approach is by no means novel. From the point of
view of category or general class, it is probably true that this
represents the earliest attitude of primitive or savage peoples.
Thus the Melanesians who used the term mana had reference to
a non-physical power or influence of unusual nature which
conditioned human existence and which had to be considered
seriously if one wished safety and power. It was an extra-
natural power which could be used for either good or ill. Ac-
cording to E. Durkheim ( The Elementary Forms of the Reli-
gious Life, Macmillan, 1915. Eng. trans, by J. W. Swain, pp.
192 ff ) , whose conclusions rest primarily upon observation
of Australian peoples, mana designated every power which
affected man and in harmony with which he must learn to
live. From primitive or savage levels of culture to those of
the contemporary west, there have always been those who
thought of God in terms of Dominant Phase of the Existential
Medium, or of some aspect of it.

258 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Aristotle, seeking an explanation of the world in which he
lived, believed the concept motion to be the starting point for
any thorough analysis. He concluded that motion implied
change or movement; that movement implied both a 'moved'
(i. e., a something that is in motion or in process of change),
and a 'mover,' that is, the source of movement. The distinction
between motion and source of motion involved him in a process
of .infinite regress. He broke this apparently interminable
cause-effect sequence by positing an ultimate Unmoved Mover
as the final source of all movement. (Cf. his Physics, bks.
vii and viii). He then identified God with this Unmoved
Mover whose existence was made necessary by this analysis of
motion in the world of immediate experience.

Building a new structure, but with Aristotle's theory as
foundation, F. S. C. Northrop has recently developed the
theory of God as Macroscopic Atom. Northrop believes that
the facts educed by modern physics and the theories in which
these facts bi,ve been generalized compel us to posit the exist-
ence of a macroscopic Atom, perfectly spherical in form, which
encloses the microscopic atoms within itself, and impresses upon
them the order, intelligibility and other qualities which they
exhibit. (Science and First Principles, Macmillan, 1931, pp.
120 ff., and 249 ff). The Macroscopic Atom is then identi-
fied as God. God is thus dominant or determinant phase —
atomic in character — of one's total Existential Medium. He is
responsible for the character of the behavior of the microscopic
atoms individually and in their various, if temporary, forms
of structuralized relationships.

The pure Realist, from Aristotle to Northrop and others,
approaches his task, ideally, with the attitude of the 'pure'
scientist. He identifies God with what is dominant or con-
trolling in reality, and then seeks to determine as precisely as
possible the nature of this dominant or controlling phase. Only
after this has been done, is he prepared to investigate the pos-
sible significance of God as defined for religious values.

III. Corollaries

Several corollaries suggest themselves at once. The first
is related to the admissibility of data. For the agathonic realist,

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 259

the world-as-valued, or the world-as-experienced-as-value consti-
tutes the primary source of data. This may be a very large or
a very small part of the world-as-known. Whatever it is,
this is accepted as the source of data. All else is more or less
irrevelant. For the pure realist, it is the world-as-experienced
or the world-as-known which constitutes the source of data.
He may not impose any value criterion as test of admissibility.
His task is that of determining the nature of the dominant or
determinate phase of the Existential Medium as a whole. Con-
sequently, his basic presupposition will not permit him to
exclude from consideration as possible data any fact which
presents itself. The only limits to his primary source of data
are the boundaries which may mark the limits of experiential
entities.

Both positions are subject to criticism at this point. The
Agathonic Realist is accused of being too highly selective in his
choice of data. The criticism levelled by Lippman in his
Preface to Morals (pp. 136 ff) at Kant and the Kantians is rele-
vant here. Kant failed to find a basis for belief in God in his
analysis of experience by means of 'pure' reason. He adopted
man's moral experience as absolute in order to find what ap-
peared to him to be an adequate basis. The modern Agathonic
Realist modifies Kant's principle of selectivity somewhat, but
the practical consequences are almost the same. Kant confined
himself to man's moral needs: the contemporary Agathonic
Realist confines himself to man's value experiences. Both
represent highly selective bodies of data.

The Pure Realist faces precisely the opposite criticism. He
must include such a vast body of data in his quest that his
attempts to find order or determinateness may be wholly futile,
This is the criticism which H. E. Barnes (The Twilight of
Christianity, Richard R. Smith, 1931, pp. 249 ff) directs at
all such attempts. To the present, at least, both of these criti-
cisms have not been refuted. Much more critical consideration
will have to be devoted to them to detcmine whether or not
they can be met.

The second corollary be^rs more directly upon religious
values. The traditional attributes of God may be divided into

260 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

two general groups: (i) the moral-personal, and (i) the ab-
solute or existential. (Cf. W. Adams Brown, An Outline of
Christian Theology, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906, pp. 102
ff). The first are those which belong to the general realm
of the good, of value, of character. The second are those
which belong to the realm of power, structure, being, existence.
It is obvious, as pointed out above, (cf. p. 254) , that the attrib
utes of Deity which will emerge from the Agathonic approach
will belong to the moral-personal group. God will be so
characterized as to make him the most valuable object of
human aspiration or contemplation. There can be no question
concerning this. When one places God in the class of the most
worthful objects known or knowable to man, the only data
which will be given consideration are .those which define God
in terms highly satisfactory to human beings. Thus God is
for Wieman that which is most worthful or of highest value;
thus God for Joad is that level or realm of reality whose con-
templation represents the goal of all human striving.

The attributes of Deity which emerge from the approach of
pure realism are more existential or absolute in character. God
as dominant phase or determinate behavior pattern of the total
environing medium may not possess the list of agathonic attrib-
utes so characteristic of the other approach. Analysis may
prove that God possesses some or all of the moral-personal
attributes. If this happens to be the case, the conclusion will
be accepted gratefully. If, on the other hand, the facts which
emerge from observation lead one to conclude that human
values are relatively unimportant (to indulge for the moment
in understatement) , this conclusion may also have to be ac-
cepted. It will then be necessary for the contemporary to
adjust himself to a rigorous theology, a theology such as served
John Calvin and his day. There is a vast difference in the
agathonic character of early Calvinism and that of contemporary
Agathonic realists. It is worth remembering, however, that
religious values have been found in both.

The third corollary is epistemological in character. The
selection of one's basic category^ for Deity determines, in the
main, the methodology which must be used in the investigation

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 261

The prolonged discussion of the possible relevance of empirical
of the precise character of the object one proposes to call God.
methodology to philosophy of religion loses much of its rele-
vance in the light of the preceding analysis. If the category
to which all God-concepts belong, or if God as object of pos-
sible investigation is said to belong to the realm of perceptible
entities, then he is subject to investigation by empirical methods.
The precise empirical method which may be used will have to
be determined by further analysis of dimensional factors in-
volved, but the relevance of empiricism as method is no longer in
question. If, on the other hand, one accepts Joad's category
for Deity — as generalized name for an absolutely non-perceptible
Realm — then empiricism as method is impossible. The basic
choice concerning the general class of entities to which God as
object of investigation belongs may thus preclude all reference
to empirical methodology and the perceptive process upon which
it rests. (Some of the commentators who participated in the
debate precipitated by E. R. Walker's article, "Can Philosophy
of Religion Be Empirical?" which appeared in the columns of
The Journal of Religion, April, 1939, saw this point, but failed
to take full advantage of it. It is obvious, of course, that if
one accepts Walker's basic category for Deity, the debate becomes
irrelevant) .

IV. The Derivation of Categories

Thus far we have stated two approaches to the basic char-
acter of Deity and examined a few of the corollaries to which
they give rise. We now face the question of fact: To which
of these two categories does God (or gods) belong? As soon
as this question is raised, however, a curious fact emerges.
There appears to be no way whereby one may justify, directly.
the areas of actual or possible experience, mediate or immediate,
which he selects as relevant to the quest for knowledge of God.
In other words, there is nothing in a given experience which
compels one to call it a God-experience, except tradition. Thost
who have been reared in the Platonic tradition, as has Joad.
will think of God in Platonic terms. Those, on the other
hand, who have been reared in the atmosphere of western prag-
matism will probably think of God in more immediate agathonic

262 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

terms, as does Wieman and the school of younger men he has
gathered about him. Those reared in other traditions will
doubtless select other experiences to be labelled divine.

This is oversimplified, of course. The utilization of tradi-
tion as a determinant of categories is more indirect than is im-
plied in the preceding paragraph. Technically, the process
may be reduced to the following operations: (i) One recognizes
that the term God belongs within a given universe of discourse,
i. e., a given group of related concepts and symbols employed in
the exploration and communication of a given form of behavior
traditionally called religious. (ii) . The next step consists
in the determination of the extension of the term religion, the
setting of boundaries to the area or areas to be included within
the denotation and connotation of this term. (iii). Having
defined the limits of the term religion, one next determines the
function of the God-concept within these areas. If one decides
that religion has been and is an attempt to find supernatural
support in the quest for values, the nature and function of Deity
are readily discerned. God is the supernatural, in whole or in
part, upon which individuals and groups may rely for support.
If, per contra, one decides that religious behaviour is concerned
with the discovery of ethico-social ideals of high order and with
the motivation of individuals and groups in the pursuit of these
ideals, then God belongs to the realm of the ideal, to the realm
of high and moving goals which have lured the human race on
from quest to conquest, from glorious feat to equally glorious
defeat. It is possible, but highly impossible, that the God of
the supernaturalist and that of the ethico-social idealist will be
identical; in most cases they are different beings and belong to
quite different orders of reality.

This method is formally correct. The category Deity is
deduced or derived from preceding conclusions. It is a neces-
sary consequent of a given definition of the nature and function
of religion. It is thus a useless procedure to debate the relative
validity of the Agathonic or the Pure Realistic approach to the
God-concept. If a given conception of religion is proved to
be valid, Agathonic realism is a necessary consequence. If a
different theory of religion proves to be valid, pure realism may
be the inevitable corollary. This merely means that all fruitful

APPROACH TO THE GOD-CONCEPT 26 3

discussions of God depend upon prior work in the philosophy
of religion. Once this prior work has been done, then an effec-
tive approach to the God-concept is possible.

V. Summary

The results of this preliminary analysis may be summarized
very briefly. (i) All significant discussions of th" God-concept
presuppose clarification of the basic category or general class
to which all entities termed Deity belong. Categories consti-
tute a form of definition in that they circumscribe the extension
of given terms. Until one has circumscribed the extension
of the term God, he has no basic data-determinant, no way
whereby he may decide what may be admitted as data for the
fuller understanding of God. (ii). Once this basic category
has been determined, many puzzling problems become irrelevant
or may be resolved by deduction. Problems in the field of
methodology may be cited as illustrative of this. ( iii ) . The
preceding analysis indicates that religious problems are closely
interrelated and that this interrelatcdnessmust not be forgotten
no matter what problem in the field confronts one. It is ob-
vious that basic categories for Deity depend upon prior work in
defining the extension of the term religion. Similar analysis
will indicate that analogous conditions prevail with respect
to religious techniques, i. e., the whole realm of overt behaviors
employed to achieve and conserve religious values.

NOTES and NEWS

FLORIDA MINISTERS' WEEK

Florida Southern College held its third annual Ministers'
week January 11-15, 1942. More than one hundred ministers
were in attendance during the week. Two courses of lectures
were offered, one by Dean Lynn Harold Hough of Drew Theo-
logical Seminary, and the other by Dr. Elmer T. Clark, editor
of the Wtorld Outlook. Dean Hough also preached the sermon
at the college church on Sunday morning. Dr. Clark lectured
each afternoon and Dean Hough each evening. In addition to
the afternoon and evening lecturers various guests spoke each
morning. Dean Hough's general subject was "Intellectual Pat-
terns." We had planned to publish a summary of these lectures
in this issue. However, the fact that the lectures are to be pub-
lished shortly by Harper and Brothers makes this unnecessary.
Dr. Clark lectured on the general subject of "The Small Sects in
America." Instead of summarizing his lectures, we are pub-
lishing one of them in full in this issue.

On Monday morning Dr. P. M. Boyd, Superintendent of
the Tampa District of the Methodist Church spoke on the sub-
ject "Adjustment to a New World." The lecturer for Tuesday
morning was Dr. Glenn C. James, pastor of The White Temple,
Miami, Florida. Dr. James' subject was "The World We
Would Like to Live In." Following is a brief summary of
his lecture:

Life is challenging; the world is not beautiful, and yet
how glad we are that we are alive. All worthwhile people
do not ask for life on a silver platter. We may not do all
that we set out to do, but, it is worthwhile to set out to do
something. Too many of us wanl all the privileges of our
world, and none of the responsibilities.

Where are you going? Are you a bit of driftwood ? Or

' have you decided to consecrate yourself to something that is

really worthwhile? You may not have the kind of world

NOTES AND NEWS 265

you want, but you can work on it. Abraham was the first
man of whom we have record who objected to his kind of
world, and set out to do something about it. He did not
know "how far" or "where to," but he knew "where
from." He believed that the God who planted within
him a divine dissatisfaction would show him the way.
We need this same divine dissatisfaction . Youth has not
faced in the last generations the great opportunities they
face now, if they are able, or the great perils, if they are
not able.

Man's life has been a succession of upheavals — why?
Because the patterns were not right; a world that refused
to sacrifice is now called upon to suffer. The war we call
the "unnecessary necessity." The world that we would
like to have, which we may not see, but which we can work
on and try to have some part in, is the world that God
intends. It has not yet been realized, but we can work
on it. We do not know "where to," we do not know
"how far," but we do know "where from." We want
to get up into a world that is dictated by the will of God,
a world that has foundations that God has made. First
we must have hope; then we must have faith to give sub-
stance to that hope. We must visualize God's world first,
then have a faith that will put foundations under it.
Truth is the foundation that God gives us for a world — a
world where truth is believed to be something more than
an impossible ideal; a world of cooperation, not isolation;
a world where there are no barriers, where there is love
among all people; a world where all eyes are fixed on
Jesus Christ. Let us build on a foundation that can not
be shaken. We can not escape Jesus because the universe
is back of Him, God is with Him, He is the foundation of
the world that God intends.

Dr. J. E. Anderson, pastor of the Methodist Church in
Tallahassee, spoke on Wednesday morning, and used as his text
"Stir up the gift of God that lies in you." The following is
a brief summary of his sermon:

Although we are all tired of hearing about the war,

266 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

whatever we say in this hour that is significant in the lives
of people today must bring in the war. The world is
disintegrating before our eyes. Why? War brings out
all that is bad in humanity. We now realize how un-
christian certain areas of our lives were; it is no wonder
that we are where we are today. It gives a challenge to
the churches and the Christian people of today — to create
a life that is worthy of the name Christian. We regret
all that the war brings, but we shall rise from our knees to
create a better way of life. We shall have a difficult time,
but remember that Christianity grew in a time just as bad
as today. We shall not thank God for this war, but we
shall thank him for the courage to build a better world.
It is only in the case of emergency that we find the power
to do the things that have to be done, the development
of latent powers — the gift of God which we have not yet
begun to realize.

Set before you a goal which will consume all the
energy and all the powers of your life. There are two
types of people — those who sit down when they meet a
hard situation and those who go on and overcome that
situation. There is in us a divine discontent which is not
only the beginning of all wisdom but also the beginning
of all art. We realize that we can never grasp that which
is unsurpassed, but we can reach for it. How we ought
to be ashamed of ourselves, how we ought to stir up the
gift of God which lies in us, how we ought to meet the
situation of the world today and rise above it. What is
this God-given gift? The gift of intelligence; the gift
of understanding; the ability to choose — to take the good
and leave the bad; to go until you reach the best. But
more important is the gift of love. All other bases for
building life today have been tried; structural, organic
bases for society will not do. This world can be rid of
war. It is the will to have power and force over people
that is not Christian, however it may be achieved. We are
trying to obey God and man at the same time. When a
person says "I am living in the Kingdom of God," he
finds that his allegiance is to God and not to man. His

NOTES AND NEWS 267

citizenship is in heaven. Let us stir up the gift of God
which lies in us.
Following the sermon of Dr. Anderson, Dr. Charles T.
Thrift, Jr., of the Florida School of Religion, spoke on the
subject of "Church History in Florida." He pointed out the
necessity for preserving the history of Christianity in Florida,
and outlined several research projects now under way in the
Florida School of Religion.

There were three speakers on Thursday; Dr. R. E. Wicker,
pastor of the First Methodist Church of Jacksonville; Dr. J.
Wallace Hamilton, pastor of the Pasadena Methodist Church;
and Dr. Roy L. Smith, editor of the Christian Advocate. Dr.
Wicker's subject was "Light in Darkness." The following
is a summary of his lecture:

This is a dark morning in the history of the world;
it is involved in war. We are in this war, and we are in it
to win this war. We have one great danger in appreciat-
ing the place which we occupy in this darkness — we are
tempted to believe that winning the war is the only thing
before us, and that winning is the only thing necessary.

We are called upon as Christians to dispel the darkness
of the world: and the only thing that dissipates darkness
is light. We will have to supplement the victory we
expect as a nation with the victory of God's business of
bringing light into the world. We have two battles to
fight. One is to win the war: the other is the battle
that God wages to bring light into the world. This is
the only kind of victory that will endure. We need to
remember this. Jesus says. "I am the light of the world,"
and if the war victory is to count, we must bring the light
of Jesus to it. We must keep the principles of Jesus
alive and shining in the midst of a great war, if we are to
have a victory that is worthwhile.

We must put our hearts into 'the war — then the
little difficulties do not amount to anything. God oper-
ates like that. The only way this world will ever have
peace is to harmonize with God as he speaks to it. God

268 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

/■

uses our difficulties, sorrows, troubles, sometimes, and
keeps working on us until we get our hearts and lives
into harmony with Him. We must keep our religious
fires burning to reach the victory that we want. We
must keep the light of Christ shining if we are to dissipate
the darkness. We are also the light of the world and God
has said, "Let your light shine." The early work
of the Christian Church was done in a warring world;
this did not stop them. They felt they had to keep
the light of Christ shining. We must keep alive the
feeling of missions in God's Kingdom as well as keep our
loyalty to our country.

We are called upon for two strong loyalties where
some people only have one. It is our portion to reflect
the light of Christ in this dark day. We must be faithful
as Christians to the Christian Church to keep our souls.
If we will just let our light shine, when the war is over it
will have its effect in the peace of the world.

Dr. Hamilton preached on the subject "The Half-way
Place," and used as his text "Terah died in Haran." The fol-
lowing is a brief summary of his sermon:

Too many men receive salvation and die in the "half-
way place." Isn't this what we are facing today? Are
we going to expand our democracy to meet the present
needs, or are we going to see it die in the "half-way place"?
Democracy grew out of the belief that God made man in
His own image. We have now reached the place of
decision. Will we die in the "half-way place," or move
on to perfect the dream? We have been thinking of
democracy as a status rather than a process. It is not a
status; it is a process. Democracy is a growing thing —
it is a strong thing; we have it, but we have it to get, also.
We have it in certain spots; we have yet to achieve it in
other spots. That is our fight. Social, economic, in-
ternational democracy. We must go on or go under.

The "half-way place" is dangerous; we are neither
good enough to make a good world, nor evil enough to
protect ourselves in a bad world. We can not be de-

NOTES AND NEWS 269

brutalized unless we are ready to go and become Chris-
tianized. The failure of today indicates that in the world
of tomorrow democracy must take a purer form. The
Treaty of Versailles was neither harsh enough nor too
harsh. Wars never settle anything; they only provide
the chance to settle things. Wars never decide who is
right; they only decide who is left. For awhile we will
have to go back before we can go forward again. The
war has us in the situation where we have to fight, and
we will pray for strength to win. But by no stretch of
the imagination can wc call it Christian. Wc have to
sec to it that the right people are left to carry on to" the
Promised Land. There must come a revolution in our
thinking today. War is an absolute waste unless at its
end, we can march out of it, leaving the past behind, with
the vision of the Promised Land in our hands and hearts.

Dr. Roy L. Smith spoke on the subject "The Temptations
of the Church," and a brief summary follows:

The church could have the world today, if the church
wanted it on evil's terms. The pulpit of the church of
Christ is not the place to preach hatred. The church
could be popular if it endorsed the right people and parties.
The only way by which the church can redeem the world
is by the doctrine of brotherhood according to the princi-
ples of Jesus Christ. Unless this war brings about a
world in which brotherhoood can have a chance, it will
have been fought in vain.

We could have all the world if we would follow the
techniques of the dictators and the politicians. We must
realize that there are things more important than material
products, or we will not have solved our problem. If we
sink to the level of our enemy, what have we won? It
means that the Japanese way is right — that we have learned
how to work their way. We are living in a moral uni-
verse. It did not come about by whim or accident. It is
your Fifth Column: The government sells the soldiers
whiskey with which to get drunk. The stones turned
to bread — we save ourselves at the expense of the cost.

270 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

We can save ourselves many times by keeping still, but the
church of God must speak out against wrongs. The des-
perate need of the Church today is a right spirit and a right
heart.

Some of us are all the time looking for a miracle.
There are people all over the world who are saying that
God will solve the problem. Jesus said, "You are my
witnesses." The need of this world is for usefulness of
the powers we already have, not praying for more power.
When men and women become infatuated with the idea
that God's way is the only way, then the miracle will
have come. A group of Christians getting together ought
to throw the fear of God into evil somewhere. In these
days of stress and strain the Church of God is only going
to overcome when it has discovered its own weaknesses.

RELIGION

In The Making

VOLUME II MAY, 1942 No. 4

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION

By Bernard Eugene Meland

THE JEWISH SETTING IN WHICH

CHRISTIANITY AROSE

By Floy S. Hyde

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH

By William S. Minor

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES

By Mary E. Andrews

FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION, LAKELAND, FLA.

RELIGION IN THE MAKING

VOLUME II No. 4

Shirley Jackson Case, Editor

Religion in the Making is published four times a year,
in May, November, January and March. It is sponsored by
the Florida School of Religion and edited by the dean of the
School.

The subscription price is $2.00 per year, or sixty cents
per single issue. Remittances should be made by postal or
express money orders or by check and made payable to the
Florida School of Religion.

All communications, including business correspondence,
manuscripts, exchanges, and books submitted for review, should
be addressed to Shirley Jackson Case, Editor, Florida School
of Religion, Lakeland, Fla.

Published by the Florida School of Religion, Box 146
Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, four times a year,
May 15, November 15, January 15, and March 15. Entered
as second class matter at the Post Office, Lakeland, Florida.

RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Shirley Jackson Case, Editor
VOLUME II Contents for May, 1942 No. 4

Page
OUR CONTRIBUTORS 273

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 275

By Bernard Eugene Meland

THE JEWISH SETTING IN WHICH

CHRISTIANITY AROSE . 290

By Floy S. Hyde

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH , 308

By William S. Minor

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES _ 323

By Mary E. Andrews

NOTES AND NEWS:

The Florida Religious Association 333

BOOKS REVIEWED:

Ernest F. Scott, The Nature of the Early Church 342

Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the

American Dream 543

Irl Goldwin Whitchurch, An Enlightened Conscience 344

Paul S. Minear, And Great Shall Be Your Reward _ 346

Theodore Gerald Soares, The Origins of the Bible . 346

Chester Warren Quimby, Jesus as They Remembered

Him .... 347

George Claude Baker, Jr., An Introduction to the

History of Early New England Methodism 348

Joseph R. Sizoo, On Guard 349

Russell L. Dicks, Who Is My Patient^ 349

Karl Ruf Stolz, Pastoral Psychology 350

Carl Heath Kopf, Windows On Life 350

Richard Kroner, The Religious Function of

Imagination 351

Karl Barth, This Christian Cause 351

Hugh S. Tigner, No Sign Shall Be Given 352

George Steindorff and Keith C. Steele, When Egypt

Ruled the East 353

William Redmond Curtis, The Lambeth Conferences.^ 354

Ray C. Petry, Francis of Assist, Apostle of Poverty 354

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Bernard Eugene Meland is head of the department of reli-
gion in Pomona College, Claremont, California. He is a
Ph. D. of the University of Chicago and the author of several
books including Modern Man's Worship, Write Your Own Ten
Commandments, and The Church and Adult Education. He
has also written a number of significant articles for religious
and philosophical journals.

Floy S. Hyde is a teacher of English in Florida Southern
College. During the past year she has been a graduate student
and an assistant in the Florida School of Religion.

William S. Minor is Professor of religion on the West-
minster Foundation in the Bible College of Missouri, which
is the School of Religion at the University of Missouri. He
pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago where
until 1935 he served two years as an associate to Dean Charles
W. Gilkey of the University of Chicago Chapel.

Mary E. Andrews is head of the department of religion in
Goucher College. She holds the Doctor's degree from the Uni-
versity of Chicago, and she is the author of a volume on The
Ethical Teaching of Paul, as well as of various articles in
scholarly journals.

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION

By Bernard Eugene Meland

Pomona College

Claremont, California

Much that is being written in philosophy of religion today
is unintelligible to the lay reader. He may think it is because
his mind does not follow deep thought readily. He may be
right in his case; but not all of the difficulty is with him.
Part of it arises from the radical change of meaning in the
fundamental concepts of religion. For in its contemporary
philosophical form, religion speaks a new language. It is the
language of dynamic process. Its vocabulary is filled with
words and phrases such as interaction, creativity, environing
activities, adjustment, flux of experience, empiricai reality,
growth, fulfilment, etc. In this language, man's chief end is
to grow and to fulfil his life upon the earth.

This was not the language of the old time religion. Our
fathers spoke of change, but they mentioned the word with
proud lips. "Change and decay in all around I see," they
sang, "but Thou who changest not, abide with me." In
this world of thought, man sought escape from the world of
change, not fulfilment through its process. God, rather than
being a reality in the creative process, was a being above and
beyond the temporal scene of change.

I.

The preference for a static deity is a very old habit of
thought in western philosophy. It goes back at least to Plato.
Plato developed a theory of the universe in which the contrast
between rest and motion became focal. Constancy and flux
characterized for him two diverse realms. On the one hand,
there was the world of every-day experience in which change
and perishing were dominant tendencies: on the other was the
realm of eternal forms or ideas which were changeless and fixed.

276 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

This changing character of the world of experience was for
Plato evidence of its unreality. The changeless quality of the
world of ideas was a guarantee of its genuine reality. In this
view of the universe, Plato portrays God as an intermediary
Being who rescues man's rational soul from the life of flux
by influencing him to aspire to association with the static world
cf eternal forms.

Aristotle removed the stigma of unreality from the world
of common experience, but he failed to give it genuine signifi-
cance; for he identified God with Plato's Supreme Good, which
remained, as in Plato's thought, distantly removed from these*
common scenes of flux and change. In Plotinus this separation
was made more complete by a view of intelligence and a view
of deity which could only lead to the conclusion that the divine
realm was inaccessible to human intelligence. Augustine
struggled to meliorate this estrangement by introducing into
the Neo-platonic picture the Hebrew conception of a personal
God of history, a deity with whom men might commune in
person, provided they came within the orbit of His being. But
the orbit of God was a static order above the world of change:
and man attained identification with it at the price of becoming
alienated from the world of experience.

We are accustomed to saying that in the time of Thomas
Aquinas, when medieval theology discovered Aristotle, there
was a sharp turning away from the Platonic tradition which
had dominated Christian thought since Augustine; but we
should not let this assertion obscure the fact that the revival ot
Aristotle in the philosophy of Aquinas did not eliminate
Platonic elements which had persisted in the thought of Aris-
totle. One of these elements was the concept of a static deity,
operating above the realm of change. To be sure, Aristotle's
doctrine of teleology, which reappears in Aquinas, brought the
world of flux and the eternal order into more intimate associa-
tion than had ever occurred in the Platonic universe; but this
did not alter the basic pattern of thought which placed deity
outside the world of change.

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 277

The age of mathematical rationalism which produced the
systems of Descartes and Spinoza returned the conception of
deity to a static nature nearer to the mathematical pattern of
Plato. For Spinoza, in fact, God was the mathematical order
of the universe. "Whatever the difference between his God
and the God tradition," writes H. A. Wolfson in the Philos-
ophy of Spinoza, "Spinoza seems to say at the beginning of
this new chapter in the Ethics that his God does not differ from
the traditional God in the matter of eternity." It is true that
Spinoza used the word eternal in at least three senses, but when
applied to God, he, himself, said "Eternal" can mean only im-
mutable.

Despite their differences, then, the generations of thinkers
from Plato to Spinoza were influenced in their thinking upon
God, and upon other matters pertaining to religious concerns,
by one underlying assumption: That assumption was that
the basic reality of the world was a mathematical reality. Until
fairly recent times, all philosophic thought in the west sub-
scribed to this mathematical picture of reality, and was there-
fore shaped by it. Hence the portrayals of ultimate reality
have represented God as a static being, and the things of supreme
value, as static, unchanging realities. The result has been, as
Whitehead has said in Modes of Thought, that "the most evi-
dent characteristic of our experience has been dismissed into
a subordinate role in metaphysical construction." Whitehead
continues:

"We live in a world of turmoil. Philosophy and religion,
as influenced by orthodox philosophic thought, dismiss
turmoil. Such dismissal is the outcome of tired decadence.
We should beware of philosophies which express the domi-
nant emotions of periods of slow social decay. Our in-
heritance of philosophic thought is infected with the de-
cline and fall of the Roman Empire, and with the decadence
of eastern civilizations. It expresses the exhaustion fol-
lowing upon the first three thousand years of advancing
civilization. A better balance is required. For civili-
zations rise as well as fall. We require philosophy to

278 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

explain the rise of types of order, the transitions from
type to type, and the mixture of good and bad involved
in the universe as it stands self-evident in our experience."

The key to modern metaphysics is to be found in this con-
cluding sentence of Whitehead's. The modern philosopher
is concerned with the story of emergents and transitions and ful-
filments. In short, with the story of process. And he is con-
cerned with understanding the deep-lying spiritual problem that
is raised by the inescapable inseparableness of good and evil dis-
cerned in a world in process. Hence the thought-climate
of philosophy and religion has changed. Instead of a God who
"changest not," the modern philosopher has come to know a
God who makes all things new. And in that incessant creativi-
ty, he seeks to find the meaning of his own existence, and the
meaning of all that is.

II.

This temporahzing of the Chain of Being, as Professor
Lovejoy puts it, was one of the principal happenings in eight-
eenth century thought. Seeds of a new view of deity in the
role of a Creative Power, he suggests, are to be found in the
writings of Leibniz, Kant, Robinet, and Schelling. But they
are only seeds. The new orientation of deity as a creative work-
ing in the temporal-spatial world was to develop increasingly
in the nineteenth century, and to emerge as a great ground-swell
in our own day.

Yet this development was to be overshadowed throughout
the nineteenth century and the early years of the present one
by a venture in philosophy in which basic reality was conceived
neither as a static being nor as a creative participant in the world
process. Between the era initiated by Plato and concluded,
shall we say, by Spinoza, when deity was viewed as static being,
and the very recent era, stands the Great Interlude — Idealism.
The prophetic voice of this Great Interlude was Immanuel Kant.
His Critique of Pure Reason cut through the steel strands that
held together the mighty structures of the rational era. The
falling of these rational towers of Babel rendered the objective

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 279

and the subjective worlds apart. Man was left with his own
consciousness. The thing-in-itself hovered over him as a mys
terious unknown, now become unknowable.

The agnosticism and subjectivism of subequent years took
its rise, there can be no doubt, in this decisive critique by Kant.
But there was to rise from it also a most amazing development
in quite an opposite direction. When Kant intimated that
"the mysterious unknown, concealed behind the phenomena
of sense, might possibly be identical with the unknown in our-
selves." he opened up a path of thinking that was to lead to
enormous speculative consequences. This was to lead to Abso-
lute Idealism. Although Kant failed to carry out the implica-
tion of this seed idea, other German idealists, especially Fichtc.
and later Schelling and Hegel, were to make it the basis foi
their impressive systems of thought. Here the human ego be-
came the key to understanding the Absolute Ego. In Fichte
and Schelling the Absolute is still transcendent: but in Hegel,
deity becomes completely immanent. As one contemporary
writer states it. "If we mean by God the being transcending
human reason, then Hegel is the most atheistic of philosophers
since no one is more emphatic in affirming the immanency and
perfect knowableness of the absolute." (Weber and Perry,
History of Philosophy)

While Absolute Idealism may appear to be a further stage
in "temporalizing the Chain of Being" it was not really so.
Rather, it represents a departure from that tendency. One
might even go so far as to say that when all things are consider-
ed, the world of deity swallows up the world of temporal exist-
ence in the philosophy of Absolute Idealism. All is resolved
in the Absolute Ego: hence existences have no reality of their
own, really. Every existent thing is but a facet of the Abso-
lute.

One recognizes in the philosophy of both Royce and Hock-
ing an earnest attempt to bring a more empirical content into
the concept of the Absolute. This applies more particularly
to the later stages of Royce's thought. Hocking's view of God
as the Absolute Knower known directly through sense experience

280 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

whose character gives reality to all social experience and to
nature, brings Absolute Idealism to the threshold of Empiricism.
It is the nearest, in fact, that any Absolute philosophy comes to
a recognition of the empirical datum.

It would be an interesting study to trace through the turns
of thought in philosophies which have reacted against Absolute
Idealism in the sense of denying the Absolute Ego. What one
would find, I am sure, is that in these instances, there was little
more than a reduction of capital letters to small case letters all
along the line, leaving the human ego the substitute for deity
with accompanying postulates of Idealism concerning the human
consciousness remaining. Is it possible that the religious
humanism arising out of pragmatism and, for that matter, the
humanistic emphasis that has always been manifested in the
Instrumentalism of John Dewey, are but reactions against the
concept of the Absolute Ego, without, however, any fundamen-
tal modification of the primary premise of Absolute Idealism?
Instead of speaking of Religious Humanism as a truncated super-
naturalism, we might rather speak of it as a truncated Absolute
Idealism. This at least would get at the philosophical pecul-
iarities of this position, and throw some light, I am sure, upon
issues that now divide The Religious Humanists and the New
Theists of the naturalistic group.

III.

Returning, now, to the main argument of our survey, if
the seeds of the new orientation of deity were evident in eight-
eenth century philosophies, the forthright expression of this
identification of deity with the temporal passage of events occurs
for the first time in the writings of Bergson, and becomes full-
blown as a naturalistic theism in the organismic philosophy of
the British group, including Whitehead, C. Lloyd Morgan,
Jan Smuts, and S. Alexander. In this country, development
toward a naturalistic theism has come to frutition in the writ-
ings of Henry Nelson Wieman. A more detailed analysis of
the rise of this new naturalism and its general outlook may
now be given.

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 281

Prior to the nineteenth century, naturalism was hardly
anything more than a protest against the supernatural in the
name of reason: or, in its sentimental form, a romantic effort
to soften the shock of rationalism through emotional rapport
with the world of nature. The turn toward a genuine natural-
ism began with the writings of Lamarck, but did not signifi-
cantly shape philosophical conceptions until the publication of
Darwin's Origin of the Species in 1859. During the decades
immediately following this event, philosophical pictures of the
world, based upon the evolutionary theory, began to take shape.
These early naturalistic philosophies could not possibly go
beyond the agnosticism of Herbert Spencer, for they were pre-
mature generalizations upon the newly discovered facts of the
physical sciences. The decade of the eighteen seventies might
well, in fact, be regarded as the peak of the materialistic era.

The philosophical beginnings of the new naturalism, as
Whitehead has pointed out in Science and the Modern World.
date back to the closing decades of the nineteenth century when
"the notion of mass was losing its unique preeminence as being
the one permanent quantity." Energy displaced matter as the
fundamental concept. Mass became a name for "a quantity
of energy considered in relation to some of its dynamical
effects." At the close of the century, orthodox materialism,
which up to that time had reigned supreme, was being rapidly
undermined.

Whitehead attributes to William James the inauguration
of the new stage in philosophy in the publication of his essay,
"Does Consciousness Exist?", which first appeared in 1904
in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods. In this essay, James denied that the word "conscious-
ness" stands for an entity and insisted that it connotes a func-
tion. In so doing, says Whitehead, James was challenging a
conception of the mind which had been initiated by Descartes in
his Discourse on Method, published in 1637, thus bringing to
an end a philosophical period which had undergirded scientific
materialism for two hundred and fifty years. The full import
of this decisive step away from materialistic naturalism becomes

282 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

clearer when one realizes that with James, philosophy moved
beyond the habit of thinking in terms of physical notions and
entered upon an era in which physiology was to provide its
basic language.

While James must be credited with initiating the method of
thinking that was to create the new naturalism, the introduction
of the physiological language into philsophy must be attributed
to Bergson, whose memorable volume Creative Evolution, pub-
lished in 1911, stands as the pioneer work in evolutionary
naturalism. How close James and Bergson were in their
pioneering thrusts in this direction can be appreciated best by
perusing their exchange of letters. Bergson and James both
reacted against the mathematical view of the world in favor of
a philosophy drawn from concrete experience. Their differ-
ences doubtless arose, as Professor Perry has suggested in his
The Thought and Character of William James, from the fact
that James took Darwin as his scientific guide, while Bergson
preferred to follow Lamarck. Bergson chose Lamarck rather
than Darwin on the grounds that the former's view of evolution
provided an explanation of the adaptation of organisms, enabl-
ing different parts and different combinations of causes to effect
similar results. The explanation of this convergence of effects
he found in an inner directing principle whch the Lamarckian
interpretation admitted, and which the Darwinian view did
not. This no doubt accounts for the more subjective and
mystical character of Bergson's thought, as compared with
James* radical empiricism.

Bergson is best remembered for his exciting doctrine of the
elan vital, and perhaps for his theory of the intellect, which
made of mind little more than a candid camera; but more im-
portant than either of these, and more lasting in its impression
upon modern philosophical and religious thought, was his
concept of time, for which he used the term duration. It is
common to amplify Bergson's meaning of duration by saying
that he conceived of time as indivisible and thereby unmeasur-
able; but a more positive way of stating it is to say he viewed
time as organic, a rich medium of multiple experience in which

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 283

life spans were moving toward fulfilment, in which events of
creation and dissolution were forever happening, and in which
seasons changed, tides turned, and civilizations rose and fell
with the imperceptibleness of growth itself. In fact, the term
growth has come to replace Bergson's term duration, and rightly
so; for it gives to this concept the dynamic and creative character
which Bergson really intended.

The full import of this amplified view of time as duration
and growth has not, it seems to me, been sufficiently recognized.
Having become so accustomed to the pragmatists' dismissal of
metaphysical reality in the empirical dictum, reality is what it
is experienced as. which brings to mind a truncated view of
reality, we are inclined to look upon every naturalistic theory
of life as another form of truncation. Naturalism means ignor-
ing the superstructure, so we assume. Or one says, empiricism
is empiricism, however differently dressed. But this is not
true. The empiricism of pure experience which arbitrarily
ascribes boundaries to reality for philosophical purposes, as was
done in pragmatism, is bound to lead to a humanistic basis
for religious thought, in wheh the reality experienced becomes,
in fact, human reality, specified as the concourse of human
minds, or the social environment. Dissatisfied with this
humanly circumscribed reality in its truncated form, one might,
as did James, hold open the possibility that the higher human
phase of experience is "coterminous and continuous with a
MORE of the same quality, which is operative in the universe
outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with,
and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his
lower being has gone to pieces" (Varieties of Religious Experi-
ence, p. 508). Or he may proceed to enlarge the meaning and
importance of the human environment, to give it heroic dimen-
sions, and to cherish it as a rare and precious spiritual fruition
of earth forces in the vast and desolate spaces of cosmic waste-
lands. Empiricism in this truncated form has always led back
to some compromised theory of dualism, or to a more rash re-
linquishment of superhuman meaning in the universe.

The empiricism which stems from Bergson's view of dura-

284 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

tion, and which finds formulation in the new philosophic am-
plification of growth, has abandoned this truncation view
once and for all. It has always seemed to me that the chief
significance of Wieman's work, especially in his book, Religious
Experience and Scientific Method, lay in his giving decisive and
clear expression to this turn of thought in empiricism. He cut
through the rather insulated view of pragmatism and came to
terms, head on, with the issue dividing naturalistic and super-
naturalistic thought. One way of stating it is to say that he
let go of supernaturalism in a way that enabled him to embrace
a full-orbed naturalism. Hence, the tendency to shunt off
metaphysical problems, with its truncating effects, so evident
in pragmatism and humanism, has given way in Wiseman's
thought to a fresh and forthright empirical approach to the
whole of objective reality as it impinges upon man's world.
I think this comes out most clearly in passages in his Religious
Experience and Scientific Method where he attempts to move
bcvond the position of William James. To the suggestion
that in order to have access to the spiritual world we must turn
away from the material world, Wieman exclaims, "No! That
is the pitiful blunder that always leads to confusion — the path
that leads out into the morass where nothing but dreams and
will-o'-the-wisps can be found. . . If the spiritual is to be
found at all," he insists, "it must be found in and through
the material. The same senses that reveal the material must
also reveal the spiritual. And, in fact, is that not very plainly
the way in which we become cognizant of, say, other human
minds which are spiritual entities, if the word spiritual has
any significance at all."

One should not infer from this statement that Wieman's
religious naturalism stems from the philosophy of Bergson.
His religious thought may best be described as the confluence
of the two streams of empiricism, issuing from Bergson, through
the organic philosophies of Whitehead and others, and the
empiricism of William and John Dewey. His repudiation
of Bergson's anti-intellectualism indicates a fundamental diver-
gence from his view; yet this should not blind one to affinities
between Bergson's concept of duration and Wieman's use of

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 285

the term growth. Both men see in the events of experience
operations that carry mystical overtones, beyond the biological
concept. While Bergson was content to leave the matter with
a modified vitalistic explanation, Wieman is concerned to give
the concept growth more definitive meaning in terms of sub-
human and human operations, and operations that go beyond
both these areas. But the pattern of thinking, in each case,
remains the same, as distinct from that which underlies the
philosophy of Dewey, Ames, and other pragmatists.

This observation may throw light upon differences that
divide Wieman and Ames. Many noted a kinship between
their views; yet each of these two men is aware that their posi-
tions do differ. Wieman senses in Ames a humanistic bent;
Ames sees in Wieman's view a survival of the habit of spatializ-
ing deity. Both men are justified. For Ames' thought is
essentially grounded in the humanistic soil of pragmatism,
though he has sought to go beyond humanism, employing the
conceptualist method for defining his theistic position. This
has given him a concept of God which gives focus to recognized
social values that have religious import, but a God that has
conceptual meaning only, not existential implications; al-
though, of course, the values so idealized do exist and genuinely
affect the course of things. Wieman, on the other hand, as
we have said, holds to the conception of a diety that is desig-
native, a reality whose operations, in a minimum way, can be
specified and recognized. Thus, while many of their terms
are alike, and, in so far as fundamental human values are con-
cerned, their religious interests converge, their philosophic posi-
tions differ markedly.

The spiritual, then, if, as Wieman says, it is to have any
meaning at all, becomes the rich- fullness of experience that is
ever potential with new meaning and new actualization as
human life yields to the creativity that shapes it toward yet-
unrealized ends.

This is close to the humanistic theism expressed in Dewey's
A Common Faith, but it. differs at the point where religious
naturalism goes beyond pragmatism, namely, in the recognition

286 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of operations in this flux of experience, making for the actuali-
zation of value, which are more-than-human functionings,
more than man's purposes, more tran the fruits of human imagi-
nation. In The Growth of Religion (pp. 327-28), Wieman
writes:

"Growth which is creative synthesis is superhuman.
The outcome of creative synthesis can never be foreseen by
the human mind until after instances of the same kind of
synthesis have been observed. It is never the work of
human mind. It occurs spontaneously when the required
conditions are present. All growth is of this sort. It
is superhuman although men can and often do provide the
conditions which are required for the miracle to occur."

Man's part in growth, according to Wieman, is to provide the
required conditions under which growth might occur. Then,
as a gardener, he waits in wonder to watch the miracle happen.

IV.

In a philosophy of Religion in which God and growth have
become inseparable and indistinguishable, the language of reli-
gion not only takes on new words, but gives to old words new
meaning. Religious naturalists have argued among themselves
as to whether religious thinking is served better or worse by
attempts to salvage old terms that have become freighted with
precious meaning; or, whether religion would not be better
served by striking out boldly, in the interest of clarity, to
fashion a new language altogether. It is clear that they cannot
avoid creating new terms. With what has the old religion to
do with words like concretion, creativity, the growth of connec-
tions? One can find their counterpart in terms like incarnation,
creator, the w\ork of love, or the Holy Spirit; but what worlds
apart in meaning! Much that is not meant becomes implied;
much that is meant, is uncommunicated.

Similar objection may be made to clinging to old terms
even where comparable meanings are more evident, as in the
terms God, sin, salvation, and prayer. Wieman has argued for

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 287

their continued use with some persuasion, saying that we are
doing no differently here than we have done as a matter of
course in other areas of thought. Have we abandoned the
word Earth because we came upon the discovery that it is spheri-
cal instead of the flat disc the ancients thought it was? Have
we ceased speaking of the Sun because, with the vanishing of
solar faiths, we no longer ascribe powers of deity to it? No,
we have continued to use these terms, adjusting our underetand-
ing of them to the meanings we now know them to have. So
with these ancient words of the religious vocabulary: There
must still be a word to designate that Reality upon which man
and all life depends for its maximum support and growth.
Whether or not we ascribe to it all that the ancients attributed
to it, we may still call it God, says Wieman. There must still
be a word to express that hideous and dark vein in man's nature
that makes him recalcitrant and resistant to the growth of good.
We may not wish to bring into our meaning the mythology of
ancient lore, but we may still call this tendency by the age-old
word, Sin. Likewise, there must still be a word to describe
what takes place when this recalcitrance and resistance is over-
come, so that men yield to the working of that creativity which
is God, becoming transformed in character and purpose, and
empowered with capacity to embrace a new life of meaning and
value. It would be a mistake to suggest that by this experience
one has become uprooted from the world of sense, and destined
toward another world of spirit, as was thought in ancient times:
yet the world Salvation, divested of this ancient meaning, may
still express this new birth that transforms life and makes it new.

This is not the place to raise the question whether or not
this procedure in religious naturalism is justified or sound. We
are interested here merely to record the fact that while the new
orientation of religious thought has given rise to a new language
in religion, there is strong insistence in the direction of retaining
old terms, enlarging their meaning, through explanation where
possible, but more important, by associating them with activi-
ties and habits that accomplish the religious end that is sought.

Where this is accomplished satisfactorily, however, we have

288 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

a new language, whether we use the same words or not. That
is to say, we communicate meanings that differ from the mean-
ings of the older faith. Commitment to God, for example,
becomes identification with an operation in this world of sense,
superhuman though it may be, not disdain for these earthly
hills. Being saved, yes, being saved through grace, implies
being released to participate with fuller sensory powers in this
wide, wide planetary life, not being resucd from this earthly
pilgrimage.

If, then, the result of our communication, when intelli-
gently and satisfactorily achieved, conveys new meaning and
accomplishes a new orientation for pursuing a significant life,
the question arises, is anything really gained, or is something
probably lost, by this conscientious effort to speak in a familiar
tongue?

What is gained, obviously, is that it renders this new mean-
ing communicable to masses of people for whom the new lan-
guage would be utterly unintelligible. And this points to a
familiar process, one that has generally followed upon the work
of new prophets in religion where fresh insight has been dis-
closed: namely, the process of accommodation. In such ad-
aptation, the new has been absorbed into the old in such a way
that it ceases to be new, and becomes only a fresh and different
exposition of the familiar theme. This has occurred over and
over again in religious movements. It is what occurred in the
rise of popular adaptations of religious innovations that resulted
in Mahayana Buddism, in popular Hinduism, and in the Catho-
lic Christianity of common men. In all these instances, the
fresh insight of a religious movement was accommodated to a
social mind which could not, or would not, respond to innova-
tion.

It would seem that wherever there is innovation in religious
thinking, periods of accommodation follow in which new in-
sights become clothed in a familiar language. There is some
evidence that religious empiricism, in the new form that it is
taking among theistic naturalists, is entering upon the early
stage of such a period of accommodation. If this process con-

THE NEW LANGUAGE IN RELIGION 289

tinues, rapprochement between Christianity and the new
naturalism might very well develop, and a new chapter in the
growth of popular Christianity will have been written. The
disturbing question that follows upon this suggestion is. Can
the new language which has temporarily arisen, and which gives
zest to creative thinking in religion, survive this accommodation?
It has not done so in historic faiths. And this may indicate
that language cannot continue or develop in any permanent
way, even as tools of inquiry, apart from a cultus or some
organizational group. Yet, if freshness of insight is to survive
accommodation, if a sharp edge of inquiry is to persist so as
to continue exploration along the new frontier of faith, the new
language in religion must be kept alive. For in its defined
meaning, and only through use of its clarified concepts, can a
growing edge of religious truth be maintained.

THE JEWISH SETTING IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY

AROSE

By Floy S. Hyde

Florida Southern College

Lakeland, Florida

In Palestine

Probably no part of the Roman empire showed less promise,
or gave smaller hope of large outpourings, than did the little
land of Palestine. Crowded into a hilly, although fruitful,
strip of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with Syria
and Phoenicia to the north and west and Arabia and the great
desert to the south and east, its total territory was not more
than one hundred and fifty miles in length or more than ten
thousand square miles in area. With no scacoast in its per-
manent possession, only the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea,
with the river of Jordan flowing from the life of one to the
death of the other, afforded the inhabitants of the land any
sort of waterway or fishing grounds.

Far from being the land of peace and plenty envisioned by
the hardy wayfarers from the desert, Palestine had proved to
their descendants only a pawn of the empires, passed back and
forth among them with little regard to the rights or wishes of
the persons involved. Small wonder that the Jews at the time
of Jesus regarded their situation as desperate and looked with
eager eyes for the day of deliverance which they felt must surely
be at hand.

Historical Background

From the kingship of David early in the tenth century,
B. C, a time of relative attainment of the great ideal, to the first
part of the second century, B. C, when the Maccabean revolu-
tion had once more given the little nation temporary political
independence, the years had been a succession of war, exile,
hardship, and broken hope.

THE JEWISH SETTING 291

But, from 135-104 B. C, under the leadership of one John
Hyrcanus, the little land of Judea was able to extend its borders
and its distinctively Jewish mode of life with rather comforting
success. Idumea on the south, and Samaria and Galilee on the
north, were gradually taken over, although only in the latter
were the Jews and their rites of worship ever given any real
reception. However, the territory of Perea, just east of the
Jordan and in the southern portion, became predominantly
Jewish. These three units — Judea, Galilee, and Perea — made
up the Holy Land proper; the allegiance of all adjoining terri-
tories was a political acknowledgment only and without lasting
intention.

Even this somewhat qualified theocracy was not for long.
While the period had been the nearest approach to the greatly
anticipated Kingdom of God since the time of David, internal
disloyalty and strife soon took the inevitable toll, and in 63
B. C. Palestine fell into the hands of the Romans. After a three
months' siege the wall of the city of Jerusalem was broken; on
the very Day of Atonement Pompey and his legions rushed into
the temple, slaughtering even the priests at the altar. It is said
that twelve thousand Jews fell in the attack and that large
numbers of captives were carried off to the capital at Rome,
where they unwittingly raised the Jewish colony to great im-
portance for the days to come. Pompey stripped Judea of most
of its territory and made the remainder subject to his representa-
tive in Syria, Scaurus.

However, with the death of Pompey and the coming to
power of Caesar, many of the privileges were restored to the
Jews. They were freed from supporting Roman soldiers or
furnishing auxiliaries; their tribute was reduced during the
sabbatical year: the possession of Joppa was restored to them;
the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt; religious customs were fully
guaranteed, not alone in Judea, but in Alexandria and else-
where; and the Jews were termed "confederates" of the Romans.

It was no ordinary man who came to the throne in the
person of Herod the Great (37-4 B. C.). He was an astute
ruler, able to keep in check a headstrong people and at the same

292 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

time maintain the friendship of Augustus; he was a builder of
cities, a Roman man of the world, and the fearless guardian of
the Arabian frontier. He considerably increased the boundaries
of his Kingdom, and in the management of his foreign affairs
he proved little short of genius itself. Only Cleopatra of Egypt
remained an enemy whom he failed either to overcome or to
placate. During his regime Hellenism increased rapidly; Jeru-
salem itself had its theater, amphitheater, and games, although
all pious Jews held themselves rigidly aloof from these pagan
accoutrements. While Herod was tireless in promoting the
development of his seaports, his cities, his temples, his castles,
his military operations, he did not fail to protect the Jews in
their religious independence. Even his enemies could plead
little against him beyond severity in the interests of order.

However, with his death the rule passed to three of his sons,
and the period of at least partial national unity was ended.
Archelaus came into authority over Judea, which was separated
from its sister states of Perea and Galilee and joined to two
with which it had little sympathy, Samaria and Idumea. His
rule was so completely unsatisfactory that he was ultimately
deposed and the territory given over to a Roman procurator.
Galilee and Perea were more fortunate in their ruler, Antipas,
who on the whole did a very creditable piece of work, although
regarded with the highest disdain by the Jews over whom he
had been put in authority.

Political Situation

The province of Judea, with its three districts — Judea,
Samaria, and Idumea — was designated as an imperial province
of the second rank, governed by a procurator who was primar-
ily a fiscal agent whose office naturally kept him at the head
of the administration of the taxes and the customs. The taxes
were collected by imperial officials, but the customs were
"farmed." They were of wide variety indeed — export duties,
salt — and the privilege of collecting same was sold to the highest
bidder. The man who actually did the collecting was the hated
import duties, bridge and harbor duties, market taxes, tax on

THE JEWISH SETTING 293

publican of the New Testament, cordially despised for his very
general practise of extortion and misrepresentation.

The procurator also had military and judicial duties which
easily placed him in actual control of all his territory. In the
latter he had the power of life and death, except when formal
protest was made to the Emperor in case of a Roman citizen.
But it is unlikely that he exercised the authority to any great
extent, as most cases of importance were doubtless settled in
the great Jewish Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. Of all the procura-
tors, Pontius Pilate is probably the best known, not merely
from the gospels but from Philo and Josephus. Although
described by the former as of an "unbending and recklessly hard
character," the fact that Tiberius, who was especially attentive
to the provinces, left him in office for ten years is distinctly in
his favor.

Societal Conditions

Josephus estimates that in his time there was three walled
cities and two hundred and four villages in Galilee alone. The
Galileans, although thorough Jews in their devotion to the
Law and the Temple, were without any of the fanaticism of
the Judeans. A sturdy, impulsive people, largely farmers and
fishermen, their normal life and concepts were surprisingly
healthy: as a people, they were given to considerable idealism
and were unusually ready to accept the Messianic claims of the
Judeans. But they were in more constant relations with Greek
and Roman civilization, and therefore evinced a much freer
and broader life than their kinsfolk to the south of them.

It is certain that Palestinian Jews were to a considerable
degree conversant with the Greek language, and that Hellenism
exerted a very real liberalizing influence throughout the land,
especially in the fields of literature, art, music, and general
modes of thought and ethics. But the result was only to tight-
en the requirements and increase the zeal of the loyal Jew,
so that he might be constantly on guard against the threat to his
religious integrity. If the heathen possessed the land politi-
cally, there wgs no slightest danger of any weakening in Juda-

294 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

ism, which awaited only God's good time for the establishment
of His kingdom among them. The Messianic hope grew in-
creasingly brighter and more urgent.

Although the outer picture can be quite easily recovered,
the inner life of the people cannot be so readily reclaimed.
Palestine was a land crowded with city upon city, bringing the
Jew and the Greek closely together, even if unwillingly. Every
bit of tillable soil was made to bear its crop; the hills were cover-
ed with flocks; and the Sea of Galilee was teeming with fisher-
men, and presumably with fish. Roman rule had the political
situation well in hand, although always sharply on the look-
out for incipient rebellions within its borders and intermittent
raids from without. But it is evident that the great majority
of the Jews did not give as complete allegiance to their laws
as did the Pharisees. Many were poor people of the land, who
had no time or money with which to meet the exceedingly
taxing demands of the temple service. There were doubtless
also many among them who waited with quiet piety for the
coming of the Kingdom without all the obtrusive arrogance of
the Pharisee or the Sadduccee. But the legalistic spirit had been
too great an element in Jewish life to be anything but revered;
and despite its excesses, Pharisaism impressed indelibly every
Jewish person with a sense of moral distinction and responsi-
bility not thinkable under any other jurisdiction. However,
the burden was great, and life became more and more a seeming-
ly hopeless requirement of infinitesimal tasks and less and less
a direct service of love to the father Jehovah.

The Kingdom of God

But the Kingdom which He would establish among them
became increasingly the focal point of their future. For cen-
turies they had looked forward with varying concepts to the
time when God should deliver them from their oppressors; their
idea of a specific leader was at first not clear, but later such
seemed a necessity to a fulfillment of their dreams. He must
be a man sent from God himself, a man of the branch of David;
and of bis Kingdom there was to be no end. The Messianic

THE JEWISH SETTING 295

hope was no philosophy: it was born of a national spirit, and
while the property of all. was the especial possession of the
Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. The Sudducees alone
seem not to have been concerned.

The actual advent of the Kingdom of God was to be pre-
ceded by a period of intense suffering throughout the land and
with sincere repentance and a real return to righteousness. After
awesome manifestations of the physical universe, the Messiah
was suddenly to appear, from whence no one knew, although
some said from Bethlehem, some from Jerusalem, some from
Rome itself. Then would begin a final war and judgment,
from which God and his angels would emerge triumphant for
all time. This judgment would mark the end of that age and
the beginning of the "Age to come," with Jerusalem, perhaps
even a new Jerusalem from heaven, as its center. Peace would
prevail, the righteous dead would be raised, and God's glorious
Kingdom would become an actuality on earth.

In most cases the Messiah was evidently thought of as a
human king, especially chosen and fitted by God for the estab-
lishment of his Kingdom; in the early days he was seldom con-
nected with the divine, and only once or twice is he described
as having pre-cxistence with God himself.

But all ethical and philosophical views were confined largely
to the literary and the refined; the conception of the masses
was quite different. They little considered the matter of re-
pentance or righteousness; they looked for a warrior, perhaps
a Christ who would work miracles, but only when he had
summoned the Jews to arms and rebellion. And it is in this
aspect of the religious development of the Jews that we find a
basis for an understanding of their first conception of Jesus of
Nazareth — in the role of the Jewish Messiah who would lead
by force out of present difficulties into a new day.

Ultimately the Jewish people came to cherish two ideals
for the Kingdom: on one hand, an earthly military manifesta-
tion such as envisioned by the average Jew; on the other hand,
a Kingdom attainable only through moral and spiritual regenera-
tion. In the latter case the Prince of Peace would return speed-

296 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

ily, at a moment when they knew not, to establish the true
Messianic Kingdom with Jerusalem as its center.

Conflicting Ideas Regarding the Attainment
of the Kingdom

It is scarcely to be supposed that there could be any real
agreement among people so diversified in their occupations and
customs as were the inhabitants of Palestine. A very large
number of persons were tillers of the soil, giving themselves
entirely to the production of the surprisingly large number of
products which the fertile land and mild climate made possible.
The countryside was thickly planted with olive and palm trees;
honey was produced in large quantities; grapes, corn, and dairy
products were abundant. Galilee was especially rich in the
quality of its soil; only Pcrea was largely unproductive, al-
though even there vineyards were not unusual.

Difficult as it would have been to induce the rich owner
of fertile fields to agree with his menial farm-hand upon a
common program for the establishment of the new order, it
would have been even more of a problem to bring city-dwellers
into any sort of concord. Even the smallest of the villages
of Galilee is reported as having from ten to fifteen thousand in
population. Sepphoris, a prosperous business center, was the
capital of Galilee in the time of Jesus, and was second in im-
portance in Palestine only to Jerusalem of Judea. The fact
that it was only an easy hour's walk from Jesus' home in
Nazareth makes it of especial interest to present-day students.
Capernaum was the most important city on the Sea of Galilee,
although many other names have become familiar — among
them Bethsaida, Magdala, Gamala, and Chorazin. Every type
of urban interest was doubtless represented in these flourishing
centers, and the extremes of wealth and position represented by
the high official and the wretched slave could hardly be made
compatible in idea or requirement.

In addition to the Jewish elements of Palestine, both rural
and urban, there was a very considerable foreign population.
The ten cities known as Decapolis were the direct outgrowth

THE JEWISH SETTING 297

of Greek colonization efforts following Alexander the Great.
While subject to Rome, they retained their Greek characteristics
in every particular. And the Roman, although in Jewish
territory for the first purpose of taking care of governmental
affairs, nevertheless exerted an exceedingly wide influence
through his customs, language, forms of entertainment, and
certainly his religion. Graeco-Roman influences were to be
seen on every hand: no greater evidence could be given than
the effort to offset such by those purists of the Jewish faith
who ever increased their restrictions and their requirements for
the faithful among them. But even so. there was at least one
Synagogue in Jerusalem, perhaps more, where the service was
conducted in Greek for the special benefit of those Jews who
had lived in foreign lands so long as to be unable to return to a
free use of their native tongue, Aramaic. These Jews of the
Diaspora were a natural and easy link between Palestine and the
Gentile world and doubtless served in a certain levelling process
of which they were quite unaware.

So it is not greatly to be wondered at that no common
method or conception could be agreed upon regarding the
Kingdom which was to come. But armed revolt against Rome
was certainly not one of the methods upon which there was full
concord. The Jewish life of Palestine, especially in business
and cultural circles, had become too permeated with outward
influence to be wholly antagonistic to the power which in many
ways gave prosperity and protection.

Religious Sects

Of all the sects in Palestine, the Pharisees and the Sadducees
were the most prominent. The former stressed particularly
the observance of all forms and rites and looked upon the world-
ly features introduced by the king and his government as highly
offensive. The Pharisees were interested in the sword only in
defense of the faith; the real emphasis lay in complete devotion
to God and the absolute observance of his law as set forth in
the sacred writings. They believed that it was God's preroga-
tive to elevate his people in his own good time. An association
of purists, they stood out severely against the mixture of mo-

298 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

tives as evidenced in many of the other groups. As zealous
students of the scriptures, they were popular among the faith-
ful, whose well-being they considered their first responsibility.
The Pharisees, all in all, were the largest and most important
single group in the entire Palestinian world of religion.

The Sadducees gave their best attention to the courting
of favor from the foreign powers or the governing authority.
They did not over-exert themselves in observing the religious
rites; they were wealthy priests and aristocrats, unpopular with
the masses, and especially bent upon making themselves of
assistance in the administration of the government.

In an earnest attempt to live in a manner pleasing to God,
both as individuals and as a nation, various other groups came
to have considerable significance. The "Zadokite sect" was
passionately devoted to the law of Moses: its followers felt that
their more specialized righteousness was highly superior to the
observances of the Pharisees, and that the condition of Israel
was due to its failure to keep God's requirements properly.
They preached repentance and the adoption of a stricter mode
of living, declaring that only through such could there ever
come into being the order for which they lent every effort.
The hostility between the Zadokites and the Pharisees was
open and bitter.

The Essenes made up another considerable group in the
religious life of Palestine in the first century A. D. Living
in large groups outside the cities, which they considered unbear-
ably wicked, they held all things in common and followed a
life of restraint in every respect, practising fasting, frequent
bathing, and the extreme of self-discipline. They revered
Moses next to God and endured any kind of punishment rather
than to violate their sacred Law. Although they would conde-
scend to carry weapons while on a journey, the Essenes were
definitely pacificists in their attitude toward other nations and
govermental affairs.

General Unrest

The spirit of discontent throughout Palestine brought forth
periodic attempts to force the issue with Rome. "Simon" of

THE JEWISH SETTING 299

Jericho and a certain "Judas" of Sepphoris were active leaders
of the mob over a considerable period of years. The times
of great religious festivals at Jerusalem were especially perilous;
after one revolt from a great gathering, Roman authorities
deemed it necessary to crucify at least two thousand persons
suspected of having an active leadership in the affair. Many
earnest Jews believed that God could not be expected to come
to their assistance unless they themselves were willing to fight,
and die if need be, for their own freedom. The youthful
element of the nation was especially Impatient for results and
joined itself easily to any one of the various groups which
promised the method of procedure most in keeping with its
ideas. It was quite the usual thing for a John the Baptist to
come preaching repentance and calling the righteous to follow
him; and there was also nothing unusual about a Jesus of
Nazareth offering a somewhat different "ology" as the proper
panacea. The day was one of division, a multiplicity of parties
and groups, each one with its own theories and its own plan
of endeavor. It was perilous business to become actively at-
tached to any of them, and one who dared to inaugurate or lead
such a group hazarded his very life for his ideals.

A Sense of Security in the Temple

The public welfare in general could not be seriously dis-
turbed by these semi-political groups so long as the Jewish
religion maintained its ancient and honored customs, unified
and embodied in the great temple at Jerusalem, which in the
time of Jesus was easily one of the most splendid edifices in the
Mediterranean world. Situated in a conspicuous position on
the eastern hill of the city, its rectangular area was surrounded
on all sides by thick, high walls. The outer court was open to
the general public, but the inner court might be entered only by
Jews. Closer still to the holy house itself, only male Jews
could approach; only priests, or an Israelite about to make his
own offering, could proceed any further. The temple itself
stood on even higher ground, and only priests were permitted
to enter. The altar of incense with the seven-branched candle-
stick and the table of shew-bread occupied the first chamber.

300 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The "Holy of Holies" at the rear had once contained the Ark
of the Covenant and was regarded by every Jew as the most
sacred spot on earth.

Elaborate services were conducted morning and evening by
richly apparelled priests and Levites; sacrifices were offered ac-
cording to the ancient instructions; formal prayers were recited,
incense burned, and a perpetual veneration offered the God of
Israel. Even for the Jew who could not himself observe many
of the ritualistic requirements, it was a very real satisfaction
to know that others were meeting the responsibility at the
sacred altar and that his offerings were making possible the
continuance of the observances so vital to his well-being.

The supreme authority in both the civil and the religious
affairs of the Jewish nation rested in the body of the seventy
elders known as the Sanhedrin, whose place of meeting was
situated on the south side of the temple area and known as the
"Hall of Hewn Stone." Composed of gentlemen supposedly
representing the height of legal knowledge and wisdom, with
a president who might or might not be the high priest, the
Sanhedrin pronounced judgments from which there was no
possible appeal. Should the Roman procurator attempt to
exalt himself by force above the Sanhedrin, the Jewish people
only looked upon the effort as a burst of arrogance and fruit-
less display.

Three great yearly festivals drew to Jerusalem every Jew
who could possibly make the trip. The greatest was the Feast
of the Passover, celebrated in the spring on the fifteenth of
the month Nisan, to commemorate the deliverance of the He-
brews from the bondage of Egypt. The elaborate observance,
repeated exactly from year to year, held also a strong meaning
as the symbol of God's continued favor toward his chosen peo-
ple.

The support of any institution so elaborate and all-embrac-
ing as was the Temple necessarily placed a considerable burden
upon every Jew. But it was a burden joyously borne, and the
various and sundry requirements were met with the utmost
in faithfulness. Every male twenty or more years of age was

THE JEWISH SETTING 301

required to pay a year's tax of half a shekel, regardless o\f
whether he lived in Palestine itself or in the Diaspora. A
"tithe," or tenth, of everything grown was paid as a regular
fee, while one-fiftieth of the yield of certain other agricultural
products was presented regularly to the priests.

Altogether the Temple represented a vital and very precious
reality to the Jewish people, a concrete symbol of the link be-
tween the Jew and his God. Quite naturally it was looked
upon as the probable spot which God would select in his own
good time from which to restore his Kingdom and bring to
his people the long-expected deliverance.

The Synagogue

Even closer than the Temple to the life of the common peo-
ple throughout the land were the local synagogues, at least
one of which was located in every village. Here prayers were
offered and a hearing given to whoever might prove himself
worthy to speak. The local council of elders met at the Syna-
gogue to discharge their civic duties; criminals were tried and
punishment administered, whether it meant scourging, excom-
munication, or even death. Young children were instructed
for a period of time before attending the school proper; funds
were collected; and alms were distributed to the poor. The
Synagogue was in every sense the very center of small-com-
munity life.

The Law

Before any of these institutions had come into being, the
sacred writings of the Jewish people had been regarded as the
direct word of God himself, and throughout the centuries this
reverence had been maintained. Moses was looked upon as
having received the Law, which embraced the first five books
of the Old Testament, directly through divine revelation. The
Prophets and the Writings were only a little less revered. It
is not surprising that the correct interpretation of God's word
for his people should become a matter of exceeding moment.
Professional interpreters known as scribes, largely the product

302 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

of the sect of the Pharisees, devoted themselves assiduously to
the task. Their word was regarded as authoritative for the
rendering of decisions on either civil or religious questions.
The sacred book was the basis of all instruction, and even the
most learned Jewish scholars who studied at foreign universi-
ties were not disposed to find any real wisdom outside of their
own inherited body of literature.

In addition to the written documents, there was a large
body of oral tradition, nearly as binding in its authority as
the writings. In all matters in which the scriptures were not
specific enough to meet the needs of current times, it became the
province of the scribe to study diligently and to interpret faith-
fully the meaning of the law as he saw it.

Jesus and the Kingdom

Only the political area remained beyond the direct and com-
plete control of the Jewish Law. But within their rigid and
all embracing institutionalism, the Jews felt they could ade-
quately meet any requirement of Jehovah, were their devotion
only sufficiently sincere. Any reformer arising among them
had a difficult road ahead if he tried to deviate in any material
degree from the established procedure. It was only through
appeal to his contemporaries and the winning of their approval
for his ideals that he could hope for any real accomplishment.

So it was that Jesus went first to his own people with his
message — a new interpretation of the meaning of the Kingdom;
and so it was that he was rejected and despised as a dangerous
dissenter, one wholly unworthy of his Hebrew heritage.

In the Dispersion

There is abundant evidence of Jewish population in most
of the Roman provinces, but their numbers were doubtless
greatest in Syria, then in Egypt, in Rome, and in Asia Minor.
All around the Mediterranean — along the coast-line of Egypt,
in southern Gaul, and in Spain — their influence was strongly

THE JEWISH SETTING 303

felt. Although exact figures do not exist, reliable estimates
place one million as the probable number of Jews in Egypt.
Allowing about seven hundred thousand for Palestine, and more
than a million for Syria, there is no doubt that the total
throughout the Empire numbered at least four and one-half
million, or about seven percent of the total population under
Augustus.

Individuality Maintained

Regardless of numbers or position, Jewish racialism and
religion inevitably maintained itself. Wherever Jew met Jew,
he regarded him as brother. Although Jewish communities
existed in every large city under the protection of the ruling
power, nevertheless the real loyalty and passion was toward
Jerusalem and its temple. While Jews of the Dispersion were
necessarily separated from the Temple and the sacrificial system
in its entirety and were unable to fulfill a portion of its precepts
as regarded the keeping of the Law, there was never any lessen-
ing of moral requirements. While many of their features — cir-
cumcision, Sabbath observance, the prohibition of swine's
flesh — -might appear to the populace as highly offensive, the
masses could not fail to be impressed with the Jews' worship,
without any of the accoutrements of the pagan faiths, of a
deeply spiritual God.

Prosetytism Developed

When one considers the intense nationalism of the race and
the wall of partition which it erected between itself and all
other religions, one finds it difficult to reconcile acceptably the
peculiar missionary impulse which existed so clearly. The
Jew felt beyond all doubt that he was intimately acquainted
with the finest religion conceivable and that it was his duty
and privilege to promote it wherever he went. Throughout
the empire he proclaimed the one and only true God, his high
moral law, and his righteous judgment. And it was only a
step for Judaism to enter the ranks of philosophy and present

304 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

itself most acceptably to the Greeks as the best revealed and the
most ancient of religions.

The evidence for proselyting activity dates from 139 B. C
to the early Christian empire. In fact, the rabbinic traditions
and imperial laws reflect its existence well into the fourth cen-
tury. We may feel assured that Judaism did not spread through
natural increase of numbers within itself, or through inevitable
accretion from near-by individuals or groups, but through active
promotion by zealous adherents.

Naturally, groups of Jews living precariously in a foreign
land had to build up a defense, inasmuch as they were resident
among the Gentiles only by special privilege and as their prac-
tices ran counter to the laws of nearly every community in which
they lived. It was their first duty to bind their groups to-
gether, and second, to draw as many as possible of the influential
and powerful of the community into their circle, thereby soften-
ing the shock of the inevitable clashes between the various in-
terests of the factions represented.

In every Jewish communitv there were, first, the Jews who
were racially bound to the group with all its customs. Next
there were proselytes, who are described by Philo as those who
had "come over to a new and God-fearing constitution, learning
to disregard the fabulous inventions of other nations and cling-
ing to unalloyed truth." These proselytes were individuals
who had "granted to them the same favors that were bestowed
on the native Jews, an equal share in all their laws, and privi-
leges and immunities." Finally, there were those known as
"God-fearers" — Gentiles with varying degrees of devotion to
Jewish ideas and customs. They were welcomed to the syna-
gogues as sincere persons breaking away from paganism and
were exhorted to forsake their idols and worship the one true
God of the Jews, adopting at the same time the strenuous moral
life required of all true followers. Incidentally, they gave sub-
stantially to the treasury. While probably relatively few
Gentiles became actual proselytes, submitting to circumcision
and all the requirements, it is certain that large numbers fell into
the category of the "God-fearers," and that it was in this group

THE JEWISH SETTING 305

that Christianity found such a ready hearing.

From a religious standpoint, the Jew realized that peaceful
penetration could be a most effective weapon in hastening the
Kingdom of God. The legalists were naturally not in favor
of lowering their standards, but as for the rest, a convert of
any kind was one more trophy for Israel.

Means Employed

For all Jews in their residence abroad, as in the home land,
the synagogue was the center of life. It preserved not only the
unity of the Jews themselves but served as a definite evidence to
all the community of the unwavering fidelity of the race, in-
viting Gentiles through their curiosity or earnestness to seek the
one true God and the righteousness of the law of Moses. The
language of instruction was the Greek, commonly understood
by all Gentiles and the many Jews who had lost touch with
their original Hebrew tongue.

An interesting item found in the legal notices of the first
century A. D., pertaining to a transaction in the synagogue of
Crimea, recounts the decree liberating certain slaves. But a
condition under which the Synagogue became witness and
guarantor of the freedom was that the freed men should give
faithful adherence to the services of the Jewish faith. Evidently
the freedom was often granted merely as a means to proselytism.

Inasmuch as the number of Gentiles who could actually
attend services in the synagogues was relatively small, the Jews
resorted to a literary propaganda directed to larger and more
influential circles. Jewish scripture in the hands of the Gentiles
came to be taken entirely for granted. Josephus represents
Cyrus as engaged in reading the prophet Isaiah, and Luke's
picture of the eunuch returning home from a trip to Jerusalem,
reading from the prophets, is doubtless drawn from a situation
which he had frequently observed.

In addition to the synagogues and the literary material there
were doubtless many travelling propagandists. They may not
have been actually great in numbers, but there is every reason

306 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to believe that the method of itinerant teaching and preaching
was a common phenomenon of the time, adhered to alike by
the Jews of the propagandist spirit, by the pagans, and by
Christians of later days.

Success Attained

While these combined efforts doubtless reached large num-
bers of people in all classes, it is altogether likely that the great-
est success was met among the lower groups. To be a Jew
meant complete separation from all other cults and the usual
worldly affairs; and not many persons of importance could be
expected to ostracise themselves so thoroughly from the life of
which they had become part and parcel over a long period of
years.

Nevertheless, the Jews of the Diaspora were frequently a
powerful minority, controlling, through their religious chan-
nels, a very considerable wealth, enjoying connections of some
dignity with Jerusalem, and receiving the favor of the power-
ful Romans. Therefore, Judaism did offer to its proselytes
the prestige of its position as an influential, clearly marked and
privileged social group, which must have offset in part the dis-
advantages of racialism and the badge of nationality which it
always put upon its converts. Those without Roman citizen-
ship doubtless found in the Jewish sect a considerable protection
not obtainable elsewhere, especially the possibility of escape
from military service. In order to intermarry, certain individ-
uals of royal blood and real wealth doubtless came over fre-
quently to the Jewish demands. Or a fortune-hunter might
often have made himself acceptable in order to win a certain rich
Jewess whom he admired. Superstitious fear, or fear of the
very real power of the group, may have been contributing fac-
tors in other cases.

But all these were purely minor. Judaism's great success
as a propagandist faith can be ascribed to little else but its moral
and spiritual elements, the very real satisfactions which it had
to offer in the religious world.

THE JEWISH SETTING 307

Harnack points out that Christianity is largely indebted to
the phenomenal success of the Jewish mission which preceded
it. Judaism provided a field tilled all over the empire, religious
communities already formed everywhere in the towns, the "help
of materials" furnished by the preliminary knowledge of the
Old Testament, the habit of regular worship and a control of
private life, an impressive apologetic on behalf of monotheism,
and finally, the feeling that self-diffusion was a duty.

Proselytisrn Declines

But the very success of the Jews contained the seeds of
their decline. Outsiders as they were, they could not be pop-
ular with the people among whom they lived, so long as their
religious and social exclusiveness led them to take no part in the
common life. Excused from military duty because of the
danger of breaking the laws of the Sabbath, permitted to meet
freely and to send to Jerusalem large sums of gold, regardless
of local economic interests, enjoying the privileges of their own
local government while getting Roman aid when needed against
their fellow-townsmen, claiming their nation to be the favorite
of heaven and to hold the future of the world in their hands,
it is no wonder they excited the jealousy and suspicion of the
rest of the world.

Above all, the Christian movement, coming out from but
repudiating Judaism, contained all the elements necessary to
make itself instantly popular in the pagan world. Its condem-
nation of Judaism for the crucifixion of Jesus was a most serious
indictment. Altogether the anti-Jewish gospel tradition syn-
chronized with the political rebellions of the Jews. Restrictive
legislation put heavy handicaps upon proselyting activities.
The tendency in the ancient world was away from intellectual-
ism and high ethical demands to the more mystical and vicarious
conceptions of morality; and Christianity supplied all these de-
mands.

Hence, because of its rigid inadaptability, Judaism failed
to reap the harvest of its own sowing, and Christianity entered
eagerly into the field so richly prepared.

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH

By William S. Minor

The Bible College of Missouri

Columbia, Missouri

It is difficult to face the charge that we have betrayed youth
by giving it a society in which collegiate clothes, cars, recreation,
and education followed by normal marriage, happy family
life, and constructive work are displaced by military uniforms,
planes, tanks, trucks, maneuvers, and battle in a background
of delayed or hasty marriage with enforced separation. It is
even more difficult to accept the fact that in this society the
moral values of honesty, trustworthiness, personal cleanliness,
integrity, and love are increasingly displaced by legalized and
commonly accepted deception, lying, stealing, prostitution, ex-
ploitation, personal and social disintegration, and hatred. It
is most difficult to realize that these displacements are mere
symptoms of a deeper displacement which produces these symp-
toms. This deeper displacement is the development and main-
tenance of public school systems including colleges and univer-
sities, which displace study of the existence and nature of God
as the core of the curriculum by study of other values less than
God as the core of the curriculum. In this profound displace-
ment we discover our basic betrayal of youth.

Some most outstanding educators, statesmen, and religious
leaders sense this betrayal and are trying to eliminate it. Presi-
dent Robert Maynard Hutchins, of The University of Chicago
holds that the valid core of the curriculum in the modern uni-
versity is natural theology. (Preface to The Case for Theology
in the University, by William Adams Brown, Chicago, 1938).
Our Honorable Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, is especially
anxious concerning the present status of religion. In a recent
address he said: "Humanity desperately needs today a moral
and spiritual re-birth — a revitalization of religion." Thought-
ful religious leaders are increasingly aware that revitalization of
religion is dependent upon critical and systematic study of it,

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 309

especially at the level of higher education. Churches may af-
ford excellent services for the worship of God, but if youth and
elder people as well do not have sufficient understanding of
God, gained by disciplined study of the history, literature, and
philosophy of religion, to appreciate the depth, richness, and
supremacy of value discoverable in God, they will see no reason
for including worship services in their way of living. The
most intelligent support which the church receives from both
young and old comes from those who have made most thorough
study of religion. Foundations for this study can and should
be laid in elementary, and secondary education, but the deeper
issues of religious living found in its history, literature, and
philosophy, can be studied most effectively and can be appreci-
ated most deeply at the level of higher education as found in the
college or university.

Judging merely by labels, we find almost all college and
university curricula seem to imply that the world's history,
literature, and philosophy are studied in all their beauty, pro-
fundity, and comprehensiveness, but thorough analyses yield
startling facts. Dr. William Warren Sweet, a professor of
history in The University of Chicago, has summarized (Address
delivered in the University of Chicago Chapel) his findings
with regard to the amount of space devoted to religion in our
school histories. He has pointed out that neglect of religion is
characteristic of the great American histories; including the
Chronicles of America Series in fifty volumes; McMaster's
eight volumes entitled the History of the People of the United
States; seven volumes on the slavery controversy, the Civil War,
and the Reconstruction periods by James Ford Rhodes; and
Oberholtzer's History of the United States since the Civil War.
Even though religion was a main aspect of many of the issues
dealt with, he shows that in none of these works has it been
given adequate attention, and in some practically no attention
whatever. His examination of the most widely used texts
on American history revealed this same neglect. Most of them
made no mention of Qeorge Whitefield or Jonathan Edwards
even though Whitefield was one of the greatest of the inter-
colonial leaders and Edwards was America's first great phil-

310 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

osopher, who is even yet classed by some as the greatest mind
that America has produced. Professor Sweet has given the
evidence showing that in main sources, in high school and in
college texts, the historians have not done full justice to the
part played by religion in American life. On the basis of this
evidence we are forced to conclude that most departments of
history are not teaching the subject profoundly and compre-
hensively. Therefore, youth is betrayed.

As to the study of literature, after ten years of work with
university students in the field of religion, I believe that a
large majority of them at graduation are not only uninformed
as to the existence and nature of the seven great Bibles produced
by the religions of mankind, but that they have little, if any,
specific knowledge of the Bible of Christianity. Even though
church supported colleges stress study of the Christian Bible
more than any other area in the field of religion, many institu-
tions of higher learning have failed to provide effective means
for study and appreciation of the world's most sacred literature.
When young people learn that the Christian Bible is ever the
world's best-seller, that it has been translated into a thousand
tongues, and that it is an incomparable anthology of living
religious literature loaded with rare insights and precious mean-
ings, they will study it if the necessary means are provided for
doing so. Failure to provide these means is a betrayal of youth.

There is now a tragic need for systematic study of philos-
ophy of religion. The traditional systems of religious belief
passed on to us no longer bring to the modern mind the wealth
of meaning which they brought to our ancestors. Traditional
patterns of theology, like the blueprints for our grandfathers'
houses, are now obsolete. The discipline of systematic study
necessary for the development of modern theology is philosophy
of religion. Some refer to it as philosophical theology. Ac-
cording to Alfred North Whitehead,

"It is the business of philosophical theology to provide
a rational understanding of the rise of civilization, and of
the tenderness of mere life itself, in a world which super-
ficially is founded upon the clashings of senseless compul-
sion ....

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 311

"The task of Theology is to show how the World is
founded on something beyond mere transient fact, and
how it issues in something beyond the perishing of occa-
sions. The temporal World is the stage of finite accom-
plishment. We ask of Theology to express that element
in perishing lives which is undying by reason of its ex-
pression of perfections proper to our finite natures. In
this way we shall understand how life includes a mode
of satisfaction deeper than joy or sorrow." (Adventures
of Ideas, New York, 1933, pages 218 and 221.)

In this task of theology we discover the basic reason for
education. Theology is therefore, rightly, the core of the
curriculum. The complexity of this task demands most thor-
ough treatment by the most critical and disciplined minds. Every
layman's life is dependent upon it if he is to emerge beyond the
mere brute urge to live. The history and literature of religion
arc illuminated by it. To evade it or to place it in an insignifi-
cant position in the curriculum for university men and women
is to betray youth. If we are to prevent this betrayal we must
examine its causes and consequences.

Betrayal by Those Who Do Not Know What Religion Is

Youth is often betrayed by those who do not know what
religion is. This may be due to failure to examine it, or it
may be the result of confusion due to examination of conflict-
ing definitions of religion. Since we do not know cverthing
about anything, "know in part and see in part," (I Cor. 13:9)
all of our definitions, including those of religion, arc limited.
Yet we have definitions of religion which are as accurate as our
definitions of energy, atoms, cells, and the like. Religion is
found in human behavior, but not in all human behavior: in
that behavior which we call loyalty, but not in all human loyal-
ty. Religion is one's loyalty to what one regards as supreme
value for all men. Religion, at best, is loyalty of the total,
matured self, functioning especially through one's vocation,
but also through all other forms of one's behavior, to what
really is supreme in value. Some are confused by definitions
of religion because they confuse the definition itself with that

312 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

which the definition is meant to symbolize. For example,
when we refer to God in terms of "Supreme Value,'' or with
Professor Whitehead in terms of "concretion," some critics
have said that "no one could ever pray to such a God." Such
critics have not analyzed the situation sufficiently to discover
that no person could pray or "communicate" intelligently with
a definition. Definition of religion is a necessary guide to
stating the objective of teaching in the field of religion. If
we are to prevent further betrayal of youth we must know what
this objective is.

The Primary Objective of Teaching in the Field of Religion

The direct, primary objective of teaching the well-establish-
ed disciplines of religion is not to make the students of religion
religious, but to stimulate critical study of religious behavior
in the lives of men, in order that there may be growth of under-
standing of this behavior. Teachers in the field of religion
who accept this objective do not try to make their students
religious, just as teachers in the field of economics do not try
to supply their students with economic goods. However, better
understanding of religion gained through critical study of it
contributes to the development of more intelligent religious
living just as better understanding of economics through critical
study of it contributes to more intelligent practices in the
economic aspects of life.

Since religious behavior is loyalty to what one regards as
supreme value for all men, it is clear that one's religion involves
the core organization of the self, if any such organization exists.
Failure to provide specific, systematic, and critical study of this
central and most profound aspect of life is to offend common
decency in education. Growth of civilization and culture de-
pends directly upon critical evaluation of the object of our
supreme devotion, since it is this object which gives man his
primary sense of direction and destiny. If this object thought
to be supreme is not supreme, education for the modern mind
demands disillusionment even in one's ideas of God as well as in
one's ideas of lesser values.

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 313

Some confuse the main objective of teaching with the ob-
jectives of other kinds of work done in the field of religion.
Some religious agencies that do work in educational institutions
have very little educational content but devote themselves to
activities for inspiration, fellowship and the like. While reli-
gious inspiration and fellowship are recognized values which
we do well to serve, if we allow these to be a substitute for the
educational content of, religion we fail to fulfill our responsi-
bility for the advancement of profound and comprehensive edu-
cation. Many sincere people with good intentions support
vulgar, pathological forms of religion because they lack the
education necessary to diffcrlntiate these forms from those
which are intelligent and health-giving. While religion in its
broad meaning is a way of life rather than a mere intellectual
system of thought, failure to advance systematic instruction in
religion defeats the very purpose of higher education by allow-
ing superficial views of religion to control human conduct.
This failure is betrayal of youth. William U. Gucrrant, a
successful university director of religious activities, says it is
good to support and strengthen religious activities on all our
campuses, but what students need most is to know something
about religion. My observations lead me to believe that growth
in the understanding of religion stimulates such growth of
appreciation for it that students naturally and normally seek
an affiliation with some religious fellowship in which the art
of worship can be cultivated.

Some assume that the main objective for teaching in the
field of religion is to provide educational facilities for those who
expect to become professional religious leaders. In so far as this
assumption, lacking in perspective, prevents future laymen from
making a systematic study of religion, it creates a circular prob-
lem. Laymen uneducated in religion do not have sufficient
understanding of and appreciation for intelligent religious
leadership to know where to look for it, how to select it, or even
to want it, much less to support it. Not until the laymen are
bettter educated in the field of religion can ministers serve the
people by preaching more profound sermons, for, as Shailer
Mathews has said, "no one can be a leader unless he has fol-

314 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

lowers." This circular problem can be solved by affording
every youth an opportunity to receive a good education in the
field of religion; otherwise all youth are betrayed.

Areas of Study in the Field of Religion

There are teachers and administrators in educational work
whose background of learning has not been sufficiently compre-
hensive to make them aware that there are recognized, system-
atic, and critical disciplines of study in the field of religion.
For example, a young professor of political science in an out-
standing university recently faced his situation by asking ques-
tions which revealed his almost total lack of knowledge in this
regard. It is easy for such men unconsciously and inadvertently
to betray youth by guidance controlled by this lack of know-
ledge.

There are at least the following main divisions in the field
of religion which are recognized as worthy of systematic study
in higher education.

1. History of Religion includes all world religions, ancient,
medieval and modern, and also a comparative study of
these. The historian, as such, does not evaluate or criti-
cize religious behavior. His purpose is to describe as
objectively and disinterestedly as possible the flow of
religious events, movements, and institutions.

2. The Literature of Religion includes study of all seven of
the great Bibles of the world's religions, even though most
attention in our Western World has been centered upon
study of the Old and the New Testaments of the Chris-
tian Bible. Some main tools used in the study of the
literature, in addition to knowledge of various languages,
are: textual or lower criticism, higher criticism, and form
criticism.

3. Psychology of Religion, including both descriptive and
applied psychology of religion, is analytic study of reli-
gious behavior by scientific method.

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 315

4. Philosophy of Religion clarifies basic religious concepts,
examines the source and validity of religious beliefs, and
studies critically the various systems of both historic and
current religious thought and practice.

5. The Methodology of Religion, known as Religious Edu-
cation, is study of means used for communicating and
transferring religious thought and practice. It includes
study of the art of worship, sacred music, missions, reli-
gious drama, sermon-making and delivery, principles,
methods, and practice of teaching, administration of reli-
gious institutions, etc.

While these five areas of study are definitely established, others
are being developed. For example, we find courses now being
organized in the Sociology of Religion in several institutions
in this country. Recognition of and appreciation for these
accepted areas of study by men and women responsible for
educational procedures are important factors in preventing be-
trayal of youth.

Identification of the Content of Religion

Some teachers and administrators of education with an
apologetic rather than a straight-forward attitude toward re-
ligion betray youth by refusing to identify the content of re-
ligion when it is present. If religious problems must be dis-
cussed, its language is not used. If religious behavior is studied,
they would bury its content in courses which do not deal
primarily with religion. To study religion without identifi-
cation of it may lead to serious consequences. To stimulate
the development of religious behavior without identification of
it is to make it an unconscious and therefore an unintelli-
gent groping for the best. When religion is studied it should
be studied openly, frankly, fairly, freely, critically, and
thoroughly. Religion is too dangerous to be played with, for
it is the most dynamic force in nature. The teacher of any
aspect of it is perilously insecure unless he has technical know-
ledge of the whole of it, especially its history, its literature,
and its philosophy. The difficulties encountered in securing

316 RELIGION INTHE MAKING

a comprehensive understanding of such a complex field are often
causative factors in producing the apologetic attitude among
educators who refuse to deal with the subject directly. To
generalize this attitude and project it as an ideal educational
procedure is betrayal of youth. Professor Henry Nelson Wie-
man, of The University of Chicago, has expressed recently, in
an unpublished paper, the great dangers involved in such an
attitude which opens the way for the development of an un-
conscious, and uncriticized religion. He says:

"An unconscious, unexamined, uncriticized religion will
be crude, fantastic and dangerous. To put the modern
tremendous powers of achievement in the hands of such
a religion is like putting explosives into the hands of a
maniac. Such an unconscious and uncriticized religion
has developed in various countries because the gap between
conscious religion and the educated mind became too great
to bridge."

Methpds Used to Put the Study of Religion in the Curriculum

The variety of methods used to include the study of re-
ligion in the educational curriculum has often been sufficiently
confusing to prevent the adoption of any method by interested
school administrators, thereby obstructing the development of
any teaching program in the field. This, too, is a betrayal of
youth.

The various methods used include:

1. Religion is studied as segments of courses treating history,
literature, psychology, and philosophy, generally. This
method gives the least possible attention to the study of
religion. Almost all of the general texts used in these
fields have very few, if any, chapters dealing with reli-
gion. Almost all the teachers in these general (fields
have had no opportunity for graduate study of religion
and are therefore incapable of dealing with whatever
source material may be included in the general texts.

2. Courses are given wholly to the study of religion and are

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 317

included in the appropriate general departments of history,
literature, psychology, philosophy, etc., in colleges and
universities. A common weakness in the use of this
method has been the inclusion of these courses in the teach-
ing load of men who have not done adequate work to
teach in the field of religion.

3. A third method involves establishment of a department
of religion in the college or university. In the depart-
ment all courses offered in the whole field of religion are
brought together as a unit in the curriculum. This
method makes it easier to organize and maintain, under
the leadership of a chairman, a comprehensive and balanced
curriculum.

4. A fourth method is the establishment of a school or col-
lege of religion which retains the general academic pat-
tern of a department of religion plus financial and ad-
ministrative independence with privileges of granting its
own academic degrees.

My observation of situations in which these methods have
been tried, leads me to believe that the departments and schools
of religion are best fitted to develop and to maintain a balanced
curriculum in the field with all areas, including history, litera-
ture, and philosophy, well coordinated. Distribution of the
courses in religion in the general departments, or distribution
of the content of religion in the general courses, all too often fail,
to give sufficient attention to the study of religion to make it
possible for interested students to study it either systematically
or comprehensively. This is betrayal of youth.

Separation of Church and State

Another contributing factor to the betrayal of youth is
an outgrowth of separation of church and state. State domina-
tion of religion on the one hand, and ecclesiastical domination
of the state on the other hand have produced a long struggle
which causes church and state to desire freedom from entangle-
ments with each other. Even though we may regard this
separation as a precious heritage, I see no more serious problem

318 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

facing the world than that of the relation of church and state.
The difficulty in defining accurately the valid functions of each,
since both deal with the same human groups, has undoubtedly
caused many people to commit themselves primarily either to
the one or to the other. Both are equally concerned with the
development and maintenance of the social order. The basic
contribution of the state to this objective is legalistic. The
state is a law-making, law-interpreting and law-enforcing
agency. Its dominant method for enforcement of law at pre-
sent as well as traditionally is punishment prescribed for viola-
tions ranging all the way from parking one's car too far from
the curb to violations of international agreements. The basic
contribution of the church to this objective is religious. Reli-
gion at best sensitizes men to that supreme value in all existence
which we call God. Its dominant method is worship.
Through the art of worship there is stimulation and cultivation
of growth of appreciation for Gbd as best and all loyalty to
lesser values is subordinated to the greatest. The pure religious
act is motivated by the lure of God. Men who see God want
to adjust their ways to his ways. They do not need law to
remind them of duty or punishment. As effective religious
functioning decreases, legal responsibility increases. Excessive
dependence upon the state for securing and maintaining order
necessariljy yields totalitarian dictatorships which inevitably
collapse under their own excessive responsibility. In this way
the state destroys itself. The state, like all other agencies and
institutions developed by men, is dependent on God.

Youth is betrayed when the church fails to carry its rightful
responsibility and when men turn to the state as the primary
agency for development and maintenance of the social order.
Where religion is reduced to patriotism there is a major crisis.
High religion is then displaced by Paganism in which study of
God is displaced by study of politics. The distinctly different
functions of the church and of the state make complete union
of them both undesirable and unnecessary, but if youth is not
to be betrayed by confusing these functions, creative interaction
between them is both desirable and necessary. If creative inter-
action is to be served, parents, teachers, and administrators

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 319

must assume responsibility for education in all significant as
pects of life including the religious, otherwise youth is betrayed.
A basic aspect of this responsibility involves generous financial
support, for first class work in religion cannot be done with
inadequate salaries and shoddy materials with which to serve
God.

Sectarianism

Sectarian conflicts and divisions in the world of religion
are a common obstruction to the study of religion in an other-
wise unified school system. These sects, with differences both
in their methods and also in their content, prevent, by the very
fact of their differences, a common recognition of their work
by institutions which are of, by, and for all the people. To
avoid sacrificing the unity of educational institutions on the
altars of sectarian religious conflicts, and to prevent partiality
toward any sectarian group, laws have been made which wisely
separate tax supported education from religious sectarianism.
Youth is betrayed not by the educational institutions which
fail to include study of religion because of sectarian conflicts
but by religious sectarianism itself.

Some religious groups which have built their own educa-
tional institutions have done so to support and extend their own
sectarian approach. This, too, is a betrayal of youth in so far
as sectarian bias is stimulated and fostered. Leading educators
who try to eliminate bias from the educational process are
rightly as suspicious of sectarian religious influence as they are
of political influence, but there are religious groups which
found and support educational institutions in .which only
scholarly, disinterested, non-sectarian study of religion is recog-
nized; just as there are political institutions (city or state)
which prevent political bias from interfering with education
itself. It is this scholarly, disinterested, non-sectarian study
of religion for which there is no sound basis for either academic
or legal restrictions. By providing the necessary conditions
for this kind of study of religion in the educational system,
youth will no longer be betrayed, for sectarianism is a by-

320 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

product of our lacking first-rate education in religion.

Methods used in the Teaching -learning Process in the Field of

Religion

Parents and teachers working in the field of religion, as in
other fields, often betray youth by the methods they use in the
teaching-learning process. There have been enough failures
in this regard to cause some people to conclude that religion can-
not be taught. Of course loyalty to what one regards as supreme
value for all men, which we call religion, cannot be taught;
for religion itself as a way of living is a process of growth.
However, this does not deny the fact that the history, literature,
psychology, sociology, philosophy, and methodology of re-
ligion can be taught. It is the systematic teaching of these
disciplines which yields understanding of religion. We must
understand it in order to provide the conditions necessary for
the healthy growth of religion in life.

The "teaching-learning" process in religion fails to yield
understanding when the process is an initiation of students into
sentences, and paragraphs even though these be scriptural; when
it is mere training of habit forms, even though these be labeled
prayer; and when blind faith is cultivated even though it be
faith in God. It is this kind of "teaching" which betrays
youth and prevents the advancement of education in religion.
The teaching-learning process in religion succeeds in yielding
understanding when the process is an initation of students into
a personal and creative experience. (This conception of teach-
ing is well presented by W. C. Bower in Character Through
Creative Experience, Chicago, 1930.) When the teaching-learn-
ing process is a creative experience it is a powerful stimulus to
religious growth.

When a person has been strongly conditioned early in life
by a teaching-learning process in religion which has not been
creative and in which the religious content has not been sub-
jected to modern criticism, and when that person grows up
with an increasing body of critical knowledge concerning other
areas of life, except religion, one can expect such a person, who,

BETRAYAL OF YOUTH 321

himself, has been betrayed, to be well fitted for betrayal of
youth. In this case betra-yal breeds betrayal. If this person
has developed intellectual integrity which prevents his acceptance
of beliefs on a basis of subjective need or personal advantage,
the traditional religious beliefs of his childhood must be sub-
ject to the same rigid testing as the others or he suffers from
the development of a divided mind and a divided self. We
have here the paradoxical situation in which religion which is
supposed to make life whole has produced the very opposite
effect. It is therefore an evil kind of religion. Failure to
receive any knowledge of or appreciation for any religion more
mature than the uncriticized kind experienced in childhood
causes him to develop a kind of "righteous indignation" which
would gladly drive "religion" out of existence. Others, feeling
that their early religious conditioning was very unfortunate,
succeed in suppressing it and in removing it from their con-
scious living. This condition is the basis for much mental
and emotional illness which now exists among men. Some
who think they are liberated from all religion look with pity
upon those who "need" it to endure the harshness of this life.
They assume its value for men is like crutches for the crippled.
Still others see the tremendous importance of religion, struggle
valiantly with its problems, but are baffled and do not see
their way through.

In addition to all these pathological and weaker efforts,
there are those who study religion fearlessly by subjecting its
historical data to the socio-historical method; its literary data
to textual and higher criticism: and its psychological, socio-
logical, philosophical, and methodological data to the empirical
method of observation and reason. Use of these well-known
and commonly accepted methods by scholars in the various
areas of religion has produced a great body of knowledge which
serves as the foundation for all religion regardless of traditional
sectarianism and present divisions. It is the use of these ac-
cepted methods developed and refined in recent decades by the
arduous labors of highly disinterested scholars which makes it
possible for us to teach critically, objectively, constructively,
and appreciatively in the field of religion. If we emplov

322 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

teachers who have secured the available knowledge and who
have developed the skills for getting further knowledge by use of
these methods, they will not betray youth by failure to initiate
them into an honest, enlightening, personal and creative ex-
perience through study of religion.

Conclusion

Even though there are those who hold that religion and the
study of religion are already well established in education we
cannot find the evidence necessary to support their views. After
years of careful study of this issue, Dean Luther A. Weigle
of the Divinity School of Yale University concludes:

"Yet when all is granted that may be affirmed of the
influences making for sound character and religious faith
in the best of our public-school systems, the fact remains
that religion and education are rather sharply divorced
in most American communities, and that we have departed
far from the early American conception that religion should
be an integral part of public education." (Address, Public
Education and Religion, International Council of Religious
Education, 203 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
1940.)

This departure is our fundamental betrayal of youth, deeper
than our military betrayals and also our moral betrayals, but
even this fundamental betrayal cannot destroy youth's most
deeply rooted drive for connection with some Greatest, for "The
great social ideal for religion is that it should be the common
basis for the unity of civilization. In that way it justifies its
insight beyond the transient clash of brute forces." (White-
head, op. cit., page 221.) The youth of the present and the
youth of tomorrow, the youth that is healthiest and cleanest
and best in the history of man, will rise in its strength with a
new vision of God to serve him with laughter and love.

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES

By Mary E. AndreuJs
Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland

"In practice, if not in theory, criticism and interpretation are
inextricably intertwined. It is as dishonest as it is silly for any
historian to claim that he approaches his sources and makes his
reconstructions without prepossessions or assumptions." The
truth of this statement from a recent book is authenticated when
scholarly work on the parables of Jesus is subjected to careful
scrutiny. We have long been familiar with homiletic license
in the use of parables and with its ancestor, the allegorical
method. We expect popular presentations to make practical
and edifying application of the parables, and many seem to lend
themselves to broad generalization. But we expect the scholar
to be more objective, less bound to the temper of his own time
or to the claims of his own theory. Such at least is our hope.

The parables are of perennial interest. A number of books
on that subject have appeared within the past decade, with
differing claims to scholarly recognition. This paper attempts
a brief survey of how four outstanding scholars of the century
1842-1942 interpreted the parables of Jesus. The scholars
chosen are F. C. Baur, Albert Schweitzer, C. H. Dodd, and
Martin Dibelius.

F. C. Baur, founder of the influential Tuebingcn school,
marked the beginning of constructive criticism defined as "the
attempt to attach the New Testament writings to their true
historical background." One hundred years ago his greatest
works were still unwritten: his study of the caronical gospels,
his work on Paul, and his church history. Solid works in
history of dogma, in gnosticism and in other fields had appear-
ed, and in his study of the party of Christ in Corinth (1831 )
he had worked out the formula by which he was to chart the
course of early Christian development. Baur found his key
to interpretation in the philosophy of his contemporary, Hegel,
with its well known thesis, antithesis and synthesis. With char-

324 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

acteristic thoroughness he applied this formula to the literature
of the New Testament. He found that the conflict necessary
to condition advance lay in the opposition of the Petrine and
Pauline elements in early Christianity which in turn found
their synthesis in the ancient Catholic church. Baur was not
without his prepossessions and assumptions. The Hegelian
formula became a Procrustean bed, and one of the greatest of
New Testament critics paid the price of his own subjectivity and
over-confidence in a contemporary system.

Baur does not concern himself to any great length with the
parables, but it is clear how the Tuebingen interpretation is
based on the presupposition of a Peter-Paul or Jewish-Gentile
Christianity. To Baur, Matthew was the gospel of Jewish
Christianity and Luke that of Pauline univcrsalism. With
these assumptions the parables must fall in line. Two parables
are directed against Jewish Christianity, those of the Wedding
Feast and the Rich Man and Lazarus, the latter peculiar to Luke.
In both gospels the former parable teaches that the heathen
are entitled to membership in the Messianic kingdom, and
through the unbelief of the Jews they become its main members.
Matthew adds the feature of the wedding garment which sym-
bolizes the necessity of equal preparation by the Gentiles or
probably a pledge that they will observe the Law. Luke gives
the parable a different turn and admits the poor instead of a
chosen few with the rest cast into outer darkness.

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Zeller, a
notable disciple of Baur, interpreted the rich man as the symbol
of those who are rich in divine revelation; the poor represent
the salvation-hungry heathen who look to the Jews as dogs
who catch the crumbs. Interpreted spiritually, the offensive-
ness disappears. The Jews, satisfied with legal revelation go
without salvation; the heathen, craving to be fed from the
riches of the Jews, attain it. Schwegler, another of Baur's
disciples, saw this parable as anti-Jewish. The rich man who
has Moses and the prophets is a symbol of the Jewish People,
who in the fulness of divine blessing, remain hard and un-
believing toward the predicted salvation; the poor are the
symbol of the heathen world. Baur saw the conclusion of the

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 325

parable as a picture of the relation of the Jews to Christianity
after the death of Jesus. The hypothesis of the parable has
been realized: Jesus had risen from the dead; still they did not
believe him to be the Messiah — they did not listen to Moses
and the prophets- — and above all, in their worldliness, they had
no desire for a Messianic salvation destined only for the poor.

In the story of Martha and Mary Judaism and heathenism
or Jewish and Pauline Christianity stand over against each
other. Mary is the Pauline pistis; Martha represents the weari
some doing of the works of the Law, and turns away from the
real salvation.

Other parables revealing later party relationships are those
of the Pharisee and the Publican, of the Two Sons (Mt.
21:28-31), and par excellence the parable of the Lost Son.
The Tuebingen group all agree that this last parable applies to
Jews and Gentiles in their relation to the Messianic kingdom.
The younger son, who after wasting his inheritance, after
silencing his wretched hunger with the food of pigs, returns to
his father, represents the heathen world. The elder son who
always stayed at home and served his father, boasting that he
had transgressed no command, is an excellent picture of the
Jewish people. The party relationships of the later time come
out in the envious, jealous attitude of the elder brother, com-
plaining about the father's favoritism to the younger. This
is typical of the conduct of Jewish Christians toward Pauline
Christianity. Brotherly fellowship to them meant a limitation
of their own privileges. Here the theme is the comradeship
of the Messianic kingdom as equally justified for both Gentile
and Jewish Christians. God is the God of both Jews and
Gentiles (Rom. 3:29). Gentile Christianity is ready to come
joyfully to the Father, but Pauline Christians must have op-
portunity to meet the breach which threatened to disrupt the
fellowship through the distrust and envy of the Jewish Chris-
tians. Paul had tried to convince the Jewish Christians that
both groups shared the Messianic salvation and that there was
no injustice. "Son, you have been with me always" is effec-
tively conciliatory, and the picture of the Pauline conversion of

326 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the sinner as the calling back to life of one who had been dead
is very effective.

It can scarcely be maintained that Baur's interpretation of
parables is without prepossession or assumption. And yet he
was very certain that he had the real historical method.

Albert Schweitzer, the many-sided genius, who at the begin
ning of the century made cschatology the center of scholarly
discussion in New Testament circles, did more than any other
scholar to change the trend in New Testament research. He
lived in a period which saw the culmination of the so-called
"historical" school of gospel research. Oskar Holtzmann
brought to fruition his scientific Life of Jesus based upon Mark:
Harnack's Jesus of history was a pleasing portrait of a figure
that fitted perfectly into the liberal picture inspired by the con-
ception of a world evolving gradually into the Kingdom of
God, a figure that was divested of most of the features of first
century Palestinian thought that were offensive to modern
Christians. Johannes Weiss had challenged this type of think-
ing about Jesus in his The Preaching of the Kingdom of God
wherein he pictured Jesus as an apocalyptist and not as a modern
man, the kingdom as wholly future and not as a product of
evolution. In a word, he defined the eschatological problem
which through the work of Schweitzer was to shock the
scholarly world. The "historical" picture was attacked from
another angle by William Wrcde whose book The Messianic
Secret appeared the same day as Schweitzer's Secret of the Mes-
siahship. There was nothing left of the "liberal" nineteenth
century Jesus. Wrede attempted to demonstrate the historical
unreliability of the Gospel of Mark, Schweitzer to defend it.
Schweitzer's acceptance of it was linked with his acceptance of
Weiss's consistent and thoroughgoing eschatology. Jesus be-
comes a new and strange figure. No longer the prophet of
righteousness, but the consistent eschatologist who considered
himself the Messiah, expected the coming of an otherworldly,
supernatural kingdom of God in the near future. Man could
only await this kingdom, he could do nothing to hasten its
coming. Schweitzer saw Jesus completely dominated by this
idea, and therefore his religious and ethical teachings were

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 327

valid only for the interim period and utterly without value for
the modern world. No wonder that the transition from the
Harnackian Jesus to the eschatological Jesus was something
of a shock.

How did Schweitzer interpret the parables? The view he
combated had stressed the parables which seemed to show the
gradual growth of the kingdom and had passed lightly over the
apocalytic ideas Schweitzer, having accepted the gospel of
Mark in toto as historical reliable, had to face the problem of
Mark's interpretation of Jesus' use of parables as intended to
conceal truth and which many scholars including Baur had
felt was distortion of historical truth. Wrcde had drawn
Mark's view of parable into the framework of the dogmatic
theory of the Messianic secret. Schweitzer boldly accepted the
dogmatic element as the historical element, which Wrede had
denied on the ground that it was opposed to the essential nature
of parable.

If the dogmatic element is the historical element because it
arose in an atmosphere saturated with eschatology, if Jesus is
dominated by this dogmatic idea, it follows that it is doubtful
if Jesus even thought of himself as a teacher. This is indicated
in the express purpose of his parables to conceal truth. Sch-
weitzer is not sure that this can be applied to all of the parables
but he considers it noteworthy that it applies "as if by some
higher law" to those parables having the kingdom as their
center. Schweitzer is driven to the acceptance of predestination
as the reason for Jesus' use of parables. Jesus knows that those
whom God has chosen will win their salvation. All that goes
beyond the simple phrase, "repent, for the Kingdom of God is
at hand" must be publicly presented only in parables so that
those who possess predestination by having the knowledge
necessary to understand the parables may receive the more ad-
vanced knowledge which is imparted to them in a measure cor-
responding to their original degree of knowledge. Predesti-
nation and eschatology go together. "Many are called but few
are chosen."

The point in the parables of the growth of the seed is not

328 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

the idea of development, but the absence of causation. This
is not to emphasize the natural but the miraculous. Just as
a man believes in the harvest because he sowed the seed, so he
can believe with the same confidence in the kingdom of God.
It is not to be earned, it is God's gift. Schweitzer sees Jesus
as confident that the kingdom will come with the ripening of
the harvest already in the fields, and the reason for its coming
lies in the power and purpose of God.

By the time Schweitzer has carried through his analysis
of Mark's Jesus on the basis of consistent eschatology, he is
forced to the statement, "The historical Jesus will be to our
time a stranger and an enigma."

Schweitzer's bias is even more marked than Baur's with
reference to the teaching of the parables. To the latter they
reflect the period of the composition of the gospels and the
immediate problems of party relationships in situations of con-
flict, to the former they reflect the inscrutable purposes of God
to enlighten only the elect. Objectivity seems to be at a dis-
count in both interpretations.

Baur and Schweitzer discuss the parables rather incidentally.
Their special interest lies elsewhere. But their interpretation
of parables clearly illustrates these major emphases. Our next
scholar, C. H. Dodd of Cambridge, is the only one of the four
men selected for interrogation who has written a book on the
parables. Professor Dodd has the enviable distinction of being
the only Protestant biblical scholar to be honored at the Harvard
tercentenary. He is the successor of the distinguished scholar,
F. C. Burkitt, who, deeply impressed by the work of Schweit-
zer, wrote the Introduction to the English translation of the
latter's Von Reimarus zu Wrede, the book which under the
title The Quest of the Historical Jesus set the scholarly world
agog as few books have done.

Although Dodd has written a number of books including
the excellent commentary on Romans in the Moffatt series, he
has drawn most fire from his advocacy of what he calls "realized
eschatology." This is a modification of Schweitzer's position
of "consistent eschatology" in which Jesus is seen to have pic-

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 329

tured the coming of the kingdom of God in the near future,
into that of "realized eschatology" in which Jesus is interpreted
as teaching that the kingdom of God had already come, that it
was present in his ministry, and that the next step was the
eternal Beyond. This view is based upon Dodd's own trans-
lation of two Greek verbs, a procedure that has been vigorously
combated by other scholars to the point of successful refutation.
In spite of the fact that this view is based upon forced and un-
natural interpretation of two key verses, Dodd clings to the
possibility that these verses may be thus understood and then
goes blithely on to assume the correctness of his interpretation,
carrying it over into a subsequent book. History and the Gospel.
Here is strikingly present another clear case of a scholar's as-
sumptions and prepossessions dictating interpretation, another
weapon in the arsenal of those who feel that theological impli-
cations hamper historical study.

Dodd accepts the present form of the parables as colored
by the needs and interests of the early church. In this he
agrees with contemporary form critics. But Dodd finds it fairlv
easy to reconstruct the original setting of the parables in the
ministry of Jesus. His method is to strip the parable of all
interpretation that has accrued between the time of Jesus and
that of the early church, and to find a plausible interpretation
in the earlier period always in view of the fact that Jesus believed
that the Kingdom was already present, rather than that it was
soon to come.

Dodd begins with those parables that most clearly belong
to the period of Jesus' ministry: the Hid Treasure and the
Costly Pearl. These demand a situation where the idea of
sacrifice for a worthy end is prominent, and that situation is
the realized presence of the kingdom of God in the ministry
of Jesus and his calling men to come into its possession. The
Tower Builder and the King Going to War teach that men must
be prepared to take great risks. The Children in the Market-
place is designed to show the folly of childish behavior in the
presence of the supreme crisis of history. Nor do the sons of
the bridechamber fast in a situation where joy is the appropriate
mood. The Patched Garment and the Old Wineskins simi-

330 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

larly indicate that Jesus' teachings is not a reformed Judaism,
but something altogether new.

Another group of parables centers around the contrast of
"publicans and sinners" versus the "righteous." These too
have a reference contemporary with Jesus. The Lost Coin
and the Lost Sheep illustrate the concern of Jesus for the de-
pressed classes. "In the ministry of Jesus the Kingdom of God
came; and one of the features of its coming was this unprece-
dented concern for the lost." This same contrast is seen also
in the parables of the Two Sons and the Great Feast, and
Dodd's translation "Repent, for the Kingdom of God has drawn
near" corresponds to the words of invitation to the great ban-
quet, "Come, for all is ready." Matthew's addition of the
wedding garment is an early church addition to guard against
the too easy reception of Gentiles.

The Strong Man Despoiled, in its setting of Jesus' exor-
cism, points to the ministry of Jesus as an eschatological event.
The defeat of evil is something that is actually being accom-
plished in the ministry of Jesus.

Dodd's powers of parabolic transformation reach their
height in his interpretation of the parable of the Wicked Hus-
bandmen which he sees as natural, realistic and on no good
grounds to be denied to Jesus. Most scholars have seen this
parable as an allegory of the early church which saw the death
of Jesus in retrospect. Dodd sees the impending climax of the
rebellion of Israel in the murder of the successor of the prophets.
"We know that Jesus did regard His own ministry as the cul
mination of God's dealings with His people, and that He de
dared that the guilt of all righteous blood from Abel to Zecha-
riah would fall upon that generation."

Dodd believes that two motives, the "homiletic" and the
"eschatological" were at work during the gospel-making period
and he supposes that these motives worked in the earlier period
of the oral tradition. He finds traces of this in certain parables.
The parable of the Defendant advised to settle his case out of
court was applied by Jesus to the situation which he saw as

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 331

the supreme crisis of all history: "the kingdom of God has
come upon you."

The homiletic motive is illustrated in the savorless salt or
something good wasted, and refers to the condition of Judaism
during Jesus' ministry. The Light under the Bushel is a piece
of folly best interpreted by the conduct of the Jews who had
the light but who shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces.
In the parable of the Money in Trust the unprofitable servant
is the pious Jew who has made his religion a barren thing by
a policy of selfish exclusiveness.

The parables of Crisis as we have them refer to the second
advent of Jesus, but Dodd sees the parables of the Faithful and
Unfaithful Servants as belonging to Jesus' ministry where the
latter refers to the Jews. The servants waiting for their master
is also early. "We know that he saw in his own ministry the
supreme crisis of history" and the parable therefore enforces the
necessity for alertness in a crisis now upon them. The parable
of the thief at night illustrates that the kingdom has come — ■
unexpectedly, incalculably — and Israel was taken by surprise.
Similarly the Ten Virgins originally was along the same line.
Dodd sums up his view of the parables of crisis thus:

"They were intended to enforce his appeal to men to
recognize that the Kingdom of God was present in all
its momentous consequences, and that by their conduct
in the presence of this tremendous crisis they would judge
themselves as faithful or unfaithful, wise or foolish.
When the crisis had passed, they were adapted by the
Church to enforce its appeal to men to prepare for the
second and final world-crisis which it believed to be ap-
proaching."

Under the title "Parables of Growth" Dodd lists The
Sower, The Tares, The Seed Growing Secretly, the Mustard
Seed, the Leaven and the Drag-net. The predominant in-
terpretation is that these parables refer to the future history of
the Kingdom of God in the world. The Seed Growing Secret-
ly, seen in the light of the idea that to Jesus the Kingdom of
God was a present fact, shows Jesus as the reaper standing ready

332 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to put the sickle to the crop. He marks the fulfillment of the
process. The sowing was the initial act of God, the "pre-
venient grace" which is the condition of anything good happen-
ing among men. The present crisis is the climax of a long
process which prepared the way for it.

The parable of the Sower teaches that the crop is abundant
in spite of hindrances. The Tares in the original setting at-
tests the fact of many sinners in Israel and that the kingdom
which came in spite of them is itself a process of sifting, a judg-
ment. Similarly the parable of the Drag-net emphasizes the
principle of selection, which selection is the divine judgment.
The parable of the Mustard Seed is an appeal to sinners and
outcasts. The Kingdom of God is here: the birds are flocking
to find shelter in the shade of the tree. The Leaven illustrates
the power of the present kingdom working mightily from with-
in to permeate the dead lump of religious Judaism in Jesus'
time.

These parables of growth, says Dodd, are susceptible of
a natural interpretation which makes them into a commentary
on the actual situation during the ministry of Jesus, in its
character as the coming of the Kingdom of God in history.
They illustrate no long development of human history. The
eschaton is here, having come, not by human effort but by an
act of God, not by catastrophic intervention but as the harvest
follows growth. Having come, the Kingdom calls for human
effort. The harvest waits for reapers; in this light Jesus sets
his own work and that to which he calls his disciples.

Dodd sees his interpretation as rigidly historical. One may
have no quarrel with the premise that the parables did have a
definite setting in Jesus' ministry and yet not be willing to
assume that the exact discovery of that setting is possible. If
Dodd is correct in his interpretation of those parables to which
he attributes antithetic Jewish reference one would then have
to discount some important other conclusions that bear upon
the problem of research into Jesus' life. Through the work
of Moore, Herford and others, we have come to a deeper ap-
preciation of legalistic Judaism than was prevalent heretofore.

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 333

The recognition that the gospels took shape in a period charac-
terized by hostility between church and synagogue has done
much to put the hard sayings of Jesus about the Jews and Juda-
ism in a truer perspective. Not that all conflict between Jesus
and certain leaders of his day is necessarily wiped out — an un-
necessary inference in the light of the difference of temper be-
tween institutionalists and prophets — but certainly the picture
is highly "touched."

Careful study of Dodd's interesting book The Parables of
the Kingdom leads to the conclusion that the theologian has
hampered the historian. Because "crisis theology" is promi-
nent in the modern period is no compelling reason for reading
it back into that of Jesus. Because the liberal picture was one-
sided is no reason for a complete swing of the pendulum, and
because "consistent eschatology" was equally or more one-sided
is no guarantee that the truth is "realized eschatology" which
demands a unique translation of two Greek verbs for the sup-
port of the thesis. "Realized eschatology" is based on unveri-
fied assumptions.

The eminent Heidelberg Professor, Martin Dibelius, has
been chosen as the fourth scholar in this study because he is the
best known of contemporary German form-critics. He is much
better known to American readers than his contemporary,
Rudolf Bultmann, since only a short time now elapses between
the German and English editions of his books. He is also less
radical in his conclusions.

Where Dodd, accepting form-criticism, nullified its major
thesis by going behind it and presentng hypothetical interpre-
tations of the parables in the light of his own theory, Dibelius
frankly says that the original interpretations of many parables
are lost to us. "We must often reckon with the fact that those
who made use of the parables often extended and edited them.
But certainly a decision is not possible because as a rule we do
not know to what situation these parables were originally fit-
ted." Dibelius sees the possibility of a Jewish reference in the
parable of the Talents — ignorance of the Jewish people on how
to use the precious heritage entrusted to them — but he is quick

334 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

to point out that "in any case we must reckon with the fact
that we do not know the original references of numerous par-
ables." Dodd is far more certain of the original reference
than Dibelius' method allows him to be.

Dibelius has no extended treatment of the parables of Jesus.
In his From Tradition to Gospel we have the main work in
English on Form-criticism by a recognized master of the
method, a method which seeks to explore the tradition before
it became crystallized in Mark or Q. It is not a new method.
More than a century ago Schleiermacher conceived of numerous
anecdotal narratives rather than a continuous narrative as em-
bodying the earliest tradition. F. C. Burkitt in England and
B. W. Bacon in America were not far from form-critical con-
clusions.

Dibelius' major presupposition is that the content of the
Synoptic gospels was determined by those elements in the tradi-
tion that best served the preaching function of the early church.
That tradition is analyzed into its separate units according to
the criterion of form. Some types are more authentic than
other types, for example, sayings versus miracle talcs or pious
legend. Naturally the method has been variously received,
from whole-hearted acceptance to varying degrees of skepticism
on its alleged results. It is not to be denied that the form-
critics are as certain of the correctness of this method as was
Schweitzer of the reliability of Mark for the historical outline
of Jesus' life. Schweitzer found himself with a "stranger and
enigma to our generation" on his hands, the form-critics with
a first century figure to be understood mainly as a creation of
the early church from a genuine sub-stratum of tradition.
Both see the importance of Mark, but the form-critics are nearer
the skepticism of Wrede as to its historical reliability than to
Schweitzer and his confidence in it.

But Dibelius, at least, is remote from that type of modern-
ization that reads back into the gospel ideas cherished in the
twentieth century. He is less influenced by the present crisis-
theology than is either his English contemporary. Dodd, or his
German contemporary Bultmann. A modern writer in a well-

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 335

balanced appraisal of form-criticism says of Dibelius, "In his
case the minutiae of criticism with the discovery of propagandist
and Christological motives in the documents, do not obscure,
but rather clarify, the figure of the historical Jesus.

What then are Dibelius' conclusions about the parables of
Jesus? He sees Mark editing the parables, sees also Mark's
view that ability to understand the parables was a matter of
God's grace. Here is Schweitzer's predestination, but Dibelius
applies it to the interpretation of the evangelist, not to that of
Jesus himself. He sees Mark synthesizing the tradition through
the theory of the Messianic secret and the parables as mysteries.
In fact Dibelius sees the Gospel of Mark as a book of secret
epiphanies dominated by the salvation motif.

In the very illuminating chapter on "Exhortations" which
deals with the transmission of Jesus' words, we find Dibelius'
treatment of the parables. Like the sayings they became trans-
formed often with complete misunderstanding. The eschatol-
ogy of the early church was a determining factor in the trans-
formation. Dodd recognized this and then sought to go be-
hind it.

It is certain that primitive Christianity felt a need of gather-
ing together the words of Jesus. Mark seems to have known
this teaching and gives selections from it. But this material,
Dibelius thinks, was subject to a different law from that which
governed the gathering of Mark's material. We find whole
sections of primitive Christian exhortation in Paul's letters,
teaching material of a very general; even stereotyped nature.
The "words of Jesus" were gathered for hortatory purpose, for
their use in Christian preaching. Jesus' words became norms
of conduct for the community.

Certain parables also have this hortatory tendency: that of
the deceitful steward becomes doctrine and warning to the early
church: that of the salvation for the disinherited as completed
by the Wedding Garment, the sign of the subject of the King-
dom. The Defendant on the way to court became a parable
of warning not to delay until divine judgment.

336 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Naturally in line with the emphasis on form, Dibelius
applies this category to the parables and finds the following
forms: (1) the comparison in the present (mustard seed) , (2)
comparison in the past (leaven in the dough) , (3) short didac-
tic narrative (the house on the rock and on the sand), (4)
detailed comparative narrative of tale-like character comprising
the great parables, particularly those of Luke. These parables
are popular compositions in which the epic laws of folk-poetry
can be observed. These laws are repetition, antithesis, and the
number three. This fits right in with the form-critics' con-
ception of the unliterary character of the early tradition and
the community basis of its origin.

A second category of differentiation between parables is
that of content: (1) what is commonplace (leaven in dough),

(2) what is typical (the complaining children, the Sower),

(3) what is extraordinary, (4) imaginary cases. The material
of the parables is racy of the soil, and reflects the agrarian inte-
rests.

Research previous to that of the form-critics, notably that of
Juelicher found criteria for interpretation of the parables on the
differences in application such as ( 1 ) where the parable itself
contains the didactic thought as in those of the Good Samari-
tan and the Pharisee and the Publican, (2) where the "story"
clothes the leading thought as in the Tares in the field — here
is allegory, and (3) where the story exists by its own right.
This latter is the true nature of the parable. Parables tend to
become half-allegorical due to the tendency of the church to
derive as much exhortation as possible from the words of
Jesus. Apparently the homiletic use of parables began a long
time ago.

The selection of four such outstanding names in the field
of New Testament criticism was intentional. When scholars
of their caliber can be caught in the meshes of their own as-
sumptions what hope have we for developing high standards
of objectivity in New Testament research? Can New Testa-
ment criticism be objective? Or is it subject to the same limi-
tations that characterize the social sciences in contrast with the

SCHOLARS AND THE PARABLES 337

precision obtaining in the exact sciences? One certainly would
not care to defend the thesis that there has been little advance
in this field, that we move hopelessly in circles with little gain.
As long as we can look back over the past and see in a new light
the hypotheses that once seemed so tenable, so reasonable, and
also see the progress that has been made in spite of the hamper-
ing effect of cherished opinions, there is hope that the most
glaring excesses of enthusiasm for any particular view in the
present will be held in check by those who do not share it.
In the light of the ease with which assumptions and preposses-
sions may be traced through even the most important contri-
butions, and in view of the vigor with which unwelcome con-
clusions are received, scholars of any period do well to ponder
two statements of the master critic: the familiar story of the
mote and the beam and the briefest of all parabolic utterances,
"Physician, heal thyself."

NOTES and NEWS

THE FLORIDA RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION

The fourth annual gathering of the Florida Religious As-
sociation was held on April 20 and 21, 1942, at Florida South-
ern College in Lakeland. The meeting conviened at six
o'clock on Monday evening, April 20, in the University Club,
where the Association was given a complimentary dinner by
the College. Dr. Anna Forbes Liddell, president of the As-
sociation, presided and Dr. Charles T. Thrift, Jr., represented
the College. Following the dinner Dr. Shirley Jackson Case,
Dean of the Florida School of Religion, delivered an address
on "The Religious Meaning of the Past." Then there fol-
lowed a lively discussion led by Rabbi Morris A. Skop of
Orlando.

The general theme of the meeting on Tuesday, both morn-
ing and afternoon, was "Character Education." The subject
was presented ,and its discussion conducted, by Dr. James Flem-
ing Hosic, Professor Emeritus of Education in Columbia Uni-
versity and formerly director of extension work in Teachers
College. There was general participation in the discussion that
proved both interesting and profitable.

The annual business session of the Association was held
at 1 1 : 15 a. m. on Tuesday, April 21. The official transcript
of the minutes of the business meeting follows:

Minutes of the fourth annual meeting of the Florida Religious
Association, held at Florida Southern College, Lakeland,
Fla., April 20 and 21, 1942.

The minutes of the last year's Association meeting
having been published in the magazine "Religion in the Mak-
ing," it was moved, seconded and unanimously passed that they
be accepted as published.

The report of the Treasurer, Mr. Johnson, of Gaines-
ville, was as follows:

NOTES AND NEWS 339

Balance on hand April 1, 1941 $39.84
Dues received since that date 14.00

53.84
Disbursements
Pd. to Mr. Chindahl for money ad-
vanced (50.00) for Mr. Harri-
son Elliot's tour 39.84

Balance on hand 14.00

Unpaid bills

Due to Mr. Chindahl, balance

on above 10.16

Due to Orange Press, Winter Park,
for printing programs and
envelopes 18.00

Stamps and Post cards 7.50

35.66

Further dues paid 1.00

Contribution from Mr. Chindahl 5.00

Total cash on hand _ 20.00

Deficit to be paid 15.66

35.66 35.66

Mr. Johnson reported that there are 38 members on the
roll, many of whom have not yet paid their dues.

The retiring President, Dr. Liddell, spoke in appreciation
of the services of Mr. Chindahl, in keeping the organization
together and for his generous loan to- make possible the coming
of Dr. Harrison Elliot last year.

The invitation from Mr. Johnson for the meeting to be
held next year at Gainesville was accepted unanimously, with
thanks.

340 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The question of how to increase the membership was dis-
cussed. Mr. Chindahl reported that 256 announcements of
this meeting were sent out to persons who might be interested
in attending. This list included librarians, and school superin-
tendents of this district.

It was urged that each member make every effort to interest
his friends and colleagues to become members and attend the
next year's meeting.

It was suggested and unanimously agreed that the Associa-
tion make "Religion in the Making" the journal of this
Association. Dr. Case suggested that an additional 50c to
the annual dues might make it possible for every member to
receive the magazine as part of his membership. If the Society
could pay this 50c per member, this could be done; however
with the present deficit, it was felt that each member should
subscribe on his own.

Dr. Case suggested that several research projects in the his-
tory of the Florida Churches were already under way, and that
their reports would be of interest to this Association in their
annual meetings.

A Roman Catholic History has already been written, and
might be read as one of the papers next year.

It was suggested that P. T. A. leaders should be invited
to attend our annual meetings, for they have definite interests
in religious education in Florida.

Dr. Liddell suggested the possibility of an Institute on
Religious Education for Sunday School teachers in Tallahassee
next year, sponsored by this Association. It was left to her
to work this out in consultation with local teachers and church
workers.

It was moved, seconded, and passed that such projects be
placed before the Board of directors, with power to act as they
saw fit.

The nominating committee brought their nominations be-

NOTES AND NEWS 341

fore the meeting, and the names nominated were voted unaii-
mously.

For President: J. E. Johnson, Gainesville
Vice-President: Morris A. Skop, Orlando
Secretary: Janet W. Daugherty, Winter Park
Executive Secretary: George L. Chindahl, Maitland
Treasurer: Charles T. Thrift. Jr., Lakeland

Executive Committee:

A. Buel Trowbridge, Jr., Winter Park

W. B. Meredith, Bradenton

Myrtle Williamson, Clearwater

R. Ira Barnett, Lakeland

Dr. Anna Forbes Liddell, Tallahassee

The following resolution was presented by the committee
on resolutions and unanimously and enthusiastically adopted.

"Be it resolved that the Florida Religious Association here-
by registers its gratefulness to Florida Southern College for
its gracious hospitality during this annual meeting.

That our thanks be extended to Dr. Shirley Jackson Case
and Dr. Hosic for their services and stimulating leadership,
and also to Dr. Liddell and Mr. George L. Chindahl for their
untiring work in planning and carrying out this program."

Respectfully submitted, A. R. Mead, A. F. Chicoine and
C. T. Thrift, committee on resolutions.

A. Buel Trowbridge, Acting Secretary

BOOKS REVIEWED

The Nature of the Early Church. By Ernest F. Scott.
New York: Charles Scribncr's Sons, 1941. 240 pages. $2.00.

The term "church" may bo defined in various ways. One
may think of it as the elaborate historical institution that has
grown up to serve the Christian cause. In that event one takes
note of a wide variety of characteristics in polity, ritual and
dogma. All of these features belong to the historic church
in its diversified manifestation. But this variety is perplexing,
and efforts have been made to simplify the definition of
"church" by selecting one or another of its diversities as the
essential mark of the true church. Sometimes this is thought
to be the perpetuation of an ecclesiastical hierarchy (papal or
episcopal) , or a technique for administering salvation through
the sacraments, or the witness to a particular formulation of
doctrine, or the guardian of a specific type of baptismal proce-
dure, or whatever else looms foremost on one's horizon.

Thus a definition of the church may be comprehensive in
type, or it may be highly selective. Professor Scott follows the
latter course. He thinks to find the essential meaning of the
church, not in terms of polity or ritual, but in an idea pro-
mulgated by Jesus. The church arose as a consequence of
something unique in the message of Jesus regarding the King-
dom of God. After the death of Jesus the first disciples
banded themselves together as the brotherhood of those who
live for the Kingdom. This was the formative idea with
which the church originated and it still remains the essence of
its true nature; it is the brotherhood that waits on earth for
the Kingdom of God. We arc not to think of the church as
a historical development. Rather, it consists fundamentally
of this static idea, which may be entertained in different forms
by various people in successive ages, but has to be restored in its
original simplicity in order to comprehend the correct meaning
of the church.

BOOKS REVIEWED 343

One may well question the propriety of thus subordinating
the functional significance of the church as a historical institution
to an abstract idea of "waiting for the Kingdom of God." Is
it not, rather, an instrument devised and employed for bringing
the Kingdom to realization? Even in the case of the first dis-
ciples the purpose of the fellowship would seem to have been
quite as much the strengthening of their missionary courage
as the evidence of their "waiting.'' Believing as they did that
the Kingdom would not come until the number of the elect had
been gathered, they associated themselves together for aggressive
purposes. If we were to speak of the church as inspired by any
"formative idea," it would seem more correct to define it in
terms of activism rather than passivity. It was an instrument
of aggression rather than an asylum for the world-weary. But
disagreement with the author's theoretical position is only a
minor consideration in a book that studies thus minutely the
actual process by which the church crystallized into an institu-
tion during the early centuries. The pertinent facts are here
set forth with clarity and accuracy by one whose knowledge
of the subject is entirely adequate to the task in hand.

The Kingdom of God and the American Dream. By Sher-
wood Eddy. New York and London: Harper and Brothers,
1941. 319 pages. $2.90.

This is a thought-provoking and illuminating study of
spiritual forces in American history. The subtitle is "The
Religious and Secular Ideals of American History." For many
years there was a tendency on the part of historians to ignore
religious ideals as social factors. Many recent books of history,
especially those prepared primarily for use as texts in college
and high schools, are evidence that this conspiracy of silenc1
has not ended. Sherwood Eddy approached the data on Ameri
can history to find whether religion did not have a great deal
to do with American development, and he finds that it did.

This book covers an exceptionally wide range. Indeed,
the range is so great that the author is able to do little more

344 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

than suggest certain possibilities. The pattern which deter-
mines the fundamental structure of the treatment is constructed
of these three ideas: the first colonists in America had a high
religious purpose which has continued, with many changes, to
influence deeply the development of the nation; parallel with
this, they had a high secular aim which, in spite of lapse and
digressions, guided them toward a democratic society; but there
was also a negative element of selfish individualism and crass
materialism which hindered the full fruition of the other two
and sometimes threatened to frustrate them. American his-
tory is the interplay of these three elements. The author traces
the development of the ideal of the Kingdom of God and the
Dream of Democracy from pre-colonial days to 1932, resisting
the challenge to lay "the New Deal alongside of the Old
Dream."

In the weaving together of the many strands of incident
and personality, the basic pattern of forces is not lost. Some-
times it is obscured by the introduction of much detailed ma-
terial that might well have been omitted. One may feel that
there are too many brief biographies, but these may be justified
on the ground that the part played by religion is best indicated
by showing how or whether it influenced important characters.

This is an informing book. It enhances the prestige of
religion by showing how potent a force it has been in the
development of our culture. The Kingdom of God and the
American Dream deals with a theme in which interpreters of the
trends of our national life are now intensely interested. It is
to be hoped that this volume will provoke others to explore
this neglected aspect of American history.

An Enlightened Conscience. By Irl Goldwih Whitchurch.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941. . 281 pages. $2.50.

The author writes in the interests of Christian morality,
which he thinks has too often been subordinated to a concern
with Christian doctrine. Morality has too generally been made
a secondary interest, as though it were merely the fruit rather
than the root of religious faith. So widely has this attitude

BOOKS REVIEWED 345

prevailed that even after two thousand years Christianity still
lacks any consistent analysis of its moral basis. Theology sup-
plants ethics. Worse still, the church has become the victim
of burdensome immoral theological ideas in its theories of sal-
vation and atonement. The result is a misunderstanding of
the nature of Christianity, as though it were ultimately a body
of doctrinal formulas rather than an embodiment of the majes-
tic moral personality of Jesus. The prime essential for relig-
ious living is an enlightened conscience. It is not merely a ques-
tion of making conscience our guide; the more crucial problem
is that of keeping conscience awake and growing and hence a
worthy norm for conduct.

The bible is found to be the source of moral energy, but t<i
make the scriptures an arbitrary authority and to insist that
belief is more essential than conduct tend to dull the moral
sense. The bible is a record of peoples' striving at ethical at-
tainment; it is not a treatise on ethical theory. Yet moral
personalities do not emerge without human reflection and
effort. We need an intelligent ethical theory. This is found,
however, to be more than a mere custom. Yet it is emphatical-
ly affirmed that morality is social, and that the kingdom of
God on earth must embody the highest social good. Moreover,
moral ideals grow with experience and develop with the exi-
gencies of social life. The attainment of goodness is a task
calling . for continued and strenuous effort. But there is
also a transcendental factor in the process by which ,man is
possessed of the power of moral discernment: there is an un-
conditional moral imperative which men may choose, or refuse,
to follow.

While morality is thus a human attainment, it may avail
itself of superhuman sanctions. These come not as rules for
conduct but as inspiring incites to better living and as sensitivity
to ethical ideals by which the motives for conduct are purified
and clarified. Christian morality must be an attainment rather
than a donation. Readers who take these pages seriously will
receive therefrom a mighty stimulus toward more urgent ethical
endeavor. But at the end the tension is relieved by shifting
the responsibility for creative moral attainment from man him-

346 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

self to another external norm. To imitate the moral perfec-
tion of Jesus is said to be the ultimate goal of endeavor. Have
we not thus reverted to an authoritarian ethics?

And Great Shall Be Your Reward: The Origins of Chris-
tian Views of Salvation. By Paul S. Minear. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1941. 74 pages. $1.00.

This brochure is a reworked doctor's dissertation which
investigates the belief about future rewards entertained in the
Judaism of New Testament times, in Hellenistie thought,
among Jews of the Dispersion, and in early Christian teaching.
The characteristic outcome of the Jewish philosophy of history
is found to be the eschatological hope of divine intervention to
establish God's Kingdom in the future. Hellenistic thinking
moved in a different circle of ideas, represented by Stoic apathy
or the hope of individual immortality nourished by the mystery
religions. Hellenistic Jews are thought to have partially come
to terms with both the Stoic thinking and the teaching of the
mysteries. Jesus had espoused typical Jewish eschatological
expectations, but Paul had attempted a synthesis of Jewish
apocalyptism with the individualism of the mysteries. The
treatment is extensively documented by reference to original
sources and modern literature.

The Origins of The Bible. By Theodore Gerald Soares.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941. 277 pages. $2.50.

This volume is excellently well suited to the needs of the
intelligent layman who wishes to learn how the books of the
Bible were produced out of the social experience of the Hebrew
and early Christian communities. The author adopts the con-
clusions of modern scientific scholarship but avoids afflicting
his readers with any of the technical process of research. In-
stead, he dramatizes the story of how each piece of literature in
the Bible probably developed out of the actual life situation
in which it arose. The entire field is covered from the earliest
days when the wandering Hebrews began to tell stories around
their camp fires down to the close of the second century A. D.

BOOKS REVIEWED 347

when the books of the New Testament began to be assembled
into a new canon of scripture in Christendom.

While this method of presentation invites a rather free use
of the imagination, it has not been pressed so far as to result in
the writing of a religious novel. A reader will easily recog-
nize where fiction is employed to make more attractive and
realistic the probable historical facts. By a skilful selection
of chapter headings the evolution of the literary process and the
different aspects of the expanding religious interest have been
clearly indicated. Thus we have not simply another "In-
troduction" to the Bible, but a distinctly new picture of the
way in which its several parts arose out of the religious ex-
perience and struggles of the actual people who produced, col-
lected, and preserved the various books of which the Bible is
composed. Specialists may disagree among themselves on many
matters of detail, but these debatable matters have been wisely
ignored to serve the purpose of this volume.

Jesus as They Remembered Him. By Chester Warren
Quimby. Nashville, Tennesseee: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press,
1941. 220 pages. $1.50.

This book contains twelve edifying essays dealing with
different aspects of the life and teaching of Jesus. Each essay
might well have been a sermon or an address designed to heigh-
ten appreciation of Jesus and inculcate greater reverence for his
personality. The treatment is fresh and vigorous. Critical
questions about the reliability of a gospel passage as representing
the actual words of Jesus are never allowed to interfere with the
adorable picture which the author wishes to paint. Any tradi-
tion that attests the uniqueness of Jesus is thought to be depend-
able irrespective of its place in the gospel record. And, guided
by this principle, one's pious imagination may be used rather
freely to fill out blanks in the gospels. By pursuing this
method of enlarging upon the historical records a detailed, and
perhaps rather too elaborate, portrait of Jesus is painted under
the several captions: His environment, his heritage, his body,
his experiences, his mind, his emotions, his motives, his unpopu-
larity, his distinctive qualities, his perfection, his gospel, his

348 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

-.

achievements. The value of the bcok lies in its sincerely de-
votional atmosphere rather than in any attempt to pursue a
rigid historical inquiry.

An Introduction to the History of Early New England
Methodism, 1789-1839. By George Claude Baker, Jr. Dur-
ham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1941. 145
pages. $2.50.

This is not the history of New England Methodism during
the half century indicated: it is merely the "introductory essay"
for the not yet written history. Mr. Baker's study traces the
development of Methodist churches and circuits in New Eng-
land, the attitudes of the Methodists toward such social ques-
tions as war and temperance, and the part which they played
in bringing about the disestablishment of the New England
churches.

A few Methodists had preached in New England before
1789. John Wesley himself had preached one sermon in
Boston before he became a Methodist. By 1789 there were,
it is estimated, over 40,000 Methodists in the United States with
eleven conferences and a national organization. However, it
was not until the appointment of Jesse Lee in 1789 that the
Methodists made any inroads upon the established order of
New England. This study makes available an organized body
of materials for inquiries into the significance and function of
Methodism in the cultural life and institutions of the region
under investigation. During the period under review the new
Republic was establishing itself. The Western migration open-
ed the frontiers of a vast country into which many of the New
Englanders went. The railroads and factories offered new
opportunities and problems. The many missionary activities
of established churches in America were launched. The last
vestiges of established churches in America were overcome. The
Congregational theology, which had long ruled New England,
was adapted to a new type of society. What Methodism
contributed to this transformation is the task to which this
"introduction" addresses itself.

BOOKS REVIEWED 349

This essay is carefully documented and almost entirely
dependent on direct source materials. One of the most valu-
able parts is the bibliography, which contains more than fifty
pages of information about source materials on New England
Methodist history.

On Guard. By Joseph R. Sizoo. New York: The Mac-
millan Company, 1941. $1.00.

This is a very timely book of devotional readings for men
in the armed services. It is intended primarily for chaplains
and "trainees," but it would go a long way toward creating
and maintaining a morale among those outside the military
and naval circles.

This intensely practical little book contains a reading for
each day in the calendar year. Each reading is- brief, but a
unit in itself. Suitable articles are provided for special days,
such as Christmas and Mother's Day, and for such special
occasions as birthdays and anniversaries. The book includes
a brief but important selection of prayers and a subject index
for convenience. On Guard offers much helpful, practical read-
ing.

Who is My Patient. ? By Russell L. Dicks. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1941. 149 pages. $1.50.

Protestant hospitals have always known that it is religion
which makes them distinctive. They have tried, and usually
with success, to give the best medical care available. In addi-
tion they have accepted their obligation to do something more — ■
to provide Christian care for the patient. However, more than
a Christian atmosphere is needed if a hospital is to represent the
whole Protestant heritage. That is the distinctively religious,
or pastoral, ministry of the hospital. A recent survey reveals
the fact that only about half of the Protestant hospitals have
chaplains and that of this number only about five per cent de-
vote their entire time to this work. Few of the general hos-
pitals have any provision whatever for a chaplain.

350 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

Who is My Patient? has been prepared as a guide for nurses
who may be called upon to supplement the pastoral ministry of
the hospital. The book first discusses the close relationship
of physical and spiritual problems and outlines the religious
needs of average patients. It points out just when the patient
may wish to see a minister, priest or rabbi and how the nurse
can be truly helpful in this regard. It then discusses simple
nursing ministry where no clergyman is available. The book
is filled with useful information and practical methods with
helpful illustrations. It is an ideal religious manual for nurses.

Pastoral Psychology. By Karl Ruf Stolz. Nashville:
Cokesbury Press, 1941. 284 pages. $2.50.

This revised edition Dean Stolz's well-known book intro-
duces some new material and amplifies and clarifies some por-
tions of the earlier work without changing it in any essential
particulars.

Among the numerous books in this field this is one of the
best. It embodies much practical wisdom and offers many
helpful suggestions. The treatment is generally descriptive and
didactic rather than attempting to discover the underlying prin-
ciples involved in many of the problems with which it deals.

Windows on Life. By Carl Heath Kopf. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1941. 255 pages. $2.00.

This is a collection of informal papers written by the
minister of the Mt. Vernon Congregational Church in Boston.
The author says that they are "more personal by intention than
philosophic or sermonic." He characterizes them still more
as "essays and parables" for people who think they have lost
interest in religion. Most of the essays have been used in a
radio program entitled "From a Window on Beacon Streeet."

Windows on Life is written with real understanding and
insight. It comprises a keen and helpful group of trenchant
observations on the problems and joys affecting the everyday
lives of a great majority of American men and women today.
This book is unusually helpful due to its use of a multitude of

BOOKS REVIEWED 351

illustrations with practical applications. Here is an extremely
interesting and helpful approach to the persistent problems of
every reader, and a valuable source of sermon material for the
minister.

The Religious Function of Imagination. By Richard
Kroner. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941. 70 pages.
$1.00.

This booklet contains two lectures delivered at Kenyon
College on the Bedell foundation. The first deals with
"Thought and Imagination" and the second with "Imagination
and Revelation." The general aim of the lecturer has been to
affirm that imagination is more reliable than reason or science
as a means of ascertaining religious truth. Imagination is
credited with superior significance on the alleged hypothesis
that it is kind of intuition or experience of God. In the second
lecture this postulate is justified on the ground that the intuition
is inspired by divine revelation. The verification of revelation
is found in the bible culminating in the person of Jesus.

This Christian Cause. By Karl Barth. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1942. $.75.

This small volume contains three letters of Karl Barth of
Basle, Switzerland, with an explanatory introduction by John
A. MacKay. The first letter was written to the French Protes-
tants in December, 1939; the second was addressed to the same
group in October, 1940: the third was composed in response
to an invitation from Christians in Great Britain, and sent in
April, 1941. Together they represent Barth's present attitude
toward the war against Hitler. Although Barth was formerly
a pacifist, he now regards it a God-imposed duty of Christians
to resist Hitler. It is interesting to note how characteristic
Barthian positions about the complete transcendence and "other-
ness" of God, the absolute inability of man to do anything to
bring in the Kingdom of God and the worthlessness of natural
law and reason as sources of revelation, are fitted into the new
idea of participation in war as a Christian obligation. The

352 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

urge to resist evil is not allowed to stem from any natural or
spiritual human impulses, nor is it inspired by obedience to the
teaching or example of the earthly Jesus. Rather, it was by
his resurrection that Christ assumed lordship over history, and
chose the state as the medium for exercising this lordship in
resisting anarchy and the demonic destruction of civilization
which Hitler would accomplish. It is the duty of Christians to
resist with all their might this evil force. But one is not to
suppose that this is a war of religion or an effort to bring in
the Kingdom of God. That will be accomplished only by God
in his own time and way.

One easily perceives how the practical experience of Barth
has compelled him to alter his former opinions, while at the
same time he strives by the methods of dialectic to maintain
intact a set of theological presuppositions.

No Sign Shall Be Given. By Hugh S. Tigner. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1942. 198 pages. $1.75.

The author of this readable and edifying book belongs to
that wide circle of modern religious leaders who are sorely
oppressed by the troubles of the present world. In proposing
a corrective he advocates a revival of faith in the church and the
acceptance of the tradition for which it has so long stood. He
pleads for the continuity of the Hebrew-Christian tradition
with the perpetuation of its basic beliefs as essential to the con-
tinuity of culture. He feels that the problem of social unity
will remain unsolved unless we maintain faith in the divine
authorship of the moral law revealed in the scriptures. Demo-
cracy can retain its saving values only when its true source is
recognized as deriving from the Old Testament. We are told
that the colleges can't educate the youth of today because educa-
tion is so much concerned with the quest for information that
it has lost its urge for authoritative indoctrination. For much
the same reason, the church fails and remains unattended.

If the world can be saved only by the reassertion of tradi-
tional religious authority expressed through the church then
it would seem that one ought to return to Roman Catholicism.

BOOKS REVIEWED 353

It remains unrivalled in its claim to authoritative validity. But
our author is unwilling to follow through to this conclusion.
To escape the dilemma he posits for Protestantism an ideal
church, to be differentiated from all existing concrete churches,
and assigns to it a super-authority. Such an ideal church can-
not be concretely known and so one may make claims for it
without being compelled to verify them in reality.

When Egypt Ruled The East. By George Steindorff and
Keith C. Seele. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1942. 284 pages. $4.00.

The late Professor Breasted published his monumental
History of Egypt in the year 1905. Ever since it has been the
best book on the subject. But since that date extended excava-
tions in Egypt have brought to light a vast quantity of addi-
tional information about the history of that land. This new
volume, which supplements rather than supplants Breasted's
History, presents a survey of the new knowledge made available
by the more recent discoveries.

Attention is directed mainly to the five centuries of Egypt's
golden age when, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Egyp-
tian power dominated the eastern Mediterranean world. A
wealth of new light has recently been shed upon this period by
the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and now for the
first time the new information thus made available has been
presented with measurable fulness for English readers. Not
only the political and economic aspects of the history, but also
the manner of life and the cultural developments, have been
depicted. Chapters on "Egyptian Hieroglyphs," "Egyptian
Religion" and "Art of the Egyptians" are especially informative
and interesting. The book is magnificently printed and con-
tains over one hundred splendid illustrations. Occasionally
quotations from the original sources not previously accessible
to English readers introduce one to the literary achievements of
the Egyptians. If one were planning a visit to Egypt this vol-
ume should be read in preparation for the journey, and in a
state of the world where travel is impossible this book may be
read as a fairly satisfactory substitute for personal observation.

354 RELIGION IN THE MAKING

The Lambeth Conferences. By William Redmond Curtis.
New York: Columbia University Press. 355 pages. $4.00.

In the year 1867 a voluntary assembly of bishops of the
Anglican communion from different parts of the world met at
the Lambeth palace under the presidency of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. The meeting was without precedent and lacked
legal authority, but it served as a place of discussion for prob-
lems that were of general interest to the church. Its function
was only deliberative and advisory, and not legislative. It
was repeated in 1878, after which it became an established
institution planned for each succeeding ten years. The present
study is undertaken to shed light upon the English technique
for devising institutions as a voluntary procedure such as has
more recently emerged in the British commonwealth of Nations.

The present volume deals mainly with the conferences of
1867 and 1878. Two lengthy preliminary chapters deal with
"the framework of the Anglican communion in 1867" and "the
necessity of Pan-American organization, 1850-1867." These
chapters furnish a background for one who is unfamiliar with
the history of the English church at this time and provide a
setting in which to understand better the significance of the
first conference. Its activities are set forth in detail, as are the
actions of the next conference in 1878. The remaining five
conferences are treated together in a final chapter. They exhib-
it interesting evidences of growth showing how the voluntary
assembly has developed and functioned without changing in any
essentials the character of the institution.

Francis of Assisi, Apostle of Poverty. By Ray C. Petry.
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1941. 197
pages. $3.00.

Many books have been written about Francis of Assisi,
and his devotion to poverty is one of his best known character-
istics. But Professor Petry believes that heretofore no study
has done justice to the full significance of poverty for the con-
duct and thinking of Francis. This book aims at a more com-
prehensive treatment of the subject.

BOOKS REVIEWED 355

First, the notion of total renunciation is traced from the
time of Jesus until that of Francis. For him poverty was not
an end in itself, but an essential means of surrendering himself
completely to Christ in service for humanity. Francis' pursuit
of his ideal is then studied in relation to the actualities of his
life. The manner in which he applied his ideal to social prob-
lems is also carefully expounded. His use of the bible, his
belief in the early end of the world, his loyalty to the church
and Catholic orthodoxy, the strain of mysticism in his experi-
ence, and the ideal of poverty as it bore upon the Franciscan
community and its apostolic mission to the world, are the fur-
ther topics of study.

The volume is an admirable piece of exact scholarship. Its
statements are carefully documented by both original sources
and modern literature. The opinions expressed are amply sup-
ported by evidence and the author exhibits not only a thorough
familiarity with the data involved but also a lively sense of
reality and interest in the person of Francis. Thus the book
is both informing and interesting.

RELIGION

In the Making

Volume II
November, 1941 — May, 1942

Published by

FLORIDA SCHOOL OF RELIGION

Lakeland, Florida

INDEX

AUTHORS and ARTICLES Page

Andrews, Mary E., Scholars and the Parables 323

Bernhardt, William H., An Analytic Approach

to the God-Concept 252

Bower, William Clayton, Creative Religious Education .... 5

Case, Shirley Jackson, Christianity and

Cultural Evolution 67

Clark, Elmer T., The Psychology of Small Sects .... .... 241

Derwacter, Frederick M., The Samaritan in the

New Testament Tradition 236

Hazelton, Roger, The Two Humanisms 20

Hyde, Floy S., The Jewish Setting in Which

Christianity Arose .. 290

Johnson, Roy H., The Language Missions 135

Mathews, Shailer, Keeping Sane in a World Like Ours 101

Meland, Bernard E., The New Language in Religion. 275

McCasland, S. Vernon, Are the Exorcisms of Jesus

Folklore? 55

McNeill, John T., The Reformation's Debt to the

Renaissance . 207

Minor, William S., Betrayal of Youth 308

Otto, M. C, Religion in Our Times 197

Petry, Ray C, Some Basic Conceptions of Christian

Social Thought to the Reformation 120

Rist, Martin, "Love" As An Ecclesiastical Term

in I Clement 222

Shepherd, Massey Hamilton, Jr., Protestant Worship

and the Lord's Supper 39

Stroup, Herbert H., The Attitude of Jehovah's

Witnesses to the Roman Catholic Church .. 148

Switzer, Gerald B., Naziism and the German Church 107

BOOKS REVIEWED
Bainton, Roland H., The Church of Our Fathers 176

Baker, George E., An Introduction to the History of

New England Methodism 348

Barnett, Albert E., Paul Becomes A Literary Influence .._. 180

Barth, Karl, The Christian Cause 35 1

Bennett, John C, Christian Realism 167

Boylan, Marguerite T., Social Welfare in the

Catholic Church 183

Bradshaw, Marion J., Philosophical Foundations

of Faith — 169

Curtis William R., The Lambeth Conferences ______ 354

Dicks, Russell L., Who is My Patient? „_ .___ 349

Dobson. J. O., Worship ._. 181

Edman, Irwin and Schneider, Herbert W., Landmarks

For Beginners in Philosophy _______ 177

Eddy, Sherwood, The Kingdom of God and the

American Dream 343

Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Living Under Tension 191

Gilson, Etienne, God and Philosophy 170

Hewitt, Arthur Wentworth, God's Back Pasture 189

Holt, Arthur E., Christian Roots of Democracy

In America — . 186

Kierkegaard, Soren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript 179

Kirkland, Winifred, Are We Immortal 1 84

Kopf, Carl H., Windows on Life 350

Kroner, Richard, The Religious Function of

Imagination — 351

Link, Henry C, The Ret urn to Religion _ 184

Melcher, Marguerite Fellows, 1 he Shaker Adventure,

An Experiment in Contented Living 188

Minear, Paul S., And Great Shall Re Your Reward 346

Nottingham, Elizabeth K., Methodism and the Frontier:

Indiana Proving Ground 175

Oxnam, G. Bromley, The Ethical Ideals of Jesus in

A Changing World — - 1 82

Petry, Ray C, Francis of Assisi 354

Porterfield, Austin L., Creative Factors in Scientific

Research ____: 190

Pratt, James Bissett, Can We Keep the Faith ___ 172

Quimby, Chester W., Jesus as They Remembered Him.^ 347

Scott, Ernest F., The Nature of the Early Church 342

Sizoo, Joseph R., On Guard _. 349

Soares, Theodore G., The Origins of the Bible . 346

Steindorff, G. and Seele, K. C. When Egypt Ruled

the East 353

Stoltz, Karl Ruff, Making the Most of the Rest of Life._^ 187

Stoltz, Karl Ruff, Pastoral Psychology 350

Tigner, Hugh S., No Sign Shall Be Given ______ 352

Walker, J. B. R., Comprehensive Concordance to the

Holy Scriptures 1 84

Whitchurch, Irl G., An Enlightened Conscience 344

Wieman, Henry N., Now We Must Choose ____ 184

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