The Next Step in Religion Part 1

The Next Step in Religion.

by Roy Wood Sellars.

FOREWORD

The purpose of this book is positive and constructive, although it may not at first appear such to the reader whose inherited beliefs are freely challenged. But let the reader ponder the fact that the deepest spiritual life has always concerned itself with the appreciation and maintenance of values. He who acknowledges, and wishes to further, human values cannot be said to be irreligious or unspiritual.

The center of gravity of religion has been openly changing for some time now from supernaturalism to what may best be called a humanistic naturalism. The history of this change is traced in many of the chapters of the book. There have been many steps forward in the past, for every age must possess its own religion, a religion concordant with its knowledge and expressive of its problems and aims. The sincerity and adequacy with which this necessary task is done measures the spiritual greatness of the particular age.

I have called the book _The Next Step in Religion_ because the time is ripe for one of the great steps forward. The setting of religion must be adjusted to man's knowledge. Let it not be feared that man's spiritual life will be injured thereby. Rather will it be made saner, healthier and more creative.

The first phase of religion reflected man's helplessness and fear. He peopled his surroundings with conscious powers, sometimes adverse, sometimes friendly, but always jealous. Man became their slave. As man became less of a savage, these G.o.ds of his fancy became n.o.bler.

But they still acted like magnets to draw his attention away from his own problems. The coming phase of religion will reflect man's power over nature and his moral courage in the face of the facts and possibilities of life. It will be a religion of action and pa.s.sion, a social religion, a religion of goals and prospects. It will be a free man's religion, a religion for an adult and aspiring democracy.

A book must in the main carry its own credentials. But there may be those who will wish to carry the quest further and deeper. To those interested in my share in this larger work I may mention my _Critical Realism_ and _The Next Step in Democracy_.

R. W. SELLARS.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 5, 1918.

THE NEXT STEP IN RELIGION

CHAPTER I

SUGGESTIONS

More than people are consciously aware, a new view of the universe and of man's place in it is forming. It is forming in the laboratories of scientists, the studies of thinkers, the congresses of social workers, the a.s.semblies of reformers, the studios of artists and, even more quietly, in the circles of many homes. This new view is growing beneath the old as a bud grows beneath its covering, and is slowly pushing it aside. While the inherited outlook, still apparently so strong, is losing effectiveness and becoming a thing of conventions and phrases, the ideas and purposes which are replacing it possess the vigor and momentum of contact with the living tendencies and needs of the present.

Mankind grows away from its traditional beliefs as inevitably as does the boy or girl from childhood fancies, and often with much the same lack of realization. But the time is certain to come to both when the change is pressed home and there is need for interpretation and serious self-communing. At such a time, kindly--yet uncompromising and veracious--explanation of the nature and implications of the crisis is the course dictated by wisdom. Nothing can be more cruel, disorganizing, and, in a way, insulting than the attempt to {2} harmonize what cannot in the long run be harmonized. The agony is then sure to be long drawn out and the strength of soul, given by fearlessness, is lost. I feel that the first law of personality is _spiritual courage_. Actions and methods founded on a doubt of this primary law lead to a blunting of the fine edge of the self, an injury greater than which can scarcely be conceived.

In this day of testing, when so few have been found lacking in courage and the capacity for self-sacrifice, it seems peculiarly fitting that spiritual values and beliefs be boldly thrown into the arena, there to prove themselves. In the years after the Great War, mankind must build its life afresh and it will be wisest to see that the foundation is a sound one. And, as a matter of social psychology, I doubt that a people which is unwilling to look carefully to the framework of its social and spiritual edifice can build a n.o.ble mansion. Mechanical efficiency and cleverness will not be enough for this task of spiritual creation. We must find lasting values around which to build a humane life. And this, also, is a kind of warfare. Some have expressed to me a doubt whether America is prepared for this effort at reconstruction of a basic, yet intangible, sort. I have hopes, although not blind ones. I refuse to take the vulgarities and ignorances of popular evangelists as completely diagnostic of America's soul.

In the following pages, which are devoted to a clear statement of the new view of man and nature which, in its essentials, has come to stay, I shall act according to this law of personality, to wit, spiritual courage. I shall explain the spiritualized naturalism to which we are ascending in the same spirit that the scientist presents his facts--impersonally, calmly, and simply. {3} Such, at least, is my purpose and desire. What I write here is in its way a confession of faith. The values and loyalties which I shall proclaim as true, redemptive and invigorating are those which my own life and concrete reflection have selected. In them I see the possibility of high spiritual attainment.

The new view of the universe is founded upon, influenced by, and has for its necessary setting, the exact knowledge which the various special sciences, mental as well as physical, have been acc.u.mulating.

This knowledge is rounding into something of the nature of a whole whose interpretation does not admit of doubt. Incomplete in detail though his knowledge be, man is no longer in the dark as to the main features of the world and his own origin and destiny. He knows that he is an inhabitant of a small planet in one of the many solar systems of the stellar universe, that he is the product of an age-long evolution in which variation and survival have been the chief methods of advance, that his mind as well as his body has its natural ancestry. While it will always remain a wonder, so to speak, that there is a universe in which and to which we awaken, it is equally certain that the only sensible thing to do is to seek to find out its character and laws. Is it not like exploring the chambers and corridors of a house in which one shall live for a stated period?

As a matter of fact, man has always been curious about his world. Yet before he hit upon the proper methods of investigation, he could only guess and dream about it, under the sway of hopes and fears which too easily threw themselves like gigantic shadows before him. The fire of his untrained intelligence was feeble and unpenetrating and, so, distorted the world which it {4} dimly revealed. The result was what must be called the older religious view of the world--a view which saw personal and super-personal agency at the heart of things. This primitive interpretation of the world we shall be led to criticize, but, in so doing, we shall be the servants of truth and of a more adult spirituality.

It is not surprising that the patiently acquired knowledge, obtained by science, philosophy and a matured human wisdom, has been found to conflict with the first interpretation of the world. The recognition of this conflict dates back now some centuries--the warfare between science and religion also has its history--but each generation has seen the addition made of some new element to the clash which is leading man to a new view of the world.

What is striking about the present situation is the increase of the positive elements in the outlook which is forming in men's minds. In the past, the traditionalist had some justification in speaking of the opposed ideas as largely negative. What positive doctrine there was in the physical science which theology had to meet, to its discomfort, had only an indirect bearing upon life. But the nineteenth century was the witness of a distinct revolution in this regard. I do not refer merely to the fact that the idea of evolution was applied to man. That was prophetic and strategic rather than revolutionary. It symbolized the pa.s.sage of science from the periphery to the center, from the outlying regions of the universe to man's very self. All the time, however, a new perspective had been arising in man's interests and values. The possibilities and needs of this life were replacing the dream of another life in {5} another world. A busy concern with the things of this world was everywhere evident. Man was seeking to master his environment.

During the first stage of this revolution, the industrial and political changes were the most prominent. A change in the instrumentalities of life, physical, economic and political, occupied men's thoughts to a larger degree than ever before. But as the nineteenth century circled to the twentieth, deeper notes became audible. Humanitarianism, constructive reform, social democracy became the watchwords of the day.

I do not think that it has yet been clearly realized how completely these new aims and interests fit in with the results of science and yet pa.s.s beyond them to the service of human values. The truth seems to be that, by an imperceptible process, new values and hopes have been replacing the traditional ones, and that these values and aims both find themselves in harmony with the new knowledge and rest upon it.

In spite of the conflict between the rising view of man and nature and the traditional religious conception, there is yet, I believe, a profound continuity in the genuinely spiritual achievements of humanity. It is a pity to be so ridden by the new that the n.o.ble in the old is forgotten. Tenderness and love, however obscured at times by formalism and bigotry, owe much to their nurture by Christianity.

Hence, the deeper and truer interpretation of all past movements regards them as varying expressions of humanity's growth in social and mental stature. There is, in other words, no real discontinuity in human history. The only difference is, that the dynamic of social conditions and intellectual heritage has varied.

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But this acknowledged continuity does not preclude that presence of genuine and effective newness which is revolutionary in its effects.

_The perspective, intention, and elements of religion are about to alter_. In the following pages, I shall argue that the attachments of past religion were determined by a mythological, and essentially magical, idea of man's environment. Such att.i.tudes and expectations as prayer, ritual, worship, immortality, providence, are expressions of the pre-scientific view of the world. But as man partly outgrows, partly learns to reject, the primitive thought of the world, this perspective and these elements will drop from religion. That this alteration has, in surprisingly large measure, already taken place can be seen from the following excerpts from the writings of the best known American authority on Church History: "Traditional Christian ideas, in fact, are undergoing extensive transformation as a result of the new social emphasis. The individualism of evangelicalism, with its primary concern for the salvation of the individual soul, is widely discredited. The old ascetic ideal is everywhere giving way to the social. Instead of holding themselves aloof from the world Christians are throwing themselves into it and striving to reform it. Holiness in the traditional sense of abstinence from sin is less highly valued than it was. The test of virtue is more and more coming to be the social test. The virtuous man is he who makes his influence tell for the improvement of society. Personal probity and uprightness, dissociated from the active service of one's fellows, is frequently regarded to-day as 'mere morality' was by the Evangelicals. As virtue had value to them only in union with and subordination to piety, so without the spirit of service {7} personal morality seems to many a modern social reformer a mere empty husk."[1] Obviously, the center of religious gravity has altered tremendously from what it was in the Victorian Age.

We are on the brink of a new period, the period of a realistic, and yet spiritual, social democracy.

"But," I will be asked, "do you advocate a religion of humanity? That is an old effort weighed in the balance and found wanting." Comte's reform was, in a way, premature. Society had not developed enough to give his effort a concrete basis. But, more than this, his mistake was that he did not see that the elements of religion, as well as its perspective, must be altered. Humanity is not an object to be worshiped. The very att.i.tude and implications of worship must be relinquished. In their place must be put the spiritually founded virtue of loyalty to those efforts and values which elevate human beings and give a quality of n.o.bility and significance to our human life here and now.

The positive note of the present work can now be given in a few words: _Religion is loyalty to the values of life_. The idea of the spiritual must be broadened and humanized to include all those purposes, experiences and activities which express man's nature. The spiritual must be seen to be the fine flower of living, which requires no other sanctions than its own inherent worth and appeal. We must outgrow the false notion that religion is inseparable from supernatural objects, and that the spiritual is something alien to man which must be forced upon him from the outside. _The spiritual is man at his best, man loving, daring, creating, {8} fighting loyally and courageously for causes dear to him_. Religion must be concrete instead of formal, and catholic in its count of values. Wherever there is loyal endeavor, the presence of the spiritual must freely be acknowledged. It would seem to follow that religion will have objects only in the sense of purposes to fulfill. It will no longer have need of a special view of the world.

The religion of the past has had much to say about salvation.

Salvation was only too often something which happened to a man from outside. It was something capricious and uncontrollable like sudden fortune. Let us see what the religion of the present with its more realistic conception of life has to say about salvation. I have written in the book as follows: "Only that soul is saved which is worth saving, and the being worth saving is its salvation. Salvation is no magical hocus-pocus external to the reach and timbre of a man; it is the loyal union of a man with those values of life which have come within his ken." Whatever mixture of magic, fear, ritual, and adoration religion may have been in man's early days upon this earth, it is now increasingly, and henceforth must be, that which concerns his contact with the duties and possibilities of life. Such salvation is an achievement which has personal and social conditions. It is not a label nor a lucky number for admission into another world, but something bought and paid for by effort. It is like character and education, for these are but special instances of it.

The personal conditions of spiritual life are sanity, health, and a capacity to be fired by consuming purposes. No one can be greatly saved who has not a {9} soul capable of being touched in some measure by what is sterling and significant. But one of the discoveries of democracy is the wide distribution of this sensitiveness. The spiritual is not something painful, but it is something which concerns the quality of human life.

The social conditions of salvation are just as necessary. They are the presence of inst.i.tutions and arrangements which give opportunity to the individual to develop himself. The individual must have a certain amount of leisure and a chance for a vital education. He should have some contact with beautiful things and the stimulus of a.s.sociation with great causes. A healthy and sane society makes possible healthy and sane individuals. It is especially desirable that society put its emphasis on the right things. If it is permissible to speak of society's salvation, we would say that it consists in the wise relation of means to ends, the subordination of the economic side of life to the moral, intellectual and artistic activities. A society which does not order itself in this way is called materialistic; and such a society is certain to contain numberless individuals who live at a far lower spiritual level than they should. It is the very nature of religion to condemn this falling short of loyalty to the finer values of life.

We have said that religion must be catholic in its count of values.

Moral souls may still be comparatively starved souls. One of the great mistakes religion has made in the past has been this very lack of sympathy for values of all kinds. For this very reason, religion has often displayed a certain narrowness and harshness. Its loyalty has frequently been a one-sided loyalty which prided itself on its asceticism. But the day of an irrational asceticism has pa.s.sed.

Intensity {10} is good, but intensity and breadth are better still. A humane religion will preach loyalty to many values, harmonized together by the work of a concrete reason and a living art. When religion did not consider itself of this world, it was pa.s.sive and acquiescent toward many features of human life. But a truer idea of the nature of the spiritual, united with a decay of the old supernaturalistic sanctions, will change all that. Religion will become active and militant, intensely concerned with everything human, a loyal enthusiasm for all the significant phases of life. It will cease to be a matter of taboos, of ritual, of rather conventional routine and become a spirit of vigorous search for whatever elevates and enn.o.bles human beings in their day of life. Into the service of such a religion reason and art will gladly enter.

But this interpretation of religion has its obverse side. It is in part directed against the age-old, supernaturalistic perspective which has done so much to render religion a hindrance to the growth of spirituality. The growth of my own thinking has led me to see, ever more clearly, the harm done in this day and age by that emphasis on sanctions for conduct which are not justified by the vital and concrete needs of human life. The appeal to tradition and authority abstracted religion from that fresh contact with the movement of events which makes the great causes of history so vivid and appealing. This abstraction divided the spiritual life of man against itself and led to inefficiency and confusion. What the world needs to-day is a rational enthusiasm for human values. The thought of another world with its melodramatic last judgment encouraged individualism, withdrew {11} attention from social problems and aspirations, made the conception of the spiritual anaemic and vague. The official spirituality of the Church lacked the happy stimulus of a social setting.

Bad as this division of man's spiritual life against itself was, it was not all. Man had been taught to despise reason, almost his highest quality. The consequence was, that reason pa.s.sed into the service of the mere technical arrangements of life. Man rationalized nature and left himself irrational, as can be seen in the Great War. Because religion ignored reason and slighted many sides of man's nature, it paid the penalty of abortiveness. It is not a mere accident that Christianity has been so helpless in the present crisis.

In times of darkness, it is natural for the individual to seek ways of escape from the crushing load which has fallen upon him. The student of the history of religion knows that the most popular way of escape has been in terms of spiritualism and supernaturalism. But the thinker knows that this is a search for a sedative rather than a remedy.

Moreover, the growth of human knowledge has made such a refuge more strained and artificial than it used to be. Those few men of standing in the physical sciences who have lent the prestige of their name to fields in which they have little competence have done a grave disservice to mankind. Man must conquer his problems; he cannot find salvation in a cowardly flight from them. The teaching of this book is that supernaturalism has prevented man from finding himself, and that the spiritual task of the present generation is a re-interpretation of the spiritual to take in all the significant features of human life.

We want a religion of present use, a religion {12} not concerned with mythological objects and hypothetical states of existence but with the tasks and needs of human beings in society. Will not the next step in religion be the relinquishment of the supernatural and the active appreciation of virtues and values? It is my hope that the present sincere discussion will a.s.sist, in some small measure, the coming of such a religion.

[1] McGiffert, _The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas_, p. 272.

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CHAPTER II

THE AGE OF MYTH

We must, perforce, admit that our ancestors awoke to consciousness of themselves and their surroundings at a time when they knew practically nothing, as we understand knowledge. Theirs was a world of sights and sounds, a world of woods and streams, of moving things, of growing things, of things to be eaten, of things good and evil. It was a driving, fearful, fascinating world. Unconsciously and inevitably, man interpreted his surroundings in terms of his own eager, childish life.

Force and desire peeped from every corner.