Professor Stratton, in his work on "The Psychology of the Religious
Life," calls attention to the fact that religion breeds conflict, it
gives birth to opposites or antitheses, and he devotes nearly the
entire volume to a consideration of these conflicts. In one of his
most interesting chapters[6] he points out the fact that religion is
productive of both breadth and narrowness of sympathy, of both social
and anti-social feelings, of both egoism and altruism. He illustrates
this in pointing out the exclusiveness of some religions, such as that
of the Jews, and of the catholicity of others, such as Buddhism and
Christianity. He points out, also, the jealousy and intolerance of the
monotheistic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and
Mohammedanism, as compared with polytheistic religions, like Buddhism.
The former, like Elijah, are very jealous for their Lord, and such
jealousy breeds narrowness and intolerance. It breeds exclusiveness,
strife and often persecution. Now most of the conflict between
narrowness and breadth of sympathy to which religion gives rise is due
to wrong conceptions of the ethical nature of God. This manifests
itself in many ways. God is conceived as a God of one people, rather
than of others; or of one people particularly and peculiarly, and of
other peoples merely generally; or a God choosing and rewarding the
elect and damning the non-elect; or a God favoring only one mode of
salvation peculiar to a certain people or sect, and hostile to all
others; or a God of one revelation rather than of another. In short,
God is a God of favoritism instead of the impartial God and father of
all mankind. Such a God is not a God of justice, much less of love.
Such a conception is productive of division, rather than of unity in
the race. It begets strife, rather than harmony. Witness the religious
wars that history records. Witness, for example, the history of the
conflict between Mohammedanism and Christianity; between Protestantism
and Catholicism. As a rule, religion is so involved in the life of a
people that it becomes an integral part of their nationalism.
Historians call attention to the fact that the monotheism of the Jews
was largely the outgrowth of reflection upon their own history as a
people. They saw in this history a Divinity that had shaped their
ends, however roughhewn they may have been. They regarded themselves a
"peculiar" people, specially chosen of God. For more than a century a
similar belief prevailed in America. Our wonderful history led people
to believe that we are a favored nation. God's providential government
reveals a partiality for America when compared with other nations.
With such conceptions of a partial God, it is but a short step to
making use of God for national ends, and, as illustrated in the case
of the German nation today, only another step to conceiving God's
willingness to cooperate in realizing ends which, in the judgment of
the world, as expressed in international law, as well as in its own
unwritten verdict, are regarded as unrighteous. Until the God of the
race supersedes in actual belief and practice the God of nationalism;
until the God and father of all mankind displaces in our belief the
God of sect or of one religion rather than of another; until the God
of absolute and universal righteousness takes the place in our minds
and hearts of the God of partiality and favoritism, which is the God
of injustice; men and nations will not be bound together in one great
and glorious fraternity. The root idea of religion is the idea of God,
and as is our idea of God, so will our religious life be. If it is the
idea of an unrighteous Deity, our individual, national and
international life will be unrighteous. A fundamental necessity in the
determination of the religious basis of world-organization is an
ethical conception of God.
In the second place, in our religious efforts at world-organization we
must entertain and put in practice a far more ethical conception of
man than we have in the past. The inalienable rights of personality
must be recognized and their sanctity remain inviolable. That
valuation which Christianity places on man as man must be seriously
reckoned with in our reconstructive efforts after the war. Or, as Kant
states it, every man must be regarded as an end in himself. He must
not be used merely as a means to an end. The significance of this is,
that there is an essential moral equality among men. On it all
political relations, whether national or international, must be based.
This means, first, that within each nation a true form of government,
under whatsoever name it may be known, must be democratic. "It must
derive its authority and power from the consent of the governed."
Autocracy is opposed to moral and political equality. It treats its
subjects as tools or instruments. It builds governments of force that
ignore the moral and political claims of their own people, reducing
them to a docility in which they are little more than "dumb driven
cattle." Thus subjugated, they are schooled from childhood in a creed
of jealousy and hatred of other nations. They can be hurled in masses
"into the jaws of Death" in an unrighteous war of conquest. Autocracy
is upheld by militarism, and militarism means strife. On the other
hand, militarism is upheld by autocracy. It first robs the people of
its own nation of their rights and then proceeds to plunder other
nations. It is essentially anti-social in character, and it is so
because it is anti-moral. It overlooks the moral equality of men. The
religion of the future must set its face like flint against this
immoral view of man. It must emphasize the autonomy of the human
spirit--the essential value of a soul that can determine its own
conduct in the light of ideals of worth. Once it does this, democracy
will assert itself in government, and autocracy, responsible for so
many of the wars that have afflicted the race, will be abolished.
In the next place, this essential moral equality of men, when
recognized, means that their mutual relations will become more
ethically articulate, and the law of social interaction will be at
least the law of justice, and in a measure the law of love,--"Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,"--which being interpreted means,
that just as one is under obligations to labor for the realization of
the highest good in one's own person, so he is under obligations to
work for the realization of the highest good in the person of others.
And this highest law of human relationship must be recognized, not
merely as obligatory upon individuals in their relations to other
individuals, but also upon nations in their mutual relations. Morality
is transcendental in its character. It overleaps the bounds of
individualism. It knows not men merely, nor nations merely, nor groups
of nations merely;--it knows the race. It knows man, rather than men.
It is difficult for us to realize this. Just as it was hard for
primitive tribes to realize any obligations to other tribes, so today,
notwithstanding centuries of so-called civilization, somehow or other
an international morality fails to have the binding force either of
personal, community, or national morality. The righteousness that
exalts a people seems largely to be a righteousness within its own
borders. Egoism in a nation is just as blameworthy as egoism in an
individual. In the vast group of nations, no nation liveth unto itself
alone, if it is to live according to the moral law of benevolence, or
according to the Christian law of love. The religion of the future
must, in its practical belief, emphasize this fact far more than it
has in the past. Nations are simply larger human units, and the moral
law in its obligations applies just as truly to their interrelations
as it does to those of individuals. Its demands are no more Utopian in
the former case than in the latter. It can at least serve as an ideal
or guide to conduct. As in the case of individuals, so in the case of
nations, each has its rights, and in their mutual relations the moral
law or the law of love requires the recognition of the rights or just
claims of each. As President Wilson said in his memorable message to
Congress on April 2, 1917: "We are at the beginning of an age in which
it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of
responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and
their governments that are observed among individuals of civilized
states." And again: "It is clear that nations must in the future be
governed by the same high code of honor that we demand of
individuals." Of course the cynical political philosopher and
"practical" stateman will regard this as "unpractical idealism." But
the ethics of the Nazarene will prove far more effective in promoting
a satisfactory _modus vivendi_ among the nations than the revived
Machiavellianism of modern Germany, or the ethics of a Nietzsche, a
Treitschke, and a Bernhardi. We see the inevitable outcome of the
latter in the most ghastly war of all history. There never will be
peace on such a brutally egoistic basis as that laid down in the
political philosophy of these writers so prized by many Germans. The
doctrines of the superman with their contempt for the weak, and of war
as a "biological necessity," so dear to Junkerdom, are confessedly the
affirmation that "might makes right." If peace be attainable and
preservable on such a basis, and the lion and the lamb are to lie down
together, it will only be as the lamb lies inside of the lion. Some
lamb-like pacifists and "conscientious objectors" to war may be
content with such a place of residence; but physically and morally
red-blooded and self-respecting men and nations not only prefer, but
feel it a moral obligation to maintain the individual and national
self against an unscrupulous and barbarous aggressor and destroyer.
They feel so, too, in obedience to the Christian command, "Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself"--a command that not only includes self
as the object of moral regard, but that makes it the norm according to
which we are to determine our duty to others. Men and nations do feel
morally responsible for their own preservation and development, and
will, as a rule, defend the essential conditions of these against
unjustifiable attack. Hence, as long as nations exist, war will remain
a possibility. The only way to avert it is through mutual respect for
fundamental rights. Both the law of benevolence and the Christian law
of love demand this. Indeed, they demand more! They call for a
manifestation or fuller expression of good will and fraternal regard
both in feeling and in conduct.
Now, in the work of establishing a real brotherhood among individuals
and among nations, religion has the advantage over mere morality, for
it can avail itself of the power of the religious sanctions in trying
to realize the kingdom of righteousness. But, on the other hand, a
subtle danger lurks in religion which it may be well to point out
here, and which must be guarded against in our future efforts at
community, national and world-organization, for it tends to
subordinate the ethical element in religion, and often degenerates
into an anti-social program. According to the sanest views of the
psychology of religion, the whole mind as intellect, sensibility and
will functions in the religious consciousness. Because of this, there
is a possibility of developing a wrong sense of values in the
religious life. There has been a notable tendency in human history to
stress the intellectual element in religion. This has resulted in a
large body of doctrine which frequently assumes extraordinary
significance. The main thing, then, is to give intellectual assent to
dogma and creed. Orthodoxy of belief rather than orthodoxy of life
becomes the primary thing. The ethical element in religion is
subordinated to intellectual belief. And how divisive and anti-social,
rather than unifying, dogma has been, and how deadening to real moral
endeavor! This constitutes a long and very tragic chapter in the
history of Christianity, as well as of other religions.
Again, there has been another marked tendency in the history of
religion and that is the substitution of the religion of feeling for
the religion of will. Pietism and sentimentalism have supplanted in a
large measure the ethical. Such religion is dominantly non-social, if
not, indeed, anti-social in its character. It does not make for
brotherhood. The pietistic monk shuts himself in a monastery and tries
to work out his soul's salvation with fear and trembling, rather than
to work it out by aiding his neighbor or society to work out theirs.
Buddhism and Christianity have been most unfortunate victims of this
substitution of solitude for solidarity. Dean Brown once said to the
writer that there is a great deal of pietism that is utterly wanting
in ethical quality, and that is true. It is a kind of selfish
subjectivism devoid of any real moral character. It is self-centered
and non-social. It represents the minimum of true religion. Where in
such pietism do we find the universality of obligation involved in the
ethical law of benevolence or in the Christian law of love? Such
religion does not bear the marks of a really socialized gospel. It has
developed a wrong sense of values.
Again, there is in practically all religions a large element of
symbolism--the religious life expressing itself in worship--in rites
and ceremony. And this carries with it a dangerous tendency in
evaluation. It often substitutes ritual and ceremonial for what is the
real essence of religion--namely, righteousness. The great Hebrew
prophets contended strongly against this misinterpretation of
religion. With them it represented an erroneous estimate of the
essentials of religion. Indeed, it threatened its very life--the heart
of which in their conception is righteousness in God and man. Isaiah
represents Jehovah as being weary of sacrifice, incense and other
forms of worship--regarding them as an abomination, and calling upon
the people to live a life of righteousness: "Wash you, make you clean;
put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do
evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed."[7] Hosea
exclaims: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice."[8] Micah, inveighing
against burnt offerings, says: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is
good, and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"[9] And Jesus, all
through the Sermon on the Mount and in the parables, in the most
positive manner represents righteous living as the very core of
religion.
All of these elements--the intellectual, the pietistic, the aesthetic
or symbolical--have a rightful place in the religious life, but they
are all subordinate, and exceedingly subordinate, to the one great
dominating element, the moral. And it is because of a failure to
adequately recognize and practise this element that so many supposedly
Christian nations are today in deadly conflict. All of them persist in
their theological beliefs; all of them persist in pietistic communion;
all of them persist in rite and ceremony; but some of them at least
fail even to approximate the exemplification of the fundamental
ethical requirements of their faith. Their theology, their pietism,
their worship,--their religion,--have not been moralized; and unless
we are willing to make, both in belief and practice, the religious
basis of world-organization truly ethical, we will fail as lamentably
in the future as we have in the past.
Finally, how is such a religious program to be carried forward? The
answer is, by systematic religious education. Such an educational
procedure involves beginning at the beginning, and that is, with the
child. Here, again, we meet with a melancholy failure in the
development of a true sense of values. Despite the progress that
modern religious educational effort has made, there is still a
widespread lack of genuine appreciation of the importance of childhood
for moral and religious instruction. The premium is still placed on
the adult. We have but to examine the average church program to be
convinced of this. In a large number of churches we have three Sunday
services--two of which are devoted to adults and one to children. In
the average church the week-day services are largely services for
adults. Our sermons, our hymns, our prayers, many of our week-day
meetings cover chiefly the interests of grown-ups: and the lamentable
condition of home religious education painfully fails to make up this
deficiency in what Dr. Horace Bushnell called Christian nurture.
Indeed, under a false conception of conversion, and a false
apprehension of the spiritual birthright of children in most
Protestant quarters, the child, as the late Professor George P. Fisher
once remarked to the writer, is regarded as an alien to the
Commonwealth of Israel. Instead of being born into the church and
treated as a member of the household of faith, he must serve his
probation as a heathen, and await the dawn of adolescence when he will
have developed sufficient maturity of mind to interpret and give
intellectual assent to a creed. The absurdity and tragedy of it all
are manifest when we take into consideration the ethical character of
religion, and the fact that childhood is preeminently the period for
establishing the individual in habits of virtue. There may be some
exaggeration in Dr. G. Stanley Hall's affirmation, that the moral and
spiritual destiny of the average person is determined in the first ten
years of his life; but, to anyone who has studied the psychology of
moral and spiritual development, it is evident that Hall is dealing
with far more than a half-truth. The receptivity and plasticity of the
child make it possible for those to whom his most vital interests are
committed to really save him or damn him. And, as we establish
children in right thinking and right living, so we establish the
community, the state, the nation, and ultimately the nations in their
reciprocal relations. In more ways than one is Wordsworth's statement
true, "The child is father to the man." It is preeminently true in the
moral and religious sphere. The Kingdom of God and his righteousness
will never make the progress on earth that they should make until the
scales really fall from our eyes, and we gain a true vision of our
duty to the child in establishing him in personal and community
righteousness, and thus pave the way for the application of the law of
righteousness in the state and among the nations of the earth.
In still another way, to one who is convinced of the supremacy of
moral and spiritual worths and of the ethical aim of all true
religion, is the lamentable failure to develop a true sense of values
manifest. Professor Pratt calls attention in his "Psychology of
Religious Belief" to what he regards to be a fact, that in the average
American community, "we find our friends and neighbors, of all degrees
of education and intellectual ability, almost to a man accepting God
as one of the best recognized realities of their world and as simply
not to be questioned."[10] That statement is in the main true. In
other words, we are a religious people. And yet, notwithstanding this
fact, so far as thoroughgoing, systematic religious education is
concerned, when compared with the time and efforts devoted to
education along other lines, and its quality, it suffers painfully. In
nearly all of the states, five days a week, of at least four or five
hours each, are given to what we call secular education, as against
one day per week, of one hour each, to religious instruction and
worship. In secular education we have, on the whole, a trained body of
teachers. In religious education we are dependent largely on amateurs.
In most places religion is not allowed a voice in our schools, so far
as _systematic_ training is concerned, and in comparatively few
communities has a systematic course of moral training even been
introduced. What does all this mean? Does it not mean that we err
tremendously in our sense of values? If there is any doubt concerning
this, reflect for a moment on the possibility of organizing a
community on a basis of the vices instead of the virtues. Try to found
a community on sensuality, falsehood, dishonesty, injustice, hate and
murder, and see how far you will succeed. Society could not exist on
such a basis. Were the German people to put into practice among
themselves the vices and crimes they have committed against other
peoples, their existence as a nation would be exceedingly short-lived.
The vices are anti-social in their character. The virtues are social:
they make for unity, for organization. And what is true of communities
is true of states and nations--not only in their internal relations
but in their relations to other nations. The virtues make for national
and international organization. Now, religion deals with these
sovereign values, and yet, comparatively speaking, we--a religious
people--relegate them to the background in our educational schemes. We
will never succeed in world-organization until we genuinely appreciate
the unifying power of the virtues, the harmonizing and binding force
of righteousness, and systematically train a generation from childhood
in a knowledge and an appreciation of their supreme worth, and try to
mould their wills in conformity to their requirements.