_Leaves
from the Notebook of a
Tamed Cynic_
_1915_
There is something ludicrous about a callow young fool like myself
standing up to preach a sermon to these good folks. I talk wisely
about life and know little about life’s problems. I tell them of the
need of sacrifice, although most of them could tell me something about
what that really means. I preached a sermon the other day on “The
Involuntary Cross,” using the text of Simon the Cyrene bearing the
cross of Jesus. A good woman, a little bolder than the rest, asked me
in going out whether I had borne many crosses. I think I know a little
more about that than I would be willing to confess to her or to the
congregation, but her question was justified.
Many of the people insist that they can’t understand how a man so
young as I could possibly be a preacher. Since I am twenty-three their
reaction to my youth simply means that they find something incompatible
even between the ripe age of twenty-three and the kind of seasoned
wisdom which they expect from the pulpit. “Let no one despise thy
youth,” said Paul to Timothy; but I doubt whether that advice stopped
any of the old saints from wagging their heads. I found it hard the
first few months to wear a pulpit gown. Now I am getting accustomed
to it. At first I felt too much like a priest in it, and I abhor
priestliness. I have become reconciled to it partly as a simple matter
of habit, but I imagine that I am also beginning to like the gown as a
kind of symbol of authority. It gives me the feeling that I am speaking
not altogether in my own name and out of my own experience but by the
authority of the experience of many Christian centuries.
Difficult as the pulpit job is, it is easier than the work in the
organizations of the congregation. Where did anyone ever learn in a
seminary how to conduct or help with a Ladies Aid meeting? I am glad
that mother has come to live with me and will take care of that part
of the job. It is easier to speak sagely from the pulpit than to act
wisely in the detailed tasks of the parish. A young preacher would do
well to be heard more than he is seen.
_1915_
I am glad there are only eighteen families in this church. I have
been visiting the members for six weeks and haven’t seen all of them
yet. Usually I walk past a house two or three times before I summon
the courage to go in. I am always very courteously received, so I
don’t know exactly why I should not be able to overcome this curious
timidity. I don’t know that very much comes of my visits except that I
really get acquainted with the people.
Usually after I have made a call I find some good excuse to quit for
the afternoon. I used to do that in the days gone by when I was a book
agent. But there was reason for it then. I needed the afternoon to
regain my self-respect. Now it seems to be pure laziness and fear. The
people are a little discouraged. Some of them seem to doubt whether the
church will survive. But there are a few who are the salt of the earth,
and if I make a go of this they will be more responsible than they will
ever know.
_1915_
Now that I have preached about a dozen sermons I find I am repeating
myself. A different text simply means a different pretext for saying
the same thing over again. The few ideas that I had worked into sermons
at the seminary have all been used, and now what? I suppose that as
the years go by life and experience will prompt some new ideas and I
will find some in the Bible that I have missed so far. They say a young
preacher must catch his second wind before he can really preach. I’d
better catch it pretty soon or the weekly sermon will become a terrible
chore.
You are supposed to stand before a congregation, brimming over with
a great message. Here I am trying to find a new little message each
Sunday. If I really had great convictions I suppose they would struggle
for birth each week. As the matter stands, I struggle to find an idea
worth presenting and I almost dread the approach of a new sabbath. I
don’t know whether I can ever accustom myself to the task of bringing
light and inspiration in regular weekly installments.
How in the world can you reconcile the inevitability of Sunday and
its task with the moods and caprices of the soul? The prophet speaks
only when he is inspired. The parish preacher must speak whether he
is inspired or not. I wonder whether it is possible to live on a high
enough plane to do that without sinning against the Holy Spirit.
_1916_
Visited old Mrs. G. today and gave her communion. This was my first
experience with communion at the sick bed. I think there is a good deal
of superstition connected with the rite. It isn’t very much different
in some of its aspects from the Catholic rite of extreme unction. Yet
I will not be too critical. If the rite suggests and expresses the
emotion of honest contrition it is more than superstition. But that
is the difficulty of acting as priest. It is not in your power to
determine the use of a symbol. Whether it is a blessing or a bit of
superstition rests altogether with the recipient.
I must admit that I am losing some of the aversion to the sacraments
cultivated in my seminary days. There is something very beautiful about
parents bringing their child to the altar with a prayer of thanksgiving
and as an act of dedication. The trouble is that the old ritual in the
book of forms does not express this idea clearly. I have to put the
whole meaning of the sacrament as I see it into the prayer. Perhaps I
can use my own form later on, if I get the confidence of the people.
Incidentally Mrs. G. gave me a shock this afternoon. After the service
was completed she fished around under her pillow and brought forth a
five dollar bill. That was to pay me for my trouble. I never knew this
fee business still existed in such a form in Protestantism. I knew they
were still paying for baptism in some denominations, ours included.
But this is a new one. The old lady was a little hurt, I think, by my
refusal. I think she imagined that pity prompted my diffidence. She
insisted that she was quite able to pay. I’d better get started on
this whole fee question and make an announcement that I won’t accept
any fees for anything. I think I’ll except weddings however. Every
one takes fees for them. It will just make a scene when the groom or
best man slyly crosses your palm with a bill and you make a righteous
refusal. They never will understand. Marriage is not a sacrament
anyway. Then, too, it’s fun getting a little extra money once in a
while. But isn’t marriage a sacrament?
_1916_
Doesn’t this denominational business wear on one’s nerves? If I were
a doctor people would consult me according to the skill I had and the
reputation I could acquire. But being a minister I can appeal only to
people who are labeled as I am. Yesterday that professor I met asked me
what denomination I belonged to. Being told, he promptly pigeonholed
me into my proper place and with a superior air assumed that my mind
was as definitely set by my denominational background as is that of an
African Hottentot by his peculiar environment.
Perhaps if I belonged to a larger denomination this wouldn’t irk me
so much. I suffer from an inferiority complex because of the very
numerical weakness of my denomination. If I belonged to a large one I
might strut about and claim its glory for myself. If I give myself to
religion as a profession I must find some interdenominational outlet
for my activities. But what? Secretaries and Y.M.C.A. workers are too
inarticulate. They deal too much with machinery and too little with
ideas. I don’t want to be a chauffeur. Does that mean that I am a
minister merely because I am a fairly glib talker? Who knows?
But let us not be too cynical and too morbidly introspective. I may
find something worth saying in time and escape the fate of being a mere
talker. At any rate I swear that I will never aspire to be a preacher
of pretty sermons. I’ll keep them rough just to escape the temptation
of degenerating into an elocutionist. Maybe I had better stop quoting
so much poetry. But that is hardly the point. Plenty of sermons lack
both beauty and meaning.
_1916_
The young fellows I am trying to teach in Sunday school don’t listen
to me attentively. I don’t think I am getting very close to where they
live. Or perhaps I just haven’t learned how to put my message across.
I am constantly interrupted in my talk by the necessity of calling
someone to order. It is a good thing that I have a class like that.
I’ll venture that my sermons aren’t getting any nearer to the people,
but the little group of adults I am speaking to in the morning service
are naturally more patient or at least more polite than these honest
youngsters, and so I have less chance to find out from them how futile
I am. But that doesn’t solve the problem of how to reach those fellows.
_1916_
I had a letter from Professor L---- today suggesting that I return to
college and prepare myself for the teaching profession. A year ago I
was certain that I would do that. Now I am not so sure. Nevertheless
the academic life has its allurements. It is really simpler than
the ministry. As a teacher your only task is to discover the truth.
As a preacher you must conserve other interests besides the truth.
It is your business to deal circumspectly with the whole religious
inheritance lest the virtues which are involved in the older traditions
perish through your iconoclasm. That is a formidable task and a
harassing one; for one can never be quite sure where pedagogical
caution ends and dishonesty begins.
What is particularly disquieting to a young man in the ministry is the
fact that some of his fine old colleagues make such a virtue of their
ignorance. They are sure that there is no Second Isaiah and have never
heard that Deuteronomy represents a later development in the law. I
can’t blame them for not having all the bright new knowledge of a
recent seminarian (not quite as new as the seminarian imagines); but
the ministry is the only profession in which you can make a virtue of
ignorance. If you have read nothing but commentaries for twenty years,
that is supposed to invest you with an aura of sanctity and piety.
Every profession has its traditions and its traditionalists. But the
traditionalists in the pulpit are much more certain than the others
that the Lord is on their side.
_1917_
Next week we are going to hold our first every member canvass. They
expect me to preach a sermon which will prepare the good people to give
generously. I don’t mind that. Most people give little enough for the
church or for anything else not connected with their own pleasures.
But I don’t see how you can preach a sermon adequate to the needs of
the moment without identifying the church with the kingdom of God too
unqualifiedly. And meanwhile you are drawing your salary from the
church and remembering that if the canvass is a success there may be
an increase in salary next year. It isn’t easy to mix the business
of preaching with the business of making a living and maintain your
honesty and self-respect.
Of course every laborer is worthy of his hire. But you notice that
Paul, who insisted on that point, nevertheless prided himself on his
independence. He wanted “not yours but you.” But let us not be too
squeamish. There is old J.Q. It would do his soul good if he loosened
up a bit. One might say to him, “I want yours so that I can get you.”
_1918_
(After a trip through the war training camps.)
I hardly know how to bring order out of confusion in my mind in regard
to this war. I think that if Wilson’s aims are realized the war will
serve a good purpose. When I talk to the boys I make much of the
Wilsonian program as against the kind of diplomacy which brought on the
war. But it is easier to talk about the aims of the war than to justify
its methods.
Out at Funston I watched a bayonet practice. It was enough to make
me feel like a brazen hypocrite for being in this thing, even in a
rather indirect way. Yet I cannot bring myself to associate with the
pacifists. Perhaps if I were not of German blood I could. That may be
cowardly, but I do think that a new nation has a right to be pretty
sensitive about its unity.
Some of the good old Germans have a hard time hiding a sentiment which
borders very closely on hatred for this nation. Anyone who dissociates
himself from the cause of his nation in such a time as this ought
to do it only on the basis of an unmistakably higher loyalty. If I
dissociated myself only slightly I would inevitably be forced into
the camp of those who romanticize about the Kaiser. And the Kaiser
is certainly nothing to me. If we must have war I’ll certainly feel
better on the side of Wilson than on the side of the Kaiser.
What makes me angry is the way I kowtow to the chaplains as I visit
the various camps. Here are ministers of the gospel just as I am. Just
as I they are also, for the moment, priests of the great god Mars.
As ministers of the Christian religion I have no particular respect
for them. Yet I am overcome by a terrible inferiority complex when I
deal with them. Such is the power of a uniform. Like myself, they have
mixed the worship of the God of love and the God of battles. But unlike
myself, they have adequate symbols of this double devotion. The little
cross on the shoulder is the symbol of their Christian faith. The
uniform itself is the symbol of their devotion to the God of battles.
It is the uniform and not the cross which impresses me and others. I am
impressed even when I know that I ought not be.
What I dislike about most of the chaplains is that they assume a very
officious and also a very masculine attitude. Ministers are not used
to authority and revel in it when acquired. The rather too obvious
masculinity which they try to suggest by word and action is meant
to remove any possible taint which their Christian faith might be
suspected to have left upon them in the minds of the he-men in the
army. H---- is right. He tells me that he wants to go into the army as
a private and not as a chaplain. He believes that the war is inevitable
but he is not inclined to reconcile its necessities with the Christian
ethic. He will merely forget about this difficulty during the war. That
is much more honest than what I am doing.
_1918_
I can see one element in this strange fascination of war which men
have not adequately noted. It reduces life to simple terms. The
modern man lives in such a complex world that one wonders how his
sanity is maintained as well as it is. Every moral venture, every
social situation and every practical problem involves a whole series
of conflicting loyalties, and a man may never be quite sure that he
is right in giving himself to the one as against the other. Shall he
be just and sacrifice love? Shall he strive for beauty and do it by
gaining the social privileges which destroy his sense of fellowship
with the underprivileged? Shall he serve his family and neglect the
state? Or be patriotic to the detriment of the great family of mankind?
Shall he be diligent at the expense of his health? Or keep healthy at
the expense of the great cause in which he is interested? Shall he
be truthful and therefore cruel? Or shall he be kind and therefore a
little soft? Shall he strive for the amenities of life and make life
less robust in the process? Or shall he make courage the ultimate
virtue and brush aside the virtues which a stable and therefore soft
society has cultivated?
Out of this mesh of conflicting claims, interests, loyalties,
ideals, values and communities he is rescued by the psychology of war
which gives the state at least a momentary priority over all other
communities and which makes courage the supreme virtue. I talked to a
young captain at camp last week who told me how happy he was in the
army because he had “found himself” in military service. Our further
conversation led me to suspect that it was this simplification of life
which had really brought him happiness; that and his love of authority.
Unfortunately, all these momentary simplifications of the complexities
of life cannot be finally satisfying, because they do violence to life.
The imperiled community may for a moment claim a kind of unqualified
loyalty which no community or cause has the right or ability to
secure in normal times. But judgment returns to sobriety as events
become less disjointed and the world is once more revealed in all its
confusion of good in evil and evil in good. The imperiled community was
threatened because of its vice as much as because of its virtue, and
the diabolical foe reassumes the lineaments of our common humanity.
Physical courage is proved unequal to the task of ennobling man without
the aid of other virtues, and the same men who have been raised to
great heights by the self-forgetfulness of war have been sunk into new
depths of hatred. There is only momentary peace in an all-consuming
passion, except it be a passion for what is indubitably the best. And
what is the best?
_1919_
We had a great Easter service today. Mother made the little chapel look
very pretty, working with a committee of young women. It takes real
work to decorate such a little place, and make it really inviting. We
received our largest class of new members into the church thus far,
twenty-one in all. Most of them had no letters from other churches and
yet had been reared in some church. We received them on reaffirmation
of faith.
This matter of recruiting a membership for the church is a real
problem. Even the churches which once believed a very definite
conversion to be the sine qua non of entrance into the fellowship of
the church are going in for “decision days” as they lose confidence in
the traditional assumption that one can become a Christian only through
a crisis experience. But if one does not insist on that kind of an
experience it is not so easy to set up tests of membership. Most of
these “personal evangelism” campaigns mean little more than an ordinary
recruiting effort with church membership rather than the Christian
life as the real objective. They do not differ greatly from efforts of
various clubs as they seek to expand their membership.
Of course we make “acceptance of Jesus as your savior” the real door
into the fellowship of the church. But the trouble is that this may
mean everything or nothing. I see no way of making the Christian
fellowship unique by any series of tests which precede admission.
The only possibility lies in a winnowing process through the
instrumentality of the preaching and teaching function of the church.
Let them come in without great difficulty, but make it difficult for
them to stay in. The trouble with this plan is that it is always easy
to load up your membership with very immature Christians who will
finally set the standard and make it impossible to preach and to teach
the gospel in its full implications.
_1919_
What a picture that is of Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau settling
the fate of the world in Paris! Wilson is evidently losing his battle.
He would have done better to stay at home and throw bolts from Olympus.
If you have honest and important differences of opinion with others, it
is better to write letters than to put your feet under the same table
with them. Compromises are always more inevitable in personal contact
than in long distance negotiation.
What seems to be happening at Paris is that they will let Wilson label
the transaction if the others can determine its true import. Thus
realities are exchanged for words. There will be “no indemnities” but
of course there will be reparations; and, since the damage was great,
the reparations may be made larger than any so-called indemnity of the
past. There will be “no annexations” but there will be mandates.
Wilson is a typical son of the manse. He believes too much in words.
The sly Clemenceau sneaks new meanings into these nice words, in
which task he is probably ably helped by Mr. Lloyd George, who is
an admirable go-between, being as worldly wise as M. Clemenceau and
as evangelical as Mr. Wilson. Yet who knows? Time may yet give Mr.
Wilson the victory. Words have certain meanings of which it is hard to
rob them, and ideas may create reality in time. The league of nations
may be, for the time being, merely a league of victors but it will be
difficult to destroy the redemptive idea at the heart of it completely.
Realities are always defeating ideals, but ideals have a way of taking
vengeance upon the facts which momentarily imprison them.
On the other hand, it is always possible that diabolical facts will
so discredit the idea which they ostensibly incarnate that they will
necessitate the projection of a new idea before progress can be made.
_1919_
Visited Miss Z. at the hospital. I like to go now since she told me
that it helps her to have me pray with her. I asked the doctor about
her and he says her case is hopeless. Here faith seems really to be
functioning in lifting the soul above physical circumstance. I have
been so afraid of quackery that I have leaned over backwards trying to
avoid the encouragement of false hopes. Sometimes when I compare myself
with these efficient doctors and nurses hustling about I feel like an
ancient medicine man dumped into the twentieth century. I think they
have about the same feeling toward me that I have about myself.
It must be very satisfying to deal as an exact scientist with known
data upon which to base your conclusions. I have to work in the
twilight zone where superstition is inextricably mixed up with
something that is--well, not superstition. I do believe that Jesus
healed people. I can’t help but note, however, that a large proportion
of his cures were among the demented. If people ask me, I tell them
that religion has more therapeutic value in functional than in organic
diseases. But I don’t know whether I am altogether honest about this at
the bedside. I am still praying for health with Miss Z. But of course
I don’t leave it at that. I am trying to prepare her for the inevitable
and I think I have helped her a little in that respect.
_1919_
This sickness of Miss Z.’s is getting on my nerves. I can’t think of
anything for the rest of the day after coming from that bed of pain.
If I had more patients I suppose I would get a little more hardened.
Talk about professionalism! I suppose men get professional to save
their emotional resources. Here I make one visit in an afternoon and
get all done up. Meanwhile the doctor is making a dozen. He is less
sentimental, but probably does more good.
_1920_
I am really beginning to like the ministry. I think since I have
stopped worrying so much about the intellectual problems of religion
and have begun to explore some of its ethical problems there is more of
a thrill in preaching. The real meaning of the gospel is in conflict
with most of the customs and attitudes of our day at so many places
that there is adventure in the Christian message, even if you only play
around with its ideas in a conventional world. I can’t say that I have
done anything in my life to dramatize the conflict between the gospel
and the world. But I find it increasingly interesting to set the two in
juxtaposition at least in my mind and in the minds of others. And of
course ideas may finally lead to action.
A young woman came to me the other day in ---- and told me that my
talk on forgiveness in the C---- Church of that town several months
ago has brought about a reconciliation between her mother and sister
after the two had been in a feud for five years. I accepted the news
with more outward than inward composure. There is redemptive power in
the message! I could go on the new courage that came out of that little
victory for many a month.
I think I am beginning to like the ministry also because it gives
you a splendid opportunity to have all kinds of contacts with people
in relationships in which they are at their best. You do get tired of
human pettiness at times. But there is nevertheless something quite
glorious about folks. That is particularly true when you find them
bearing sorrow with real patience. Think of Mrs. ---- putting up with
that drunkard of a husband for the sake of her children--and having
such nice children. One can learn more from her quiet courage than from
many a book.
_1920_
Good old Gordon came to me today to advise me that so-and-so might
join the church but that he had been told that I talked considerably
on political issues and he did not like politics in church. I told my
friend that I did not like political lectures in a worship service
myself, but that every religious problem had ethical implications
and every ethical problem had some political and economic aspect. We
had quite a nice chat about it, though my explanation did not seem
altogether satisfactory. Gordon suggested that I seemed unable to get
as many “prominent” people into the church as I ought. I told him
that we had some very nice people in our church, but that I had no
particular desire or ability to cater to “prominent” people, especially
since there are plenty of churches who seem to serve this class quite
well.
This is as close as I have come to having the freedom of the pulpit
challenged, except of course by the tacit challenge of an occasional
defection from the ranks. The problem of the freedom of the pulpit is a
real one. But I am convinced that the simplest way to get liberty is to
take it. The liberty to speak on all vital questions of the day without
qualifying the message in a half dozen ways adds sufficient interest
to the otherwise stodgy sermon to attract two listeners for every
one who is lost by having some pet prejudice disarranged. But that
generalization is hardly justified by my meager experience.
_1920_
I had a great discussion in my young men’s class this morning.
Gradually I am beginning to discover that my failure with the class
was due to my talking too much. Now I let them talk and the thing is
becoming interesting. Of course it isn’t so easy to keep the discussion
steered on any track. Sometimes we talk in circles. But the fellows
are at least getting at some of the vital problems of life and I am
learning something from them. Disciplinary problems have disappeared.
The only one left is the fellow who is always trying to say something
foolish or smart in the discussion.
_1920_
I went to the funeral of Mrs. T. at St. Cecilia’s church. It must be
a grateful task to deal as a priest with the definite symbols which
the Catholic church uses and to dispense the absolute certainties with
which she assures the faithful. Of course the requiem mass contains
nothing that would be of obvious comfort to the sorrowing heart. But
the implication of the whole transaction is that the soul is now taken
up in another world in which the heartaches of this life are overcome.
I don’t think the mass is so satisfying as a well conducted Protestant
funeral service in which some cognizance is taken of the peculiar
circumstances of a great sorrow and of the unique characteristics of
the deceased. But it is certainly immeasurably superior to the average
Protestant service with its banalities and sentimentalities. Religion
is poetry. The truth in the poetry is vivified by adequate poetic
symbols and is therefore more convincing than the poor prose with which
the average preacher must attempt to grasp the ineffable.
Yet one must not forget that the truth is not only vivified but also
corrupted by the poetic symbol, for it is only one step from a vivid
symbol to the touch of magic. The priest does, after all, deal with
magic. When religion renounces magic it finds itself in the poor
workaday world trying to discover the glimpses of the eternal in the
common scene. That is not an easy task, but it is not an impossible
one. Wherefore let us envy the priest, but pity him too, meanwhile. He
has been betrayed by his magic. He has gained too easy a victory over
life’s difficulties and he helps his people to find a premature peace.
The rivers of life in Protestant religion are easily lost in the sand,
but if they really run they carry more life than holy water.
_1921_
I spoke to the ---- club today and was introduced by the chairman as a
pastor who had recently built a new church at “the impressive cost of
$170,000.” While the figure was not quite correct it gave me somewhat
of a start to find how much emphasis was placed upon what was regarded
as a great business achievement. Here was a group of business men, and
the chairman knew of no way to recommend me to them but by suggesting
that I was myself a business man of no mean ability. That would have
given the good men of my church council a laugh. Knowing how little I
had to do with the raising of the money for the new church and how I
have always failed to put on the kind of “pressure” they desired when
we were raising money, they would certainly have smiled wryly at this
eulogy.
But it is all natural enough. America worships success and so does the
world in general. And the only kind of success the average man can
understand is obvious success. There must be
“Things done that took the eye, that had the price;
O’er which from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice.”
After all the real work of a minister is not easily gauged and the
world may not be entirely wrong in using external progress as an
outward sign of an inward grace. Even those who value the real work of
the ministry sometimes express their appreciation in rather superficial
phrases. I remember when dear old ---- celebrated his twenty-fifth
anniversary the good toastmaster pathetically described his pastor’s
successful ministry by explaining that under his leadership the
congregation had “doubled its membership, installed a new organ,
built a parsonage, decorated the church and wiped out its debt.” Not
a word about the words of comfort the good pastor had spoken or the
inspiration he had given to thirsting souls.
Perhaps it is foolish to be too sensitive about these inevitable
secularizations of religious values. Let us be thankful that there
is no quarterly meeting in our denomination and no need of giving
a district superintendent a bunch of statistics to prove that our
ministry is successful.
_1921_
I visited Mrs. S. today. She is suffering from cancer and will not
live long. Her young grandson E. came home from high school just as
I was leaving. He had a question for me. The Jewish boys at school
told him Jesus was a bastard and Joseph was not his father. He also
reported that they accused him of having two Gods instead of one.
That dissolution of the Trinity into a dualism by high school boys
interested me. Even boys seem to sense that if orthodox trinitarianism
makes for polytheism it really suggests two gods rather than three.
I chided E. for remembering so poorly what he had learned in the
preparatory class and for being so irregular in church school where
these problems are discussed. I went over some of the ideas on the
humanity and the uniqueness of Jesus which we had discussed in the
class.
Meanwhile I wished that I could talk to him alone without interference
from grandma, who naïvely added her own theological mustard to the
dish. It is no easy task to build up the faith of one generation and
not destroy the supports of the religion of the other. But fortunately
the old lady didn’t get what I was driving at and so didn’t interfere
very seriously. She was thankful to me for straightening the young man
out on his theology and seemed to think that I had settled all his
difficulties by my few words. “Ich habe ihm gesagt, wart bis der Pastor
kommt. Der wird dir alles erklaeren.” It isn’t a bad idea to find
someone who has such confidence in you.
_1922_
When I sit in my study and meditate upon men and events I am critical
and circumspect. Why is it that when I arise in the pulpit I try to
be imaginative and am sometimes possessed by a kind of madness which
makes my utterances extravagant and dogmatic? Perhaps this change of
technique is due to my desire to move the audience. Audiences are not
easily moved from their lethargy by cool and critical analyses. An
appeal to the emotions is necessary and emotions are not aroused by a
careful analysis of facts but by a presentation of ideal values. I do
not mean that I disavow the critical method entirely in the pulpit.
Indeed many of my friendly critics think I am too critical to be a
good preacher. Nor am I ever very emotional. Nevertheless there is a
distinct difference between my temper in the study and my spirit in the
pulpit.
Perhaps this is as it should be. Let the study serve to reveal the
relativity of all things so that pulpit utterances do not become too
extravagant, and let the pulpit save the student from sinking in the
sea of relativities. However qualified every truth may be there is
nevertheless a portion in every truth and value which is essentially
absolute and which is therefore worth proclaiming. “All oratory,”
declares a Greek scholar, “is based on half truths.” That is why one
ought naturally to distrust and to discount the orator. On the other
hand, oratory may be the result of the kind of poetic gift which sees a
truth dissociated, for a moment at least, from all relativities of time
and circumstance and lifted into the light of the absolute.
I notice that the tendency of extravagance in the pulpit and on the
platform increases with the size of the crowd. As my congregation
increases in size I become more unguarded in my statements. Wherefore
may the good Lord deliver me from ever being a popular preacher. “Why
is it,” asked one of my elders the other day, “that your Sunday evening
sermons are more pessimistic than your morning sermons?” I think what
he really meant is that they were more critical in analyzing life’s
problems. I told him that I tried to give inspiration in the morning
and education in the evening.
But the fact is that circumstance probably affects the quality of
the message as much as purpose. A full church gives me the sense of
fighting with a victorious host in the battles of the Lord. A half
empty church immediately symbolizes the fact that Christianity is
very much of a minority movement in a pagan world and that it can be
victorious only by snatching victory out of defeat.
_1922_
Just received a pitiful letter from a young pastor who is losing his
church because he has been “too liberal.” I suppose there are churches
which will crucify a leader who tries to lead them into the modern
world of thought and life. Yet here I have been all these years in a
conservative communion and have never had a squabble about theology. I
suppose that is partly due to the fact that there were so few people
here when I came that no one had to listen to me if he didn’t like
my approach. Those who have come have associated themselves with us
because they were in general agreement with “our gospel.” They have
come, however, from conservative communions and churches. But of course
they have been mostly young people.
If preachers get into trouble in pursuance of their task of
reinterpreting religious affirmations in the light of modern knowledge
I think it must be partly because they beat their drums too loudly when
they make their retreats from untenable positions of ancient orthodoxy.
The correct strategy is to advance at the center with beating drums and
let your retreats at the wings follow as a matter of course and in the
interest of the central strategy. You must be honest, of course, but
you might just as well straighten and shorten your lines without mock
heroics and a fanfare of trumpets.
The beauty of this strategy is that there is enough power at the
center for a real advance and enough opposition for a real conflict.
If you set the message of a gospel of love against a society enmeshed
in hatreds and bigotries and engulfed in greed, you have a real but
not necessarily a futile conflict on your hands. There is enough
natural grace in the human heart to respond to the challenge of the
real message in the gospel--and enough original sin in human nature
to create opposition to it. The sorriest preachers are those who
preach a conventional morality while they try to be intellectually and
theologically radical.
Men will not make great intellectual readjustments for a gospel which
does not greatly matter. If there is real adventure at the center of
the line the reserves are drawn from the wings almost unconsciously.
_1923_
Gradually the whole horrible truth about the war is being revealed.
Every new book destroys some further illusion. How can we ever again
believe anything when we compare the solemn pretensions of statesmen
with the cynically conceived secret treaties? Here was simply a
tremendous contest for power between two great alliances of states in
which the caprice of statesmen combined with basic economic conflicts
to dictate the peculiar form of the alliances. Next time the cards
will be shuffled in a different way and the “fellowship in arms” will
consist of different fellows.
As the truth becomes known there are however some compensations for the
disillusionment. If the moral pretensions of the heroes were bogus, the
iniquity of the villains was not as malicious as it once appeared. The
Kaiser was evidently a boob who was puerile enough to permit the German
navalists to force him into policies which he did not understand.
Von Tirpitz and his crowd may have been the real villains but they
probably did not want the war so much as they wanted to glorify the
navy and themselves through it. If Poincaré was the villain, it was the
limitations of a narrow and bigoted nationalism rather than the malice
of an evil heart which prompted his policies. The poor little Czar was
the victim of a neurotic wife, and she in turn the tool of religious
fanatics and fear-tormented bureaucrats.
There doesn’t seem to be very much malice in the world. There is simply
not enough intelligence to conduct the intricate affairs of a complex
civilization. All the chief actors in the war appear now in the light
of children who played with dangerous toys. If they were criminal
it was in the sense that the weal of millions was involved in their
dangerous games and they didn’t let that fact dissuade them from their
play. All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its
intentions.
But that is not a fact which justifies moral nihilism. The consequences
are obvious and inevitable enough to deter a sensitive soul from the
course which leads to destruction. Not merely ignorance but callousness
to human welfare is an ingredient in the compound of social and
personal evil.
In one sense modern civilization substitutes unconscious sins of
more destructive consequences for conscious sins of less destructive
consequences. Men try consciously to eliminate the atrocities of
society, but meanwhile they unheedingly build a civilization which is
more destructive of moral and personal values than anything intended in
a more primitive society.
_1923_
I met a wonderful parson in the little village of ----. I went there
to speak at a high school commencement. His church seemed to be an
ordinary village church, but he was undeniably the real leader of the
community. Broad sympathies had made it possible for him to transcend
the usual denominational divisions which reduce most ministers to
impotence in small communities, at least as far as wider community
leadership is concerned. There were a few other churches in town, but
he had developed so many types of cooperation between them that they
were almost a unit in their enterprise.
He had built a small church house which was a hive of activity
throughout the week. He conducted his own weekday school of religion,
spending three afternoons at the job. His influence upon the young
people was evidently a fruit of this close contact with them. He was so
happy in his work that he did not look upon big city churches as the
natural goal of his ambition. His wife and he and two little kiddies
live very modestly in a little parsonage, and the mistress of the manse
seems to find time to mother the neighborhood as well as her children.
Perhaps I am inclined to romanticize about village life. Sometimes
it is very petty and mean, I know. But the absence of great class
distinctions makes for a higher type of fellowship in church and
community than is achieved in the metropolis, and the preacher is not
tempted to placate the powerful. The modest stipend which the small
church can afford makes for simple living and the absence of social
pride. If more young fellows would be willing to go into churches like
that and not suffer from inferiority complexes because they had not
landed one of the “big pulpits,” we might put new power into the church.
Fortunately, this young fellow has an astute intelligence without being
an orator. If he were a more gifted speaker he would probably have been
“promoted”--and spoiled--long ago. I have often observed that privilege
and power tend to corrupt the simple Christian heart. I am now
convinced that to these two must be added the kind of obvious success
which the world knows how to measure. The simplicity which is preserved
because it does not meet the temptation of success is innocence rather
than virtue; but if we can’t have virtue, innocence is preferable to
moral failure.
There are successful men who have maintained a virtuous humility and
sincerity in the day of success, but the achievement is very difficult.
_1923_