Are You A Religious Primitive?

June 17, 1951
Gloucester

Last Sunday afternoon as I watched with great interest the religious procession proceed to the waterfront for the blessing of the fleet, the thought occurred to me as it has to so many others, “this is a primitive, superstitious sort of thing.” The person who thinks in terms of an orderly, law-abiding universe would say that the carrying of a statue to the waterfront and the saying a certain formula of words and the sprinkling of consecrated water will not persuade God to act more favorably to the fishermen then he might have otherwise if the ceremony had not occurred. Thinking back to the Ten Commandments one might expostulate that such a ceremony was a direct violation of the seventh and eighth versus of the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy where we read: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them ...”

But the ancient Hebrews were not as consistently devoted to the one Eternal God as might be seen when one reads the Ten Commandments. In the portion of the book of Genesis which was read a few minutes ago we read with interest that one of the ancient patriarchs, Jacob, and his wife Rachel, were idolaters in the sense that they worshipped images of some sort.

Jacob and his father-in-law Laban had been engaged for years in a duel of wits. two a kid had traveled east in search of a wife. Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel as she brought her flock to the well in the land of Haran. Jacob agreed to serve Laban for seven years at the end of which time Rachel would be given to him in marriage. But Rachel had an elder sister, Leah. And Laban did not want to see the younger, more beautiful sister married before the older and more plain one. So Jacob was deceived and found himself married to Leah. So Jacob served seven more years in order to marry Rachel. It is interesting to note that in those days there was apparently nothing unusual in having more than one wife at the same time.

Jacob had a growing family and wanted to establish himself somewhat and asks Laban for his share of the flocks so that he might make and self more secure. they discussed what should be Jacob’s share Finally kicked up said “go through all the flock to date and remove from that every speckled and spotted sheep, lamb and goat. This,” says Jacob, “will be my pay.” Any not speckled and spotted would remain Laban’s. Then each began his machinations. Laban secretly went through the flocks and took call the speckled ones far away so that Jacob could not claim them. Jacob was figuring too. He disguised some of the unspotted and unspeckled ones so that it appeared that they should be his. Jacob seemed to have the better of it. Laban thought that he had been outdone and Jacob and his wives and their children, servants and flocks decided to put a great distance between them and Laban and his sons.

So they started for the land of Canaan. But before leaving, Rachel stole the household gods, the Teraphin, from Laban. Obviously the families of Laban and Jacob had never heard of Ten Commandments, or at least the one that prohibited the making of an image and bowing down before it. How could they? They were primitives and the idea of one god, who is a spirit, - and a spirit that does not abide in a wooden or stone image – was not to develop for hundreds of years. Laban furiously pursued the escaping caravan. When he and his party caught up he was most interested in finding that Teraphim, the household gods. But Rachel hid them from her father.

We can sense the primitive religious feelings that existed when we consider it that the little images meant more to Laban ban the flocks and herds which the crafty Jacob had managed to acquire. This little incident from the old folk stories of the desert shows its primitive ancestry and in was told from campfire to campfire and from father to son for hundreds of years before it was written down.

And all folks to worry like this once served a purpose. It provided enjoyment for the long desert evening’s as it would be recounted with great delight by the equivalent of troubadours. Its preservation in that manner has in turn given us an insight into the nature of the customs and religious beliefs of the wandering tribes before they settled down in Palestine.

In much the same way, a primitive religious ceremony such as we witnessed in our town last week does a little harm and may even do some good. Certainly a man can work more surely, calmly and courageously at his tasks at sea if he is convinced that divine and supernatural blessing is extended to him by virtue of a ceremony. If the folks at home sleep a little easier because of their conviction that God’s protection has been given their mariners in some special way then it would be churlish to ridicule the ceremony. Then too, some of whom smile, perhaps a little superciliously, at the type of religious pageant which still prevails in certain cultural groups, may be far more guilty of religious primitivism and idolatry than those about whom we joke.

Who are the primitives anyway? I recall reading an item about the famous religious ceremony of the Indians of New Mexico. This is the corn dance and the Indians attempt to persuade the gods to favor them with a bountiful crop. One year, “the usual from the noisy tourists was gathering near Santa Fe, when a group of strangely garbed Indians approached the dancing area. The women were dressed in violently colored slacks and floppy hats; the men wore loud sport shirts; all were equipped with sunglasses and carried cameras. Closing in on the dancers, they stared, giggled, talked loudly and pointed boorishly; they got in the dancers way taking pictures. Then they pulled up boxes, sat down, opened paper bags and began to eat sandwiches, strewing wrappers carelessly on the ground. When they withdrew, a shamed and respectful crowd of white tourists watch the rest of the dance in silence.”

One can be a religious primitive even though he never carries a statute in a parade or seeks special supernatural protection for the men who go down to the sea in ships. Erich Fromm, the noted authority on psychiatry, in his book Psychoanalysis and Religion, says, “as a collective and potent form of modern idolatry we find the worship of power, of success and of the authority of the market; but aside from these collective forms we find something else. If we scratched the surface of modern man we discover any number of individualized primitive forms of religion. Many of these are called neuroses, but one just as well could call them by their respective religious names: ancestor worship, totemism, fetishism, ritualism, the cult of cleanliness, and so on.”

Is it true that collectively and individually our religion is primitive? Certainly our church buildings are a far cry from the jungle and the desert. Knowledge and education seemed to be more wide-spread, in this country at least, than ever before. Yet, Fromm is right when he thinks that most people bow down before pagan gods, that most people, in the religious sense, have failed to reach maturity.

When a man worships power for himself, he cannot worship the God that Jesus talked about. It can be said with accuracy that Hitler and Mussolini were pagan in their religion. They worshipped Power – bowed down before it – and sacrificed millions of human beings on the altar of that pagan god, Power.

Jesus resisted the temptation to bow down in worship before power. In that mythological story about Jesus’s tempting by Satan, there is portrayed that inner struggle which so many leaders face. “If you’re God’s son, command the stones to turn into bread.” “If you are God’s son, then throw yourself down.” It was a great temptation to seek assurance from God that he was on God’s mission by finding the power to overthrow natural laws. And then the most powerful temptation that the Pagan god Power offers to men with qualities of leadership: from the high mountain of inner vision he sees all the towns and cities stretched before him. To be ruler over cities: the same temptation that seduced Alexander, the Caesars, William the Conqueror, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin; and Jesus said, “Begone Saturn, for the Scripture says, you must do homage to the Lord your God and worship him alone.” More than two thousand years ago, Jesus’ personal religion was one of maturity. He did not bow down before the primitive gods. He did not make his life-work depend on personal power over others.

In spite of the dark days that mark our time, the advent of industrial and agricultural programs have given us a sight of the world where all can be provided for – if we but have peace and understanding. The great question mark for our century is – will the leaders let us have peace – or will there be a man of international leadership who has lust is for power and not for peace?

Success is another pagan got-that many primitives in religion worship. Budd Schulberg in his novel, “What Makes Sammy Run,” portrays in his fictional character, Sammy, how the inordinate desire for success, the passion to be the top man on the job, completely ruins Sammy’s life, as well as causing many heartaches to others. Thorsten Velben, many years ago, coined a phrase which is still too accurate in describing American life. We are addicted, he said, to “conspicuous consumption.” We not only worship the pagan god “success” but must use our earnings to buy things that other people will see and thus recognize our success in the material world. Velben may or may not have been accurate and describing American culture, yet it is obviously true that we live in a thing-centered civilization, or as Pitirim Sorokin describes it, “ a sensate culture.” To the extent that we worship “success” as a god and subordinate all other normal parts of life to “success”, to that degree we are primitives in religion.

The famous British Empire builder Cecil Rhodes carved out for himself one of the most famous careers in modern history. He acquired great power and a fabulous fortune in his South African adventures. And yet toward the end of his life, he remarked about how he had spent his life in building a success in terms of money and power. He spoke sadly about burning himself out physically long before his time. In his own words, “ I have spent my life acquiring a fortune, and now in my advancing years I must give half of it to the doctors to keep me out of the grave and the other half of two lawyers to keep me out of jail."

Then too, it is no situation to say that the supreme religious authority for many is the authority of the market-the opening and closing prices of stocks and securities. I’m told that the Wall Street Journal is a pretty good newspaper. But to many people it is the authoritative religious scripture – the Bible of their lives – and as in 1929 and following, many people actually sacrificed their lives on the altar of the market. – A religion of the primitives.

The same danger of being a primitive in religion is present in our individual lives. We’re told that there are 5 million neurotics in the United States. A neurotic is a person who has some emotional difficulties, but it is not sufficiently violent or anti-social to require institutional care or restraint. One can be a neurotic in many ways.

Fromm mentioned that ancestor worship was a form of primitive religion that was part of the lives of many of our times. Now there is nothing wrong with holding one’s forebears in great respect and love, in holding before the new generations the values that have been moulded into work and sacrifice by those who have gone before us. We could not possibly exist without a knowledge of what the past had done for us. Yet we know, that there are many who have become neurotic about their ancestors. Their life is completely in the past. When in their presence we feel that time has stood still for 100 or 50 or 30 years. Everything that is new is bad, everything that is old is good.

This is primitive ancestor worship. One of the least discussed facts but perhaps of great importance in the power of Communism to sweep through China is the primitive trait that the Chinese had of ancestor worship. The Chinese religious code demanded such profound respect for the ancestors, for the old men of the country, that it became a positive barrier to progress. The present was so dominated by the past that China became a backward country, the progress of other peoples was not duplicated in China. When Communism began its attacks on religion, one of the reasons this doctrine found ready converts was because the primitive religious idea of ancestor worship was the principle fact about their religious lives and the younger people’s could see that their progress was dependent on sweeping away the ancient and primitive idea. But for that primitive trait of ancestor worship in the Chinese religion, Communism might never have secured the hold that it has in China today. A mature religion is not only necessary for a wholesome individual life, but a stable corporate and community life.

Many savages in the jungles have a fetish. The fetish might be an amulet or bracelet which they believe has magic powers and that if deprived of it they will surely come to disaster. Now the specific practice of the jungle savage will rarely be found in our modern culture, yet that attitude seems to be present – because we make a fetish of things. This is vividly demonstrated in the play “ Craig’s Wife”. The wife has made a fetish of things, even though that primitive attitude has cost are the love of her husband. The things in the home were more important than love and understanding. The closing scene where she adjusts something on the mantle as a final demonstration of the power of the fetish over her is the culminating symbol of the destructive power of the primitive religious attitude.

Most of us are free of primitive, savage, ritualism. Yet, many of us are victims of doing things in an exact routine. There is a difference between an orderly way of doing things and an obsession with insisting that all things be done exactly the same way.

One of the ritual acts of a person who is overcome by feelings of guilt (undefined – perhaps unconscious) is the making a cult of cleanliness. Continuous washing of hands for example, immediately after touching anything. It is being possessed by a primitive religious desire. It is unconsciously holding the primitive idea that the outward act, the ritual has power to accomplish a task from which we ourselves shrink.

All of us are subject to a greater or lesser degree of religious primitivism. That is all the more reason why we should be seeking a mature religious faith. All the more reason for knowing that a mature religious faith extends to all areas over lives. To think that we can be mature religious people on Sundays and religious primitives the other days, worshiping power, success, ancestors, money, is as child-like a notion as the idea that some savages have that if they hide their gods or blindfold the eyes of the images, that they can safely engage in activities which are prohibited by their gods.

Perhaps some of us need help in freeing ourselves from the worship of pagan gods. If so we need to recognize that need. Those of us who feel a certain power over our motives and actions need to discipline ourselves, grow in our religious attitude so that we may say as did Jesus, “God is spirit (the spirit of good-will) and we must worship him and spirit and in truth.”