What’s the Big Idea?

June 26, 1956
Bridgeport

What’s the Big Idea?

We have been requested to make some observance today of Civic Sunday. Feeling that the Barnum Festival, coming next week-end is a community celebration, the Bridgeport Pastors’ Association suggested that the churches might very well make some fitting recognition of the spirit that prompts such a gigantic spectacle. The Barnum festival is a good idea. It is a good idea whenever separated groups in a community do something together. Something good is happening when beauty, talent, humor, pageant and parade create diversion for the adults and bring excitement and laughter to little children. It’s a good idea too – but it’s not the big idea.

The memorial service we will observe next Sunday, honoring the memory of Phineas T. Barnum is a good idea. He was not perfect. Who is? But he had as many fine qualities as the average person and was a better churchman than many of his day. Just as much as his generosity, his fearless pronouncements of his Universalist beliefs deserve our praise and commemoration. A Barnum Memorial Service is a good thing – but it’s not the big idea.

The nation-wide publicity, the ballyhoo, the trade and interest which accrues Bridgeport businessmen, these preliminaries and consequences of the Barnum festival are good for Bridgeport. The sense of community becomes badly fragmented in city life today. The consequences of urban progress in housing, transportation and specialization of occupation are not entirely beneficial. We love the intimacy of the close-ly knit village, the small but crowded church. We have broken away from the provincialism and isolation of the tribe, clan and family. That break-through was good because it was necessary in the changing world. But in so doing, the person-to-person relationship, the sense of community, threatens to become a part of the forgotten past. So the gathering of clans, the lodges of parading Shriners and Knights, the procession of veterans, baton-twirlers, the floats of business and industry come to recapture and preserve something of the sense of community that was never better illustrated [than] the old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration in the small towns of America. It’s a good idea – but it’s not the big idea.

“... They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ... nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall ... them afraid ... For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. (Micah 4) That’s the big idea! That’s the daring, optimistic dream of community that men have the power to vibrate within us and tumble the walls of the Jericho of self-centeredness. We must put an end to war, hunger, disease and agonizing poverty because every person on our globe is part of one human family, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh – we must build the universal community, because that’s the Big Idea. That’s the basic oneness of all great religions, not the prize package of Judaism or Christianity.

Here in America the white invaders have been so dominated by their share of mankind’s history, they have never known or overlooked the fact that some of the human beings from whom they took the land had the big idea too. The great Iroquois tribes who made up a Confederation of Indian Nations prior to the time of the European Invasion, dreamed of the Big Idea around their council fires. Their religious savior Deganawida (OUR WILDERNESS SAVIOR, by Thomas R. Henry), born of a virgin mother, or so the Iroquois were taught by their religious teachers, beheld a great vision. This vision was . preached and communicated by Hiawatha, the Indian Savior’s .... Hiawatha was not the character of Longfellow’s poem. The real Hiawatha was a person whose career and personal qualities are startlingly parallel to the life of St. Paul. Deganawida dreamed of a gigantic spruce tree whose top boughs broke through into the light of heaven. (p. 32) The tree grew out of a luminous snow-white carpet spread over rock-strewn hills. This tree was the sisterhood of humanity. Its roots were the tribes. This was the symbolic concept of ‘the universal law of equity, righteous and well being’, of the Great Confederation, in the minds of Deganawida and Hiawatha. The carpet coveted the lands of the nations who had accepted the gospel of Hiawatha and Deganawida. It could be extended to cover the earth. All men of all races could find sanctuary upon it, as when children they had found sanctuary in the arms of their mothers.

The soil from which this tree would grow was composed of three double principles:

“Ne Skenno – health of body and sanctity of mind, peace between individuals and groups.
“Ne Gaiinwiyo – righteousness in conduct, thought and deed; equity and justice in the adjustment of human rights.
“Ne Gashedenza – maintenance of self-defense and military power; maintenance and increase or orenda and spiritual power....”

These religious prophets of the Iroquois had the big idea for they saw the whole human family as being part of the same roots of the great tree of life.

The Big Idea, the universal human community whose roots are irrevocably intertwined, must be more than the unifying symbol of universal religion. If it is only words for religious devotion or only a dream that has no reality, then it is not the big idea. Rather if it is but an echo of occasional wishful thinking; if it is but an empty dream with no fulfillment wanted, and no fulfillment possible, then it is a snare and a delusion and the foulest obscenity of the ages.

But there is substance to the dream. The ideal has begun to become real. This week at the San Francisco Opera House the tenth anniversary ceremonies of the United Nations are the living testimony that the big idea is more than a then the longing of an Israelite the fantastic dream of a native American. FIX. Many Americans have felt aggrieved that the United Nations has not always been a rubber stamp for the United States. Probably many Russians have similar grievances from their point of view. All the prejudices of the tribe have not yet been exorcised from our emotions. We dearly love to hold to and favor what we think of as our own. So sometimes we forget the big idea because we fear Danish silverware, Icelandic fish, English woolens, German Folkswagens, or Japanese gadgets will reduce the abundance of material wealth that is ours. Even more, we fear that delegating part of our sovereignty to a parliament of mankind will produce some terrible sort of disaster.

So in spite of many doubts, some of which obviously are caused by selfishness, and some less clearly provincial, the United Nations is the best spelling out in practice so far of the big idea.

Of course men have died in Korea. There can be no evading of those agonies. Other men have suffered in captivity. A plane has been attacked in the narrow Bering Strait. But threatened wars have been averted many times by UN action or influence – in Israel, Iran, Greece and other spots that might have been the fire to heat up the Cold War. There is no need to repeat to you things that have been said before, which have been shown you this year in movies, slides, pamphlets and newsletters. But when wars are averted, when hungry children are fed, when disease is cured or prevented, when technical assistance begins to lift the burden of burdensome labor and brings the light of knowledge into the faces of those who have been illiterate – one can affirm that the big idea can be achieved.

The dream has become the possibility. This we now know. The Big Idea can become true.

But in our time we cannot rest with the assurance of the possibility. In our time we must face one more fact. The Big Idea must be achieved. How many atomic and hydrogen bombs would it take to reduce all living things to ashes? Winston Churchill, not a scientist, but a man wise enough to understand the implications of what scientists discover, said 50 atomic bombs would do it. Both the United States and the USSR have been manufacturing atomic bombs for years. It has been reported that the United States has thousands of atomic bombs, to say nothing of hydrogen. Perhaps the Russians lag far behind; perhaps not. Even if we decided to take the way of aggression, there is no assurance that the “survival of the country with the most terrible and greatest quantity of atom and hydrogen bombs would have more than a Pyrrhic victory. There is not much comfort in strength because if the Russians fry to dust, so probably will we. A larger quantity of unused inventory of bombs will be slight consolation because no one will be left to be comforted.

The Big Idea must be achieved because there are nervous fingers on the hair triggers of the weapons of mutual extermination.

A scientist speaking before a group of manufacturers and business-men not long [ago] held a one-inch cube of solid uranium metal. He told them that the fissionable power in that one inch cube was equivalent to a “good many hundred thousand pounds of TNT.” Just a single inch cube!

But also, that single one inch cube was equal also to 3 million pounds of coal: equal to the power created by several hundred thousand gallons of gasoline. That potential, for a horrible death or a more abundant life can be held easily in the palm of one’s hand.

Two of three children in the world must go to bed hungry tonight. If all the potential power that is stored so that a nation can make the death strike were used to create power machinery for consumer goods, farm machinery, canneries of food, meat, and fish.... If all the power equivalent to millions of tons of coal were created to turn the wheels of transportation, heating plants, textile mills, drug manufacture, perhaps those children might be fed and clothed with a life before them.

Perhaps you say the cost of this Big Idea is too much. Perhaps you read only the headlines of squabbles and disagreements in the U.N. Perhaps you have not followed our UNESCO newsletters posted on our bulletin board.

The philosopher George Santayana once defended the much criticized Greek philosophy of Epicureanism by remarking that with all its alleged defects in the eyes of Christian philosophers, it had certain values. It taught men that their reliance was on themselves. They were “comrades afloat on the same raft together with no fate not common to them all, and no possible helpers but one another.”

We belong to a religion that teaches that all mankind is one; their roots are one and the future of each is unavoidably bound together with the fortunes of all. The same life-giving fluid runs through all the roots and out to the outermost twig and leaf. Whether we like it or not the people of earth, white, black, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, unbeliever – we are all one. When we recognize and discipline our thoughts, our feelings and our acts in harmony with the feeling of universality, one mankind of many colors, one god with many names, then we are [within] sight of the city of God.

“Earth shall be fair, and all her people one;
Nor till that hour shall God’s whole will be done.
Now, even now, once more from earth to sky,
Peals forth in joy man’s old undaunted cry --
Earth shall be fair, and all her people one.” (Clifford Bax, #342, HS...)

That’s Universalism and that’s the big idea.

Religion With Reservations

January 12, 1956
Akron

During certain busy seasons if you wish to travel by air, you will not get far or fast unless you have reservations. Religion is just the opposite. The more reservations you hold, the shorter spiritual distance you will travel. You may not get off the ground.

Consider that story-teller’s masterpiece, the vivid tale of Namaan the leper found in 2nd Kings (5). Elisha the Hebrew prophet is a miracle worker who because of his intercession with Yahweh is responsible for the miracle which transformed the leprous Syrian warrior to one whose flesh was “like that of a little child.”

This story is a reminder that there was no common belief among our religious ancestors that there was only one god. God was god of Israel only, to be worshipped only on the soil of Israel. The existence of other deities seemed to be taken for granted. Each nation had its particular god whose national supremacy was accepted. Thus, the Syrian Namaan, standing on the Israeli soil which had been carted to him, becomes a convert to Israel.

But, says Namaan, “when I go into the house of the god of another nation, Rimmon, there I will bow the knee.”

Namaan accepted his new religion with reservations. He worshipped Yahweh, but still bowed knee in the house of Rimmon. Whether Namaan ever came to regret this safety-first policy, history does not disclose. There is some relevance, however, in considering the consequences of religions with reservations.

The early Christian communities were organized by Peter, Paul and the others. Considerable courage was infused as well as the beliefs about Jesus. The early Christians soon found their deep religious convictions tested in at least two ways.

Christianity was not very old when rival sects began to preach and teach strange variations of the Christian scheme of redemption. Although some of the cultish ideas permeated Christian doctrines, by and large Pauline Christianity (which is not the religion of Jesus) triumphed over the philosophical movements known as Gnosticism.

The primitive Christian communities also encountered the occasional, but ferocious persecutions of the Roman Caesars. The martyrs could have survived if they made one small concession. They would have maintained their Christian gatherings if they had just been willing to scatter incense on the imperial chafing dish and mutter a prayer to a self-deified Caesar. A mental reservation could have been made as the lips chattered the invocation. But these courageous religious radicals would not do this. They were torn by beasts in the arena and crucified on flaming, oil-soaked crosses, but would not divide their allegiance to the one god they believed revealed in Jesus.

Their intellectual rivals, the Gnostics, had no such single-mindedness. Basilides, a leading Gnostic philosopher, said that “it was permitted to throw incense on a pagan chafing dish and mutter a prayer to Caesar with a mental reservation.” Historian J. H. Allen remarks that this reservation might have preserved Basilides’ life, but the “doom of Gnosticism was sealed.” A religion with reservations did not persist, -- and will not now.

Western civilization generally apprehends the dimension of time as linear, rather than circular. While history does not repeat itself, there are some startling similarities. Proposing what may be some modern parallels of bowing the knee in the House of Rimmon or throwing incense on Caesar’s chafing-dish, I would like to ask the question, “If our religion is valid, what shall we do to make it persist?”

In our country religion supposedly is in the midst of its most influential and prosperous period. Church building construction has reached record levels with the end not in sight. It is popular to be pious. Billy Graham drew a larger crowd to Yankee Stadium than Casey Stengel and his Yankees ever did.

But serious questions are being asked. The December, 1957 COSMOPOLITAN carries a fascinating article by T.F. James. Consider just one or two of many salient comparisons made in this feature. These are provocative in considering to what extent Americans are the most religious people in the world, -- with the most reservations.

Four-fifths of Americans questioned in one survey said they believed the Bible to be the revealed word of God, but only 35% could name the four gospels, and 56% could not even name one. In another survey it was discovered that 80% believed that Christ is God, but when asked to rate the one hundred most significant events in history, the birth of Christ came fourteenth, tied with the discovery of the x-ray and the flight of the Wright brothers at Kittyhawk, NC. “Probably the most significant was a poll in which Americans were asked whether they felt religion was ‘very important.” A vast majority said it was. Then they were asked, ‘Would you say that your religious beliefs have any effect on your ideas on politics and business?’ Fifty-four percent said, ‘No.’” This prevailing sentiment of religion with reservations cuts across the boundaries of all major religious bodies, Protestant, Jew, Catholic. The statistics apply to all.

Not only may the so-called religious boom be a bubble made fragile by reservations, but also religious aberrations are growing rapidly. Usually these strange cults which have such wide appeal can be lumped together as “cults of re-assurance.” Mr. James tells us of the 1814 representatives of such positive thinking movements as Religious Science, Divine Science, Church of Understanding, and Science of Mind, who gathered in Washington to exchange happy thoughts and annihilate negative ideas. Among their activities was the Telegraphic Word Prayer game, in which players used the initials of a negative statement to make a positive one. For instance, “My Life is Miserable Since John Left Me” became “Much Love is Mine so Joy Leads to Miracle.” (I’ll take Scrabble.)

To consider another shibboleth of our times, to my way of thinking, it is either deceitful or immature to ring changes on the “dangers of materialism.” Homes, food, heat, medicine, hospitals and hymnbooks are “material” things. But in America we have stimulated what seems to be a never-ending appetite for luxury goods and shiny gadgets which are far more vital to many people than religion. Bernard Baruch says that if America ever crashes, it will be in two-tone convertibles.

Jack Mabley, columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal, devoted a column to our voracious appetite for luxury goods. Quoting Vance Packard, author of The Hidden Persuaders (which should be required reading for liberals), Mabley called attention to such facts as these: Ten Billion advertising dollars are spent each year to persuade us to buy certain products. We are brain-washed to feel dissatisfied with a year-old car or three-year old appliance. An analysis of products advertised nationally indicates (says Mabley) that “by any standard of measurement we are becoming obsessed with material things. No one person or agency is to blame, but certainly we are in critical need of a re-examination of our objectives. American kids are growing up with their goal in life as security, a home, a car, hi-fi set, out-door barbecue. Russian kids want to become scientists. Six times as many Mexican kids as Americans have a life ambition of service to their nation.”

Now to a comfort-loving fellow like I, there is nothing wrong with good automobiles, charcoal grills, and suburban living. However, the concern arises when there looms the possibility that we are willing to cast aside the true values of our Judeo-Christian civilization as it evolved toward democratic living and ideals.

Prime Minister Nehru said a few days ago, “The United States and Soviet Union are today more like each other than any two countries... the similarity is based on the faith the people of these two countries have in power, science, and technology. They both bow down to the machine.”

If Prime Minister Nehru speaks with wisdom and insight, then indeed the religious boom which should exalt the great values of individual freedom, self-sacrifice, and spiritual dedication is held with reservations indeed.

Obsession with luxury gadgets may be only a symptom of an anti-religious infection which may have a stronger clutch on us than we think. George Bernard Shaw once said, “We do not judge a man by the confession of his lips; but we judge him by the assumptions upon which he habitually acts.”

There is some evidence that there are basic changes occurring in America’s character. Such valuable studies as David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd and William H. Whyte Jr.’s The Organization Man point to trends which are moulding us in the likeness of Basilides and his Gnostics, rather than in the spirit of the early Christians who held their religion without reservation.

There are noticeable differences in the present generation of college students, for example. All sociological studies have limitations, but at least they represent some wide-spread attitudes. A profile constructed of college students indicates that they are “gloriously contented,” “unabashedly selfish,” “they cheerfully expect to conform to the status quo.” Although these students assert that they value loyalty, honesty, and sincerity, it is generally found that systematic academic cheating is common. The average student feels no political responsibility. In fact he is politically illiterate. They express a “need for religion,” but “do not expect this religion to guide and govern decision in the secular world.”

These students are symptomatic of much of the whole adult American world. We are directed by the trends of the times. We seek to place moral foundations under “group harmony” even at the expense of freedom, integrity, and individuality. A common example is the TV commandment which retains or cancels programs because of popularity only, without reference, generally, to talent or cultural contribution. Evidence can be found where you live to support the frightening fact that the real Protestant ethic of fellowship with freedom is in danger of extinction.

We no longer get excited over grave moral issues. We look upon world affairs as though the issues of our day were a boring stage presentation, rather than realizing that Dulles, Sputnik, U.N., atomic fallout, and all the other provocative elements in life today are centering in on our lives, our children and the continued existence of our society which outwardly cherishes the great religious values.

One of Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln stories seems appropriate. Lincoln told about the pioneer wife who, seeing her husband wrestling with a bear, shouted, “Go to it husband. Go to it, bear.” Her neutrality indicated reservations in her scheme of family values.

What can we do about it? We could exhort self-righteously, -- not an agreeable solution. We could say, “Oh, the pity of it all,” and go on being fat and happy. I, for one, could not honestly say that I yearn either to be torn by wild beasts in a Roman arena or live without modern plumbing. Yet, I believe that it is possible to cherish a religion without having along with it the kind of reservations which will seal its doom as Gnosticism was doomed. Alfred North Whitehead said, “to give up solving problems because they are difficult, is to give up thinking.”

Liberal religion is one religion, at least, to which we can yield devotion.

We prize individual contributions to human knowledge and accept individual interpretations of human experience. The effort is to gather loyalty to religious values which have been critically examined, rather than those which have acquired current popular acceptance. Neither unanimity nor even general agreement are absolute goals.

Our whole civilization needs to reach a level of maturity where individual creativity accepts wide diversity. On the occasion of the recent royal visit to these shores, another minister quoted the Duke of Edinboro [sic] as saying in Ottawa, “I don’t pretend to understand the stresses and strains, the pushes and pulls which people living in industrial communities have to put up with, but I know one thing. Man has got to remain in charge of the industrial monster he is building.”

The best part of the Hebrew-Christian religious heritage is a challenge to high human causes. To keep that precious heritage as a dynamic rhythm in our lives, there must be a continued re-assertion of its most radical insistence: Individual rights enfolded in a moral, spiritual community where the spirit of Jesus will prevail, rather than doctrines about him. (Ethical passion, not continuous comfortable compromise)

To achieve this we will not be able to keep to the morally neutral position of John Bunyan’s Mr. By-Ends who “never went against the wind and tide and was most zealous when religion goes in silver slippers (and) people applaud.”

History presents some stern disciplines if we but read its pages. There was one a great nation. The whole world talked about the wonders of its luxury, the brilliance of its jewels, the fashion and quality of the clothing. This nation was the most powerful of the world, with only one serious rival – a disciplined nation of strength and power. These luxury items became more frequent as the generations passed. This was a nation, which because of its opportunities and outreach, had created a melting pot of different people. Strikingly enough, this nation for several hundred years had been members of a great religion which worshipped one god.

As wealth, magnificence and power increased, poorer government became the rule. Successive leadership became weaker and more deluded. There came a time, the historian tells us, that this remarkable and glorious empire of Persia “choked on its own luxury, - an empire which already believed in one god, but did not survive long enough to witness the birth of Jesus. (Judgment of God???)

The future of our world lies in realm of the unknown future. To the extent, however that each of us maintains our highest religious convictions without reservations, we will be living at our best and for the best.

There's No Business Like Church Business

July 1, 1956
Bridgeport

This title is chosen because of [the] present celebration of the annual Barnum Festival. What with the great Ballyhoo Show last night, the coming Parade of Champions and great Street parade, with the auspicious beginning of the second year of Shakespearean Theatre at Stratford on Housatonic, we are made conscious these days of the glitter, fascination and entertainment of show business. There's no business like it, and most of us rejoice that the great performers, actors, directors and producers are determined to go on with it. '

P.T. Barnum lived long before Irving Berlin wrote the song that Ethel Merman and others have made part of our American culture. Barnum, too, believed there was no business like show business.

Barnum also believed there was no business like church business. He gave his money, his time and his public allegiance to the Universalist Church. He was convinced enough of the merit of the message of Universalism that he was willing to be known publicly as a religious liberal. Once, you will recall he went to jail because he was a Universalists and Universalists were not permitted to testify.

Barnum was interested enough in his church to write and publish his reasons for being a Universalist. You might not agree with his arguments; some of his testimony has become dated by later scholarship. But in its day it was trenchant reasoning. Much is still valid. But, not many laypeople are willing to take the time to write out the reasons why they are Universalists. Isn't it true, if you will look back on the actions of people, do not many of them act as though the Church was not the "Greatest Show on Earth" but the "Greatest Bore on Earth."

Many times a person approaching another member to get a task done for the church, is almost unbelievably shy; seemingly quite reluctant to ask for something for his church. We are quite apologetic for our church at times. Why? Have we lost our nerve? Has religion lost its zest? Is organized religion merely an outworn relic, with little relevance for the needs of people today? Are we afraid to make the church really count in our lives because of the manner in which we might alter our loyalties and our allotments of time, money, and devotion?

It was with such questions as the foregoing in mind that I attempted to draw some tentative conclusions as to why I happen to believe there is no business like church business. There are negative as well as positive claims which may be lodged against the church.

There is merit in removing the rose-colored glasses often enough so that the church may be seen in the role of shabby conniver as well as in the spotless role of the angel. For the church and churches, all forms of organized religion is subject to constant decay. Unless the decay is eradicated. Unless new shoots are constantly taking root so that worn-out growth can again become part of the dust of the earth, then the church will no longer serve mankind well.

So first I would ask you to consider that there is no business like church business for being a shelter for hypocrisy as well as honesty. On many occasions this was the sore spot that Jesus struck with rigorous frankness. Think back of the conversations you have had with persons who wanted no part of any church. Is it not so that the most common criticism by these no-church goers, is that they believe there are too many hypocrites in the church.

Any honest reading of the history of the church discloses without any shadow of a doubt that there has been an alternation of the best and the worst in the rise, growth, and decay of the formal religions of the world.

There are examples on almost every page of history. Thousands of Huguenots slaughtered in a single day in the name of the one "true" church. Thousands of lives made more wholesome, cleaner, ---saved from sordid lives or ugly death by the spirit of human reform nurtured at least in part by the great evangelical movements of the 19th century.

When one considers the inquisition, the acid and unlovely bigotry which has characterized many sections of both Protestantism and Catholicism within Christianity, the failure of organized religion to make much of a dent in war, the hardness of heart which is the vain character trait of many persons who loudly proclaim the virtues of a particular religion, then we are tempted to affirm that evil is most foul when it infiltrates the life of religion.

But when one considers the martyrs, the service to those in need, beginning with the elders of the primitive Xn church, continuing down through the religious orders which were founded to serve humanity in its needs, the orphanages, hospitals, and educational institutions inspired, organized, founded and nurtured by the countless branches of all forms of religion, we have to affirm to that good is never better than when discovered in the workings of churches.

All churches proclaim one way or another the "liberty of the Christian man." But also when one church becomes by far the strongest in a nation, historically that church begins to use force to have its own way, rather than persuasion. This is true not only of Roman Catholicism, but many branches of Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as the great religion of Islam. They forget the quotation Mr. Jackson uses, "a man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."

There is no business like church business for irony. One could almost define Christianity as the worship of dead radicals. Jesus, Paul, John, the Church Fathers, Luther, Calvin, and in our liberal traditions, Murray, Ballou, Channing, and Parker. We may not worship their memories, but we do hold them in high favor, and quote their lives and sermons with approval. Yet, ironically enough, most churches will persecute their live radicals.

One of the most feared slanders in the church today, is the charge that some of the ministers and lament are atheists. It is a loosely used word which usually means that the one called the name doesn't believe in the god of the one who makes the label. Yet, in the beginning, the early Christians were called Atheists, persons who believed in a detestable superstition.

There's no business like church business. The church proclaims itself to be an institution of God. All churches do one way or another. Yet the worst mistake any church can make, whether it calls itself "the true Church," is to place itself beyond human criticism.

There's no business like church business and the greatest mistake you can make is to see only one side of its picture, either good or bad. For just as in the buying and selling of antique furniture to be used in a home today, you must see both sides of the picture, whether the claims are true or false, whether the facts are as they state, and what use it is today.

Yet is isn't a true picture to portray the church only as an institution in which the alternating currents of good and evil render about equal power. For in addition, there's no business like church business to help people see themselves who are religious more for what they can give, rather than what they can get. This is not to say that persons do not find some needs satisfied in the worship and work of the church. It would be naive to think that persons would continue to attend and support churches if they got nothing. But, the highest rewards of the church offers results from the opportunities of giving.

While many persons do get peace of mind, via the "buck up old boy philosophy, life isn't so bad after all," there are also those and their name has been legion in the past who acquire serenity, even though life is bad and difficult, by trusting that the universe is ultimately biased toward what is good for life. There's no business like church business for acquiring an honest as well as reverence inner balance, if you will give your trust.

There's no business like church business either for defining life in terms of what you can give others. That was the way Jesus defined religion. Micah of a more ancient day said, do just, love march (an outgoing attitude) and walk humbly with thy God.

When the church gets beneath ceremonies, whether simple or ornate, there's no business like it for telling us humans that we need religion because of what we can give. This is not because we will be automatically rewarded, but rather the act or intention of giving without hope of reward, is the essence of getting to know God.

Lastly I would say that there's no business like church business for carrying in its movement the values which human beings believe to be of ultimate importance. With all its faults and fumbles, the church symbolizes what we have faith is the highest. Whatever our ideas of deity may be, the highest ones we place in the religion of our allegiance. When the events and feelings of life become disconnected, confused, doubtful, we find in the church the institution which expresses the myths and principles which we believe to be highest and of ultimate importance. The human spirit; the continuing endurance of human life experience, forgiveness, mercy, love, truth, and beauty.

There's no business like church business. In our modern day we have not yet found the architecture and the liturgy and symbolism which the Gothic cathedral, the mass and the cross, and vestments did for Medieval man.

But the human spirit will not be denied. When we too recognize that the religious institution must be the vehicle for our most valuable hopes and dreams, then we will seek to make it as significant for us as the RC was for Francis; Judaism for Isaiah; the wandering brotherhoods for Buddha.

The Right Answer to the Wrong Questions

April 29, 1956
Bridgeport

There is little difficult in getting the right answer to some questions. If some excited person asks you with some heat, "Do you believe in the American way of life?" The answer is easy, "Of course I believe in the American Way of Life."

In a period when atheism seems to be more the sure indication of sinister activities, rather than a philosophical argument, the right answer to the query, "Do you believe in God?" is, of course, "Yes I believe in God."

When school taxes are high, and tempers are higher, we all know that it is best to advance a comforting "no" when an angry man asks, "Do you believe we need all these expensive frills in the school system?"

Has there not been an occasion when a finger has been pointed at you, accompanied by the rhetorical question, "Don't you believe the labor unions are getting too fresh?" You know that you are called upon either to look sympathetic or grunt acquiescence.

In a year such as this one, where we Americans are caught up in the excitement of Presidential nominations and elections, there is presented an excellent opportunity to observe dialogue similar to the foregoing.

All candidates are going to avow their undying support of motherhood and their unrelenting opposition to sin. The depth of emotion exhibited by the nominees as they speak of the American Boy or the hard-pressed farmer will be matched only by non-committal vagueness which envelops the course of action recommended. As a matter of fact, I for one, do not need he assurances of President Eisenhower, and the democratic nominees, whoever he may turn out to be, about brotherhood and the equal rights of all Americans. I am pretty well convinced by now that most all our national leaders will make eloquent appeals for brotherhood and gradualism and will condemn sin and revolution. What I do hope the nominees will make clear is that they believe the responsibility of the executive department of the government is in supporting the decisions of the judicial branch of the government, the Supreme Court. Are we a federal republic or a confederacy?

This example from our political life is by way of illustrating that the wrong questions may bring the right answers, but with no accompanying clarification of issues and no growth in understanding.

Margaret Isherwood in a rather distinguished little book on religion, The Heart of the Matter, remarks (p. 41) "In place of, 'do you believe?', a more apt criterion of salvation in the future will be: 'Are you trying to learn and deepen your understanding? Are you responding with a positive attitude toward the challenge of life? Are you faithfully and continuously going forward toward such glimmerings of Light as you are capable of seeing? Are you living so that here and now, in this particular phase of your being, you can begin to comprehend the meaning of eternal life?'"

Many of the questions to which we can give the easy, "right" answers, are the wrong questions because there is no real decision involved.

Most of us would readily answer, "yes" to the questions about God and the American Way of Life. But the questions are wrong. When a person is deeply concerned about whether you or I "believe in God," the question should not be one requiring a simple, unthinking affirmation, but rather, the questions should be, "What kind of God do you believe in? How does this God make himself known to persons; and how does he demonstrate his power and love in the world we experience as human beings?"

Who would be silly enough to say that he disbelieved in the American Way of Life? But, what is the American Way of Life? As it appears in the Green Mountains of Vermont? In the teeming cosmopolitanism of Chicago? The rocky shores of [the] New England of Puritan and liberal tradition? Last week, a 79 year old Negro minister was killed in Mississippi by a group of drunken white men. The drunks were careening down the road in an automobile and one of them threw a large stone at this elderly clergyman, killing him. The white sheriff, after investigating the affair, remarked (to the world) that the drunks, "were just pranking." Is that the American Way of Life? In New York City, in some areas of tension, many teachers live amidst a reign of terror, as juveniles, seemingly

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... concerned with ethics. He wrote many passages which indicated a strong interest and conviction in manners, morals, and right action. Yet his emphasis was theological. You must believe in Christ who is the New Adam who supersedes the old law.

James, seems more thoroughly Jewish than many others of the New Testament, particularly because of his emphasis on the practical and non-speculative. James asks the followers of Jesus, "What does it mean to have faith?" James sharply challenges the right, but easy answer to the wrong question. He says, "Thou believest that God is one, the demons also believe." James says several times in the 2nd chapter, "faith without works is dead." James tries to be specific (Moffatt trans):"Suppose some brother or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food, if any of you tells them, 'Depart in peace, get warm, get food, without supplying their bodily needs, what use is that? So faith, unless it has deeds, in itself is dead."

If James were living today, he would reprove us constantly: preacher and parishioners; republicans and democrats; one worlders and two worlders. If we may judge from his letter to his fellow religionists, he would say to us, "Let's not stop with glittering generalities. Let's get beneath the shiny veneer. Let's see if there is anything we can do."

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... is breaking through the iron censorship curtain of the communist dictatorship.

Does it not them come as somewhat of a mild shock when the charge is made seriously that our Federal State and local governments are interfering with freedom of the press? This is neither a propaganda blast of the Daily Worker, nor the irresponsible attack of an eccentric. On the bulletin board you will find posted the NY Times story quoting Richard Slocum, President of the American Newspaper Association, and Vice President of the Philadelphia Bulletin, charg[ing] that officials were withholding information the public was entitled to have.

(Incidentally, there is nothing more relevant to the maintenance of the free church, than freedom of communication.)

Is it not true that Socrates acquired his just reputation for wisdom by his ability to ask relevant questions?

Secondly, it is not enough to signify, "I believe." There is the need to respond positively to life. There is a universal quality in the human venture in that everyone of us, sooner or later, usually sooner, will be confronted with situations involving tragedy, extreme frustration and defeat. The manner in which we meet extreme difficulty involves belief, of course. But the belief must be accompanied by some sort of action. "Faith without works is dead."

Anne Magnani, the fiery Italian actress, recently honored by the "Oscar" for the best acting performance, is dedicated to her profession. It is said that one of her strong motivations is to ensure that her teenage son, crippled by polio, will be assured of financial security and permanent care. She remarked recently, "You ask me if art is important? I say yes. More than anything in life, except I'd give it all up if my son could have his legs to walk again."

I know little about this famous actress except that she has encountered the bitterness of unhappy marriage, and the tragedy of the crippling illness that befell her son. However she may phrase her beliefs about life, she ... positively, courageously.

It seems to me also that we will be going forward to "such light as we are capable of" by deeper probing of the easily accepted generalizations.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, remarked with his facility for the striking phrase, "goodness must have an edge to it." Among my own character failings is a tendency at times to hesitate to pursue with complete persistence, some of the actions and positions demanded by my ethical convictions. This failing is because of a reluctance to offend people who might disagree with me. Like many of you, I do not enjoy the prospect of turning friendship into hostility. There are many times when Ralph Waldo Emerson's words apply to me -- my goodness does not have enough edge to it. Margaret Wilkinson in a poem conveys something of this same feeling:

"I never cut my neighbor's throat,

My neighbors gold I never stole,

I never spoiled his house and land,

But God have mercy on my soul.

For I am haunted night and day,

By all the deeds I have not done;

O unattempted loveliness,

O costly victories never won."

Let me testify in conclusion, that neither this matter of inquiry, of questioning, of analysis, is the suppressed meaning of the New Testament. I use the word "suppressed" because so much of the preaching and teaching of the Christian centers on the necessity of "belief."

Yet if you read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you will note that the great word is not the word "believe," but rather, "Kingdom." How does the Kingdom come? There are different points of view expressed, but the main ones seem to be repentance, search, growth. "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." The kingdom comes by searching -- the widow searching for the lost coin. The kingdom comes by growth -- the mustard seed which becomes the large tree. The kingdom comes by patience, -- not all the seed falls on fertile ground. The kingdom comes by persistence - the woman crying at midnight.

This gospel of John, different in so many respects, does not advance the doctrine of belief, alone. When one reads John, the great word that leaps out through the symbolic language and lovely legends is "life." Life more abundant, -- a happy wedding at Cana, a Samaritan woman who finds in life the universality and moral character of God; a call-girl of that ancient time finds redemption and purpose -- new life. The transformations happened because of inquiry, action, commitment.

It strikes me again and again that Jesus taught something like Socrates, -- not by giving answers to what frequently were wrong questions, - but rather by the device we need today -- in religion, politics and education, -- the asking of the right questions so that we will think, inquire, acquire convictions, and act.

St. Peter Don't You Call Me

January 22, 1956
Bridgeport

With epic style, the seventh verse [of the second verse] of the first chapter of Genesis offers this superb symbolic explanation of the human creation: "And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

For some months it has been difficult to listen to the radio for any length of time without hearing the doleful protesting of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing "Sixteen Tons."

"You load sixteen tons and what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter, don't you call me, cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store.

Some people say a man is made out of mud

A poor man's made out of muscle and blood

Muscle and blood and skin and bones

A mind that's weak and a back that's strong.

I was born one mornin' when the sun din't shine

I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine

I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal

And the straw-boss said, "Well-a bless my soul."

Why has such a sad song captured such wide popularity in the popular music area? The words speak of not only "blood, sweat and tears," but complete despair also. This song is somewhat reminiscent of a passage in the 142 psalm which has been called the saddest sentence in the Bible, "And no man cared for my soul."

The hopeless situation of the debt-ridden miner also recalls the plight of Job. In lines of magnificent poetry, Job cries out against the universe in much the same desperate protest of "Sixteen Tons." The glum prayer of the folk song "St. Peter don't you call me, cause I can't go," ought to give us a rather powerful nudge toward examining our values.

Therefore I would like to tell you why this song is a mental springboard for that which matters most.

Most of us have been relatively well-off financially. Some of us have been poor; but few of us have experienced the grinding poverty that drains the physical strength from the body, moral stamina from the spirit and the light of hope from the eyes of a person.

The "company store" is a vanishing institution in the United States. There was a time when it was the god of destiny for the miner, the mill-hand or the worker in a saw-mill village. In the industrial revolution, less attention was paid to the well-being of workers than to the opportunity to produce cheaply for profitable markets. The company store enabled the worker to run up bills for food, clothes, liquor, with the amounts being deducted from his pitifully small wages. In many cases the company not only had cheap labor, but also profited additionally, in a handsome way through a monopoly of consumer goods in the company-owned village. As the worker found it difficult, if not impossible, to buy enough food and clothes to provide a survival basis for a living for his family, many times a large one, the historical result was that he was constantly in debt to the company, with the principal increasing monthly. Thus, although the 14th amendment took the leg-chains from the ankles of slaves, and the whips from the hand of the overseers, many thousands of Americans were virtually wage slaves. They were powerless to make demands for decent living because, if the company shut off credit, the family would starve. No public welfare existed. Social consciousness had not grown enough a few years back to create a strong public opinion against permitting anyone to die of hunger, or forced to live in desperation.

Then the amazing expansion of American production: the gradual enlightenment of treatment of the working man through the benefits of education, labor unions and an increasingly humane employing group, has made the slave to the company store a tradition that survives largely in economic histories, folk-stories and folk-songs.

The modern song-hit, "sixteen tons" has much of the flavor of the old-time working class folk song.

The lyrics are of fascinating interest to a Universalist in religion because of what is said about man and God. All the sorrow of unceasing drudgery; all the indignity of being regarded merely as a mass of "muscle and blood" -- useful only to get sixteen tons of coal out of #9 shaft; all the despair which means that even God isn't powerful enough to break this low-rating of humanity, is embodied in the emotional tone of the melody, as well as the lyrics.

There are still company stores in the nation, I suppose. Many coal-towns still have them; some agricultural and lumber villages; perhaps many textile towns still are dominated by the company-owned or controlled store, which deliberate or accidentally, maintains economic power through control of the necessities of life. But the company stores are a fading remnant of a once dominantly-private industrialism.

The increasing certainty that labor and management are going to help each other for the benefit of all is a symptom of the times, in spite of such spectacular strikes as Westinghouse.

The real impact of this sad folk-song comes not from what it says or does not say about labor-management relations. Rather it is that we should ask ourselves this question. To whom do we owe our soul? The singer owed his soul to the "company store." Because we trade where we please, does that mean we are free souls?

The author of the song, Merle Travis, and the singer, Tennessee Ernie Ford, were wondering why more than a million Americans had bought this record about a man who didn't even have the freedom to die in peace. After talking one of them commented that the popularity of the song may be because "everybody owed most of their money to some sort of company store." We are at a high level of credit in this country, enough to worry some of the most learned of economic advisers. For example, in 1955 at this time, the average amount owed on new automobiles was $2000 with 24 payments remaining. Today the average amount owed is $2200, with more than 30 months owing. Haven't you heard a friend say, "I don't own a car, a car owns me", or, "I don't own a house, a house owns me" ? The matter, however, is more than the sum of our debts.

One of the most fallacious of wrong ideas that captures the mind, and destroys the perspective of the naive person, is to believe that one is a free soul. Now and again we encounter a person in life or literature who proclaims himself a "free soul." This is unadulterated nonsense. To live is to be limited.

We do owe our souls to a company store in the sense that our souls are mortgaged somewhere or to someone. We cannot live in a vacuum. Ahab was free of the ties of Nantucket and New Bedford but he was mortgaged to his obsession to capture and destroy Moby Dick, the great white whale. Judas was not captive in the company of Jesus, but he mortgaged himself for thirty pieces of silver. Was he a "free soul?"

Sometimes because our life is trivial, we acquire the erroneous notion that we are free. That is a universal act of all human beings. The important question is who holds the mortgage? Is it your work? If you are a slave to a desk, a bench, or a mop, then your soul is anchored there too.

You mortgage your soul with the way you dispose of money, do you not? Jesus remarked with truth, universal in place and time, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." No one, whether income is 1 or 100 thousand dollars a year, suffers from having a lack of advice on how to spend his money. There are such unlimited opportunities for spending money legally, that most of the laws do not bother the buyer who purchases illegally, only the seller. You can spend your money on food, liquor, automobiles, houses, yachts, airplanes, wine, women, and song. And if you provide the necessities of life for those legally dependent on you, the community at large is not going to criticize you excessively. You can spend $1000 at night clubs or the race track in a month, and give $10 to the church, and few church officials will have the nerve to chide you for your choice of values. You're free to do that, but you owe your soul to the night-club and race-track in that degree. A person can maintain a certain equality between the life of transportation and the life of intellect by buying one new car and one new book each year. He's free -- but do not be deceived, another mortgage has been placed upon the soul. This is not to defend one purchase or attack the other. There is a judgment operating independently of what any person thinks of another's purchases.

You mortgage your soul with your devotion, too. What is your real allegiance? Your home? Your political party? Your occupation? Your appetite for food or drink? Your drive for security, or for sensual satisfaction? What are the events that thrill you with warm gratification, or frighten you with quaking terror; or stimulate you to effort which resists the desire to take one's ease? Single those out, and that is where you owe your soul.

[handwritten insert: Vincent Van Gogh - prisoner of color= Thos ____ Javert]

You may well believe you are free, because you are not an excessive spendthrift, notorious playboy or religious fanatic. You may feel comforted [to have no] magnificent or dangerous obsession. This may be a hazardous complacency for it may mean, merely that you owe your soul to a number of insignificant mortgage-holders; you may be the prisoner of trivia. Do not all of us cry out at times with the same words, "I can't call my soul my own."

The people of the little Methodist church I once served used to love to sing the old hymn which began, "make me a captive, Lord, and then I will be free." Just because you must place a mortgage does not mean that you are compelled to place it in wrongness or insignificance. I believe that was what the old hymn was saying in evangelical, symbolic language. Our souls are going to be mortgaged somewhere; why not to something great and good?

David Reisman in his book, The Lonely Crowd, believes that most of us are one of three different personality types. We are tradition directed, we are inner-directed or we are other-directed. A tradition directed person, usually found in uncivilized cultures, does everything the way it was done before. He always knows how to act, -- the way his parents acted. Ingenuity and creativeness are never called on. Ways of acting and thinking are fixed by tradition.

The inner-directed person operates the way he does because he is unusually aware of his conscience. He responds to that inner direction which was implanted by his elders at an early date. One teacher (Van Cleve Morris in Teachers College Record) describes the inner-directed who lives in terms of implanted attitudes such as "money talks," "a penny saved, is a penny earned," or "I wanna girl, just like the girl that married dear old Dad." "The inner-directed person has a psychological gyroscope."

The third person, now becoming most common in our modern world, is the other-directed person. This person has psychological radar, so to speak; he catches impulses from other persons as to how to act. When the other-directed person wants to know what house to buy, or what political ideas can be held without being "different," he looks to his human surroundings to discover what is approved. The power of advertising resides in the fact that there are so many other-directed persons. That is why the personal testimonials about soap and whiskey have such persuasive sales power.

Now this classification of Reisman is quite fascinating. The truth is that all of us are partially tradition-directed; we are partially inner-directed, and we are partially other-directed. Our soul is usually always in debt to the past, to the conscience and to the power of our surroundings to make us conform.

We can't be "free souls" in the unrestrained meaning of the word. But why not mortgage our souls, not to any and all tradition of the past, but to the best of the past?

The Hebrew-Christian ethical ideal, not unique in the world , but most powerful for us in our culture, points the way toward the best. There are unmistakable moral values held high for our choosing. The Hebrew prophets, particularly Jesus, said it best in sermon and parable. His question in the 36th and 37th verses of Mark demands answering: "for what doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his own life."

We are all inner-directed too, at least in a measure. We are the prisoners of conscience. That is why we must experience, in greater or lesser degrees, the feelings of guilt and anxiety. The determined morality of the New England conscience has its high values too. The best mortgage for one's soul is to place considerable dependence on that Puritan conscience, but not be its prisoner -- for that way too lies destruction and self-deceit.

Of course we are other-directed. Just think of how you are conscious of clothing styles. Few people rebel at the height of a hem or the addition or subtraction of apparatus and padding in clothing. We follow the crowd. But when we become the prisoner of the signals that come to us over our personality radar, then we become part of the faceless mob that is the jailer for our souls.

"St. Peter don't you call me because I can't go." We go when we're called, regardless. The days along the way will be significant & happier, we will accept the hours of enfolding dark with greater thankfulness for life itself, if we give the keeping of our souls to good causes, home, community, church, and personal happiness -- balancing our bonded lives with several good causes.

May this be realized too -- that all of our mortgages can be under the direction of a worthy purpose. The first mortgagor can be a great cause. "Make me a captive, and then I shall be free." We can give the keeping of our souls to the dominating passion for good-will, for Love in the world. Skeptical wise old Bertrand Russell, surely the last person to be guilty of sentimentality, pleaded for this. "The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing. It is love, or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty. Although you may never find happiness, you will never know the deep despair of those whose lives are aimless and void of purpose; for there is always something you can do to diminish the awful sum of human misery."

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."