World Religion: Fusion or Linkage?

January 19, 1964
Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World

VI WORLD RELIGION AND OUTREACH
13. WORLD RELIGION, Fusion or Linkage?

Would individuals have resources for greater inspiration and be directed to more effective social actions if all religions were fused into one? Or, do our best hopes for vital religion remain in the various religions as they are divided within great cultural traditions, while we seek linkage wherever there can be meeting in fellowship, learning and shared action?

In this concluding sermon in the series, "THE FREE CHURCH IN A CHANGING WORLD," I wish to elaborate on one of the concluding paragraphs in last week's sermon: "Religious boundaries are present; they are as real as the Damascus Gate and the contradictory theologies. Yet to raise our sights above the barriers requires us to be receptive and generous, with a continuing sympathy for the goals and means of faith, as well as proper rejection of the many statements of faith from which we might properly dissent."

People in this world are beginning to know each other better. We are acquiring, more understanding of the convictions and passions of the people of many lands. I was keenly aware of this the other night when I was one of a small group meeting with "Teen-Age Diplomats," sponsored by the American Field Service. There was a girl from Malaysia, a boy from Venezuela and a boy from Rochester who had been in Switzerland. I could condense their comments and reports and reports of other world-travelers, into a sentence: "There are not different peoples, there are only people with differences; the world is getting together."

This being so, and I believe it to be, should not the case be stated for one universal religion which will melt and fuse all the religions into one all-encompassing unifying faith? I cannot accept this idea of indistinguishable fusion, even if it were possible, which it is not. Fusion would have to be contrived and could not endure. Linkage is possible; linkage is needed.

Consider three observations: look at the times; look for the timely; look to the timeless.

First, look at our times where a strong tide of unity is eroding many of the old beach-heads of religious prejudice. The search for Christian unity has been a great inspirational force among the Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches of the world, with real progress achieved and more sweeping unification possible. You know the unifying effects of the short, but remarkable pontificate of Pope John XXIII. Paul VI, his successor, has not only visited Israel and met the Patriarch of Istanbul, but also there have been Catholic official observers to Protestant meetings and Protestant observers invited to the recent Vatican Council sessions. Twenty years ago, I would have questioned the sanity of anyone who might have suggested that the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association would be invited to attend a Vatican Council; and that he would accept the invitation. Yet those were facts of 1963.

The signs are manifold of united religion in our time, not only on the World scene, but also in Rochester. An inner-city ministry is developing which crosses denominational lines; a college chaplaincy of similar breadth has just been announced. The future of common goals seems promising.

In general it can be said that between persons who hold different faiths, encounters are no longer combat rings, where each tries to demolish the faith-claims of the other, or strenuously attempts conversion. Encounter is for understanding and the search for issues which permit a common front.

But, a plain look at our times stirs awareness that there are sharp conflicts and unresolved differences. Rather than list all the jagged edges of current argument in fields of religion and public education, religion and population control, and so on, let me use one illustration by telling you the story of "Buddha Day," as the story appeared in "Liberty" magazine, in the Nov-Dec. issue of 1963.

Last year in Hawaii, State Senator Kazuhiza Abe, started controversy when he introduced a bill in the State Senate which would amend the law which made Christmas and Good Friday paid holidays for state employees. In another bill, Senator Abe proposed that the 3th day of April, a Buddhist religious day known as Wesak, be a paid holiday for state employees. This became known as Buddha Day.

Immediately, there was uproar. Evangelist Billy Graham, who was in Hawaii recuperating from illness, said, "Christmas and Good Friday are among our greatest traditions; if we take away these days, we are taking away the basis of our life, our religion." Msgr. Kekumani, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese pronounced, "The State of Hawaii and the other forty-nine states ought to be amazed at the arrogance of those who insult God-fearing people by stamping out the traditional observances of the greatest Christian feasts of the year."

What the Senator was doing was not to stamp out anybody's religion. He said, "I had hoped that I was bringing the question of true religious freedom in Hawaii into focus." He was right, for Hawaii is a pluralistic state, even as we are a pluralistic nation. The issue there was resolved inconclusively by recognizing April 3 as "Buddha Day," but not as a paid holiday for state employees; Christmas and Good Friday are still paid holidays.

All the tides of unity can not sweep away the question this dispute illustrated – has a minority religious group the same rights as the dominant religious groups? I choose to be linked with those who stand for equal treatment in this area too.

Linkage requires that we look at our times and be conscious of issues and principles as well as tides of good feeling and unity.

Look for the timely. Professor Philip Phenix (INTELLIGIBLE RELIGION, p. 29), wrote, "The most elementary factor in all human experience is that every moment brings to birth a new world...the fact of change is perhaps the most fundamental human experience." Linkage is better than fusion because the varieties of religious organization and faiths provide continuing environment of greater receptivity to change, than would one big religion.

Historically, this can be demonstrated. The reforms instituted by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent occurred only after the Protestant Reformation had shaken the change-resistant medieval church.

Martin Luther was aware that religion must be timely. He wrote, "what is it to serve God and do his will? Nother else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our neighbor who needs our service, God in Heaven needs it not." quoted by McGiffert, PROTESTANT THOUGHT BEFORE KANT.)

But Martin Luther demonstrated also an insensitivity to change. By his own rigidity he helped fan to a hotter spark, numerous reform and revolutionary groups which splintered off from the mainstream of the Reformation. One might say that he believed his changes were timely; other people's changes, untimely.

On July 21, 1620, just before the Pilgrims embarked on the Mayflower to sail to America, their minister, John Robinson, who was not to go with them, gave them advice which is timely still: "I am very confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word.

"I bewail the condition of the reformed churches who are come to a period in religion and will go no further than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; for whatever part of God's will has been imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And the Calvinists as you see, stick where Calvin left them. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though Luther and Calvin were precious shining lights in their times, yet God did not reveal his whole will to them; I beseech you to remember your church covenant, at least that part of it whereby you promise and covenant with God and with one another to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to you...." (quoted, GREAT COMPANIONS, vol. 1, p.39)

There is another plain teaching of history which can be amply illustrated, that in different times and places, speaking to unlike problems, one religious group may speak in much more timely fashion than another. In the 9th and 11th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church spoke much more effectively to the scandals of feudal warfare than it later did to the resurgent nationalisms of the 16th and 17th centuries. Martin Luther was much better in the role of Reformer of church practices than in the role of reactionary to Peasants Wars. The Puritans made a much more wholesome contribution in their non-conformist stand in England, than in their oppression of Quakers and others in New England. So it would go. The opportunity for intolerance usually finds recruits ready to be mustered for organized fanaticism.

Thus in every age there seems a need for a religious group which will stand and say, "I will tolerate the man even though I utterly reject what he believes." This is always a timely principle. We need plurality of religions in order to insure that there always will be such defenders of people.

There is merit in a pluralistic framework for religions so that when one group refuses to go "further than the instruments of their own reformation," other movements may be receptive to "whatever light or truth shall be made known...."

Third, look to the timeless. Beyond the rhythms of change and transcending the limitations of time, religions have usually reached for the ineffable, creative force in which we live and move and have our being. Many persons have reported how they have been grasped by this mysterious spirit; but also they have found words inadequate to express the inner reality they experienced.

There is linkage between those sensitive souls who have known the religious experience, but there is no fusion. Isaiah knew the God of Israel in his mystic experience; the Hindu has the experience of Brahma; the Moslem encounters Allah; The Christian mystic, God in Christ or the Trinity. What is shared is the experience; there can be no fusion of the different interpretations by mystics of varied places, cultures, religions. A Moslem poet once had his words inscribed on the walls of the Mosque of Akbar in India (ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY, Grant, p. 81.)

"O God, in every temple I see people that seek Thee, and in every language I hear
people praise Thee!
Polytheism and Islam feel after Thee,
Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,'
If it be a mosque, people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a Christian Church,
people ring the bell from love of Thee.
Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.
But it is Thou whom I seek from temple to temple."

When we look to the timeless, we should be aware that fusion of externals would do nothing to advance our intimations of the deep mysteries of creation, perception, destruction. We are part of some larger whole; we would seek to know more of the mystery; we would engage linkage with all who are on the quest; but the burden and the glory is that only the individual in his inwardness can apprehend the source of all, as he looks to the timeless.

In summary, there was observed in Rochester this week, one of the great yearly uniting occasions for the clergy. Every year, Temple Br'th Kodesh sponsors a seminar for the clergy, inviting Roman Catholic priests, Protestant ministers and Jewish Rabbis to hear a nationally-known lecturer in the field of religion. The seminar always brings together more Protestant clergymen than gather on any other occasion. Rabbi Phil Bernstein takes just pride in that success. The increasing attendance and participation by Roman Catholic priests are additional indications that there is strength and fellowship in linkage, even when fusion is neither possible nor desirable. The lecturer this year, Dr. Samuel Sandmel, Provost of Hebrew Union Seminary and noted scholar, made the point perfectly, "it is a mighty cheap good-will that exists only in identity; real good-will is achieved when it exists amid differences."

The religions should be linked in action, where united effort attempts to master problems which beset human values in the social order. The religions should be separated when differences of thought, culture, tradition have created for each, areas where distinctions are both real and believed to be important.

An illustration from American history is instructive. The turbulent quest by the Republican party for the best candidate for nomination for President is not new. The contest in 1860, eventually won by Lincoln, was a political hurly-burly in which that brilliant, but eccentric Universalist editor, Horace Greeley, played an active role. Among the leading Eastern candidates was Senator William H. Seward, the distinguished upstate New Yorker, who might have had a better chance if there had not been a breach between himself and Greeley. In an effort to repair his friendship with Greeley, Seward wrote to a friend, (HORACE GREELEY, VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, William Harlan Hale, Harpers, p.208),

"I. know how hard it is for Greeley to bear with me. Only one thing in all this matter has given me any concern, namely that persons who don't like the Tribune nor love Greeley as I do – and who wish to undermine that great paper – seek by sympathies with me in a matter upon which I differ from him to excite prejudices between us. I regret this and it gives me anxiety. Though I never have pretended to agree with Greeley nor he with me in all things, yet I regard his paper as a great and reliable agency of this great revolution .... I have supposed that we should go on together while I continue differing where we must differ as friends, and so rather making the common cause stronger."

So it is with the religions of the world and the denominations and sects within the religions. There can be no pretense of common belief — the differences are too many and too marked. We will continue to differ; but we do have the power to "differ as friends" to the end that the common cause of the survival of the whole human family will flourish in ways ever more abundant, peaceful and self-determining.

The Reality of Boundaries

January 12, 1964
Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World

VI World Religion and Outreach
12. The Reality of Boundaries

Out of the many deep-reaching lines in Robert Frost's poem, '^Mending Walls," I put these two before you:

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out."

The existence of religious boundaries should be a constant invitation to examine what is being kept in and what is being kept out. The dramatic visit, a week ago, of Pope Paul VI to the sacred places in Jordan and Israel places in context some fascinating questions about the reality of boundaries, for he crossed boundaries of tradition, culture, geography and hostility. In so doing, he set in motion all sorts of speculation and discussion. I would like to speak of this pilgrimage, compare it with the journey of another man named Paul; review the boundary existing between Latin Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy; inquire about the nature of holy places; comment on the interesting boundary crossings made on the two journeys between church and state; and propose that the reality of boundaries is a central issue in the nature of the Universalism we profess.

About 1900 years ago, a young man of Jewish faith, Saul, who had been trained as a rabbi, took the Roman name of Paul, journeyed from Israel to Rome. The consequences of that man's life have been of immeasurable consequence for the religious life of the world ever since. About a week ago, an Italian man, Giovanni Batista Montini, who this year has taken the Roman pontifical name of Paul VI, journeyed from Rome to Israel. The results of this journey may not yet be evaluated firmly, but the implications are considerable.

In both instances ancient and current, there were numerous departures from tradition. Paul VI was the first pope to travel by airplane; first pope to leave Italy in 150 years. Paul VI was the first Pope to meet the Patriarch of Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 500 years. Paul VI was the first Pope to visit the land where Jesus lived and died.

Some observers see the pilgrimage of Paul VI as an indication that the process of change in Vatican affairs, so notably begun by John XXIII, will be continued. Paul VI reconvened the Vatican Council, but in the sessions just adjourned, two key issues were not brought to a vote: The proposal to remove the onus of guilt from the Jews as a people for the death of Jesus; and the proposal to liberalize the official position on religious liberty. It is said that on both issues the conservative cardinals within the Vatican administration outmaneuvered a liberal majority which included most of the U.S. members of the hierarchy.

Perhaps the papal pilgrimage to Palestine, undertaken in an attitude of piety, was also an object lesson to the obstructionists that all roads do not lead to Rome, but that in modern times, religious leadership must head out on all roads to all places; that the 100 acres of the Vatican State are no longer the authentic boundary of all the centers of Roman Catholic influence.

The gesture of Paul VI in securing a meeting with Athenagoras, Patriarch in Istanbul of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is a movement across another boundary which has been deeply scarred with estrangement for 900 years. Disagreement between the Latin West and the Hellenistic East is nearly as ancient as the entire Christian movement. The churches in Asia Minor and North Africa have always challenged the claims for supremacy by Roman bishops. The climax of conflict occurred in 1054 a.d., when Pope Leo IX sent two emissaries to Constantinople, where they deposited on the high altar of St. Sofia's a writ excommunicating Patriarch Michael Cerularias and all his followers. The Crusades, which began 42 years after that, did more damage to Eastern Christians and their properties than to Moslems, culminating in the infamous sack of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, in the pontificate of Innocent III, one of the most powerful of popes.

There have been negotiations from time to time during these 900 years, usually broken off, with each side claiming bad faith. Prior to last week's gathering, no Pope and Patriarch of Constantinople had met since the Council of Florence in 1433. But the negotiations have been to no avail. Even when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, no Christian union was forthcoming.

While the meeting between Paul VI and Athenagoras is a striking event, we should not overestimate its meaning. There have been no negotiations for reunion; none are likely soon; but they have re-opened conversation where there has been silence for 500 years.

Next I would remind you that although the Pontiff of the Eternal City made a pilgrimage to the Holy City, the reality of religious boundaries cannot be limited by the dimensions of St. Peter's Cathedral or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The journey by this supreme Catholic bishop to the holy places – the stations of the cross, the waters of the Jordan, the grotto at Bethlehem, the scene of the crucifixion, the Mount of Olives — represents acts of veneration appropriate for his faith. But religion always breaks boundaries, for the whole earth is holy.

"Where is our holy land?
Within the human soul,
Wherever strong men truly seek
With character the goal."

You will recall the vivid illustration of this found in the Christian gospel of John, (4-19ff) where the Samaritan woman at the well, remembering that in her part of the country there was a temple on Mt. Gerazim, said to Jesus, "Sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father...God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

This seems a tradition true to what the attitude of Jesus must have been. He was saying that there was no special holiness attached to any place of worship. There is no reality to geographical boundaries for worship. Whether you step into a church, or enter the Damascus gate, or pick up the tools of one's job, worship and holiness depend on the spirit and earnestness one brings to the place, not to any infusion of holiness acquired by stepping across boundaries from the allegedly secular to the allegedly sacred.

"Where is our holy church?
Where race and class unite
As equal brothers in the search
For beauty, truth and right."

The pilgrimages of the two Pauls, one still news, the other buried in the traditions of the primitive Christian Church, stimulate point and counterpoint about Church and State. One can think of few places in the world where nationalistic feelings ran so powerfully and bitterly as the hatred and fear of Israel vis-a-vis Jordan and the other Arab states.

Some of the stories about news coverage of the Pope's trip demonstrate the pathetic depth of hostility. More than 1000 news and TV men covered the Pope's landing at Jordan's Ammon airport, but not one Israeli newspaperman was permitted to cross "no-man's land" to cover the story. After the fantastic entourage entered Israel, the Israeli government gave the correspondents sets of news releases in convenient black plastic covers. These brief covers had a small emblem of a Menorah on one cover. Knowing that this would ignite hostility in Jordan, when the crossing was made back to the Arab side, the correspondents pinned the little picture badges of King Hussein, which they had received in Jordan, over the Menorah emblem, thus preserving their brief covers and possibly, the peace.

Anyone with elementary knowledge of religions knows that in the encounter of world religions, the whole-hearted believer must reject all or some of the truth claims of others. Certainly this is true of the Roman Catholic, Moslem, and Jew, respectively. Yet this pious journey of a Roman Catholic Pope was greeted with tumultuous and warm welcome by both Moslems and Israeli. For once, because of sheer inability to cope with the press and TV coverage, the stringent rules for passage between Israel and Jordan were eased for foreign newsmen and other travelers connected with the papal journey. One can almost say that the sentimental journey of an official Roman Catholic – the supreme bishop of their bishops, created less of an impasse between two hostile states, at least for a few hours.

When we think of the first Paul, there is wide contrast. According to the Christian gospel, Paul was being persecuted by religious fanatics who had treated him violently and from whom he could not expect a fair deal. Paul, a Roman citizen by birth, was entitled to trial at Rome. So he appealed to the Roman State for protection and for legal rights. This was his reason for the hazardous voyage from the Holy Land to Rome.

This may be an unimportant observation, but the feelings between Israel and the Arab States, Pakistan and India, and others, provide us with ample evidence that nationalism is a quasi religion. Nationalism has all the appearances of religion, stirs the impassioned loyalties that religions once did. Perhaps it is an index of our time that those who worried about the Pope's visit, feared an incident or a plot to injure the Pope in order to provoke hostility between two fiercely nationalistic states. No one seemed to fear that the Pope was in any danger from a devout Moslem or a devout Jew. The hazards existed in the possibility of a fanatic nationalist, motivated similarly to Gandhi's assassin.

What a difference from the time of Moslem conquests or Christian crusades! When one considers how varieties of nationalistic spirit have almost everyone in the world in the tight grasp of patriotic emotion which can be led down almost any path, the need for a God, or human goals, bigger than any one nation is a painful necessity of our time.

This leads to the final point that I would make today that the whole magnificent visit should remind us that the reality of boundaries is basic to a relevant Universalism for our times. Three great faiths, Roman Catholicism, Judaism and Islam all have their roots in the ancient monotheism of Israel and Judah. When one surveys 2500 years, one knows that these three faiths, now clearly opposed in theology, dogma, faith and practice, share common rootage.

These three great world religions, and others as well, affirm that there is one God or that God is one, everywhere. The Christian does not say to the Moslem, and the Jew, "I have my Father God, revealed in Jesus Christ, you Moslems have Allah, and you Jews have Yahveh. These are three separate Gods." In the universe we have learned to experience, it would be incongruous to think of three separate Gods with three separate jurisdictions, like governors of neighboring states. That would be no more than the ancient, tribal, henotheistic beliefs, where each tribe had its deity, and none denied that other tribes had deities too. These were territorial gods, not one universal god. But today, I surmise that most people, who think of religion at all, would agree with the Hindu, Vivekananda, "the same light shines through all colors and in the heart of everything, the same truth reigns."

The idea of a Universal God was the driving force behind the Christian missionary movement. Because Christians believed that the true nature and will of God had been uniquely revealed to them, they were convinced that it was their religious duty to procure converts, even at the point of the sword. Christian Roman Catholics have spent unmeasured sums of money and the lives of a multitude of missionary priests in order to convert people to the "true" faith. Christian Protestants of many sectarian groupings sent missionaries, medicines, books and money so that "heathens" could learn the "true" religion of Protestantism; and the even more precisely "true" faith of the denomination which was financing the particular effort.

I shall speak more particularly of our attitudes toward motives and missions another time, but people of any faith are partialistic until they come to terms with the human reality that differing cultures, with different traditions express themselves in ways that may be mysterious to the outsider. No one can yet justify the closed mind until there has occurred a great deal more communication between peoples than has yet occurred. The explorer Steffansson in one of his arctic explorations, was traveling due north. After passing over the top of the world, he discovered he was traveling due south. But all the time he had not changed direction. The directions, north and south, were relative to the position of the expedition and the North Pole.

So with truth. One culture may seem to be traveling due north, while we are headed south, But, like Steffansson, it is quite possible that we are headed precisely in the same direction; that we have the same dreams; hold basically the same values; but the present limitations of communications prevent understanding.

In our liberal faith, we have cast our lot into the framework of truth-seeking, not truth claiming. It is the effort within this structure that produces religious meanings for us. We should feel a more important obligation to understand the implications of the universal religious hopes and fears of men everywhere.

What is important for us to apprehend, and we can learn from the strange encounter of last week-end, that irrespective of how other sects and denominations may deal with the truth-claims of other faiths, we have an obligation to maintain a generous receptivity to the faith of all we meet. This does not mean that we shall assure everyone that his belief is true and he has convinced us, when he has not. This does not mean that we shall turn our religious energies like a weather-cock in whatever direction the strongest winds of dogma may be exerted for the moment upon us. To be a universalist carries the obligation to make the effort to appreciate that there may be excellence in some aspect of every faith that man holds. We do well to commend that excellence and appreciate its contribution to the total human deposit of the meaning of truth. There are varieties of religious experience and practice; we have the opportunity to live with generous understanding of all the good hopes and sincere prayers of the human family.

You may recall the puzzling bit of scripture attributed to Jesus, "be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." This has always been a problem, for who can be perfect like God? Who among us has ever met a perfect man or woman? Who would make the most remote prediction that the perfect man could be found anywhere in any time? Paul Tillich has suggested that this verse lends itself to a slightly amended translation that might well direct our attention to the true nature of religious boundaries. This translation is, "be ye all-inclusive, even as your Father in Heaven is all-inclusive."

The religious boundaries are present; they are as real as the Damascus gate and the contradictory theologies. Yet to raise our sights above the barriers requires us to be receptive, and generous, with a continuing sympathy for the goals and means of faith, as well as the many statements of faith from which we might properly dissent.

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out."

The benediction is the one Pope Paul VI used to close his statement of greeting to the Moslem King Hussein of Jordan:

"May God grant our prayer and that of all men of good will, that living together in harmony and accord, they may help one another in love and justice, and attain to universal peace in true brotherhood."

Paradox - Theological Diversity and Ethical Unity

January 5, l964
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World
V Ethics and Social Action
11. Paradox - Theological Diversity and Ethical Unity

There are two enduring passages from the scriptures of our religious heritage which compress into minimum statements the maximum liberality we claim for our faith. The first verse is from our Hebrew roots, words of the prophet Micah, (6-8):
"...and what doth the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God."

The second verse is found in the Christian gospel of Matthew, (8/21), "Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

There have been no better expressions of our belief that theological diversity is of far greater value than theological unity contained in creedal form. Theological diversity is valued higher than creedal unity because right conduct, not right belief, has first priority.

Micah proclaimed, what doth the Lord require but to do justice and to love kindness — or, as sometimes translated, to be "steadfast in love" and walk humbly with your God. The basic requirements are plainly ethical. In other words, my religious obligation to my neighbors is not to persuade them that their beliefs are wrong and to leave the Presbyterian Church or the conservative Jewish congregation and become members of this Church. Should any person of whatever background indicate interest in our Church, of course we should explain, invite welcome participation in the membership and program of the Church. A Church needing increased membership as we do should never forget that 85% of people new to our churches, country-wide, come because they have heard by word of mouth what kind of a religious institution we represent. But my prior obligation to my Presbyterian or Jewish, Catholic or secularist neighbors is to behave toward them in a manner consistent with the moral requirements of decency and fair play. This is an obligation that everyone of us should accept as basic.

Briefly I would speak of our theological diversity; at greater length I would have you think about the implications of ethical unity. There are many who feel that there is a contradiction in encouraging theological diversity, while advocating one point of view in issues of current importance. If one reads the letters to the editor in our "Register-Leader," there is occasionally a remonstrance arguing that in economic and politics, the so-called conservative, and so-called states' rightists fail to receive a forum for their views. There are protests even more vehement that resolutions passed by our General Assembly almost always reflect the ultra-liberal view, never a more conservative one.

Because my prediction is that denominational consciousness of particular issues, and actions planned to deal appropriately with specific issues, will increasingly be the prevailing attitude among the churches and fellowships of the Unitarian Universalist Association, it is only fair that as one who welcomes this trend, I should be willing to come to grips with what may seem to some to be a paradox — theological diversity and ethical unity.

We require assent to no theological qualifications for Unitarianism, Universalism. We assert as a virtue this opportunity to formulate in freedom one's own religious convictions. We seek truth, known and to be known. But this freedom from imposed dogma and creed does not imply that we consider religious affirmations trivial. Every General Assembly seems to include on the agenda resolutions which attempt to secure the consensus of the delegates on affirmations about God, Jesus or our relationship to the historic stream of Christianity. Because we hold freedom of belief sacred, such resolutions are defeated if they tend to formalize any statements of belief.

Although there was a time when issues between theists and humanists were debated bitterly, the acrimony has subsided, although discussion and debate about theological issues will continue as long as we have any thoughtful vitality. We find zest in our theological diversity, accept it as an acknowledgment of the value of all persons among us and the beliefs they are willing to expose and express for support or criticism.

Theologically, we stand with Micah, "walk humbly with your God." Your God may be a Heavenly Father; your God may be the mysterious Life-Force obvious in the universe; your God may be the "process of ideals becoming real"; your God may be the mature spirit of man, emerging from instinct to conscious, cooperative morality; your God may be undefined in words but real in your silent prayers. Our theological diversity places no limitation on how you shall visualize or articulate your idea of God; we hope only, with Micah, that you will walk humbly with your God. We find theological diversity to be part of our growth in religious wisdom as the search for truth is pursued and old ideas modified by discovery, discussion and the fine sifting of life experience.

But when we turn to applying religious principles to issues in today's society, there are conditions that puzzle some persons and irritate some persons among us. Usually in our continental meetings, there are resolutions on current issues which are discussed, debated and voted by delegates. Almost always a vote prevails for the liberal side of issues —

On civil liberties the widest and most comprehensive interpretation will be voted heavily.

On questions clearly involving segregation and integration, the vote will positively affirm integration now.

On questions of internationalism vs. nationalism, the United Nations or a world of law will be chosen.

On matters involving disarmament or bans on nuclear testing, the delegates will strongly favor disarmament as against a stronger military machine.

On almost any issue, the liberal vote can be counted on to prevail.

Does, this mean, as I have suggested in the title that we welcome theological diversity but insist on ethical unity — and that this is a paradox? There is no simple answer, but there are a number of pertinent observations.

First, most issues would not receive an unanimous vote at the continental level. Furthermore, if votes were taken in the local churches and fellowships, the opposition would be greater. National church assemblies speak far more courageously, more radically than local congregations. It's easier to be a prophet in someone else's home town. So the first comment is that we do not have ethical unity.

Second, admitting this, it is also likely that we have a far greater consensus of unity on social issues among all people associating with us than is generally supposed. In our way of American living, we are probably not significantly different than middle class people of other Protestant groups. Professor J. Paul Williams, in his book, WHAT AMERICANS BELIEVE AMD HOW THEY WORSHIP, (p.303), reports on the opinions of Methodist laymen surveyed in 38 States. There seems to be surprising agreement. For example}

"88.6% of these laymen believe that Christians should support the U.N. and try to be informed on the major issues that come before it.

"78.6% believe that racial discrimination and segregation in such areas as education, employment, and religion should be eliminated.

"71.6% believe that the church should encourage disarmament among the nations with the United States taking the lead.

"74.1% believe the church is responsible for encouraging better farming and business methods which will lead to better living standards and the possibility for a more wholesome life for all.

"58.3% believe that every person should have the freedom to refuse to serve in the Armed Forces if such service conflicts with his religious convictions.

"53.7% believe the church should be responsible for helping attain fair and just relations between labor unions and management.

"82.7% believe that profit, resulting from methodical and well-ordered work, is valued and praised as a profit of God's blessing.

"91.1% believe that Politics should call forth the serious and intelligent concern of the conscientious Christian.

"86.6% believe that in advancing economic and technical aid to under-developed countries and under-privileged people, the United States should have as their first concern not American interests, but the needs of the people involved.

"98.0% believe that in the sight of God, no race or color of man is better than another."

In all candor, however, my third observation is that these convictions may not be of central importance to the average American. In a study conducted by the Y.M.C.A. of the interests and activities of young adult men and women, the flat statement was made that a "real gap separates religious interest and social responsibility." The "Y" survey indicates that on the whole, when a person has religious interest he is not stirred by strong motives to participate in decision-making on social issues, particularly controversial ones.

I read to you portions of the article by Dr. J. Lawrence Burkholder, (Christian Century, 9/4/63), and would like to set before you again one sentence he wrote, "Is it too harsh to say that most Protestant congregations decide in the course of a year almost nothing of real spiritual importance?"

The answer readily supplied by many persons is that the congregation is not supposed to decide anything of spiritual importance. The congregation by teaching, preaching, worship is supposed to inspire the individual so that he will make decisions of spiritual importance and live a life of religious significance — or so many would say.

Right here is an ancient conflict in the life of organized religion. Church historian, Roland Bainton, when discussing the Left Wing of the Reformation, points out that the radicals of the Reformation severely criticized the Lutheran and Calvinist Reformers as well as the medieval church, because the revolt from Rome had not sufficiently improved moral behavior. .Professor Bainton posed the question this way, "should the Church be thought of primarily in terms of leaven or light?"

Should the organized Church try to be the yeast of society by permeating it from within and by group action make the whole life of society rise? Or, should the Church be as a light set on a hill, above the valleys and plains of everyday society, influencing the world by example to individuals, who seeing the beacon of righteousness and holiness will be moved to live better lives and by virtue of inspired individual living, change society for the better?

In all honesty, most of the people I have met in my lifetime as laymen and minister think the Church should be a light to illumine the goals and conduct of the individual. This has always struck a sympathetic chord with people of our persuasion, for we cherish the right of the individual choice in becoming involved or not involved either in controversial issues or programs we consider trivial.

Yet the older I get the more I am persuaded that organized religion that ends with the individual, also ends many of the potential powers the Church possesses to help the transformation of social morality. Too frequently the appeal to emulate the light on the hill has no consequences in society. My observation is that by and large the persons who are known publicly for their individual convictions on matters involving human rights and peaceful living are also the persons who believe that the organized Church should be a leaven in society, at work within society with a yeasty vigor to make the ideals become real.

The idea of the light on the hill presents no problem to the organized church, of the congregational type government. The ideals can be splendid, but vague; no person feels anxious except perhaps the preacher who recognizes that the light is needed, but knows that the leaven makes ideals become real.

Lest I seem to be carping, let me testify somewhat parenthetically, that one of the great freedoms that most of us preachers enjoy is the free pulpit. A few ministers still get the "heave-ho" for what they say publicly, but by and large, the freedom of the pulpit is not only a recognized right, but a generous grant by the congregations.

I am reminded of the story Carl Carmer tells in his Hudson River stories in that great "Rivers of America" series. (p.39ff). In l646 at Fort Amsterdam, the preacher, Dominie Bogardus, was intensely disliked by the Director of the Colony, and the feeling was returned. After a hot-tempered altercation between them, the Director knew the preacher would preach bitterly the following Sunday. The Director could not interfere with the service or sermon, but "he ordered the Fort Amsterdam drum corps to beat a loud tattoo just outside the church door during the morning services. He made doubly sure that the good man's shouts Would not be heard, by having the fort cannon fired frequently in the course of the sermon...."

Today such a method of limiting a free pulpit would be a public scandal and invasion of rights. Every man in the pulpit should humbly thank his God for his freedom to speak. But it is not enough for the preacher to speak — whether radically, conservatively or indistinguishably. Any preacher could make some comments here, humorous or pathetic, depending on his mood. Rather than yield to self-righteousness or self-pity, let me repeat an observation about a fellow minister. He is a grizzled veteran of many courageous stands and competent ministries. Some years ago, I was his successor, a couple of times removed. When encountering a rather substantial tide of conservative opinion among the congregation, I inquired, "if my sermons disturb you, how did you tolerate Dr. So and So for four years?" I was answered, "Oh, he liked to say things and we didn't mind."

There is an increasing consciousness, at least among the leadership of various denominations, that both light and leaven are required if the church lives up to its moral obligations. At the March on Washington last August, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, famous Presbyterian leader, speaking for the National Council of Churches spoke humbly, "Late we Come. Late we Come." He was driving home the indubitable fact that the organized Church was late in living up to its professions—"Late we Come," but the time was now and the Church finally arriving on the scene of social struggle.

We know how difficult it is to grasp ways the Church can speak and act as a unit on issues that matter. I've have had some discussions on how this might be accomplished, but with no program yet to which the membership has responded. Issues that matter are always controversial and involvement measures out irritation and anxiety, as well as conviction and confidence.

We can devise ways to speak; we can set up procedures so that not only individuals in the Church, not only auxiliary organizations allied to the Church, but also the Church as gathered membership can establish a group opinion and proclaim that conviction. This conviction that the Church can be leaven as well as light is expressed throughout the section on Social Action on the Free Church in the Changing World and is summarized, "if we are to translate our faith into effective social service and social action, new methods of organization and a more imaginative, sustained emphasis upon social responsibility is urgently indicated...."

Do you remember the way George Bernard Shaw dealt with essentially this matter in his great play, MAJOR BARBARA? Barbara, daughter of a munitions manufacturer is shocked when she learns that the religious rescue army she has joined eagerly, accepts money from distillers and from her own father, the armaments man. She, disillusioned, cannot accept what the leaders say, that they would take money from the Devil himself if it would further their program. In the famous preface, Shaw comments on the clergyman in the Church, "He must either share the world's guilt or go to another planet. He must save the world's honor if he is to save his own. This is what all the Churches find just as the Salvation Army and Barbara find it in the play. Her discovery is that she is her father's accomplice; that the Salvation Army is the accomplice of the distiller and the dynamite maker; that they can no more escape one another than they can escape the air they breathe; and that there is no salvation for them through personal righteousness, but only through the redemption of the whole nation from its vicious, lazy, competitive anarchy. Nevertheless we proceed without the least misgiving as to the elevation of our private characters, the purity of our private atmospheres and our right to repudiate as foreign to ourselves the coarse depravity of garret and slum. Not that we mean any harm; we only desire to be, in our little private way, ladies and gentlemen. We do not understand Barbara's lesson because we have not, like her, learnt it by taking our part in the larger life of the nation."

When there is a strong majority or consensus among us, usually the issue is that of human rights as opposed to values subordinate to the human values. We need not fear that we are being inconsistent with the freedoms we prize, for these freedoms are preserved only by struggle and the church cannot separate itself from the world any more than the disciples of Jesus could go their separate ways after his death, relying only on the light that shone radiantly from the memories of his life. In order to carry into human affairs the truths they believed about human nature and human conduct, they had to organize and came to be known as a group for the things they believed.

How can it be different for us? I trust that we will speak more clearly and more frequently, not only as lone voices but also as gathered liberal religionists who have convictions about man in the world and the issues he faces. How else can a church speak to its times than to be aware of issues, not as lackadaisical spectator, but rather as a spokesman for freedom, peace, abundance in society — because these values are today's universalities.

Of course the prospect may seem to some to be an alarming trend, but the past can guide us. One of Carl Sandburg’s examples of Lincoln's humor was the occasion when "A California Republican, Cornelius Cole, called on business so tangled that it reminded Lincoln of a young Universalist preacher who came to Springfield. Three ministers of orthodox churches agreed 'to take turns and preach this young fellow down.' A Methodist preached the first sermon. He commenced by telling his large congregation how happily they were all situated in Springfield. Launching into his sermon, the Methodist shouted, 'And now comes a preacher preaching a doctrine that all men shall be saved. But, my brethren, let us hope for better things.'" (The War Years)

The real hope for better things in our day lies in those who won't be talked down with lesser goals than the universalities of our day in our world, peace, freedom, maturity and the search for truth. This will best be achieved by devotion to human values in organized ways as well as by individual conviction.

Crossways - The Shape of the Church (version 2)

December 8, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World
IV Religion and the Arts
10. Crossways - The Shape of the Church

What represents religion for you? What symbol gathers up the varieties of meanings and leaps of faith, which, taken together, comprise your religion? In speaking of "Crossways – The Shape of the Church," my intention is to stimulate thought about symbols and the authentic content of your personal religion. If there is a difference of opinion among us between those who are fervent in the maintenance of long-standing custom and those who respond to an emphasis on innovation, then this difference should be based on substantial points of view, not trifling irritations. Therefore, will you consider with me, first, what a symbol is; second, crossways, the shape of this church and the merit of the cross as a symbol for our faith in this age; third, what a symbol should do for us; fourth, the limitations and difficulties of religious symbols for liberal religion; and lastly, how faith is best expressed.

A symbol is an attempt to express something completely in a way that communicates rapidly. An American flag is a symbol of our fifty states which immediately conveys in its red and white stripes, blue field and white stars what it would take thousands of words to explain. The National Anthem is an audible and the Great Seal of the United States is a visible agent, each conveying comprehensive culture and united purposes with instantaneous understanding. The symbol employs simplicity to make intelligible a great number of complex arid related meanings.

Religion has always been symbolized. Crossways – the shape of this Church is a religious symbol. I have no way of knowing what Claude Bragdon, the architect intended to convey by his symbolic design. Probably he was concerned to create the space requirements in an architecturally harmonious building, on the given dimensions of the building site, and selected the style he believed would accomplish those goals. Anyway, the shape of the Church is a Greek cross, a building style that came to be associated historically with the Eastern, or Byzantium church, rather than the Western or Latin Church.

The equilateral arms of the Greek cross, radiating out from the center represent a form so simple and natural that it is found everywhere: intersecting streets, the four compass directions, rays of light or sun, the "plus" sign — to name just a few examples. In the long history of the human families in their various times and places on earth, the equilateral cross has symbolized innumerable objects and many abstractions. It has stood for birds flying, man standing with outstretched arms; a double-headed hammer, a bow and fire-drill device, the four winds, the directions of the four corners of the earth.

Hundreds of varieties of crosses have been noted in a large number of cultures. The cross has been found on the pottery of the ancient Indian tribes of North and South America; and of course it is far older than the dawn of Christianity. The cross was part of ancient Egyptian and Celtic cultures, and the old civilizations of India as well.

The Byzantium religious influence evolved from ancient roots in basilicas and temples, older than Christianity, where the equilateral arms of the cross radiate out from a center octagon, as with this building. The temple space of the octagon with its overhead dome came to symbolize the world and its place in the cosmic order.

Not only is our building shaped crossways, but the cross is found in several other places here. Crowning the cupola is a Celtic cross. The Celtic cross, again a symbol older than recorded history, is a symbol of the sun, with the round solar disc in the center, and the rays of the sun represented by the perpendicular and horizontal extensions of the cross. There are Greek crosses embossed on our leather platform chairs. The pulpit is emblazoned with still another variety of cross with its origins also in the idea of the solar disc.

In addition, as a movable symbol, the brass Latin cross, is brought in occasionally as a religious symbol. Some people among us regret that this brass Latin cross ever appears; some feel equally sorry that it is not always used. Let us then consider this matter of the cross as an effective symbol for our religion in this seventh decade of the twentieth century.

Why do some people want it? Some believe it has been a part of the Church for some years and this habit should not be interrupted. Others attach religious meaning, feeling that the Cross represents our origins in the Christian faith,that we need this visible reminder of our heritage constantly. Still others are impatient with seeking justification, either for using it or not using it, but like it because the shine of polished brass against the chancel woodwork is pleasing to the eye and counteracts a barren background for the pulpit. Others, who are here because of a thought-out departure from the doctrines of Christianity just cannot understand why the portable brass cross is ever here. The cross on top, and other less movable crosses, are enough to show our origins, they say.

If the cross was just a universal symbol of the cosmic order or the human condition, which Christianity shared with all ancient peoples, it would be quite easy to consider it as one of the best symbols of the universal religious feeling shared by all people, even though interpretation and expression vary so widely. But much other feeling has become invested in the cross too.

The cross has been a symbol of Christian intolerance and Christian claim for recognition as the only true religion. In some ages, the arrogance of Christian belief that only Christians had the benefit of God's will and revealed truth has had the consequence of the cross becoming the sign of cruel exploitation for other groups within the total human family.

The cross is a symbol of trinitarian Christianity, whereas most of us have never been, or no longer are, trinitarians, nor have our forbears in liberal religion. To the believing Christian, the empty cross signifies that God, the Son, has conquered death by his physical resurrection from the tomb. By this supernatural atonement, corrupt man has been given a way of salvation, or so it is witnessed by the Christian.

In medieval times, to "take the Cross" meant to fight infidels—infidels referring to members of the Muslim faith, or Christians in the Near East who happened to be in the way of the Crusaders' search for blood, gold and glory, under the banner of a pledge to recapture the Holy City, Jerusalem. Taking the cross to fight infidels in Asia Minor also incited Europeans, who didn't go on the Crusades, to persecute Jews in cruel, vile and bloody ways. It is asking quite a lot of the non-Christian to forget what terrible things the cross has meant to his ancestors.

An incident in the great age of explorations and colonization compresses a good deal of the attitude which has created in many of us the desire to search for better symbols of our religion of a free church in a changing world. In the history of the Virginia Colonists, BEHOLD VIRGINIA, by Willison, (p.25/26) "Captain Newport had his men fashion a large cross, which was set up here at the Falls, in what is now Richmond. With elaborate ceremony, Newport renamed the river, christening it the James, and formally took possession of all the surrounding territory in the name of the King, proclaiming 'with a greate showte'; that he had the 'most right unto it.' Standing nearby and frankly puzzled, an Indian from Powhatan's Tower inquired the meaning of all this.

"'Your countriemen will lie much,' Pocahontas once remarked to Captain John Smith after much experience with the English and Newport was as glib and plausible as any. The two arms of the cross, he said, 'signified King Powhatan and himself; the fastening of it in the myddest was their united league; and the showte, the reverence he did to Powhatan' which 'did exceedingly rejoice' the chief and all his people...."

Thus when the cross has meant exploitation, cruelty and deceit, why should we display it as a symbol of a religion which professes equality, kindness and truth? When the cross represents a Trinitarian, atoning, particularistic, individualistic salvation, how extensive can be the common ground we share with such a narrow theology that emphasizes man's hopelessness, when we believe that man, greatly imperfect man, has the potential to grow in his ability to find ways to make the human situation better here on this earth?

But it would be unfair to omit the positive meanings of the cross. Quite apart from theology, it has come to represent the sacrificial love that man can offer for man: "For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life shall save it." The cross is a symbol that to some represents the intersection of time and space, creating the self-consciousness and social consciousness we designate as human experience. The cross recalls treasured memories to many, a visible reminder of profound personal experience.

As I see it, our brass Latin cross deserves placement as a symbol on the traditional great days of Christianity, and on other occasions when the worship theme relates to certain great particularities of our Christian tradition. On other occasions, we best serve our experience of worship in our day, by other symbols, flowers, plants light and certain artistic creations which may be a unifying bond on the occasions of our varying moods, backgrounds and themes, to the end that our worship will enrich all our lives with deeper meanings. This is how I view the cross in our faith.

There is this rather sobering reality about religious life today: Neither the cross, nor any other single symbol has the power now to pull us together in a cohesive whole—"all one body we" in the words of the old hymn. Some of us are people who do not believe the doctrines of Christianity, but have a fond feeling for Christian anthems, hymns, crosses and traditional prayers. Some of us believe that we best express the Universalist Unitarian faith by a fresh, creative approach to the symbols of brass, the sounds of music or the practice of worship. Some of us want to embrace more fully the differing traditions of persons who now are attracted to the liberal faith — the persons whose roots are in Judaism and to whom constant use of the symbols of Christianity are an affront, emotionally at least, and in addition, persons whose roots may be in Hinduism, Buddhism or the deep-rooted secularism of America who find their religious foundations in the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Ingersoll and other passionate and ethically inspiring dissenters from Christianity's ways and symbols.

To accept the condition that no one symbol of any religion now has the power to make us one emotionally, is also to embrace the noble thought that our hope is understand and live in a world wider than Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist or any other one culture, he can not accept without dissent anyone's claim to all the truth of religion, history, economics or government. The varying patterns differ; the several religions are not exactly equal; but they do exist. We must live in a world which directly and indirectly is testing all peoples about the merits of their boasts, whether religious or what.

No one can know if symbols will emerge out of our experiments which will be comprehensive enough to enfold all the varieties of our Universalist Unitarian ways. One of the realities of symbolism seems to be that one cannot contrive it successfully, as an automobile manufacturer might design and exploit a trademark. We will experiment, some of our churches more creatively than others, but there can be no assurance that an effective symbol will capture all our best feelings of spiritual tension and ethical involvement. But we may be sure that the proper symbols for us must break all the old, rusty bonds of sect, clan, nation and class.

If the symbol of brass, clay or wood is a puzzle at present, we do have the tools to fashion the content of our faith. John LaFarge, S.J., (RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM, p.222), pointed to a task for us which has priority in this matter: "symbolism without language becomes stale [superstition]; language without symbolism is devoid of emotional appeal and. deprives man of one of his noblest sources of religious intuition. Contrary to some views, I hold that genuine religious symbolism can be interpreted in terms of language."

Words we need and deeds we owe. I am not concerned that on many Sundays there is no shining brass or gleaming symbol to move our emotions. We need words to express the principles we follow, the facts we accept and the goals we seek. The question that each individual needs to be able to answer well is, "What do you believe?" You are not expected to point to a cross or candle, but to utter the words which represent a faith that man can cherish and find to be a support in this modern world. We live in a world where there is contest for the allegiance of man and the contest centers on the capturing of the mind of men. There was a time in religious history when the primary need for symbols arose because illiteracy was wide-spread and the average persons could not learn the teaching of the Church by reading scripture or catechism. He could not read. Therefore, symbols were ancient teaching machines. In the 8th Century, Emperor Charlemagne called religious symbols, "books for the illiterate."

But in our day when the reach of science is opening up fantastic frontiers of knowledge about, the cosmos and man, we need words which affirm a faith able to help a man in the laboratory, a woman in the home, a legislator in Congress, an executive in commerce, a plumber in his shop or a carpenter at his trade. We need language which will be an expression of the way thoughtful persons may find their spiritual way in our universe and their ethical way among mankind.

Deeds we owe, because one can be unresponsive to symbols and inarticulate in words, but still be able to exert some effort in the world on behalf of the faith he holds. Paul Tillich once defined ''religion as the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the questions of the meaning of our life." (CHRISTIANITY AND THE ENCOUNTER OF WORLD RELIGIONS, p.4).

When one is grasped by that which is of "ultimate concern," to which all other concerns are but tangential, one finds his way with or without supporting symbols, but with a determination to so live in the world that the highest values receive prime and constant attention. Thus will beliefs become more deeply-rooted and one's actions a specific consequence of the faith that is held.

Blunting Prejudice and Sharpening Conviction

November 17, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World

III Education and Liberal Religion
9. Blunting Prejudice and Sharpening Conviction


Although my guess is that an impressive majority of all Americans would agree that prejudice is bad and must be replaced by acceptance and understanding, my observation is that when it comes down to solving problems of prejudice now, or acting to correct long-standing injuries now, the majority dwindles to a minority. When it comes down to cases, the theoretical majority passes by on the other side.

To deal with this gap between ideals and action is appropriate for the series on "The Free Church in the Changing World." Specific in our stated allegiance to the dignity of every human individual, and both explicit and implicit in nearly every utterance of individuals and groups within the liberal churches is the belief that improvement of the individual and the human order in society unite[s] free individuals in a religious enterprise such as ours.

Permit me to re-iterate that because I believe the rapid achievement of full civil rights and integration is the giant issue in the United States, it is of crucial importance to blunt the jagged edge of prejudice which has wounded us sorely. It is vital also to sharpen the edge of conviction, to the end that we may cut through irrelevancies and side-issues.
I believe that integrated education, and correction forthwith to racially imbalanced public schools, is a necessity for the privileged as well as the deprived.

I believe that discrimination in employment opportunities must cease, not only to meet the needs of the economically disinherited, but also for the health of that fortunate part of our society which is affluent.

I believe that obvious and subtle barriers to open housing must be dissolved, not only for the family which seeks relief from wretched living quarters, but also for the lucky family which enjoys adequate housing on an orderly street which has a touch of green and seasonal color splashes of fragrant blossom and flower.

I believe that comprehensive civil rights legislation is a pressing necessity now, not only for those discriminated against, but also for those millions whose lives have never felt the blows of bigotry when seeking a lodging for the night, the franchise to vote or the opportunity to participate in education on the basis of equal opportunity.

In spite of the untroubled sleep of most the privileged, prejudice damages everyone. I would like to tell you why I believe the virus of prejudice spares no one; how prejudice can be blunted by knowledge and experience; and how convictions about our world and our selves can reveal new visions of hope and spur gains for the whole human enterprise.

What is prejudice? Prejudice is using distorted evidence to convict without trial. Prejudice is pronouncing judgment without examining all facts which are available and relevant. Prejudice is the emotional support for actions which cause or maintain discrimination against minority groups. Prejudice is feeling superior to members of a minority group when our minds concede that such feeling has neither moral justification nor biological basis.

Prejudice is much more than a program subject for sparsely attended forums. Prejudice tests us to disclose whether the American dream is sincere or hypocritical; prejudice checks the authentic nature of our American constitutional values in the glaring light of a world stage. Prejudice examines with harsh realism the proposition whether a nation "so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

Prejudice exists—what causes it?

One of the great modern musical shows was "South Pacific." One of the songs describes the origin of prejudice:

"You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year;
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught."

Babies are not born with prejudice. This is learned in society. Persons who are prejudiced against a particular minority group usually nurse that harmful feeling because it conforms to the social atmosphere in which they grew up.

Why should prejudice be a part of the social environment when it is not natural to life itself? Right here is the most difficult reality for us to accept. Somewhere in his book, NOTES OF A NATIVE SON, James Baldwin describes the vicious effects of the white man's prejudice against the Negro and Mr. Baldwin says something to the effect, "He discriminates against me and keeps me down because he needs to."

Among the most weakening personality deficiencies are insecurity and a feeling of being inadequate to deal with what life presents to us. We are threatened by a feeling that we are not stable in our place in society, that our perch on the occupational ladder is shaky, that we are not certain we have the love and esteem of other persons. In his important book, PREJUDICE AND YOUR CHILD, (p. 81), Dr. Kenneth Clark summarizes the findings of many scholars in his field (psychology), "Adolescents and adults who are struggling for security and positive self-esteem may often take the easy way out by finding someone to look down upon. Encouragement of this discourages the more difficult task of having to build individual self-esteem by solid and realistic personal achievements."

In the struggle for his place in the pecking order, man, because he is the creature of emotion as well as mind, frequently attempts to justify himself by disqualifying others from the pleasure, privileges and status to which he aspires.

Then too, the human being takes his wrath and frustrations out upon others. Look at the old myth of Cain and Abel. Cain brought the harvest of the fields as a gift to the Lord, but this offering was rejected in favor of Abel's lambs. That would shake a man wouldn't it? Think of the fear and insecurity generated when a man is rejected by his God. That terrible feeling could not be contained; it had to be expressed. Cain projected his feeling on Abel in the form of hate. Cain killed Abel. He found a scapegoat. So do many persons find scapegoats.

We learn also that harsh discipline and rigidity of personality can develop unbearable hostility in a person. The social scientist reports that there is "evidence that parents who are primarily pre-occupied with their personal status and parents who impose harsh and rigid forms of discipline are likely to fasten in their children intense prejudices toward individuals of another race and religion." (Clark, p. 27) The authoritarian personality is frequently found among those who deliver the blows which violently express prejudice; write the unjust laws of segregation; apply ordinances far more cruelly on a minority than on the favored elite majority.

Even such summaries as the foregoing of the nature of prejudice would be dreary and pointless chastisement of a favorite target – our inner self – if nothing could be done about it. If there were no ways that man could secure a turnabout on his prejudices, we would just have to settle down to endure unhealthy and unhappy ways in our social and occupational life, waiting for a tired world to end, either "with a bang or a whimper."

But there is so much that we can do in this country, if we have the will, that there is just no excuse for dumb resignation; no warrant yet for violent reprisal.

We can blunt prejudice by recognizing that it exists; and that its causes are found both in our social order and in our personal immaturity. We can face up to Gunnar Myrdal's classic epitome of his long study, THE AMERICAN DILEMMA, "there is a gulf between the American ideals of democracy and brotherhood on the one hand, and the existence of racial prejudice, discrimination and segregation on the other."

We can blunt prejudice by facing with candor that discrimination and second-class citizenship, because of color, creed or national origin are a mockery, not only of the principles which led to our constitutional government, but also the principle of the supreme worth of human personality which we claim as a religious foundation. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sows, that he will also reap"; justice is working out in history; there is a certainty of just retribution for sin. Some of that phraseology is archaic, but the consequences of the social sickness of prejudice are as real as steel, wood and pavement.

We can blunt prejudice by preventing its harmful actions, even though there are many who seem either unconvinced or disinterested. One of the most wide-spread half-truths common in our times goes something like this, "you can't legislate prejudice out of people's hearts." Perhaps not, but civil rights legislation in areas of housing, public accommodations, voting, jobs can prevent bigoted persons and groups from expressing prejudice in ways that deprive minorities of their rights and liberties. But more than that, opportunities for the experience of integration, of congregating with, living and working side-by-side with minorities previously rejected and excluded dissolves prejudice in the best way — knowing first hand that one's fears were not only irrational, but also that getting rid of the feeling is an accomplishment of personal growth.

Civil Rights legislation is needed simply on the basis of fair play. For this reason alone, every concerned person should maintain the pressure of letters and telegrams to the President, Senators, Representatives to write strong civil rights legislation and enact it. The chances seem dim right now for speedy action, but generation of wide support from the grass roots might make lackadaisical legislators turn on more power. Perhaps we cannot make great reductions in prejudice this year; but under a government of law, we can make deep cuts in segregation. Once contacts are established, the natural affinities between people who go to school together, go to work together, live in the same neighborhood, go to the same churches will exert influence and contribute to the breaking down of the divisive walls of prejudice. There will be a complexity of influences pulling the whole family together, if the bigots are deprived by legislation of opportunities to perpetuate inequality and discrimination.

But we have chances to walk an additional mile. Not only can we blunt prejudice, we can sharpen conviction.

We can sharpen conviction by an act of recognition. That act of recognition is to understand and to accept the reality that (in the words of Richard Hofstader) "the great political questions are in their final analysis, great moral questions."

Politics can appear to be frustrating and uninviting — smoke-filled rooms, chicanery, hocus-pocus on issues, fence sitting, ward-heeling. We say, "you can't fight City Hall," and then we retire from the fray with many complaints, ready to take our ease. But when it comes home to us, as it surely must, that civil rights — and other issues as well — are not just situations for politicians to manipulate, but more vitally, issues of right and wrong which call for our choice, then conviction must sharpen.

Think about the persons you admire most — whether they are famous like Moses, Jesus, Paul, Francis, Luther, Governor Bradford, Jefferson, Lincoln — or whether your thoughts touch persons known only to you and a few others — Did not these persons you admire deal with difficult issues, intricate situations by evaluating them as situations of right and wrong? When they did this, sometimes having to make the choice of lesser and greater good as well as lesser and greater evils, did not conviction sharpen?

It might be observed that persons who see the big problems as issues of personal right and wrong are also the persons whose inner nature seems founded on rock, not sand. If you would be strong within, remain faithful in your outward statements and acts to the decisions of right and wrong which were hammered out on the anvil of your own conscience.

We can sharpen our conviction by seeing ourselves as persons, who by the blessing of the human life instinct are capable of being adequate to what life puts upon us. We need no false and bitter security achieved by behaving toward minorities as if they were inferiors. We don't need to establish self-esteem by unfair scrambling, with tooth-and-claw for a more exalted place on the ladder of status. We believe in the dignity and worth of every human, including ourselves. To live in conscious possession of our human dignity, and to see ourselves that way, will sharpen our convictions about right and wrong.

Then, too, we can sharpen our convictions by the associations we choose. The social scientists state with considerable assurance that most prejudice against minority groups arises not from contact with the persons of a minority group, but from contact with ideas about minority groups. If you maintain allegiance to and contact with groups distinguished by greater freedom from prejudice, then you will find your convictions about the worth of all persons strengthened. The social atmosphere in which you choose to move will either strengthen your convictions about the brotherhood of man or make your prejudices deeper and more lasting. The greater degrees to which you associate with all persons on levels of equality in situations where you function as a working, social or civic individual, the much stronger will be your convictions about the rightness of equality of opportunity for all, and the wrongness of segregation and discrimination against anybody.

In summary then, we blunt prejudice by recognizing what it is and how it is caused, by ignorance of others; caused by conflicts within ourselves; by recognizing the values to be achieved by integration, even when the immediate situations have to be established by civil rights legislation.

We can sharpen conviction by recognizing that these crucial issues of integration and segregation are not just political and economic, but are issues of right and wrong, personal to every one of us, a test of whatever religion we profess; by seeing ourselves as persons adequate to our conflicts and problems; persons who need not find a contrived self-esteem in a false sense of superiority; by recognizing that our stability as persons has a fundamental relationship to being actively faithful to the values we believe; by deliberately choosing some associations which will strengthen our commitment to the goal of one recognized human family.

President Paul Dixon of Antioch College designates the way civil rights are now being promulgated in this country as a new evangelism. That term may be more appropriate than he indicates. For it is good news, but the good news of the equality of individuals is a story that is being told by massive effort, but in non-violent effort to an amazing degree.

Just as the good news of the first century reached out against what seemed to be impossible odds, so the effort to overcome the effects of prejudice is reaching for a difficult goal in our generation. You will find many opportunities to argue particular merits of the multiple aspects of the problem, but the questions you may have to answer only to yourself, but perhaps always to yourself, "did I see the age only as one of trouble and nuisance or did I see it as one where I was called to choose the right in a decision of right and wrong?" As time goes by, what will our answer be to ourselves when the insistent conscience prods, "which side was I on?"

[Editor's note: see comment indicated below. Extant copy of sermon reads "President Paul Dixon of Antioch College" but it seems likely Rev. Westman erred, and was referring to President James P. Dixon of Antioch College, who appears to have served the school from 1959-1975. Thank you to the commenter for pointing this out.]

Dealing With the Dark Side

November 10, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World

III Education and Liberal Religion
8. Dealing With the Dark Side

Because commentary on our church school emphasis usually has much relevance to our adult values and perspectives, I want to speak to you today about "Dealing With the Dark Side." In the report on "Education and Liberal Religion," the following paragraph stimulated this sermon:

"We religious liberals have tended to ignore life's negative dimensions. But the behavioral sciences confirm what common sense has known all along, what our hearts have never failed to recognize though our heads have sometimes been reluctant to acknowledge: that the dark side of personality is just as real as the light — that mistrust, guilt, stagnation and despair belong to human experience just as much as trust, autonomy, intimacy, generativity and integrity."

Now if you have never distrusted anybody or been distrusted by another, this general subject will not reach you. If you have never been disturbed by guilty feelings or never have encountered a person ravaged by guilt, then this discussion will bore you. If you have never felt completely exhausted when there was every reason for you to be up and doing, then all this will seem trivial to you. If there never has been a time when you experienced moments of despair about the human situation, then I hope you will be patient until another occasion when the words may better fit your condition.

I readily confess that I experience these dark feelings. No minister can pass a day without the sure knowledge that other persons too are buffeted and weakened by the emotions that stir and erupt from the dark side of our personality. There is this dark side to our natures. In speaking about it, today's remarks are divided — recognition, understanding, improvement.

To be mature is to recognize that there is shadow as well as light in the complex pattern that comprises our humaneness. One of the most persisting characteristics of our liberal religion has been a strong and buoyant optimism about man, his nature and destiny. When defending points of view, because we tend to polarize our convictions, our optimism can become so naive as to represent illusion. We may fail to recognize that which is quite real.

Anecdote may make the point just as well as intellectual analysis. Carl Sandburg in his massive biography of Lincoln has included a rich variety of the Lincoln stories and legends. On one occasion, President Lincoln was confronting an organization which had plainly been guilty of sowing seeds of disaffection and dissension in the Union cause. After listening to their protestations of innocence, Lincoln was reminded "of a governor who visited a State prison. The convicts, one by one had the same story of innocence and of wrongs done them. At last the governor came to one who frankly said he had committed a crime and the sentence given him was just. 'I must pardon you,' said the Governor, 'I can't have you here corrupting all these good men."1 (THE WAR YEARS, p. 297-8).

Lincoln knew our nature. There is a darker side. The righteous face we present to society may cover all sorts of feelings of defensiveness, hostility or inner turbulence, as within us, self-centeredness does battle with the possibilities of the larger life. There is a partial truth in the old Garden of Eden myth which however, has been largely over-stated in theological doctrines of "original sin" and the so-called inevitable "corruption" in man's inner soul.

"When the Lord God asked of the man, 'Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?' The man said, 'The woman you put at my side — she gave me of the tree and I ate.'"

One does not have to dismiss the bright side of man's nature to concede that we do have a tendency to use Adam's alibi: Blame others; pass the buck; get out from under.

Were it not for unselfishness, the human race could not have persisted. But this brighter side has its shadow, for we know that human selfishness has always been and is, responsible for injustice and woe. When the Romans invaded Britain, ca 55 a.d., they captured Caratacus, a great tribal leader and sent him to Rome in chains. The dignity and courage of this island chief moved Emperor Claudius to extend freedom in Rome, but would not permit his return to England. It was reported that as the English hostage walked the streets of Rome, he wondered about the magnitude and splendor of the houses and buildings, "why do you who have got so many and so fine possessions covet our poor tents?" (Leonard Cottrell, THE GREAT INVASION, p. 119-20)

If we would but recognize our shadowy side, that ancient sentiment could be said today, rather generally, could it not? Covetousness and acquisition for the sake of great possessions have never been confined to the Roman Empire. In modern times, Thorsten Veblen's critical analysis of our society, THE LEISURE CLASS, proposed that the accumulation of money and the display of acquisitions were not greatly different from the exhibition of scalps,capturing women or holding chiefs in hostage.

How wrong is this evidence of our darker selves? Look into the nature of the things for which you have a yen. How free are even our generosities from blatant self-satisfaction or subtle self-righteousness? In Jesus' parable the man turned sadly away because he had great possessions; and would not give these up, even for his own soul, was not this a candid recognition of our darker sides?

In King John, (ACT III, sc.iii), King John instructs Philip to get money from the monasteries and churches, "shake the bags of hoarding abbots." Philip replies,
"Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back
When gold and silver becks me to come on."

Do we deal adequately with this dark side of human nature in our religious beliefs, in our attitudes toward problems, in our program for education? Some would say that because we hold an overblown faith in man's ability to progress, that we do not face reality. Perhaps, as Emerson observed, (in his essay "Experience," p. 249), "that which we call sin in others is experiment for us."

Perhaps we do not recognize "life's negative dimensions" enough in our church school curriculum, although I have the impression that perhaps many critics are not familiar with varieties of story, legend and history that do inform the child and young person that life is not only sweetness, light and ease, but also life is sometimes bitter, shadowed and laborious.

In the material for the youngest children they encounter in story, death to animals, birds and a beloved grandmother. As they grow, they meet other strong strands of what human belief has woven into the tapestry of life. In BEGINNINGS OF LIFE AND DEATH, they deal not only with the story of the first forbidden fruit with its supposed consequences, but also with the Promethean achievement of stealing fire from the gods, with great resulting benefit to man, although with terrible penalty to Prometheus. The story of Pandora emphasizes that troubles are loose in the world but that we are of the stuff that has the power to deal with trouble because hope remained. In JESUS, THE CARPENTER'S SON, children learn that the good man cannot be measured by the comfort or success with which his efforts are rewarded. Jesus and other good men, time and again, had to pay with life itself, because the shadowy side of human nature of the persons they met gets the upper hand for awhile.

Dealing with the darker side is a lifelong task. Whether or not we deal adequately with this in religious education, there is little excuse for adults to slough off the realities. Some of you may infer that I am on my way to a more conservative theology, re-asserting the doctrine of "original sin" and conceding that the nature of man is inevitably corrupt.

Not at all. If I did not believe that the light overbalances the shadow, I might be tempted to take refuge in some orthodox theological shelter. But I am willing to permit some astringent realities to clear away some of the naiveté with which we liberals sometimes deal with life and society.

No one's inner garment is either a seamless robe of purity or a bedraggled rag of immorality. We are persons who never are wholly identified either by unblemished virtue or irredeemable vice. The outlaw victimizes his fellows; society must protect itself by imposing restraints. The difference between the prisoner and ourselves is measured by culture, conscience and self-control — and sometimes, luck. This we should recognize.

Dealing with the dark side is not so much a matter of theological complexity, but more realistically, constant understanding and improvement.

We must try to understand that part of our self that lurks in the shadows. In ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE, (p.417), Richard Hofstader comments, "The tragic predicament faces any man who is in one way or another caught between his most demanding ideals and his more immediate ambitions and interests."

Should we not admit that when we insist upon putting "first things first," much of the time we are putting self things first? Is there any reason why we should not be willing to recognize the thin barriers that divide acquisition from greed, generosity from self-righteousness, ambition from lust for power, affection from jealousy? May we not come to understand that the balance for inner wholesomeness is fragile, requiring the constant vigilance of both a good look and a good laugh at ourselves?

These mixed feelings are part of our human nature in human society. When time is measured in long reaches of geologic change, man has been but a few minutes on the earth learning to be human. A million years are but a day in the vast measure of the time that the world has been forming and life has been emerging. As Kahlil Gibran wrote in THE PROPHET, "And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light? Only when you shall know that the erect and fallen are but man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self."

I suggest to you that it is not enough to recognize and understand our darker side and interpret it theologically, culturally or psychologically. The real task for people struggling to become persons is to use this understanding for improvement, We must illuminate our darker side with the light of accomplishment.

This effort for improvement is singularly appropriate for the liberal faith. Although we are much more reticent than our forbears were seventy-five years ago about the matter of automatic progress — the millions of dead piled up by ghastly 20th century wars are unanswerable rebukes to any notions about the inevitability of man's progress — we still find the justification for religion in the ability of man to choose the more righteous alternative. More than that, not only the competence of our brighter side to make the more correct decision, but also the will of our brighter side to perform the right act which is demanded, if one fulfills the obligations of the right choice.

Whatever reservations the skeptic might make about man's real freedom, improvement of our darker side rests on the belief that the ounces of our weight, however puny, can be measured on the scale of achievement of some good for the human enterprise. In the long run, the improvement we accomplish because we have understood our shadowy side will prove more enduring than all the dark tendencies which inflict us all individually and socially.

The life of Florence Nightingale was a prime illustration. Her biographer, Woodham-Smith (FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE) describes how Florence Nightingale became conscious of the dark side of life: "She had become conscious of the world of misery, suffering and despair which lay outside her little world of ease and comfort.

"1842 was a terrible year for the people of England. The country was in the grip of what has passed into history as the 'hungry forties.' In villages, as in towns, there were starvation, sweated labor, ignorance and dirt. Diseased scarecrows swarmed not only in the airless, undrained courts of London, but in the 'black filth' of the rural cottages; workhouses, hospitals and prisons were overflowing. In the summer of 1842, Florence wrote in a private note, 'My mind is absorbed with the idea of the sufferings of man, it besets me behind end before....all that poets sing of the glories of this world seem untrue. All the people I see are eaten up with poverty, care or disease...."

But Florence Nightingale did not rest or retreat because she recognized and understood the abysmal conditions which surrounded her. Her life was one gigantic effort to improve the darker side she encountered in society.

Whether one comes to grips with the dark side of self, or the dark side of society,, can we not echo Browning when he said,
"What are temptations, but for man to meet;
To grapple with and trample under feet,
And so be pedestaled in triumph."
(Quoted from memory, may be inexact)

Yes, there is a shadowed side of life. Light and shadow are as inseparable from living as they are from photography, art or a walk in a sun-drenched forest. We deal with the dark side not by the muttering frustration of retreat from difficulty; not by escape into a theological system which either removes our responsibilities or supposes that our responsibility is heaven-remote or hell-distant.

We deal with the dark side by understanding and improvement. I hope that passing years have created a sufficiently mellow historical acceptance so that one can tell a story about Franklin D. Roosevelt without losing one-half of one's congregation immediately and transporting the other half to uncritical adoration. Anyway, I shall try, because the way FDR handled a very dark side should be example for us all. On a panel this year, (see SR 4/6/63), his son, James Roosevelt was answering a question as to whether polio had given his father strength he would not have otherwise. The son answered, "Well I suppose there's no question about it that his problems in walking — and it was real physical effort to put on those heavy braces and move around — must have created within him a capacity, a reserve capacity. Again, probably to feel that if he could get along with this, he could get along with anything."

This is instructive and from it we can learn. We do have our shadowy self. If we can recognize it, understand it and constantly try to improve it, we can get along with anything.

Deep Roots and Green Twigs

October 27, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church In The Changing World

III Education and Liberal Religion
7. Deep Roots and Green Twigs

In dealing with religious education in "Deep Roots and Green Twigs," I have not assumed that my only listeners will be parents or others who are concerned with immediate responsibility and relationship with children. I speak to everyone of you. The purpose of effort and investment of volunteers' time and members' money in religious education is to understand what religion is, what it means to the individual person —what he should be and what he should do — how religion has been expressed vertically in time; and geographically across the world-curve in the different religions. All persons, whether children or adults, are greatly deprived when there is failure to maintain living contact with religious experiences of knowledge, understanding, and obedience to the incentives for action which emerge from conviction. While education in the liberal church most frequently emphasizes how, what and when the child learns religion, nothing that applies to the child's growth in wisdom and stature is irrelevant to the adult. "We always have the opportunity to grow; we are never without the opportunity to become more mature in our insight of ourselves and our encounters with others. Anything that has to do with living has some direct connection with one's religion.

Our deep roots are the insights which have weathered the storms of history and remained as examples of how religion has helped man in his solitariness and man in society. Our deep roots are the life-source of civilities and conscience. By trial and error the ape in the psychologists' experimental laboratory learned to put together a jointed pole in order to knock down the high-hanging bananas, but could not pass on this skill to other apes. Man's deep roots of cultural transmission are the channels wherein we know the successful ways learned from trial and errors of ancestors, immediate and long-gone.

Some of you will recall that last year I dealt at length with our Judeo-Christian heritage. We reviewed its conflicts and victories, its weaknesses and strengths, its periods of low aims and discreditable actions as well as its ages of shining goals and superb efforts. These are our roots — the law and prophets of Israel, the wisdom and ethics of the Greeks, the order and practicality of the Romans, the family life and festivities of the Germanic tribes, and much more. We should be aware that some nations, small in area, the Greeks, Hebrews and English have made great contributions to the best of our culture — art, philosophy, religion, constitutional liberties.

When we look to specifics, we can review individual masterwork after masterwork: the Psalms of Israel, the poems of the prophets, the courage of Elijah, the anguish of Job, superbly expressed, the Sermon on the Mount, Paul's 13th chapter of his first letter to Corinth, the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the confession of Augustine, Shakespeare, the incredibly acute observer and matchless recorder of human motives, John Stuart Mill, Jefferson, Lincoln — even the five-foot shelf can not adequately house the broad outlines of human effort, intelligence and growth. These are our deep roots. To cut ourselves off from them is no less fatal to our human hopes than the picking of the flower is to its life. Without constant contact with the roots, we die, even as the plant dies.

But deep roots are sources of culture, not the answers to life. Questions besiege us. Not only are we perplexed by the difficulties of answers to thorny problems, but also, we fail to properly understand the nature of the problems. We are anxious about many things. In our anxiety, we seek the concrete answer, the specific commandment, the particular injunction which will carry us through the difficulty. So there are those who say, let us return to religion, dig into our roots, find the answer that Moses found, Jesus found, or Paul found and put anxiety to rest. But green twigs grow in the air, not deep in the roots.

Our cultural roots are deep and productive, but we cannot draw the vital insights from them unless we understand that they are from time past, not time present. We cannot believe in the simple, earth-centered universe that so many believed long ago. We have known the experience of the astronomers who have observed and computed that not only is our earth not the center of our solar system, but also our solar system is but an infinitesimal speck in the mammoth sky of cosmological space. It was said of Jesus, and other ancient healers of the soul, that they cast out demons. The process of learning, insight, case study, no longer permits us to believe in demon possession when a person is exhibiting disturbing personality traits. We know now that the labyrinthine human personality does not lend itself to such naive, even though supernatural, beliefs. Learning has constantly been modified and revolutionized, as ideas and theory have been exposed to testing and discussion. Furthermore, social life has become increasingly complex. Tribal simplicities and behavioral certainties are not sufficiently sophisticated for urban, industrial, international societies.

Our deep roots could provide tranquilizer for anxieties but tranquilizers are not enough. Only the growth of green twigs in our day — that is, as we are mature enough to confront our difficulties with the knowledge and tools of our time, can we find an answer rather than an escape. Our deep roots are a life-source of values and principles; the green twigs are the new life in the atmosphere of the contemporary. When we believe that the green twigs of new growth depend altogether on the vitality flowing upwards from the roots, we are sometimes too greatly impressed with traditions which are the roots of our culture. Of course the deep roots of religious culture are of fundamental importance to the way we grow. But the environment is important, too, for infestations of living bugs can strip the tree of its new growth and as we well know in this autumn of 1963, that drought can wither the greenery, creating grave danger of conflagration.

Yes, our roots in culture are deep and strong — the primitive roots, the Egyptian, the Judaic, the Christian, the Greek, the Roman, the Germanic and Oriental cultures are entwined in a buried web which is not to be unraveled simply. But our attitudes, beliefs and actions are not wholly explained by these complex roots, for living experience is the great modifier of all that has been.

To balance properly old wisdom and new life, we need ways of understanding and methods of choice. For today's purposes let me suggest — time as dynamic, the person as perceptive and love as capacious.

Time is dynamic. Time is a way of stating that our life is an experience of continuous change. If 1 go to the banks of the Genesee and dip my hand in the flowing water, I can never repeat that action precisely. For the river is not static, but moving. The water in the moment of passing is not the water that has flowed in the past. The patterns of current change, even if only slightly. Furthermore, I have changed; I am never precisely the same when I dip my hand the next time. New experience, new thought and alteration in my physical body — tissue, blood, glands— have all occurred even in moments.

Time is dynamic; consequently religion cannot be static. Religion too must be understood in the process of change. Frequently the Old Testament prophet, Amos, is referred to as a prophet of courage who spoke to human conditions. What brought forth his eloquence and incisive criticisms was the scene that was contemporary for him. He was not motivated by what happened to Moses on Sinai, even though that great legend was part of his inspiration. Amos was moved to act because of what he met in his experience in Israel.

Jesus was applying this same dynamism of time when he said, (Matt 5/21 and passim), "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment...."

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

"Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, ...But I say to you, Do not swear at all...."

Again and again in the history of religions, we observe it made plain that the present tense takes priority over the past. Religion at its best is always interpreted in the light of contemporary experience. The measure must be, not what is more Biblical, but what is more adequate for a faith now. Man is more made to participate in the present and seek goals, than he is to be a defender of antiquities.

So in our attempt to bring out best of religion in a child: We look backward, bring the heritage of the past, but of greatest concern is not what may have been true in the past, but what the child needs today.

In this affirmation of the dynamism of time, we recognize the present moment. Too often, we think of school, whether religious or public, as a means of preparation for a distant tomorrow — Preparatory school. But life for the child, for you, for me, is now. Preparation is not to be dismissed, but more important is participation, creatively in life today. One may attend a concert given by a great artist in order to participate then in an exhibition of great creative skill. One goes to participate in a great experience, not to prepare for a musical knowledge quiz some years hence.

Time is dynamic. We want persons, little ones and grown ones to experience life as great and worthwhile now, with their companions, achieving their own insights at their present level of capacity, finding the best moments of all the forces operating now in their lives.

The person is perceptive. There is that about human nature which enables each one of us to perceive himself in some fashion. The human personality can attempt to know itself and others. We have an ability to experience feelings about our individual placement in the whole space that defines our living.

The person is perceptive. To the best of knowledge, man is the only creature on this planet keenly aware that he is a self, a unique personality who is in relationship with other selves — persons. The idea that each of us is a person who thinks and feels is basic to humanity; the idea that each of us is a person who thinks and feels should be central in all our relationships — religious life for child and adult, particularly.

When we affirm the "supreme worth of every human personality," we are professing that we believe every child, every adult perceives himself and will feel self-respect because respect has been shown to him. We perceive ourselves as persons deserving of freedom and mutual respect because we are persons who accept the fact of unique personality as one of the highest values created in human societies. The old scripture of Deuteronomy has Yahveh saying, "Hear out your fellow men and decide justly between any man and a fellow Israelite or a stranger. You shall not be partial in judgment; hear out high and low alike,"

In the life of the Church, in the encounters between child and child, child and adult, adult and adult, we want these persons to experience firsthand, respect and self-respect, understanding of others, understanding of self. We will draw vitality from the roots of our culture as this source contributes to that achievement of self and selfhood.

We believe it of prime importance that every person shall feel good about himself, for we know that the worst things that can happen are usually caused by persons who have no self-esteem, and consequently, do not esteem others. When self-esteem and other-esteem is absent, then prejudices multiply, hate grows and all that is good is in jeopardy of corruption.

Max Lerner in his essay, "Education and a Radical Humanism," (p. 4) said it well, "Instead of the three R's, I suggest that the new imperatives of our time are the three Knows — to know your world and the forces that are shaping and reshaping it, to know your craft, whatever it may be, and to know it with precision and with passion, to know yourself, to make that journey into the interior which is the most difficult journey anyone is called upon to make."

The person is perceptive. To accept the implications of this is to confront persons, whatever their age may be with experiences or opportunities for experiences that will enable the child, the adult, every you and me, to know our world, to know our skill and to know ourselves by making that difficult journey to the center of self. The person is perceptive.

Love is capacious. We have no justification to assert that we advocate a religion fit for all persons unless we accept as a primary foundation the spirit of love which has the capacity to reach out and touch all areas that we meet.

Love is capacious because it has the power to receive, absorb and understand all conflicts that divide and all ignorance that touches off hostility. The mother loves the child and the child loves the mother, but this is not enough. Love must be capacious enough so that the mother in Brighton can understand and love as a person the mother on Baden St. Then when they come to live on the same street, the children will have experienced the capacious love of their parents and will have in their own experience the capacity for love of neighbor as well as love of family. In the story of Ruth, the Bible contains a great narrative that demonstrates that love need not be bound by clan but has the power to reach for deeper levels of personal fulfillment.

That this is the most difficult of tasks in an anxious and fragmented time is the very reason why the experience of many centers of human love are so vital to our children and ourselves. Love must penetrate the iron, the bamboo and silken curtains in the world and all the color curtains at home or we are in for disaster that will make Lord of the Flies seem like a fun-filled day at Coney Island, In that rewarding of stories, Jonah, the narrow-minded preacher discovers that God is no respecter of nations, either, that no culture or people has either a monopoly of truth or any claim for superiority unless that claim be demonstrated by righteousness, understanding and good will.

An educator once commented on the famous study, THE DAWN OF CONSCIENCE, by Professor James H. Breasted. THE DAWN OF CONSCIENCE was a scholarly effort to demonstrate that man first acquired conscience in the Egyptian civilization of about 5000 years ago. If conscience was born 5000 years ago, the human family has been operating under the weight of an enormous handicap, because 5000 years ago, man had then been making weapons for a million years.

We feel that head start of weaponry today. One thing we can do among ourselves, in our church, emphasize and set up experiences of many ways to know love:
Not only the love of parent for child,
Not only the love of wife and husband,
But also the love of friend for friend,
But also the love of stranger for stranger, when first experiences of good will and acceptance throw open the gate for larger and fuller times when strangers become friends.

Love is capacious. Into its great receptive strength, we may trust not only the problems of community, but of world. But capacious love is not passive love, it is activity to accomplish the goals of good will.

As I have stressed the inseparability of the dynamism of time, the perception of self and the capacity of love, there has been implicit what I wish to state explicitly: We want to do more than imprint our children and ourselves with the stamp of culture-past. We want to encourage our children and fortify ourselves to change that culture where it needs changing. In order to experience now the effects of a better world, we must point forward to a better world and in the efforts to achieve it, experience now a taste of that good time coming when "earth shall be fair and all her people one." Our first and continuing obligation is to train our children in ways of living that are cooperative, as well as individual, recognizing interdependence as well as freedom and to express that spirit in overt acts. And to walk that way ourselves.

There is no reason to have any lesser goal, any lesser means in the educational spirit of the liberal church. Only so may the deep roots continue to send strength to our time; only so may the green twigs maintain growth and beauty, and ever new growth.