Religion and the WarYale University. Divinity School
Religion
Religion and the War
Yale University. Divinity School
World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects
Now, in the work of establishing a real brotherhood among individuals
and among nations, religion has the advantage over mere morality, for
it can avail itself of the power of the religious sanctions in trying
to realize the kingdom of righteousness. But, on the other hand, a
subtle danger lurks in religion which it may be well to point out
here, and which must be guarded against in our future efforts at
community, national and world-organization, for it tends to
subordinate the ethical element in religion, and often degenerates
into an anti-social program. According to the sanest views of the
psychology of religion, the whole mind as intellect, sensibility and
will functions in the religious consciousness. Because of this, there
is a possibility of developing a wrong sense of values in the
religious life. There has been a notable tendency in human history to
stress the intellectual element in religion. This has resulted in a
large body of doctrine which frequently assumes extraordinary
significance. The main thing, then, is to give intellectual assent to
dogma and creed. Orthodoxy of belief rather than orthodoxy of life
becomes the primary thing. The ethical element in religion is
subordinated to intellectual belief. And how divisive and anti-social,
rather than unifying, dogma has been, and how deadening to real moral
endeavor! This constitutes a long and very tragic chapter in the
history of Christianity, as well as of other religions.
Again, there has been another marked tendency in the history of
religion and that is the substitution of the religion of feeling for
the religion of will. Pietism and sentimentalism have supplanted in a
large measure the ethical. Such religion is dominantly non-social, if
not, indeed, anti-social in its character. It does not make for
brotherhood. The pietistic monk shuts himself in a monastery and tries
to work out his soul's salvation with fear and trembling, rather than
to work it out by aiding his neighbor or society to work out theirs.
Buddhism and Christianity have been most unfortunate victims of this
substitution of solitude for solidarity. Dean Brown once said to the
writer that there is a great deal of pietism that is utterly wanting
in ethical quality, and that is true. It is a kind of selfish
subjectivism devoid of any real moral character. It is self-centered
and non-social. It represents the minimum of true religion. Where in
such pietism do we find the universality of obligation involved in the
ethical law of benevolence or in the Christian law of love? Such
religion does not bear the marks of a really socialized gospel. It has
developed a wrong sense of values.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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