Every religion exhibits a certain form of organization peculiar to itself and derived from its controlling idea. The organization of the Buddhist fellowship is dependent on the Buddhist ideal of preparation for absorption in Nirvana. The constitution of the Jewish synagogue reflects the conception of the relation of the Chosen People, as an élite corps of the divinity. The organization of the Christian church is characterized by its bifurcation into an ecclesia militans and an ecclesia triumphans, and further by the idea of incorporation into the body of Christ, a difficult mystical conception as of a typical divine individual including within his body a multitude of other individuals.
The organization of the ethico-religious society has been foreshadowed in the chapter on the vocations. The society is to be divided into vocational groups. In each vocational group is to be worked out the specific ethical ideal of that vocation. In the groups the general ethical philosophy of life is to be applied, tested and enriched. The so-called ethical teachers will here come into fruitful contact with those who are in touch at first hand with actual conditions, and are cognizant of the difficulties to be surmounted in ethicizing vocational standards. The members of the groups in democratic fashion will contribute to the advancement, not only of ethical practice, but of ethical knowledge, and thus become on their side teachers of the teachers. The danger of the formation of an ethical clergy will be averted. The teachers will be in certain respects the pupils of the taught, and the relation be reciprocal, that is, ethical.
Among the groups the vocational group of Mothers will occupy the central place. The influence of women, especially of the mother group, must penetrate the religious society through and through, for the purpose of drawing the entire fellowship together into a coherent unity. Women henceforth will take a deeper interest in the ethical development of human society. A main factor, if not the only factor in the ethical development of human society, is the elevation of the vocational standards. The group of mothers will therefore be in close touch with the other vocational groups in order to gain a knowledge of the higher standards therein proposed, in order to appraise them, and to inspire the growing generation with the devoted purpose to carry these standards out in practice.
C. The Worship or Public Manifestation of Religion
The ideal of worship likewise must undergo transformation. It has meant an act of homage toward a superior or supreme individual; it has meant eulogistic affirmation of the power, wisdom, goodness, of that individual; it has meant prayer or petition for help from that individual. It has also meant spiritual edification.
In all these various modes, religious worship heretofore has focused attention on a single individual deity as one who embodies in himself the sum of perfection. In thus presenting the ideal of perfection, it has encouraged preference for unity at the expense of plurality. The salient feature of the spiritual ideal sketched in this volume is the affirmation, on ethical grounds, that plurality is of equal dignity with unity, and hence that the divine ideal is to be represented not as One, but as manifold; not as an individual, however supereminent, but as an infinite holy community,—every human being being in his essential nature a member of that community.
But can worship be offered to the members of a holy community? In a certain sense one might say, Yes, preëminently so, since worship may be taken to mean Worthship, and the worth intrinsic in our fellowmen is the object of our unceasing homage. At the same time very different associations have gathered about the word. Public worship consists largely of eulogistic singing, prayer, adoration, genuflexion, and these are appropriate only to deity conceived as an individual. We cannot even say with the Psalmist “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” For though the beauty and order apparent in Nature is one aspect of nature on which we delight to dwell, yet we cannot disingenuously suppress the counter evidence of disorder, ugliness and suffering which Nature no less obtrudes on our sight. The argument from design implied in the Psalmist’s words is no longer tenable. Certainly we cannot any longer pray for material assistance as our forefathers did, or invoke supernatural intervention in situations where human science and human helpfulness are impotent. But worship also aims at ethical edification, by holding up to the mind the moral ideal as an object of imitation, and as a rebuke to man’s shortcomings. This indeed is its highest function. Nevertheless the moral ideal, as we conceive it, is incapable of being presented in the guise of an individual being, no matter by what superlative language the limitation inseparable from individuality be concealed. The bare attributes of omniscience and omnipotence are abstract and convey no positive meaning whatever. In actual worship a concrete image is invariably associated with the notion of the individualized Deity, such as the Father image or the Christ image. And as soon as this is done, the vast ethical ideal tends to shrink to the dimensions of a human image; and instead of the ideal in its fullness, only certain selected but inadequate aspects of ethical excellence are presented to the worshiper.
And yet in an ethico-religious society also the public manifestation of religion is indispensable. Of what elements shall it consist?
First, there are to be the public addresses by the teachers, having for their main object to arouse or intensify a certain kind of spiritual distress, and then as far as possible to appease it. Every religion in my judgment originates in a particular kind of anguish, and is an attempt to assuage it. The spiritual distress in which the ethico-religious society has its origin is the agonizing consciousness of tangled relations with one’s fellow-beings, and the inexpressible longing to come into right relations with them. He is fit to be a public teacher of this religion who profoundly experiences this distress, who desires nothing so much as to cease to be, for his part, a thorn in his neighbor’s side. We are that, each of us, inevitably. The more this feeling is strong in him the more will he arouse similar feelings in others, and thus awaken those who are spiritually asleep, the self-righteous, the self-satisfied, and he will then indicate to the utmost of his power, the way of relief.
The specific ethical ideals of life are also to be presented in public assemblies—the ideals of private ethics, of marriage, friendship, and the rest. These expressions of the specific ideals, charged with feeling, and taking on appropriate imagery, will gradually attain a certain classical fitness—classical at least for a time—and may be used as public readings.