Creed and Deed: A Series of Discourses

by Felix Adler

A year has now passed since we began our work, and for many months we have met in this hall week after week. We have reached the first resting place upon our journey, and it behooves us to look back once more upon the path we have travelled, and forward into the yet untried future that awaits us.

What was it that induced us to enter upon so perilous and for many reasons so uncertain an enterprise?

We felt a great need. Religion which ought to stand for the highest truth, had ceased to be true to us. We saw it at war with the highest intelligence of the day; religion and conscience also seemed no longer inseparably connected, as they should be. We saw that millions are annually lavished upon the mere luxuries of religion, gorgeous temples, churches and on the elaborate apparatus of salvation; we could not but reflect that if one tithe of the sums thus set apart were judiciously expended upon the wants of the many who are famishing, distress might often be relieved, sickness averted, and crime confined within more narrow boundaries. We saw around us many who had lapsed from their ancient faith but still preserved the outward show of conformance, encouraged in so equivocal a course, by the advice and example of noted leaders in the churches themselves. We saw that the great tides of being are everywhere sweeping mankind on to larger achievements than were known to the past; only within the churches all is still and motionless; only within the churches the obsolete forms of centuries ago are retained, or if concessions to the present are made, they are tardy, ungracious and insufficient. We beheld that the essentials of religion are neglected, even while its accessories are observed with greater punctiliousness than ever.

We were passing moreover through a period of momentous import in our country's history. The nation had just entered upon the second century of its existence, and the great recollections of what the fathers had done and designed for the republic, were fresh in our minds. We recalled the memorable words of Washington in his first inaugural address: "That the national policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality." But we were startled to observe how greatly recent events had falsified these hopes and felt it our duty, within our own limited sphere, to restore something of that noble simplicity, something of that high fidelity to righteousness which it is said adorned the earlier days, and on which alone the fortunes of the state can rest securely hereafter.

Then also the question, how best to educate the children to a worthy life, confronted us. The doctrines of religion as commonly interpreted, we could no longer impart to them; did we attempt to do so, they would be likely to discard them in later years, and would in the mean time be seriously injured in their moral estate by the struggle and its probable issue. On the other hand we were aware that the temptations which surround the young in this complex and highly wrought civilization of ours, are peculiarly dangerous and alluring, and by all the holiest instincts of humanity, we conceived ourselves bound to provide more effectively for their moral welfare. A few of us therefore took counsel how these objects might be attained, and we determined to take a step in a new direction. We did not conceal from ourselves the difficulties that would attend what we were about to undertake. We might expect honest opposition. There would be no need to shrink from that. We might expect misconstruction, unintentioned or with malice aforethought; we might expect also cold comfort from those illiberal liberals, who are eager enough to assert the principles of freedom for themselves, but relax alike their principles and their tempers when the limits are transcended which they have themselves reached, and which, on this account, they arbitrarily set up as the barriers of future progress. There were other obstacles inherent in the nature of the work itself. But all these weighed lightly in the scales, when opposed to the stern conviction, that there are certain hideous shams allowed to flourish in our public life; that there are certain great truths which ought to be brought home with new energy to the conscience of the people.

Upon what platform could we unite. To formulate a new creed was out of the question. However comprehensive in its statements it might be, nay though it had been the creed of absolute negation, from which indeed we are far removed, it would never have combined our efforts in permanent union. And yet it was plain that to be strong and to exert influence, we must effect a firm, cordial, enthusiastic agreement upon some great principle. The weakness of the Liberal Party had hitherto been, as we knew, its dread of organization. It ensured thereby for its members a greater measure of freedom than is elsewhere known, but it purchased this advantage at an immense expense of practical influence and coherency. Its forces are scattered, and in every emergency, it finds itself paralyzed for want of unity in its own ranks. The Catholic Church has pursued the opposite policy, and presents the most notable instance of its successful prosecution. It is so formidable, mainly because of its splendid scheme of organization, and the high executive ability of its leaders. But its power is maintained at a complete sacrifice of freedom. Could we not secure both? Could we not be free and strong? This was the problem before us, and it seemed to us we could.

What the exigencies of the modern age demand, more than aught else, is a new movement for the moral elevation of the race. Now the basic facts of man's moral nature, though insufficiently illustrated in practice, are universally admitted among civilized human beings. Concerning them there is and can be no dispute. Here then appeared the solid principle of our union. The moral ideal would point the way of safety, the moral ideal would permit us to preserve the sacred right of individual differences intact, and yet to combine with our fellow-men for the loftiest and purest ends. Taking the term creed therefore in its widest application, we started out with the watchword, Diversity in the Creed, Unanimity in the Deed. This feature, if any at all, lends character to our movement, and by it would we be judged. We claim to be thereby distinguished, as well from those religious corporations that base their organization upon definite theological dogmas, as also from the great majority of Liberals who meet for purposes of contemplation and poetical aspiration, in that we put the moral element prominently forward and behold in it the bond of our union, the pledge of our vitality.

But at the very threshold of our enterprise, we were met by the objection that our main premise is false; that morality is impossible without dogma, and that in neglecting the one we were virtually neutralizing our efforts toward the other. It became our first and most serious task therefore to show the futility of this objection, and to make clear by an appeal to philosophy and history that the claims of dogma are conditional, while the dictates of morality are imperative. Then, having established the priority and supremacy of the moral law, to examine what manner of substitute the ethical ideal can offer us to replace the offices of the doctrinal religions; what are the hopes it holds out, what its consolations, what it can give us for the priesthood and the church. With this task we have been occupied during the year that has gone by, and now, at the close, we propose to review once more, the chief steps which we have taken in the course of our enquiry.

We discussed in the first place the doctrine of immortality, and some of the main arguments upon which it is commonly founded.

We next proceeded to take up the study of the Hebrew Bible; for it is evident that so long as this book is clothed with infallible authority, arguments based on fact and logic avail nothing, and reason is helpless before any random scriptural quotation. We examined the composition of the work: we learned that many of those portions that are esteemed most ancient, are of comparatively recent origin; that the text is studded with discrepancies, and that the marks of savage and cruel customs such as the offering of human sacrifices to the Deity, are still clearly indented on the sacred volume. The conclusion followed that a book so full of contradiction, so deeply tinged with the evidence of human fallibility, could not have been the work of a divine author. The inspiration theory being thus divested of its support, we considered how baneful *had been its influence on the course of human history; how it had retarded the progress of the Jews among whom it arose; how it had checked the intellectual development of Europe, how it had hampered the advancement of science; how it had offered a specious plea for the despotism of kings, and of the holy Inquisition; how in our own days it had become in the hands of the Southern slaveholders a most formidable means of perpetuating their infamous scheme of oppression. We concluded that whatever is false and worthless in the book we should feel at liberty to reject, while what is great and holy would not therefore become less great or less holy to us, because it was proven to be man's work, man's testimony to the divine possibilities inherent in the human soul.