The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance

by Roy Wood Sellars

CHAPTER XVI

THE HUMANIST'S RELIGION

In the preceding pages we have no doubt often hurt—but we have hurt to heal. The good surgeon probes deeply in order that he may not have the operation to perform again. Even a minute amount of diseased tissues left behind can prevent the return of vigorous and creative health. Thus what may seem to the anxious patient unnecessary cruelty may be the greatest kindness. A sentimental compromise is never welcomed by the mature judgment of the brave man. And in this day when so many have willingly given their lives for the sake of a human ideal, is it just and right to flinch in the spiritual warfare which confronts our generation? We are seeking nothing less than a renaissance in which men's energies will be wisely and loyally directed to what is greatly human and humanly great. In such a service we must will to be hard on ourselves and on others.

In the past, religion has only too often been formal and negative and world-fleeing. It has said nay to life rather than yea. Past religion rested upon man's sense of his own helplessness in a world which he did not understand. By the very instinct of self-preservation, he created supernatural powers which were to be on his side in the grim and unequal struggle in which he was engaged. But this subterfuge by which he thought to conquer had its treacherous effects, for it turned man from comprehending and mastering his world. He became but a pilgrim here, intent on heavenly joys and splendors, which threw this world into darkness. What these joys and splendors were he hardly knew: yet he hugged the thought of them to his heart and despised things merely human. And if, as often became the case, the world grew upon him, his conscience was torn and tormented. He was a man divided against himself, unable to throw himself whole-heartedly into any enterprise.

But the humanist's religion is the religion of one who says yea to life here and now, of one who is self-reliant and fearless, intelligent and creative. It is the religion of the will to power, of one who is hard on himself and yet joyous in himself. It is the religion of courage and purpose and transforming energy. Its motto is, "What hath not man wrought?" Its goal is the mastery of things that they may become servants and instrumentalities to man's spiritual comradeship. Whatever mixture of magic, fear, ritual and adoration religion may have been in man's early days, it is now, and henceforth must be, that which concerns man's nobilities, his discovery of, and loyalty to, the pervasive values of life. The religious man will now be he who seeks out causes to be loyal to, social mistakes to correct, wounds to heal, achievements to further. He will be constructive, fearless, loyal, sensitive to the good wherever found, a believer in mankind, a fighter for things worth while.

When old ideas become enfeebled, they clog the spiritual system. Conventionality, routine and sentimentalism take the place of the fresh vigor which always accompanies profound conviction. A gospel cannot be a heritage enjoyed: it must be a portion earned. And to-day, especially, there is pressing need for a brave criticism of past standards, succeeded by an act of intelligent will which presses fearlessly on to a reformulation and reaffirmation of values. Because the old religions did not have this power to exalt significant human ideals, relevant to the changing crisis of the times, the nations drifted into the materialism of commercialism and militarism. And a religion insistent upon a rational and wise interpretation of the ways of life will, alone, be able to rescue them. Watchwords by themselves, if they remain vague generalities untranslatable into new directions of effort, will fail. What is necessary is a new goal, or else a pragmatic development of past dreams into programs which awaken loyalty and hope. But the center of gravity and endeavor of such a religion will lie within society. It will be, to all intents and purposes, a humanist's religion. It will save men's souls by making them worth saving. For it, salvation will be no magical hocus-pocus external to the reach and timbre of man's personality: it will be his loyal and intelligent union with those values and possibilities of life which have come within his ken. To convert will be to educate and redirect the energies of the soul. And society will need conversion as pressingly as scattered individuals in slums and tenements. Does it to-day stress the most important things? The State has been the servant of things as they are, not of things as they might be. A humanist's religion can admit no cunning division into the things which are God's and the things which are Cæsar's. Human values are as jealous as the Yahweh of Moses. To sin against them is to die spiritually.

The common opinion that critical work is ever merely negative is a great error. It is the willing error of a dogmatism which feels itself insecure. It is the error of a spiritual plane which has settled into ease and hates to be disturbed. Sooner or later, criticism leads to something positive, to a new vision and a new goal. All that is needed is the patience which is founded upon faith and is willing to try all things in the firm belief that the truth will prevail. Moreover, criticism has a positive psychological effect in that it calls attention to the actual situation and directs attention to the living problems. It is that spur to the soul which prevents it from going to sleep. Without it, problems are avoided rather than sought. Who can deny that this lethargy has been the disheartening temper of the Christian Church, now when every domain of life cries aloud for vigorous thought? Surely religion has to do with more than the common decencies of life, important as they are. Its place is in the van of the fighting; it has to do with last hopes and glimpsed visions, with what is to come as well as with what is. Religion at its tensest has to do with ultimate loyalties. Habit and tradition are helpless in such matters, which are of things hoped for—upon this earth.

But enough of the critical side. We have said that the coming religion will say yea to human life. Yet it will not affirm it in a blind and sentimental way. It will be realistic and striving. All great religions of the past have recognized the tragic aspects of human life, its brevity, its littlenesses, its fussy selfishness, its lack of vision, its suffering; but they have too often been led to despise humanity by seeing it on the illimitable background of celestial omnipotences and perfections. Religion as loyalty to human values will lose no whit of this tragic sense, and yet the palsying background of supernaturalism will disappear. Some measure of tragedy will remain; but its morbidity will have been separated out and courageously rejected. Social groups will fall to with a will to live largely and widely. They will seek a tingling welfare woven of the threefold values of truth, beauty and goodness. The saint will not be the groveling sinner, but the man of mellow wisdom. He will be immersed in the currents of life and yet master of himself. He will be at once the servant of concrete and compassable ideals and their possessor and enjoyer.