FREE RELIGION.[37]
This Free Religious Association appears to be composed of men and women who, some thirty years ago, were, or would have been, called come-outers in Boston and its vicinity, but who are now generally called radicals, a name which they seem quite willing to accept. They are universal agitators, and see or imagine grievances everywhere, and make it a point wherever they see or can invent a grievance, to hit it; at least, to strike at it. They were conspicuous in the late abolition movement, are strenuous advocates for negro equality—or, rather, negro superiority—stanch women's rights men, in a word, reformers in general. They claim to have a pure and universal religion; and though some of them are downright atheists, they profess to be more Christian than Christianity itself, and their aim would seem to be to get rid of all special religion, so as to have only religion in general. They say, in the first article of their constitution:
"This association shall be called the Free Religious Association—its objects being to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit; and to this end all persons interested in these objects are cordially invited to its membership."
Nothing can be fairer or broader, so far as words go. Ordinary mortals, however, may be puzzled to make out what this religion in general, and no religion in particular, really is; and also to understand how there can be pure religion and scientific theology without God. Our radical friends are not puzzled at all. They have only to call man God, and the scientific study of the physiological and psychological laws of human nature the scientific study of theology, and every difficulty vanishes. Whoever believes in himself believes in God, and whoever can stand poised on himself has in himself the very essence of religion. According to them, the great error of the past has been in supposing that religion consists in the recognition, the love, and the service of a superior power; but the merit of free religion is, that it emancipates mankind from this mother error, discards the notion that they owe obedience to any power above humanity, and teaches that man is subject only to himself. Hence the Emersonian maxim, Obey thyself, which, translated into plain English, is, Live as thou listest.
The aim of the association, the president—whom we remember as a handsome, fair-complexioned, bright-eyed school-boy—tells us in his opening address is Unity. He says:
"Our aim, let it be understood, is unity; not division, discord, conflict—but unity. We are not controversialists. We carry no sword in our hands. We wear no weapons concealed about our person. Our one word is peace—the word which is always most heartily responded to by earnest men. Religion means unity; the very definition of it signifies the power that binds men together; that binds all souls to the divine. The communion of saints—that is the religious phrase; and yet you will pardon me if I say that religion at present is the one word that means division. As interpreted by the religious world, it means war and discord. Subjects are debated on other platforms—social questions, political questions; they are debated and dismissed. In the religious world the discussion goes on more persistently, more bitterly than on any other field; but the issues are always the same, the venue is never changed, conclusions are never reached, and we lack the benefit that comes from the reconciliation of perpetual discussion.
"Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism, the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism, fetichism, Sabaism—all stand where they did. All gather in their population; all have their organized activities, as they ever had. No one of them has materially changed its front; not one of them has been disorganized; not one of them has retreated from the ground that from time immemorial it has occupied. They have stormed at each other, they have been mortal enemies; but still they stand where they stood. There is no superstition, however degrading, that does not exist to-day; and Christian missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, have gone out with hearts of flame and tongues of fire, and souls that were all one solid single piece of consecration, and have dashed themselves in hosts with the utmost heroism against those ancient lines of faith; and their weapons have dropped harmless at the foot. Here and there a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few tens or hundreds of thousands, may have shifted from one faith to the other; but the solid substance of these great religions still endures. The vast aggregates of millions and tens of millions are unaffected. Christianity holds its own, and no more. Buddhism and Brahminism hold their own, and as much. What shall we say to this? Does religion mean unity? The world cannot be all of one form of religion. Religion is deeper than all its several forms. One religion cannot dislodge another; one faith cannot supplant another faith. Put Christianity in the place of Brahminism and Buddhism, and people would not be Christians. They might change their name—they would not change their nature. The inhabitants of countries that have been under the sway of those great faiths do not become Christian men by becoming Christian peoples. The Turks in European Turkey are better men than the Greek Christians in European Turkey. The religions, as such, must hold their places essentially undisturbed. Harmony is not possible at present on that ground—on any sectarian ground.
"Christianity itself is a bundle of religions. There is the vast Greek Church, with its patriarchs; there is the enormous Catholic Church, with its pope; here are all the families of the Protestant Church, with their clergy. They hold the same relative position. Protestantism does not subdue Romanism; Romanism will never subdue Protestantism. The Protestant Church and Roman Church have stood face to face for centuries; and thus they will continue to stand, as long as the populations have the genius that God gave them. What is Christendom but an army divided against itself? What is Protestantism but a mingling of warring sects?—each sect falling in pieces the moment it becomes organized for work. Unitarianism does not gain on Orthodoxy; Orthodoxy does not gain on Unitarianism. Each sect takes up the little portion that belongs to it, and must rest contented; and all the power of propagandism, of sectarian zeal, of fire and earnestness, does but cause the little flame to burn up more brightly for an instant on the local altar; and, when it dies down, the ashes remain on that altar still.
"Our word, then, is Unity. But how shall we get it? Not by becoming Catholics; not by making another order of Protestants; not by instituting another sect; but by going down below all the sects—going down to faith. For faith, hope, aspiration, charity, love, worship, we believe, are inherent, profound, indestructible elements of human nature." (Pp. 7-9.)
The rhetoric is not bad; but in what does the unity aimed at consist, and how is it to be obtained? Religion, by the speakers who addressed the association, is assumed to be a sentiment, and faith and hope and charity are, we are told, indestructible elements of human nature; then since human nature is one, what unity can the free religionists aspire to that they and all men have not already, or have not always had? Pass over this; whence and by what means is the unity, whatever it consists in, to be obtained? The answer to this question is not very definite, but it would seem the association expect it from below, not from above; for the president says, we are to obtain it only by "going down below all sects—going down to faith." A Catholic would have said, We attain to unity only by rising above all sects, to a faith which is one and universal, and which the sects rend and divide among themselves. But the radicals have outgrown Catholicity, outgrown Christianity, and very properly look for faith and unity from below. But when they get down, down to the lowest deep, will they find them? What faith or unity will they find in the lowest depths of humanity in addition to what all men have always had? If, notwithstanding the unity of nature, sects and divisions prevail, and always have prevailed, how, with nothing above nature or in addition to it, do you expect to get rid of them, and establish practical unity, or to obtain the charity that springs from unity?
The radicals deny that they are destructives, that they have only negations, or that they make war on any existing church, religion, sect, or denomination; they will pardon us, then, if we are unable to conceive what they mean by unity, or what unity, except the physical unity of nature, there is or can be among those who divide on every subject in which they feel any interest. Does the association propose to get rid of diversity by indifference, and of divisions simply by bringing all men to agree to differ? We certainly find only unity in denying among the individuals associated, who agree in nothing except that each one holds himself or herself alone responsible for his or her own personal views and utterances. Some of them would retain the Christian name, and others would reject it. Mr. Francis Ellingwood Abbott argues that it is not honest to hold on to the name after having rejected the thing. By professing to be a Christian a man binds himself to accept Christianity; and whoso accepts Christianity, binds himself to accept the Catholic Church, which embodies and expresses it. We make an extract from his address: