RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AS AN AID TO CONSCIOUS RELATION WITH GOD

MR. L. WILBUR MESSER

GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Many religious leaders believe that the Church of God, the Holy Catholic Church, has entered upon the greatest spiritual awakening in its history; a revival more widespread and permanent than the reformation of Luther, the awakening of Finney, or the evangelism of Moody; a revival decreasingly characterized by the periodical revival meetings, the emphasis on sudden emotional experience, dogmatic and fragmentary Bible instruction, on well-intended but unorganized and unspecialized missionary endeavor.

The great religious awakening which is marking the first decade of the twentieth century, the new evangelism, will place not less but more emphasis on the fundamental religious truths of Jesus and His apostles now held in common by all true believers.

Religious education has shown that there is a common consciousness of the continual presence of a supreme being, or God. "In the beginning God." These are the primal words of the oldest book in use. The immanence of God is experienced in every human soul. The universal fear of or devotion to an overruling spirit, or aggregation of spirits, is significant. The idolatry, sacrifices, penances, and devotions of peoples of all races and ages testify most strongly to their inherent consciousness that, over and working upon the human life, are controlling influences that have their center outside of one's self. In the sober moments of life every man instinctively appeals to or leans upon the larger and stronger spirit whom he, perhaps vaguely, regards as the original and final authority over the affairs of men.

Most men are conscious of a competition going on for the mastery of life or the struggle between the higher and lower tendencies. Many consider this high nature, or set of tendencies, as the voice and presence of God.

Religious education has shown that there is a consciousness of falling short of the expectation of God or of direct violation of His will. This is consciousness of sin. A most patent experience in the life of every man is his feeling of insufficiency or shortcoming. The great unrest of the human race finds its origin in the inbred feeling that it has

not attained or has blundered. The sense of forgiveness and of approbation, when one turns from the lower to the higher tendencies within him, is a real and personal experience, but no more so than the depressing sense of guilt and overhanging penalty when one yields to the lower tendencies at the sacrifice of the higher.

The commonly recognized distance between our real selves and our ideals and the general sense of lack of complete harmony with the "best," marks the failure that constitutes sin. The self-willed life that breaks from a conscious harmony with the supreme will finds itself ill at ease and in hazard, and usually recognizes, even if it will not admit, that the trouble lies essentially in this lack of harmony.

Religious education emphasizes the fact that there is a realization that God is concerned about us. The fact that we are His handiwork that He has created us, is a fundamental indication of His concern for It is impossible for us to conceive of God as having no interest in the highest type of His creation; nor can we believe that the divine law of economy would permit the persistence of forms with which He is not concerned.

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An evidence of God's concern is found in our instinct of kinship with Him, constantly urging us to seek a closer relation with Him. The human heart craves for a deeper and more sustaining love than any earthly relationship can supply, and this craving is fairly interpreted as the attractive power of His love for us. Dr. Frank Crane says: "God has been, in every age and race, brooding over His human children, slowly lifting them by the influence of His personality into a higher life." God must certainly care for those whom He thus develops into His own image.

Religious education makes clear the fundamental truth that the correct view of life depends upon a recognition of Christ as the most potent and concrete manifestation of God. We have the record of God's direct recognition of Christ at the time of His baptism: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and at the time of His transfiguration, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." Christ Himself said: "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me"; "He that seeth Me seeth the Father"; "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."

Testimony written later by a contemporary of Christ affirms that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

True religious education makes emphatic the great truth that reconciliation with God and a fully successful life depend upon individual adoption of the principles of Jesus Christ as determining one's attitude, development, and service. The principles of Jesus Christ find their perfect exemplification in His own personality. To become a Christian is to become a student of Christ's life, to pledge allegiance to Him and to incorporate in the life the principles of His kingdom.

The principles of Christ are concisely stated in what He called the two great commandments: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment; and the second is like, namely, this: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

In the fulfillment of the fundamental principle of love to God and love to men, we find Christ's development into a symmetrical perfection. "Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man."

One's adoption of these principles makes for the salvation of the whole man, body, mind, and spirit, harmonized with the will of God. and prepared for service to one's fellows. The face of the Christian believer is toward the goal "Of the measure of the stature of Christ." "Citizenship in the Kingdom of God is not a set of negations; it does not consists of long fasts, nor the absence of innocent pleasures; it is not to worship a set of opinions. It is a well-rounded character; it is health of the whole man; it is living in true fellowship with the spirit of the manliest man that ever lived." One of the most mischievous fallacies disproven by Christ is the attempt to separate the physical and mental sides of our being from the immortal soul, for one cannot fully love God or men with only part of his nature.

Christ's exemplification of His second great principle, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is found in the fulfillment of His mission as he described it, "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many." Our adoption of this principle makes service to our fellows a dominant characteristic of life. Conspicuous among the forms of Christ-inspired service are mighty educational, philanthropic, and social betterment movements, making for the broader establishment of "the kingdom of God on earth."

The adoption of Christ's principles, by yielding to the Holy Spirit, the pervading presence of God, makes us at one with Christ, and hence,

through His at-one-ment (atonement) gives us reconciliation with God, for He and the Father are one.

These fundamental religious truths are finding a large acceptance among men of various types, through the introduction and development of the sociological method in religious education and of adjustments in harmony with certain conclusions of religious psychology.

The recognition of the religious value of ethical, physical, educational, and social agencies has made possible the development of a symmetrical Christian life. The appreciation of the forces of environment, heredity and development, has made Christian teachers and workers less dogmatic, more patient, sympathetic and tactful. The scientific study of religious phenomena, the accommodation to temperamental varieties, the application of the divine law of development, the effort to meet adolescent conditions and difficulties, has resulted in an increase of adaptability which has overcome the prejudices of large classes of men who have failed to understand the fundamental truths and value of the Christian religion.

For nearly twenty-five years it has been my privilege to be closely associated with young men of widely different types and conditions, with exceptional opportunities for ascertaining their religious convictions and needs. I have found that the men of varied nationalities and occupations are largely and increasingly responsive to these principles of Jesus. The benefit of the application of these truths is manifest in the great constructive power of the Christian home, the Christian school, and the Christian church. It is also seen in the increasing respect for, and use of, the Bible as a divine revelation of the nature and will of God, and the proper relations of man both to his Creator and to his fellows. The new evangelism, the revival of the twentieth century, will lead men to accept the Christian life by yielding to the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ and by the adoption of His principles. This evangelism will lead men to build the Christian life by the constant and intelligent appropriation of divine forces which make for righteousness. This evangelism will lead the disciples of Jesus to the larger ministry of service.

The Religious Education Association, through one comprehensive organization of leaders and workers of all organizations which seek the extension of the kingdom of God, has become a great force in the promotion of a type of religious education which includes all that is vital in the evangelism of the past with added emphasis on truths and methods which will make religion a more pervasive power for personal and social goodness.

HOW CAN WE DEVELOP IN THE INDIVIDUAL A

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE?

LITERATURE AS THE EXPRESSION OF SOCIAL FORCES

PROFESSOR ARTHUR S. HOYT, D.D.

AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AUBURN, NEW YORK

Literature is the best interpretation of a people's life. The writers are the men who know their age best. They have not come from a favored class, but from the people. They are idealists, and see more truly than those who look on the form and fashion of life. They are universal in their sympathies, and touch truths that make men feel their oneness in nature, and need, and destiny. They feel with "men the workers, men my brothers."

Social forces slowly gather. The truth is first whispered in the closet. New ideals are cherished in the heart, they pass from lip to lip, long before they crystallize into laws and institutions of society. The men of imagination and feeling understand these deep and silent currents of life. They interpret the age to itself. They give body to the unnoticed and even intangible motions of common life.

Our American literature has been the mirror of our life. The greater freedom of thought here, a more widespread education, and so the greater influence of books, the closer identification of our literary men with popular interests, all unite to make our literature thoroughly expressive of American life.

Love

What have been the distinctive social forces of American life? of home and family, belief in the dignity of labor, sympathy for the weak and oppressed, and faith in the Democratic ideal. These truths may be called the very substance of our literature. The sacredness of the family has been the mark of our life from the beginning, and that sacredness has never been seriously questioned by our writers. They have been tenacious of our domestic ideals. Put Gibbon beside Motley, or Parkman, or Fiske, and we feel the purity of American thought, compared even with that of the mother country. Few of our writers deal with morbid sexuality. Not one has thought to consider marriage an open question, in the spirit of the "Woman Who Did," or "The South African Farm." Contrast the delicacy of Hawthorne's treatment of sin, with the bald realism of a great artist like Tolstoy; or the hot, passionate scenes of temptation in "Lady Rose's Daughter,"