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The Southern Israelite
Speculations About The Religion
of Tomorrow
By RABBI LOUIS I. NEWMAN
The Southern Israelite
and the Seven Arts Pealure
Syndicate present herewith an
exclusive article by the bril
liant rabbi of Congregation
Rodeph Sholom, New York.
Dr. Newman's speculations
on whither religion is tend.ng
are of more than timely inter
est—they are pregnant with
permanent signif nance.
The Editor
I am convinced that religion tomor
row must take cognizance of the right
of individual denominations and ethnic
faiths to their unique and distinct exist
ence. America has more to expect from
a perfect Catholic, a perfect I’rotestant
and a perfect Jew than from three
nondescripts. The melting pot in
American life can touch everything ex
cept the basic family inheritance, linked
to a race and to religious outlook.
What we should aspire to attain is not
so much a universal religion, that will
eliminate all differentiations in belief,
ritual and program, but a spirit of mu
tuality and forbearance between the
many creeds and cults which are able
to maintain themselves in the fierce
struggle for survival. “In meinem
Reiche kann jeder nach seiner bacon
selig werden," said the old Ktnperor.
We would do well today to recall Les
sing’s story of the three rings in "Na
than the Wise": each ring is the true
ring, provided it has prompted its
owner to lead a life of righteousness.
It is easy to be intolerant of another
person’s political or religious opinions.
“Heterodoxy,” is has been said, "is
your doxy, and orthodoxy is my doxy.”
Just as a bore is every person except
ourselves, so an unbeliever is every
person who dissents from the perfec
tion we seek to impose upon him. Re
ligion tomorrow must seek to maintain
open-mindedness towards varying
viewpoints; it must reach out the hand
of welcome into the religious fellow
ship to all individuals and groups en
gaged in the “research magnificent"
of the mind and spirit.
Religion today is undoubtedly faced
by vigorous competition as a chief and
central force in modern life. The laity
are turning from religion because, for
the most part, they have ceased to take
it seriously. Great churches and syna
gogues have been built, which may
seem to indicate that ours is a re
ligious era; perhaps the historians will
regard them as emblems of a modern
mysticism comparable to the cathedrals
of the Middle Ages.
But we must not be deluded by the
beauty and size of our religious edi
fices; many of them are mausoleums
rather than hearths of living enthusi
asms. Except for the attraction of a
magnetic preacher the pews are empty,
and the spirit of those in attendance
is largely that of an audience, rather
than that of a congregation. If the
laity bring the religious mood into the
church they will transform it into a
sanctuary. If, on the other hand, they
go to church in the mood of the
youngster who, at a house party, said
on Sunday morning: “Let’s go to
church for the devil of it," they will
make it a lecture rostrum, a music hall,
or a theatre of sensational entertain
ment. To be sure, religious leaders
can influence the multitudes; but it
takes a very live fish to fight upstream.
Some churches will drag the most con
secrated ministers down to their own
level of snobbery or Rabbittrv. A few
inspired preachers may achieve miracles
of homily, but what of religion in the
great majority of churches and syn
agogues." What also of the multitudes
of the unaffiliated?
We are certain, I believe, to witness
the continuance and, perhaps, the in
crease of the Xeo-Skcptical group. The
so-ca'led "Mercurians," adherents of
the cult of "Mercurianity," whose Bible
is a green-covered monthly magazine,
delight in Mencken’s “Treatise on the
Gods," secure in the faith that by ex
posing the primitive beginnings of re
ligion they have destroyed it. Freud
has written that religion is a future
less illusion and that civilization is a
neurosis. Harrow has declared that free
will is the doctrine of despair and that
religion is unnecessary. Atheism will
maintain its appeal for the dogmatic
anti-religionists, though a few may
echo the hesitation of the youth who
affirmed: “God forgive me, but I’m
an atheist.” There will always be ag
nostics among us, insisting that the
human mind is too trail to comprehend
divinity. These “Know-Nothings" in
religion recall the aviator who, as he
fell from his plane, murmured: “Oh
God, if there is a God, save my soul,
it I have a soul. Ingersoll belongs to
an outmodeled generation, but his
spirit goes marching on. Huxley finds
like-minded descendants among many
of the most popular authors of the
hour. But we must confess that the
proponents of Agnosticism and Atheism
are concerned with the problems of
God, immortality, prayer and free will,
though their conclusions are negative
to formal religion. It is easy to make
religion so broad that it is liberalized
out of existence, but the crusading ele
ments among the negationists place
them in the category of euthuisasts
who, almost by contradiction, display
the traits of devoted religionists.
The Humanists, likewise, seem de
stined to gain new strength within the
decades to come. Augustus Comts, pro
ponent of the “Religion of Humanity,
finds disciples today in the advocates of
a religion without God, a liturgy with
expressions of high thought instead of
prayer, a program of service to man
kind rather than of "other-worldliness.”
The Humanists likewise cannot he ex
cluded from the religionists. They are
well buttressed in their arguments by
many mystically-minded scientists. Al
bert Einstein, for example, says: "I
cannot imagine a God who rewards
and punishes the objects of his crea
tion, whose purposes arc modeled after
our own—a God, in short, who is hut
a reflection of human frailty. ... It
is enough for me to contemplate the
mystery of conscious life perpetuating
itself through all eternity, to reflect
upon the marvelous structure of the
universe, which we can dimly perceive,
and to try humbly to comprehend even
an infinitesimal part of the intelligence
manifested in nature." Sir James
Means affirms that mind and spirit arc
free and have free plav—“and above
all. broods the mind of the Supreme
Mathematician.” No one will deny that
the mood of these scientists is de
cisively spiritual, though they may not
he prepared to worship a Personal God.
Large numbers of thinking, searching
men and women, in the years to come,
will accept the utterances of spirituallv-
iiulined scientists as the basis of their
own beliefs rather than the teachings
of the conventional churches and syn
agogues. Many of the latter may even
incorporate the wisdom of the truth-
gatherers into their prayers and liturgy.
It the Humanists develop their own
forms of observance, and institute regu
lar assemblage for common idealistic
purposes, if they establish their own
codes and select their own heroic per
sonalities, they must be reckoned
among the army of believers. They
may avoid the organized church in its
present form, but they may be impelled
to organize churches in their own par
ticular image.
Orthodoxy seems to be gaining
strength in Christianity and Judaism,
despite the encroachments of Agons-
ticism. Humanism, and Liberalism. It
seeks authority in the application of the
method of literalism to so-called Holy
Scriptures. But literalism in religion
has little to offer modern-minded folk.
It made a stand at Dayton, L
and was defeated. Today \\t 1
is not important that the whai
lowed Jonah, but that Jonah wa. 4
product of the Universal, Comp.-issiM
ate God. We are not concern, d
deciding that Elijah went to In,wen
a fiery chariot, but it is signi
to us that the Prophet of the hem
halted King Ahab on the highway alto
the latter had despoiled Naboth of 1
vineyard and slain him. " 1 la-t th
found me, () mine enemy?" cried tin
king to his accuser. Except lor ’
legendary charm of the folktales, r
the manner of their giving, but t
text of their injunctions, is valuabl
in the Ten Commandments, if < >rth<
doxy is to survive, it must rely for
strength upon poetry, symbolism, ritual
ism, esthetic and emotional appeal. <
thodoxy must never set its face again*
new knowledge or seek to restrict tin
freedom of the human intellect to mak
its own mistakes. Orthodoxy will i>
strong tomorrow only if it bring intin*
loyalty, zealous self-dedication, a sen*
of the immediacy of religious value*,
and an appreciation of piety, into the
life of its believers.
The religion of tomorrow must o
serve the best qualities of traditim
faiths and the dictates of unfolding
wisdom, in modern terms, under the
impulse of an effective and authorita
tive liberalism. Men and women today
despite their professed modernity, net
religion as much as their forbears. \b
"moderns” imagine we have outgrown
creeds, codes, and cults. But the >
stability, restlessness, confusion ;
wreckage of our times indicate that w
still need a central set of beliefs a
perimentation is closing; the day 1
a system of imperative conduct-ideal*
more than ever before. The era of ex
consolidation has come. The mood < v
negation is over, and the hour of af
firmation is at hand. A few libera!
churches and synagogues are -
to preach a faith valid and vital tor
modern folk. Unfortunately, however,
most modern liberal churches art n
institutions, but processions. They haw
followers who follow each other «
of rather than into religion,
liberal faith has been more interc
keeping faith with liberalism
keeping the faith. Liberal prt
are fc*rced to bear an intolerabh ma
in their choice of sermon topic* The'
know that their attendances a* -
posed chiefly of “sermon-s!
who go from one church to am
quest of the most thrilling an
tabling address. These
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