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Page !0 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 (Continued on Page L