Editorial
293
editorial
The Difference Is Hope
We read with interest last spring an article by the late Dr. James A. Pike, called " W h y I Am Leaving the Church." It was an explanation of the thoughts, feelings, and events that led him to leave not only his position as Bishop of California, but eventually the church. In essence, the reason was that he had lost "believing hope" in the church as an institution within which creative change is possible. Dr. Pike spoke, we suspect, for many who have left the church in recent years. T h e y have left not angrily or bitterly, but sorrowfully, as one leaves a beloved home because one has found he can no longer grow within the confinement of its walls. Few who have lived with the church for years can fail to sympathize with these feelings. Dr. Pike emphasized the fact that it was not the failure of faith, but the failure of hope that finally determined his leaving. W e are all familiar with the erosion of faith. It seems to be a characteristic of these twentieth-century years. It is understandable and even acceptable in the light of the vast changes in man's life that are taking place. Not only the number of changes, but their rapidity has brought an erosion of faith not known in any earlier period. It is said, and we see no reason to doubt it, that the sheer bulk of human knowledge is now doubling every five years. This means that every man's education is out of date soon after he leaves a university or seminary. All his life he must run as hard as he can simply to keep up with the advancing knowledge of the field he has chosen. As for other fields, even if they are cognate, he must be content to learn from others what he needs to know and depend on them for
294
Journal of Religion and Health
what needs to be done. There was once a time, perhaps the eighteenth century in Europe and America, when a well-educated man could converse knowledgeably with other well-educated men across the whole field of human knowledge. That time will probably never come again, unless there is an expansion of the capacity of the human brain roughly commensurate with the expansion of knowledge that the brain is expected to contain and understand. It is not, then, surprising that the verities of the past, some of which had been verities for centuries, no longer appear to have permanence and trustworthiness in the present. Most of us have learned to accept this situation. W e do not expect to master every field. W e hope to be competent in one and to keep our minds open and our hearts ready to receive relevant knowledge from other fields. This is the raison d'etre for such institutions as the Academy of Religion and Mental Health: to provide a meeting ground where thoughtful men and women in different professions may exchange relevant and mutually enlightening knowledge about human health and well-being. It may be that the church likewise needs an academy to do the same thing in the realm of faith. Far more important than ritualistic, organizational, or creedal unity is the kind of human unity that can arise when people of differing creeds, rituals, and communions are able to share their perplexities and their religious insights on a tentative, nonauthoritarian basis. Such an academy would be made up of members of all shades and branches of the institutional church, but it would be an organic part of none of them. Out of it might come new expressions of the old faith or fresh discoveries of new faith that each communion might then integrate into its own cultus and ethos as seemed relevant to its needs. Our academy would have departments of theology--the intellectualization of faith; ritual--the celebration of faith; and polity--the organization of faith for social purposes. Each church would be free to draw upon the academy's resources as it felt the need. For example, as one who has long been associated with an institution known generally as "the liberal church," we are frequently haunted by the feeling that the liberal church is as much bound by the orthodoxy of its nineteenth-century liberalism as the frankly orthodox
Editorial
295
churches are by traditional forms of creed and ritual. What all churches need is a kind of department of knowledge and expression that is nonpropagandistic and noninstitutional, because it is concerned not with propagating the faith, but discovering and expressing in various forms the multiple ways in which human beings respond to religious reality in their own lives, in nature, and in the human community. The main qualification of the fellows of our academy would be an ability to think about religion in terms of those universal experiences and apprehensions of meaning that the great historical religions interpret in their varied forms and disciplines. The churches would move away from the competition in which they have existed and toward the coexistence that has been growing among them. Interpenetration would be the next step. What, for example, can the disciplines of Zen teach Christians and Jews about prayer and meditation? What mutual benefit can the practical ethics of Confucius and the apocalyptic ethics of Judaism and Christianity derive from one another? What is the common ground, if any, between Laotse and Meister Eckart? From the interpenetration should emerge some universal minds with wider scope than have those of us who speak from within a long historical position. The only fundamental assumptions of such an academy would be the presence of religious reality at the foundations of nature and human life and the possibility of man's finding a sustaining relationship with that reality. W e are indebted to Sam Keen of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the author of a new book called Apology for Wonder (New York, Harper & Row, 1969) for a description of these assumptions so simple that it is best expressed in mathematical symbols as follows: + ? ( + - 0 ) ? + . Essentially this means that our life is enclosed in mystery. Some things are pleasant, some painful, and some merely neutral; but there can be, and for the religious person there is, a plus at beginning and end that encloses everything else. For the theist the plus may stand for God and His love. For the agnostic it may stand for a much less explicit reality, a kind of trust that makes it worth while to go on with the quest for the good life. The difference is not faith, but hope; not a knowledge of the divine plan, but a trust that there exist meaning and truth
296
Journal of Religion and Health
far beyond anything man has yet discovered. Maybe the mystics have had a glimpse of it and have tried to express it, Maybe the seers, saints, and poets have seen it, too: "the sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused," Maybe ordinary men and women see it and do not know when they are in its presence. At any rate, it is not faith in the ordinary sense; it is hope--hope that more truth and light are yet to be revealed. It is this believing hope in the church that Dr. Pike had lost, but not, as he made plain, hope in his own life. Having lost it with respect to the church, he was, we think, right and honest in leaving the church. Others have done so for essentially the same reasons, and we respect them, too. Our hypothetical academy might be the means of refreshing hope within them that the institution can change creatively as it has in the past, that it can contain food to serve man's religious hunger, and that it can express religion in ways that modern man can understand and accept. W e do not want our academy to get into the hands of a special ecumenical committee selected by existing church organizations. That way frustration lies. It may come into being quietly and informally, as perceptive people from various religions, professions, and areas of thought begin to converse with one another and to understand one another deeply enough to realize that they are dealing with one all-embracing problem--the human one--man and his present welfare and future destiny. W e are content to wait, holding on to our believing hope and trusting that out of that hope the next steps in the church and human community will become apparent. In illness the corner is turned and healing begins when the patient begins to hope in the possibility of becoming whole again. Perhaps the same is true for perplexed religious people. They do not need full knowledge of what lies ahead. They only need to know that there is a chance. Between sickness and health, between stagnation and growth, the difference is hope.
Harry C. Meserve
293
editorial
The Difference Is Hope
We read with interest last spring an article by the late Dr. James A. Pike, called " W h y I Am Leaving the Church." It was an explanation of the thoughts, feelings, and events that led him to leave not only his position as Bishop of California, but eventually the church. In essence, the reason was that he had lost "believing hope" in the church as an institution within which creative change is possible. Dr. Pike spoke, we suspect, for many who have left the church in recent years. T h e y have left not angrily or bitterly, but sorrowfully, as one leaves a beloved home because one has found he can no longer grow within the confinement of its walls. Few who have lived with the church for years can fail to sympathize with these feelings. Dr. Pike emphasized the fact that it was not the failure of faith, but the failure of hope that finally determined his leaving. W e are all familiar with the erosion of faith. It seems to be a characteristic of these twentieth-century years. It is understandable and even acceptable in the light of the vast changes in man's life that are taking place. Not only the number of changes, but their rapidity has brought an erosion of faith not known in any earlier period. It is said, and we see no reason to doubt it, that the sheer bulk of human knowledge is now doubling every five years. This means that every man's education is out of date soon after he leaves a university or seminary. All his life he must run as hard as he can simply to keep up with the advancing knowledge of the field he has chosen. As for other fields, even if they are cognate, he must be content to learn from others what he needs to know and depend on them for
294
Journal of Religion and Health
what needs to be done. There was once a time, perhaps the eighteenth century in Europe and America, when a well-educated man could converse knowledgeably with other well-educated men across the whole field of human knowledge. That time will probably never come again, unless there is an expansion of the capacity of the human brain roughly commensurate with the expansion of knowledge that the brain is expected to contain and understand. It is not, then, surprising that the verities of the past, some of which had been verities for centuries, no longer appear to have permanence and trustworthiness in the present. Most of us have learned to accept this situation. W e do not expect to master every field. W e hope to be competent in one and to keep our minds open and our hearts ready to receive relevant knowledge from other fields. This is the raison d'etre for such institutions as the Academy of Religion and Mental Health: to provide a meeting ground where thoughtful men and women in different professions may exchange relevant and mutually enlightening knowledge about human health and well-being. It may be that the church likewise needs an academy to do the same thing in the realm of faith. Far more important than ritualistic, organizational, or creedal unity is the kind of human unity that can arise when people of differing creeds, rituals, and communions are able to share their perplexities and their religious insights on a tentative, nonauthoritarian basis. Such an academy would be made up of members of all shades and branches of the institutional church, but it would be an organic part of none of them. Out of it might come new expressions of the old faith or fresh discoveries of new faith that each communion might then integrate into its own cultus and ethos as seemed relevant to its needs. Our academy would have departments of theology--the intellectualization of faith; ritual--the celebration of faith; and polity--the organization of faith for social purposes. Each church would be free to draw upon the academy's resources as it felt the need. For example, as one who has long been associated with an institution known generally as "the liberal church," we are frequently haunted by the feeling that the liberal church is as much bound by the orthodoxy of its nineteenth-century liberalism as the frankly orthodox
Editorial
295
churches are by traditional forms of creed and ritual. What all churches need is a kind of department of knowledge and expression that is nonpropagandistic and noninstitutional, because it is concerned not with propagating the faith, but discovering and expressing in various forms the multiple ways in which human beings respond to religious reality in their own lives, in nature, and in the human community. The main qualification of the fellows of our academy would be an ability to think about religion in terms of those universal experiences and apprehensions of meaning that the great historical religions interpret in their varied forms and disciplines. The churches would move away from the competition in which they have existed and toward the coexistence that has been growing among them. Interpenetration would be the next step. What, for example, can the disciplines of Zen teach Christians and Jews about prayer and meditation? What mutual benefit can the practical ethics of Confucius and the apocalyptic ethics of Judaism and Christianity derive from one another? What is the common ground, if any, between Laotse and Meister Eckart? From the interpenetration should emerge some universal minds with wider scope than have those of us who speak from within a long historical position. The only fundamental assumptions of such an academy would be the presence of religious reality at the foundations of nature and human life and the possibility of man's finding a sustaining relationship with that reality. W e are indebted to Sam Keen of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the author of a new book called Apology for Wonder (New York, Harper & Row, 1969) for a description of these assumptions so simple that it is best expressed in mathematical symbols as follows: + ? ( + - 0 ) ? + . Essentially this means that our life is enclosed in mystery. Some things are pleasant, some painful, and some merely neutral; but there can be, and for the religious person there is, a plus at beginning and end that encloses everything else. For the theist the plus may stand for God and His love. For the agnostic it may stand for a much less explicit reality, a kind of trust that makes it worth while to go on with the quest for the good life. The difference is not faith, but hope; not a knowledge of the divine plan, but a trust that there exist meaning and truth
296
Journal of Religion and Health
far beyond anything man has yet discovered. Maybe the mystics have had a glimpse of it and have tried to express it, Maybe the seers, saints, and poets have seen it, too: "the sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused," Maybe ordinary men and women see it and do not know when they are in its presence. At any rate, it is not faith in the ordinary sense; it is hope--hope that more truth and light are yet to be revealed. It is this believing hope in the church that Dr. Pike had lost, but not, as he made plain, hope in his own life. Having lost it with respect to the church, he was, we think, right and honest in leaving the church. Others have done so for essentially the same reasons, and we respect them, too. Our hypothetical academy might be the means of refreshing hope within them that the institution can change creatively as it has in the past, that it can contain food to serve man's religious hunger, and that it can express religion in ways that modern man can understand and accept. W e do not want our academy to get into the hands of a special ecumenical committee selected by existing church organizations. That way frustration lies. It may come into being quietly and informally, as perceptive people from various religions, professions, and areas of thought begin to converse with one another and to understand one another deeply enough to realize that they are dealing with one all-embracing problem--the human one--man and his present welfare and future destiny. W e are content to wait, holding on to our believing hope and trusting that out of that hope the next steps in the church and human community will become apparent. In illness the corner is turned and healing begins when the patient begins to hope in the possibility of becoming whole again. Perhaps the same is true for perplexed religious people. They do not need full knowledge of what lies ahead. They only need to know that there is a chance. Between sickness and health, between stagnation and growth, the difference is hope.
Harry C. Meserve
