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Before entering upon a discussion of this ideal religious fellowship and the prerequisites for its realization, let me register my profound and abiding sense of indebtedness to the late Dr. Francis Ellingwood Abbot, philosopher, author, editor, and one of the founders of the Free Religious Association of America. Without the stimulus derived from his exposition of the organic constitution of the universe this chapter could not have been written.
Time was when as yet none of the historical religions existed. In that remote antiquity religion took on its simplest form. Primitive man believed that he stood in vital relation to the mysterious forces of Nature. He believed that they had it in their power to help or to harm him. Accordingly he praised them with his offerings, appeased them with his sacrifices.
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But in the course of centuries the primordial religion became differentiated into religions; the genus religion produced species, historical religions. And each one of these historical religions in turn became a genus to its species, the sects. And then each one of these sects in turn became a genus to its species, subsects, or right and left wings as we popularly call them. And finally we have the individual men and women members of these right and left wings— specimens of the subspecies.
What caused the genus religion to become differentiated into species, historical religions? The answer must be given in terms of Nature’s law according to which all growth or development is made possible only by the self-differentiation of the genus into species. The only way in which the young tree can grow is by self-differentiation into branches, twigs, leaves and their organic cooperation makes possible the life of the tree. Similarly religion could develop only by self-differentiation into special or historical religions. A_nd this development was brought about by founders, prophets, [ p. 67 ] leaders, teachers, emphasizing some one particular aspect of the genus religion, as we see on reading the sacred scriptures of these historical religions. There we discover in each a dominant note, serving to differentiate the religious system from all the other systems.
But no sooner had these historical religions come into existence, than they entered on a career of mutual antagonism and hostility, the very opposite of what we see in the tree. For, the branches, twigs, and leaves, far from living in enmity one toward another, or even in exclusive independence of one another, engage in a cooperative task; each reaches out to the air and light in order to utilize them for the benefit of the tree; each discharges its peculiar function in the economy of the total organism—an harmonious organic cooperation, in which all the parts are duly coordinated and at the same time subordinated to the whole, the tree depending on them all as one organic whole.
But when we turn to religion, differentiated into historical religions, we find no such harmonious organic cooperation; on the contrary [ p. 68 ] we find jealousy, rivalry, antagonism, insubordination of the parts to their higher whole. Only as a vision, as an ideal, as a mental picture of what it is supremely desirable to have, does organic cooperation of all the religions exist. For, the melancholy truth is that the seven extant great religions have never transcended the stage of differentiation, have never achieved that unity in diversity which we see exemplified in the tree, have never matched the harmonious cooperation and subordination which every organism reveals. It should be understood that the term organism is here used not in that exclusive sense which makes it applicable only to the “spiritual universe” of Professor Adler’s philosophy—a completed system of interrelated personalities in which every member is necessary to the whole and the whole necessary to every member, the number of members infinite, the relation necessary and all the members of equal worth; a conception of organism for which he has proposed the name “metorganic,” to distinguish it from the simple, empirical sense in which the term is commonly [ p. 69 ] used and which derives directly from observation of Nature. Given the spiritual sense of the term as a criterion of what organism means, this empirical usage will be pronounced inaccurate and insufficient. Still it is to be remembered that, to use Professor Adler’s words, “nowhere do we find in Nature any complete representation of such an arrangement” as is manifest in the spiritual acceptation of the term. Yet in the tree, in the human body, and perchance also in the solar system (if the revelations of modern astronomy are to be relied upon) examples are furnished of an actual system in which all the parts are duly coordinated and simultaneously subordinated to their higher whole. It is with this connotation of the term organism that we are here concerned as supplying the motif, or ground, on which an organic fellowship of faiths may be founded. Now what we have to note concerning the historical religions is that they do not illustrate the organic relationships revealed in Nature. On the contrary, each of them, though a mere branch, has regarded itself as the tree; each, [ p. 70 ] though only a part, has claimed to be the whole; each, though merely an organ, has looked upon itself as the organism. And what is thus true of the great religions is equally true of their sects. They, too, have failed to see their right and lawful place as parts of a higher whole, to be mutually coordinated and simultaneously subordinated to their higher whole.
Take, for example, the familiar Christian sects. Instead of seeing themselves as the children of a common parent, Protestantism; as grandchildren of a common grandparent, Christianity; as great-grandchildren of Judaism, each has at some time set itself up as the only true Christianity. Each, with more or less insistence, though itself only a branch, has declared itself to be the tree; each has practiced an ambitious insubordination and thereby defeated realization of that harmonious cooperation patterned for man in the organic life of Nature.
And in this failure of the great religions and of their sects to see themselves as species of a [ p. 71 ] genus, as organs of an organism, as parts of a whole, as branches of a tree, as coequals in duties and in rights—in that deplorable failure lies the origin of all religious wars to exterminate rivals, the origin of all persecution, of all missionary enterprise to convert the socalled heathen, the origin of all sectarianism or exclusiveness in religion. The word “sect” is derived from the Latin “sectum,” meaning cut off. Hence a sect is a part of humanity that has cut itself off from all the rest in order to live for itself and convert all the rest into material for its own growth. Whenever a political party in a state acts for itself alone and not also for the universal nation as its higher whole, it misconceives its true place and function, it betrays the nation by partisan misgovernment simply because it has cut itself off from its higher whole and acts as if it were that whole. Similarly whenever a religious body acts for itself alone and refuses to subordinate itself to the higher whole of which it is only a part, when it aspires to be the Church Universal by converting all its rivals, it [ p. 72 ] misconceives its true place and mission; it becomes an actual hindrance to religious progress just because it has cut itself off from its own higher whole and claims to be itself that higher whole. It is everywhere a characteristic of the sect, whether in politics or in religion, that it looks on all other sects not as coequals and cooperative organs in the life of an organism which includes them all within itself, but rather as enemies to be conquered or converted.
When it is claimed, as it so often has been in the past, that Christianity is the only true religion, Protestantism the only true Christianity, the Episcopal Church the only true Protestant Church, the “High,” or the “Low,” or the “Broad,” church the only true, Christian, Protestant, Episcopal Church, we see sectarianism doing its deadly work and paralyzing all effort to make religious brotherhood a reality in the world.
At that Parliament of Religions in Chicago, to which reference has already been made, no one saw the true ideal of religious fellowship; no one looked upon the religions there represented [ p. 73 ] as coequals in a sublime organic relationship; no one saw that for lack of organic morality as patterned in every living organism the great religions missed fulfilling their highest possible mission as cooperators in the task of helping humanity to live its true life as one vast organic whole.
But when, in the distant future, the sects great and small, as a result of practice in organic morality shall have become thoroughly ashamed of their sectarianism and all their petty and puerile claims of supremacy and universality shall have been set aside; when all religious bodies shall have unfeignedly acknowledged themselves as merely parts of a whole, organs of an organism, then another World’s Parliament of Religions will be convened to point the way to a fellowship of faiths in which the principles of coordination and subordination will be reaffirmed and hold sway as they do in every organism—the parts all duly coordinated and all subordinated to their higher whole. But at once the question will be asked, where is this higher whole to which these [ p. 74 ] religions are to be subordinated? And I must frankly answer, as yet it has no objective existence. It exists only in the minds of a few isolated thinkers as a dream, a vision, as the germ out of which the true and organic fellowship of faiths will eventually be evolved. Nor indeed should this fact surprise us, because it has its exact parallel in the history of the United States. In 1783 there was no such objective reality as the nation of the United States. That existed only in the minds of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and their political coworkers, as a dream, a vision, the germ out of which the organic fellowship of states would eventually be evolved. In 1783 there existed only a loose federation of thirteen independent colonies, but no higher whole to which they could be subordinated. But when, in 1787, these thirteen colonies, through their representatives, agreed to act coordinately and to subordinate themselves to a higher whole expressed in the Constitution of the United States, then the dream, the vision, the ideal of a nation of the United States became a concrete [ p. 75 ] fact. In other words, the nation of the United States shaped itself out of the thirteen colonies by their subordinating themselves as organs to their higher organism.
To-day there exists no organized fellowship of faiths. All we see is a trend in the direction of a world-church or religious society. The “merger” movement steadily points to the coming harmonious organic cooperation, a unity analogous to that which we see in the tree and in every other organism; one tree with many branches, one body with many members, one organism with many organs, and one subtle lifeblood coursing through the whole, making each part kin with every other. To-day we see it only in the minds of a few isolated souls, the germ of an historical world church, to be eventually evolved, if progress in the direction of the ideal continues and voluntary selfsubordination of the part to the whole is practiced. That is the fundamental and inexorable condition upon which its realization depends— a voluntary self-subordination, analogous to that of the branches, the twigs, and the leaves [ p. 76 ] to the whole tree. Four additional prerequisites there are of which account must be taken. In briefest form they are the following:
First, all the Bibles of the great religions, with their respective inferior and superior contents, must stand on a basis of recognized equality as human literature, and their moral and religious value be determined by enlightened reason and conscience.
Second, all the Masters of the great religions must stand on a basis of recognized equality as human leaders, each to be revered and followed according to the truth he has to teach and the inspiration that may be derived from the story of his life.
Third, all religious organizations, with their differences of form and creed, must stand on a basis of recognized equality as human institutions, to be evaluated by the measure in which they satisfy human needs and the contributions they make to the religious progress of mankind.
Fourth, all the sects, great and small, must confess, with unalloyed sincerity, that their [ p. 77 ] Bible is only a part and not the whole of religious truth, that their founder is only one among the many spiritual stars with which the firmament of religion has been studded and not the only Way, Truth, and Life.
Of course, we are very far off from the fulfillment of these prerequisites. But just as surely as the Peace Conference at The Hague in 1897 foreshadowed the coming of a true League of Nations, based upon organic morality, at which the present League has not as yet arrived, so surely will the coming World’s Parliament of lieligions foreshadow a Fellowship of Faiths built upon the organic idea, with its two principles of coordination and subordination.
And just exactly as at Philadelphia, in 1787, the dream of political unity was realized by the voluntary self-subordination of the separate colonies to the higher whole of the United States, so also, by a like obedience of the separate religions to the law of organic oneness, will the dream of a religious unity, a fellowship of faiths, be realized. But the separate [ p. 78 ] religions will have to wait for it, just as those thirteen jealous colonies had to wait for the one nation of the United States. And those religions will wait in vain for that consummation unless, like the independent colonies, they learn to subordinate themselves to the higher whole of which they are only parts.