Faith at Work in a Free Society

Some years ago there was borne in upon me with great conviction an awareness of the inseparable connection of the freedom which we enjoy in the West and the Christian faith. With this came a deepened sense that God is concerned, not alone with man’s soul and his eternal destiny, but with his life here and what happens to him in this world. I suppose I had known these things before, but one day they hit me with tremendous force. I may say that I think this theologically sound, and a natural inference from the Incarnation, when God took upon him our flesh “and was made man.” This means that fields like business and politics are not outside the Church, not parallel to the Church, not enemies of the Church: but that unless religion gets into these fields, two things happen. Business and politics get rottener and rottener; but religion itself gets rarer and rarer. I don’t know which suffers more. They were meant to go together, like soul and body.

Let me give you a few quotations from men who are wiser than I, that enforce this point. Dr. Jacques Maritain, the great French philosopher and statesman, says, “The consciousness of the rights of the person has its origin in the conception of man and of the natural law established by centuries of Christian philosophy.” Prof. William A. Orton of Yale said, “It is only in the Christian doctrine of man that we can find a firm and reasoned ground for the American affirmation.” Said G. K. Chesterton, “There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” And T. S. Eliot points the issue that is before us in his words, “The term democracy does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike—it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”

Before we look for an alternative to Christianity which is to give us our world-view and basic life-concepts, we had better take stock of what are the forces that have brought us even so far as we have come. We forget that the fundamental liberality of mind that searches for better ways, and the values by which we must judge of what constitutes a ‘better way,’ are due to the Christian heritage. Dr. Theodore O. Wedel has said that “man, as the secular world know’s him, is still Christian man, the product of two thousand years of Christian nurture. He is man with the moral conscience of the Christian centuries in his heart. Modern education … frequently continues to take this background for granted.”

Perhaps the finest statement of the dependence of civilization as we know it upon the Christian faith is in a quotation which I am told comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson—I cut it years ago from a magazine called The Continent, before I had learned to mark page and author! It goes this way:

The worst kind of religion is no religion at all, and these men, living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusement of going without a religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the gospel they neglect has tamed the beastiliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads, and tanned their hides, like the monsters of the French Revolution. When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a man may live in decency, comfort and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted—a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe where the gospel has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and ventilate their views.

Christianity And The Nation

We have a problem, however, in forcing this obvious truth and its consequences on anybody. James Bryce said of America that “Christianity is in fact understood to be, though not the legally established religion, yet the national religion.” And Supreme Court Justice Douglas said, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Yet we have wisely resisted the temptation to pass any statutes which make all this too binding. We believe in the separation of Church and State, not because the State is sufficient of itself to produce good citizens, and not because it does not need the constant infusion into its corporate life of sound, informed, God-fearing people, but because this need is better served by a church and government that function separately.

Not long ago a man wrote me saying he thought there should be an article in the Constitution saying that this is a Christian nation. I wrote him that I thought this would lead to very grave and serious divisions and difficulties in our midst. Part of Christianity is an extraordinary liberalism which lets other people think and believe as they will. I think this reflects the liberalism of God himself, who “sends his rain on the just and on the unjust,” and who lets the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest. The only way for America to become Christian is by the conversion of many more millions of its people to Christ, rather than by saying that it is Christian by an act of Congress, which would at best be only a projection of an intention, not the description of a fact. Only a true and free Christianity dares to encourage genuine freedom of uncoerced thought.

The Peril Of Lethargy

There is another reason for the separation of Church and State. Power corrupts; no power corrupts more quickly than political power. States have to act very often in behalf of the people, and their very size gives them a terrible advantage over individuals or even great aggregates of them combined together. Says Barbara Ward, in Faith and Freedom (p. 265), “The state is by nature so powerful and compelling and voracious an institution that the citizen, standing alone against it, is all but powerless. He needs counter-institutions, above all the counter-institution of the Church, which of all organized bodies alone can look Caesar in the face and claim a higher loyalty.”

Now it seems to me that freedom, like faith, requires a kind of passion. Indeed, it almost is a form of passion. Whenever you say the word, there lies before your mind, not only the picture of the relatively few in the course of human history who have enjoyed freedom, but the many, many millions more who have not enjoyed it, and do not enjoy it today. We say the word, not alone in thanks for what we know, but in prayer for what they ought to have. And if we are any good, we are willing to ‘hurl our lives after our prayers.’ It seems to me that the free world today is in danger, not only through hostility from without, but from a kind of thanklessness and lethargy within. We have seen irresponsible freedom turn men soggy. So some turn to governmental or other clamps upon them to restrain them, forgetful that the real effect of freedom will be towards a responsible use of it, when you value that freedom and know how easily it can be lost by abuse.

John Stuart Mill reminded us that those who inherit a creed without having to pay a price for it never have the fervor nor deep understanding of those who have struggled for what they prize. We need, then, a revival of belief in freedom, not of the French Revolution variety, but of the Christian variety; which, being held as steward under God, demands of us responsible and unselfish use. I do not see how you can ever have much of a revival of faith in freedom unless you precede it by a revival of faith in God. Democracy—we must always remember—has no ideology but faith in God. The Christian religion, aiming primarily at man’s redemption from thralldom to this world, and the salvation of his immortal soul, has done more to lift and purify the common life of this world than all other forces put together. The cultivation of a deep personal spiritual life in our people may yet be the greatest contribution we can make to the life of our nation, provided we keep people mindful that you can never keep a deep personal religion to yourself just for your own comfort.

The Poor And The Pagan

There are two things that burn in my heart in these days. One is the plight of the world’s very poor in countries like India and Africa. The other is the spiritual plight of America’s pagans. The first live in an economic slavery which is unnecessary in the light of modern technology, and which can be removed if we care enough to get to them quickly with adequate assistance in a program of self-help. The second live in a thankless plenty, enjoying a prosperity and a freedom which they owe to God, but for which they think they have nobody to thank; and therefore they use these things selfishly and thus help to destroy them. One wants to say to the American pagan what Helmut Thielicke, one of the rising theologians of West Germany, said to a group of students a few weeks ago when discussing the suppression of the Hungarian revolt: “Are we still worth our freedom, we who do nothing but consume freedom instead of producing it?”

As to the world’s poor, we ought to be behind all decent programs of self-help, whether they be from government, or from foundations, or private sources. It will take all of us working together even to begin to meet the problem. But I believe most in the private effort. That is why I do everything I can to support the movement we call “World Neighbors.” It was founded only six years ago to carry technical self-help to the underdeveloped areas. Under the wise leadership of Dr. John Peters, this movement has already reached approximately 3,000,000 people with the surprisingly economical outlay of only $750,000. This is not relief, it is self-help—better means toward health, food, and education. I’d like to see the enthusiasm for World Neighbors spread like a prairie fire across America, giving all our people a chance to have a direct share in this kind of help. It has always been our Christian duty to do it. Now it is also our urgent responsibility as free men to do it, realizing that desperate people will be lured by the false promises of Communism unless they see the simple, brotherly assistance of a Christian West, poured out in a spirit of humility, mindful of the old civilizations to which we go, yet of the need to adapt our help to the actual conditions today.

But the other group is America’s pagans. I believe that we need to keep our religious institutions going, and functioning as effectively as possible. But the mere multiplication of strong churches will not of itself be enough. As there can be a personal religion which is too ‘personal,’ in that it begins and ends with the individual, so there can be a ‘church’ religion that is too much centered in the organized denominational church, and does not reach out to cooperate with other churches and to take on this task of reaching America’s pagans.

The Role Of The Laity

I believe that this will have to be done largely by laymen. I am not abdicating from my job as a minister. I believe that clergy ought to be like coaches in this game, and laymen like players. The coach ideally knows more about the game and its rules than the players, but the fellows that make the scores are the fellows down on the field. We clergy have often been at fault in trying to draw our men into sharing in implementing our own vision of the Church. What we should be doing is to whet their imaginations and help in implementing their vision of witness for Jesus Christ in and through their jobs. The average layman who loves to sing in church “Like a mighty army moves the Church of God,” when he gets downtown moves more like a mouse or an invalid.

We say that religion is a personal matter, and that ends it. Why can’t we be sufficiently on fire with this contagion of faith to make it seem exciting to other people? Religion was never so much in the current conversation as today. If you can’t get started with people about religion today, you never can. Many of us are either so compromised in our commitment to Christ that we feel hypocritical if we say anything about him; or so unfamiliar with genuine Christian experience that we can only argue. Let us ask God to draw us into the stream of his power. Share events, not viewpoints. Talk about things that have happened to you or to other people. When you care about people, and pray for them, doors swing open where you least expect.

Let me suggest to you three simple imperatives: Get Changed. Get Together. Get Going.

Why do we need to ‘get changed?’ Many of us are decent, hard-working, God-fearing, church-going people. Isn’t that enough? I can only say that if it were enough, and we were all right as we are, we’d be producing far more than we do. The Christian movement is a trickle in the world when it ought to be a torrent. We may have other kinds of sins as well, but surely our biggest sin is spiritual ineffectiveness—we do not get our faith over to other people. We need to get into the stream of God’s power, so that he can use us.

How can we ‘get together?’ There has always been available for us what is coming greatly into focus these days, and that is the small group gathered for the sharing of spiritual experiences, for prayer, and for action. Chad Walsh has called these gatherings the missing link between public worship and the private spiritual life of believers. We need such a link. It is not enough to go to church, and it is not enough to say our private prayers, though we need both. We need small groups where we can learn, not Christian truth only, but the facts and means of Christian experience; where we can air our difficulties and hear the answers others have found; where we can share both our failures and our victories; and where we can grow and find more power.

The ecumenical movement is a fine thing, but thus far it is mostly in the hands of ecclesiastical statesmen. We need a grass-roots ecumenicity. And I suggest that the most available, the most practical kind of grass-roots ecumenicity is a group of men from different churches sitting down together for the exchange of experience, prayer and fellowship. Such cell-groups have one great advantage: if they peter out (as all human things do sometimes), you can discard them when they have served their purpose; which is more than can be said for a dead parish organization! I have seen people grow more in a matter of weeks when exposed to such groups than they have grown in an equal number of years of ordinary churchgoing. The churches need to provide for groups like this, and the seminaries need to teach men how to instigate and lead them till the laymen can take over the leadership themselves.

How do we get going? When you get up in the morning, ask God to use you that day. Keep praying. Keep giving yourself to people. Keep watching for opportunities. It appears to me that wherever one sees awakening today, it is characterized by deeper personal dedication to Christ and an extension of one’s own conversion into deeper areas, by the forming of small groups for the exchange of experience and prayer, and the help to one another of fellowship, and by the witness through life and word of dynamic faith which changes people and situations. Let us remember that God does this, not we. All we have to do is to get connected up with his grace and power.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh and author of numerous books. He has a vigorous interest in Faith at Work, a lay movement which originated in his former parish in New York City, Calvary Church, and publishes a monthly magazine. A book recently published by Hawthorn carries the same title Faith at Work and gathers together significant articles from past issues of the magazine. Dr. Shoemaker’s article above is an abridgment of a recent anniversary address to members of Faith at Work movement.

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