The Ranks Grow Thin

THE CHANGING CLIMATE OF FAITH—Burmese Buddhists are sending missionaries to Europe and America. They hope that the Light of the Dhamma (“The Truth”) will lead the “natives” of those “darkened continents” nearer to peace than they believe the Light of the World has done.

What is more, the lights in the west do appear to be “going out.”

A recent survey in England, for instance, reveals that altho 26 million persons are baptized Anglicans, only 2,887,671 are registered on church membership rolls. In Latin America, long considered a Christian stronghold, 88 per cent of the population are baptized Roman Catholics, yet Catholic authorities report that the “vast majority” seldom see the inside of a church. In the United States, nearly two-thirds of the nation call themselves Christians, the much heralded “religious revival” of the 1950s is now regarded as a will-o-the-wisp, and some American theologians are already describing our age as the “post-Christian era”.…

In every corner of the globe today, the historical boundaries of belief are splitting open.… In West Germany, land of Luther and wellspring of Protestantism, there are fewer Protestants than Roman Catholics.… Old religions, long though dormant, are rumbling with the promise of new eruptions. While Buddhism is preparing to “save” the west, Islam is launching an aggressive missionary offensive of its own, and Hinduism is establishing mission bases as far from its home grounds as the United States, reversing for the first time the traditional flow of missionaries from west to east.

And new religions are springing up to confront the old. Some 120 energetic sects have suddenly blossomed in Japan, embracing between 12 and 20 million devotees. Much the same thing is happening in India. In South America, faith-starved thousands are turning to Spiritualism, a shadowy cult whose worshipers practice animal sacrifice. The Black Muslims, a quasi-Moslem sect, now number 200,000 in the United States and they are growing.… Throughout the world, the climate of religion is changing.

For Christianity, the climate is one of wintry discontent. Despite its impressive plurality in the world (883,803,000 adherents) it has become so “diluted” … that it no longer inspires contemporary culture.… Never has Christianity penetrated so many lands (all but three: Tibet, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia do not have organized Christian churches).…

These faiths, however, are overshadowed by two other religions—“counter-religions” is a better term—which are spreading east and west with tidal-wave force, ramming headlong into the foundations of established belief and rivaling the classical religions with gospels of their own.

The newer and by far the more aggressive of the two was founded just 44 years ago and now possesses the minds and bodies, if not the souls, of half the world—communism.…

The other “religion” is older, subtler, and harder to pin down, for it has neither organization nor orthodoxy, and its high priests are often unaware of their ordination. Even its name is obscure. Some call it “scientism”; some call it “humanism”; some simply lump it into the catch-all category of “atheism.” But whatever its name, it is winning adherents in increasing numbers, especially among the educated of the world’s urban centers.…

Scientism and communism are powerful rivals of the classic faiths—powerful because their aims are man-centered and unequivocal, powerful because they are at home in the pervasive secularity of the twentieth-century life.…

As science reaches farther into space, the easy notion that God is “out there” become more remote. As science learns new ways to combat disease, famine, and early death, these plagues seem less the will of God than penalties for man’s ignorance. And as science probes deeper into the heart of matter and into the creation of life itself, many men find it more and more difficult to discern the hand of God in the workings of the living world.…

The times are ripe for a true revival of religion. In some areas of the world, it has already begun. But it will not be a soft-footed revival.

Today, almost every man is free to worship or reject whatever gods he pleases, regardless of the faith he happens to be born into, regardless of his nationality or race. Few countries still sanction a state religion, and of those that do, less than a handful still attempt to suppress nonconformity.… For the first time in history, all faiths, ideas, and ideologies are forced to compete with one another in the open marketplace of the human soul.…

With few exceptions, today’s religious thinkers believe that a union of the major faiths is neither desirable nor probable, for it would mean whittling the doctrines of each religion to a common core which would be so vague that no faith could accept it. However, there is increasing interest in promoting unity within the several faiths by bridging the gaps between sect and sect.…

Among Christians, a union movement is gathering momentum.… The immediate issue is how to bring together the disparate Protestant groups, which range from “high church” Anglo-Catholicism to the spare theological independence of the Baptists, with a confusing gamut of persuasions in between.… One more barrier was breached last December when the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches voted to admit the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Polish Orthodox churches.… Meanwhile the Vatican has announced its first ecumenical council since 1870.… Some Christian leaders hope that this dialogue will lead to a reunification of all churches, while others hope at best for a “commonwealth” of churches. But no one foresees achievement of unity, even among Protestants, in this generation or in the next.… Yet few churchmen deny the urgent need for all churches, whether united or autonomous, to seek spiritual unity which transcends doctrine and practice.…—GORDON GOULD, “Religion Today,” in the Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine, June 3, 1962.

FIT FOR THE TASK—Take your share of hardship, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. A soldier on active service will not let himself be involved in civilian affairs; he must be wholly at his commanding officer’s disposal.… Reflect on what I say, for the Lord will help you to full understanding.—The Apostle Paul to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:3 ff., NEB).

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