Humanism and the Churches

God may not be dead, but his visible Church is in the doldrums. This few people would care to deny. The cause and cure of the malady is another matter. Many factors contribute to the sickness of the Church, some of them obvious, others beyond our notice. It seems clear, however, that humanism is a key to understanding the problem. Whether humanism in the Church is a major cause of its present distress or is a result of the inroads of unbelief, it demands the attention of those who are concerned with spiritual renewal and the cure of the Church.

At the heart of humanism is the notion that anthropology (the study of man) must replace theology (the study of God). God has been removed from the center of life; he is no longer truly worshipped; and man has assumed his place. Webster’s International Dictionary defines humanism as “a contemporary cult or belief calling itself religious but substituting faith in man for faith in God.” It quotes C. F. Potter, who said: “Humanism is faith in the supreme value and self-perfectibility of human personality.” And it also quotes Walter Lippmann: “To replace the conception of man as the subject of a heavenly king … humanism takes as its dominant pattern the progress of the individual from helpless infancy to self-governing maturity.”

That humanism has invaded the Church and plays a dominant role in determining its mission can easily be seen. The recently elected moderator of the New York Presbytery of the United Presbyterian Church, the Reverend James D. Watson, was reported by the New York Times as saying that he calls himself “a Christian-humanist” with “more concern about man than about God.” “I see the ministry in terms of social action,” he said, “and not in terms of preaching or the rest of the nonsense we went through years ago.”

When Time magazine spoke about the return of God to the center of the stage, the Reverend A. E. Potts of Knoxville, Tennessee, wrote the editor: “I must disagree wholeheartedly with your thesis that God is coming back to life, but I would definitely agree that man is rediscovering his own humanity. For most of the people with whom I work, and for myself, God is an obsolete piece of baggage belonging to man’s past. But our humanity most certainly is not.”

The National Catholic News Service released a report about the mission of the U. S. Catholic Relief Services in Cochin, India. Charges had been made that relief to India’s poor was a ploy intended to dispose them toward acceptance of Roman Catholicism, toward conversion. The priest replied: “No. No. We have nothing to do with conversion. Our work is completely secular. There is nothing spiritual in it.”

Back in 1933 a “Humanist Manifesto” was drawn up and signed by thirty-four men, twelve of whom were prominent ministers. The manifesto said among other things that “the universe [is] self-existing and not created”; “man is a part of nature and … has emerged as the result of a continuous process”; “man’s religious culture and civilization … are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage”; “religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method”; “the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of ‘new thought’ ”; in place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer, the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.” “A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established,” the manifesto declared, “to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.”

The result of the infiltration of the Church by humanism is that the Church has turned from preaching the Gospel of the reconciliation of man to God through the atonement of Jesus Christ to a man-centered program of secular involvement. The implication seems to be that faith in man is to be preferred to faith in God.

The turning from God to man is not just an American phenomenon. It can be found in churches around the world, especially in Europe, where Christianity is suffering a marked and alarming decline. In Germany, where the theological climate—in particular, the higher criticism of the Scriptures—has fostered the growth of humanism, church attendance has sunk to an all-time low. It is estimated that not more than 1 per cent of the people attend any church on a Sunday morning, while the morality of the people continues to decline and profligacy grows by leaps and bounds. The situation in Sweden, England, and Denmark, not to mention France, is hardly any better.

In the United States, the Unitarians represent the farthest turn to the left in religious life. For many of them, theism has been supplanted by a radicalism that negates biblical revelation, defies the law of love, and opts for violence as well as a system of non-biblical ethics. Following the release of attorney William Kunstler and the Chicago Seven from jail, it was a Unitarian church in California that opened its doors to enable Kunstler and others to continue their assaults on American democracy. Certainly no other church group has been more openly identified with left-wing causes, or more committed to action programs that are designed less to correct known abuses than to pull down structures—without presenting defensible alternatives.

The Unitarian Universalist Association has now opened a joint Washington Office for Social Concern in league with the American Humanist Association and the American Ethical Union. This is a cooperative effort “to apply the insights of humanistic ethics and liberal religion to major problems facing American society in the seventies.” Members of the Humanist Association and the Ethical Union believe considerably less than even some Unitarians. But a sizable number of men connected with mainline denominations hold views hardly distinguishable from those championed in these three groups. The presence of such men is a major cause of the sickness of the Church today—and this is so in Catholic and Orthodox as well as Protestant circles. They seem aptly described by Paul: “these men also oppose the truth”; “they are men of corupt mind and counterfeit faith” who “holding a form of religion [deny] the power of it.”

If the Church is to experience renewal, something must be done to check the forces of unbelief rampant within it. The Church must rediscover and reaffirm what God intended it to be. The continuing drift toward humanism points to the distinct possibility that apostasy may not be far away.

Accountability

Elsewhere in this issue we publish an article on accountability (see page 14) that makes a point much needed in our time of social turmoil. However, even among those who agree on the importance of the principle of personal responsibility there will be disagreement on its specific applications. One who believes in accountability may, for example, still find good reasons for switching auto insurance to a “no-fault” scheme. The present system leaves the victim hoping that if someone else is accountable, that person is adequately covered by a responsible insurance company. Again, advocates of prison reform do not have to abandon the notion of punishment in order to urge that greater efforts be made to train the prisoner to take an honest place in society. What the article does underline is that if we advocate changes in social policy we must not do so because of the witting or unwitting acceptance of unscriptural principles. To hold men accountable for what they do is a much greater recognition of the God-given dignity of their humanity than to act as if no one were to blame for his faults.

Ecologism: A New Paganism?

On April 22 America will have its first national environmental teach-in. Pollution will be protested; population growth will be deplored; politicians will pillory and be pilloried; and privileged industries will be pommeled. In the midst of it all, informative presentations will be made.

We like clean air, water, streets, and spaces as much as the next person (see the lead editorial in our February 27 issue). But we don’t propose to worship nature, any more than we take part in the worship of science, which is called scientism. Unfortunately, at least a few persons appear to have gone beyond legitimate concern for our environment to pervert the science of ecology into what might be called ecologism. These people are uninhibited in their opposition to orthodox Christianity (as well as to such derivatives as humanism and Communism), and to replace it they urge what is essentially old-fashioned paganism.

The Environmental Handbook, specially published for the teach-in by Friends of the Earth, a leading activist anti-pollution organization, was quickly sold out in its first edition. In it Keith Murray of the Berkeley Ecology Center says:

It seems evident that there are throughout the world certain social and religious forces which have worked through history toward an ecologically and culturally enlightened state of affairs. Let these be encouraged: Gnostics, hip Marxists, Teilhard de Chardin Catholics, Druids, Taoists, Biologists, Zens, Shamans, Bushmen, American Indians, Polynesians, Anarchists, Alchemists … the list is long. All primitive cultures, all communal and ashram movements [p.331].

Because of the need to limit population growth, Murray urges us to “Explore other social structures and marriage forms, such as group marriage and polyandrous marriage, which provide family life but may produce less children” (p. 324).

Another eco-activist, Keith Lampe, manages in two pages to urge the elimination of nationalism, capitalism, socialism, Communism, humanism, faith in technology, as well as Judaism and Christianity.

The first major article in the teach-in text is by Lynn White, Jr., a history professor at UCLA. He deplores the “victory of Christianity over paganism,” condemns it for being “the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen,” and is incensed that “by destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.” White argues that “more science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one.” He concludes that “orthodox Christian arrogance” is the culprit and that “since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not.”

Most of the handbook deals with specific wrongs that Christians can oppose within their own framework of belief. But it seems apparent that they should guard against identifying themselves too closely with persons and ideologies that are hostile to divine revelation. We too want to clean up pollution in nature, but not by polluting men’s souls with a revived paganism.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. On April 9, 1945, Admiral Canaris, General Oster, and Sack, the judge advocate general, along with Bonhoeffer, were led naked to the gibbet in the garden of Flossenbürg and hanged. Along with many others these four had been swept up by the SS and were destroyed for their part in the assassination plot against Hitler, who committed suicide three weeks later.

Bonhoeffer was just thirty-nine. That this young theologian and churchman should have been in deadly serious operations with generals and admirals tells us something of the measure of the man; it should give us some clue also to the agony of his ethical decisions. He was a pacifist by conviction, and he loved his fatherland intensely; yet he involved himself in an assassination plot, a murder, the downfall of his country, and all in what he felt was obedience to God. One cannot treat such a man lightly; he cannot be dismissed by superficial theological labels.

Bonhoeffer became a hero to hundreds of theological students; he affected them in their training and continues to affect them now. His writings, notably The Cost of Discipleship, Life Together, and Letters from Prison, became required reading for anyone who wished for theological relevance, and his famous expressions like “man come of age” and “religionless Christianity” and Christ “the man for others” became part of the vocabulary of those who had a yen for theological sophistication. With such concepts as these he set the tone for much of the theology of the left and the radical left, but to emphasize this alone is to impair understanding of his total contribution.

Bonhoeffer was a “loner” and is hard to classify. Although we do not endorse a number of his views, to label him and dismiss him is to contribute to nothing but one’s own impoverishment. His background and training were, of course, liberal in the frightening critical German sense, but it could not have been otherwise in the universities of his time. Harnack, Seeberg, Heim, and Holl were among his teachers, but he was one of the earliest enthusiasts for Karl Barth, who was considered then on the Continent (and is even more now) a most conservative theologian. He was also existentialist (“In ethical decision we are led into the deepest loneliness”; “What God’s will is, the occasion will tell you”)—how could it have been otherwise for a Christian in an assassination plot?

More needs to be said, however. Bonhoeffer was a biblical expository preacher from the whole of Scripture. He practiced the strictest of Christian discipline in devotions and daily life. He understood “life together” and the cost of repentance and of forgiving love in the Christian community. And his obedience to the will of God extended unto death. “Love your neighbor more than your timid conscience,” he said. He can say to his critics, “Show me your scars.”

Compassion For Catholics

Things used to be relatively easy for the average Roman Catholic parishioner. His thinking was done for him. All he needed to do was to submit intellectually, and follow prescribed procedures when he erred.

Not so these days. The Catholic layman is now caught in the crossfire of a great theological and ecclesiastical debate. The Pope says one thing, while others in the hierarchy say something else. What is the layman to believe? Whom is he to listen to?

No doubt many a Catholic feels at loose ends, confused and bewildered. Protestants who are sure of their own theological ground need as never before to pay heed to the perplexities faced by their Catholic friends. It is an opportune time for sheer Christian compassion.

Evangelicals also have a responsibility to point Catholics to the unchanging Scriptures that speak to the problems they face. However, this must never be done in a patronizing way, or in a vindictive spirit. Especially to those Catholics who exhibit an openness of mind, the Protestant response should be patient and loving.

Evangelical ministers need to make special efforts to communicate with Catholic clergy. Perhaps priests are even more unsettled than the laity, since religion dominates their lives. Evangelicals have found that there can be stability in the midst of organizational chaos, when faith is anchored on Christ and his Word rather than human institutions.

Exodus From The Pastorate

Why do ministers leave the pastorate? The United Church of Christ recently released the results of a study designed to answer that question. The report, Ex-Pastors: Why Men Leave the Parish Ministry (Pilgrim), is based on a survey of 276 active UCC pastors and 241 former pastors no longer employed by the church.

So far, relatively few ministers have left. The UCC study found that only about 1 per cent of its clergymen have taken the step. Reports on other denominations show varying percentages (some figures represent men leaving the ministry altogether; some indicate only a move out of the pastorate): 20 per cent in the Unitarian Universalist Church, an estimated 3 to 6 per cent in some Baptist groups, and only sixty withdrawals among the 13,000 United Presbyterian ministers.

The UCC survey discovered the alarming fact that although the exodus does not yet involve a large segment of the clergy, those who have remained have much the same attitudes as those who left. Many pastors are sticking it out under the same frustrations and restrictions that have caused others to leave, and it is reasonable to assume that a number of them may be thinking about leaving too.

The reasons given for leaving vary widely, ranging from frustration with the Church to personal problems and better job opportunities. Although most ministers are grossly underpaid (by comparison with other professional occupations), salary was not a major factor in the decisions to leave. And very few attribute their move to a loss of personal faith. In fact, of those who left the pastorate only 13 per cent were willing to describe their change as “leaving the ministry.” And some say their faith was renewed after they left their churches.

The reasons the former ministers gave for leaving fall into three main categories: (1) conflicts with the congregation (such as unwarranted criticism, too high an expectation for minister and family in their personal lives, apathy and lack of cooperation on the part of church leaders); (2) distortion of the role of pastor (too much time spent in administration and in smoothing the easily ruffled feathers of church members, too little time for study and fruitful personal contact); (3) personal problems (such as a sense of personal and professional inadequacy, insufficient training, and family problems).

No doubt there are some men in the pastorate who do not belong there. And certainly any pastor who departs from the Bible as the basis for his life and ministry does not merit the support and encouragement of his people. However, the fact remains that a number of ministers have left the pastorate—and others are contemplating leaving—because their churches have let them down. Ministers are human, and they need the help not only of God but also of their people. Too often the promise made at the time of installation to support, encourage, pray for, and work with the minister has long since been forgotten.

We find it much easier to criticize a minister than to pray for him. And it is easier, when criticism is called for, to speak to someone else rather than to the minister himself. It is more convenient to hire someone to do the work of the church than to take our place on a team involved in the work with him. It is simpler to demand that the minister and his family perfectly exemplify Christian behavior than to concern ourselves with our own failures. And it is less complicated to keep a minister’s salary the same or begrudgingly throw a token raise his way than to seek realistically to assess and meet his material needs.

Churches that take the easy way won’t produce much fruit for God—and will probably help to produce many more ex-pastors. Your pastor is not perfect; he’ll be the first to admit that. He does not belong on a pedestal and does not want to be placed there. Because he too is a man he needs your prayers, your encouragement, your patience, your constructive criticism, your involvement. In short, he needs your love.

Undoubtedly God has other fields of service for some pastors. And some are unable or unwilling to fulfill the role of pastor and to minister the Word of God to the people. These men should leave the pastorate. But it is disturbing when a man who feels called of God to serve his Church is forced to give up under the weight of frustration and disillusionment brought on by those who have promised to stand with him.

How Do We Know Him?

John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, was given the privilege of announcing to all that Jesus was the true Messiah. But how did he know this? He admitted, “I myself did not know him.” How then did he discover who the true Messiah was?

God revealed the method. “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33). John’s witness is clear: “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him”; therefore “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

What about us today? How can we know that Jesus is the Messiah? Jesus is not here; we cannot see the Holy Spirit light on his head as a dove. How can we be sure about him and about our salvation? The Apostle John supplies the answer later in the Fourth Gospel: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

The inescapable fact is that the ultimate and only source of knowledge that leads to salvation is Scripture. The New Testament alone provides us with the facts about Jesus the Messiah. Many writers followed in the footsteps of the apostles and left for the Church a great deposit of knowledge. But all this harks back to the Bible, which we call the Word of God.

We think of the Bible as a single book, and it is. But it is a book of many books, and in it we have the written testimony of many people, all to the same effect: Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. It is not enough to say that we neglect the Bible at our peril. We neglect it at the cost of our souls and our eternal salvation. It and it alone is the indispensable source of religious knowledge. Without it we perish. With it, when we have believing faith, we come to know Jesus, the Messiah, whom to know aright is life eternal.

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