Personal religion

Foreword

THAT we are passing through a transition period in Christian thinking is well known to every thoughtful person. Broader ideas of religion are general, spiritual authority in religion is being recognized, new conceptions of the Bible are in vogue, the immanence of God is emphasized, the ethical side of religion is made prominent, religious experience from the standpoint of psychology, is being studied, and the social or Kingdom aspects of Jesus' message and ideal are constantly before us. The presence of such books as Clark's '"Theology" and ''The Ideal of Jesus" and "Sixty years with the Bible" ; Matthew's "The Church and the Changing Order" ; Stevens' "The Psychology of the Christian Soul" ; Anderson's "The Man of Nazareth" ; and numerous other books of similar view point, makes real the situation. Our Colleges and Seminaries are sending out men well versed in philosophy, psychology, science and the results of historical investigation. They are expected to adjust their Gospel Message to the modern view point. Many of them wonder where they are and what they have lost or gained in the transition. The place of "Personal Religion" in this universal social propaganda is not clear to some of them. Their teachers have not failed. It simply takes time to get adjusted. Then there are many of our pastors who feel they cannot have the same idea of the Bible or of Jesus' religion that they once did who have

4 FOREWORD

not found a positive Gospel message from the modern standpoint, and there are numbers of our loyal laymen and Sunday School workers who are not clear in their vision of the truth as Jesus taught it. In addition to these, there is a company of Evangelists who do not accept any of these modern conceptions but antagonize them believing them to be of the very devil. They hold tenaciously to the old because they must be conservative, not realizing that the progressive scholar is the true conservative for he separates the external from the internal, the material from the spiritual, and the superficial from the vital. They do not know that modern man is honestly seeking to be true to Jesus and to save that which is religiously and ethically essential.

It is to help these perplexed ones and to call the church to the truth of Jesus' fundamental message to the world, that this book is written. The author believes most sincerely that there is a very vital Gospel message in the modern conception. The progressive man simply must be intensely evangelistic. He must get men individually into vital touch with the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ, he must secure in man a definite life ideal, a positive alinement to Jesus' principles and purposes and a real experience of the spiritual power of Jesus, or man cannot be saved and the Kingdom cannot come. He must emphasize personal religion. Therefore we are to believe that there is a virile evangelism for the church today, and the acceptation of true progressive thought, with its new understanding of the human personality, its scientific investigation, and its social emphasis, not only does not abrogate this evangelism, but when deeply considered, demands it.

FOREWORD 5

This work has been done in the rush of a busy pastorate and the demands of the larger Kingdom service which have been pressing upon him, but it has been a labor of love for The Father, for Jesus, for Humanity and for the Kingdom. Gladly do I acknowledge my special indebtedness to Drs, Orchard, Phillips, Cliiford, Williams, Wilberforce, Tennant, Stevens, Campbell, Clow, Harnack, Eucken and others across the sea, and to Drs. Rauschenbusch, Matthews, Clark, Anderson, Buckham, Gladden, Patten, Bowne, Hyde, and others in America. The last word on the subject has not been spoken but perhaps some little contribution to truth and Kingdom advancement has been made in this humble volume.

C. H. R.

Rochester, N. Y.

Contents

HAFTEB PAGE

I. Personal Religion 11

A Life Experience 18

Chapter One Personal Eeligio^

IT is well known today that religion began in the social consciousness of man. It was primitively the concern of the whole community rather than simply the individual. It was not only included in the community consciousness but was the controlling element in that consciousness. It was so thoroughly social that the individual had a right to religion only as he was a member of the community. From this we perceive that the present day social emphasis upon religious life is taking us back to the primitive conception of religion. In studying the history of Jewish religion as found in the Old Testament, the scholarship of today agrees that it was the community, or the people as a whole, and not the individual, which had a relation to the deity, worshipped him, was acceptable to him and came under his favor, or sinned against him and called forth his wrath. Prof. Walter R. Betteridge of the Rochester Theological Seminary has recently given to us a very able and valuable treatise on the emergence of the individual in Jewish religion. He states that we are able to fix with mathematical exactness the date when the centre of emphasis was shifted from the nation to the individual. He declares that the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel were the first teachers of the new doctrine. Jer. 31 : 30 and Ezek. 18 : 1-4. Judaism did not easily part with the community conception of religion however. It still insisted that only as one obeyed the community and submitted to its ordinances ^nd requirements could he have access to God and be accepted by him. We are glad that it did not separate entirely from social religion, for there is a gTeat truth in the idea that the individual is saved as he is a part of his community. The fact is that both are true. It is only the overemphasis of the social or the individual that is erroneous. It is the happy balancing of man's individual responsibility and opportunity before God and man, of his right to respond to the call of the divine and human, unhindered by others and of his place in the community of his fellows that represents the truth of the matter. There is no clash between the individual and social conceptions of religion. They are interdependent ideals. Humanity is made up of individuals. We may conceive of religious life just as broadly as possible and yet never for a moment be able to declare that its experience is not fundamentally one of the individual. The generalizing of a religious experience does not make the religion of a single person unimportant, for it is only as the individual person comes to know the reality of religion, that humanity can be conscious of it. Personal religion is essential to all spiritual, moral and social progress of mankind. However we may reason en masse regarding humanity, we should not overlook this fact. As religion is developed in man's personality, God's will is done and human life progress is secured. Some one has said that the state is simply the 'individual writ large."

This statement makes real to us the importance of the religious life of that individual. Religion to be universalized must be personalized. Jesus spent time with single persons. He never belittled the power and range of a human life. To have religion truly experienced in individual human lives was his passion. There is a question as to how clearly he perceived and endeavored to impress upon the people around him any comprehensive social program. What he did surely try to do was to secure in humanity the spiritualizing of all himian life experiences and relationships. He saw no way for that to be done except by securing this ideal and purpose in the individual as a centre. He knew his Kingdom depended upon that. To have people vitally and genuinely religious persons, satisfied him. Programs would largely take care of themselves. He was not obliged to think them out in detail.

There are many varying views of personal religion in the minds of good people. Perhaps no two agree perfectly as to what the qualities, experience and expression of it are. And this notwithstanding the fact that most of us have been trained in the school of religion since babyhood. We find that definitions differ radically. Much that is fundamental to one is entirely secondary to another. One person is confident that he is experiencing personal religion because of certain beliefs which he has subscribed to, ordinances which he has submitted to, and activities he has become engaged in, while to another all of these appear to be anything but evidences that he knows what religion is. So much that is not religion, has been considered religion, that some people have about concluded that there is not any religion. It is also quite true that many good people are sorely perplexed regarding it. While some are confident, they are greatly troubled and in serious doubt. When they judge by some standards they think they are religious but according to others they know they are not. They really desire to be sure about the matter. They have great concern about it, therefore they institute thoughtful inquiry concerning it. While many fail to understand the great essentials of personal religion, some actually turn away from it because of the evidence of sham connected with it and others are perplexed even to doubt while they honestly search for it. It behooves all to make a careful study of it. Deception here is disastrous. Each person should have clear ideas of its fundamental characteristics, and this not primarily to satisfy his own mind and heart regarding his own religious condition so that he may feel perfectly safe, but that he may be able to assist others who are struggling through a religious maze and may be able intelligently to deal with inquiring and even irreligious humanity everywhere. We are sure that God does not want us to be in the dark regarding this most important matter. There is light somewhere. Patient research, thoughtful consideration, discrimination in elements, and following the leadings of the spirit of God, will reward every honest inquirer.

We naturally turn to Jesus for a definition of personal religion. For while we recognize the universality of the religious impulse and that all men are more or less religious and that religious experience is based upon the fact that the religious sense is fundamental to all human life and seeks for an expression according to the direction given to it by enlightenment, environment and edncation, yet we approach the subject from the standpoint of Christian believers. We ask not for a Pagan interpretation of personal religion, even if Plato did experience it, or for a Heathen conception of it, even if some devout Buddhists did know^ a little of it, or for a Mohammedan idea of it, even if some sincere believer in Allah the one God, does know the true God, or even for Judaistic thoughts of it, even if Jeremiah and Isaiah were truly religious and did worship the same God we do. We come to Christ for a definition because he is the author of Christianity which to us is the very highest type of religion that the world knows. We shall find that Jesus' definition of it, is not so profound as some have thought. The world has made religion far more difficult to perceive and experience than Jesus ever did. Some have made it quite unnatural to man, far beyond his normal experience, intricate and complex. Others have defined it in terms of metaphysics, have wrapped it in ecclesiastical coverings and bound it with creedal red tape, so that a common humanity never surely knows when it possesses it.

It is not to be confused with elaborate theological statements. One may be genuinely and sanely religious and have a very simple theology. In personal religion one may leave entirely outside of his concern, great masses of theological speculation. He need not bother about perfectly defining Deity, he may even recognize that he cannot state satisfactorily just the nature of Jesus Christ and yet he may be sure of the experience of personal religion. Happy is that person who is able to disentangle religion from speculative theology, and thrice happy is he who finds his way to the experience of this religion without trying to settle all the problematical questions of the moral and religious world. We shall find that Jesus' teachings are not theological discussions. He steers clear of speculation, even while living in the midst of it. After he died, the philosophically inclined buried his beautiful, simple religious ideas in speculation. We are not bound to them. It is our privilege to go direct to the synoptics to ascertain what Jesus' idea of personal religion was. The story of his life will reveal to us his ideas. The Gospel record, while not complete, is sufficient to make the import of that life plain. He gave to the world a double definition of religion. One in his utterances regarding it and the other in the life he lived. His experience of this religion was expressed in his life and that life was lived naturally and in sight of all men so that they could see what it was. Jesus staged religion in actual life, not as a drama but as a vital experience. He lived it out in the open. The curtain was up every day, everywhere. There was nothing behind the scenes. He never closeted his religion. He lived out his own life where he was as naturally as he breathed. The Father's purpose was to personify religion in him, his purpose was to be his own religious self as he must to be genuine. The utterances of his lips were those which came logically from his own experience and life. There was no sham in his soul or cant in his words, and no insincerity or inconsistency in his life. Soul, lips and life were beautifully blended in portraying his experience. They spoke one language, manifested one life and breathed forth one spirit. And his experience of religion was the deepest, broadest and highest that any man ever has had. He understood the genius

PERSONAL RELIGIOJ^ 17

of personal religion as no one ever has and lived it more truly than any one ever did. Jesus stands out alone in the world as the one who has given to man the truest, clearest, most discriminating and most natural embodiment of vital religion that has ever come to the knowledge of the human race.

This remarkable fact gives to us the permanent significance of Jesus to the religious world. No where does the leading personality mean more than in the sphere of religion and this is in perfect accord with the chief aim of religion as Eucken so forcibly points out in his philosophy of human life. He states that,

"The aim of religion, and to many an apparently hopeless aim, is to lift man in the midst of human existence to divinity; to give to him notwithstanding his dependence upon the course of the world, a self dependent soul; to reveal to him in the very midst of temporal limitations an eternity. This is a most difficult task to accomplish. It seems impossible unless miracles occur. But it is first accomplished in the life and being of creative personalities. Then it can be commimicated to others from them and finally become a fact for all mankind. Hence the spiritual depths of religions is measured and their character determined chiefly by the personal traits of their founders; it is they who infuse into the framework of outward ordinances and doctrinal casings the inner life they need, and who continually bring religion back from stereotyped formulas to the fresh vigour of their source,"

With this positively true, with so much depending upon the personality of the founder of a religion, we appreciate the incalculable advantage that Christianity has over every other religion of the world in possessing, in Jesus Christ, one who so perfectly embodied religion in experience and life. He lived his religion so humanly, humbly and naturally and yet so divinely, exaltedly and incomparably, that when the world desires to know what the noblest type of personal religion is, it turns to him with absolute confidence, satisfied that in him we shall see lived out among men in simplicity and grandeur the eternal religion of the one true God. Therefore a study of his life and teachings will give to us correct ideas of it, and a reception of his spirit will lead U5 into the experience of that which is true religion. Surely there is no better way of ascertaining what we desire to know than by analyzing the religion he lived and there is no surer way of having this religion as our own than by seeking earnestly the experience which he had, in so far as we are capacitated to receive it. Personal religion is the religion of Jesus. A study of his life and a response to his spirit lead us to conclude that it is fundamentally as follows : —

A LIFE EXPERIENCE

It is not accepting a doctrine or subscribing to an ecclesiastical formula or submitting to a rite. It is fundamentally a life. The life of living human beings, whose minds are alert and whose souls are animated. Jesus' religion was life. It was life in him. It was nothing external to him. He could not have lived it or charged others with it if it had not been a vital part of his own essential self. So personal religion today is life in man. No life, then no religion. As we have the true life we shall have religion. It will have its doctrines and principles but they are simply and only the exposition of a life and what that life implies. It will surely have, as it has had, some institutions and organizations connected with it by which it expresses itself, but they are simply and only the servants of the life. Harnack writes : —

"Religion is just one simple and sublime thing. It is eternal life in the midst of time."

We can do no better than to reiterate this great truth. Personal religion is eternal life in time, the life of the Eternal One in man, in time, in his own soul, and in all his activities. It is human life lived as an eternal fact. Life lived as if it were eternal. Lived humanly and lived in eternal relationships, lived as if it were to live on forever. Lived as human life but lived divinely in view of all human relationships as if the human were all and to live that eternal life in the human to its full was the greatest experience of life. Thus to live, divinely and humanly, is all of life and all of religion.

The fact that Jesus' religion was an experience in actual life, amid human surroundings, must not be forgotten, for this is the field of all personal religion which humanity is to know. It is not something which is to come hereafter only but rather is to be known now. It is an experience of human life right here on this earth. Whatever religion one possesses will be at least begun here. It is not something to hope for but to have ; not something outside of the world arena but right in the centre of it ; not something apart from human environment, off in some ascetic corner but something which has to do with every relation of the individual human being in his earthly career. It is not trying to be somewhere else in mind and heart. It is not trying to get away from your sphere to another. It is having a religious experience of reality here in all the common everyday walks of daily life. It is not an experience which comes to us only as we get away from the actual world about us or assume an abnonnal attitude toward this world in whicli we have been placed. It is an experience of adjustment to the world centre and world order which makes a religious life a normal and natural one to live and which dignifies every activity as sacred. It recognizes that in the purpose of God, religion is the science of human life as its best. It is for this sphere. It is for this human life. There is nothing the matter with the world or human life when both are conceived of religiously, which is simply being thought of normally. Human relationships are the relationships which God has ordained and personal religion is the ideal experience of a human being in these relationships. Human relationships are in reality personal relationships and it is obvious that all the activities of man are included in at least two of these personal relationships, those of man with God and man with man, and a third has been suggested, namely man with himself. In these three circles of human relationships, his experience of personal religion will be realized. He will be religious as he approximates in these relationships the religious experience of Jesus Christ, who is our recognized ideal.

THE RELATION TO GOD

Jesus made it very plain that the relation to God was fundamental in personal religion. He experienced a close relationship to his Heavenly Father and every man who accepts Christ must have more or less of the same experience. The man who is not religious refuses to recognize his relationship to God and lives as if he had none. The man who is religious enters into a proper relationship to his Heavenly Father. This is a distinctive characteristic. Without it we can hardly consider any man, regardless of how excellent he may be, religious. To be religious without a sense of God relationship is to have a father and not know him or care anything about him. A filial consciousness is quite indispensable in religion. It will be manifested in at least five ways. Probably the very first expression of filial consciousness will be that of reverence for the father. The moment man is really conscious that he has a Heavenly Father, he will realize something of the majesty of his personality. He will be impressed as he considers the infiniteness of the Eternal Spirit, the powers of the Creator as he beholds the wonders of creation will overawe him and a sense of his own littleness in comparison to the Father's greatness, will lead him to revere him. Then a further consideration of his character, his divine goodness and his love for his children will lead to a reverence which will crystallize into genuine worship. This worship will not be superstitious or based upon fear, it will be the logical response of the child who recognizes and wonders at the power, nature and disposition of his Heavenly Father. It will be the result of a conclusion that the infinite is worthy of the worship and homage of the finite. Reverence and worship will appear to him the reasonable attitude of the creature to the Creator, the child to the Father. This is the beginning of religion. Following this will be the attitude of confidence in the Father. Implicit trust is the legitimate outcome of true reverence. Faith in God becomes a rational attitude for the child to assume. He believes that God is good, that his spirit is love, that his nature is righteous, that his will is wisest and best and that he has every reason to impose absolute confidence in him. There will be a happy sense of security and a quiet repose in his providences. There will be a conscious dependence upon him and genuine faith in him. The child will take his word as final, will not ask for explanations of everything and will place the life in his keeping with just as much assurance as the child of an earthly parent trusts his fond father. He will see in Jesus Christ the revelation of the Father whom he is to trust and faith in Christ will actually be faith in the God of goodness and love — such a faith as abandons the soul and life to his direction and development.

Another manifestation of this filial consciousness will be that of harmony with the Father. Whatever moral and spiritual chasm there has been between the father and the child, will be bridged. There will be an experience of oneness. That oneness will be one of disposition and purpose. The child will enter into communion with the father, they will live together in the world. They will feel at home. Prayer will be a natural spiritual intercourse. The child will, as the result of this union, take on the nature of the father, possess his spirit and become absorbed in his plans. There will be a sense of the correlation of the life of the individual to the life of God. In many a life this experience will be revolutionary. It will be a cataclysmic event. It will be a mighty transformation into the spirit and will of God. To others it will be the same result but will come to be without any conscious revolution. In these it will be the logical and normal transition into a better understanding of the Father and a more intelligent harmonizing of the soul and life with his. There will be no strain about it. Simply the child's answer to the Father to come closer to him and to know him in a larger way and to enter into his spirit and will more fully as he pardons and promises to help and develop. How different was Jesus' conception of union with the Father from that of Confucius who said, "Respect the Gods, but have as little to do with them as possible."

Furthermore this filial consciousness will reveal an actual love for God. Reverence for, trust in, and union with him will inevitably develop this love. It will not be forced for it cannot be. Love will come as it comes with us today. We do not love those whom we do not know exist. We love people as we come to meet them, understand them, deal with them and trust them. It is the same with our relation to God. But one asks how can we come to know and understand God so as to love him. As we study Jesus Christ we see in him the Father. He came to unbosom or declare the Father. Jesus did not come primarily to secure man's belief in himself, he came to get men to believe in God. Jesus did not live that the world might forever talk of how good and true and noble he was, he lived among men as the sent one from God, that everyone might see in him a picture of the Father and might forever talk of how good and noble and true the Father was. Remember it was the God consciousness of Jesus that made him what he was. Therefore he portrayed the truth about God. He who reads and studies and then understands Jesus, understands God. He who reveres and trusts Jesus reveres and trusts God, and he who loves Jesus, loves God. How can we love Jesus when he is not here ? One may love his ideals, his spirit, and his character. He who does, loves the Father. More than this, he who loves the good in the world, is passionately fond of righteousness, finds his heart going out to humanity as Jesus did, may know that he loves what Jesus loves and thus what the Father loved and has in him the love of God, and that this is the very essence of religion.

Still another and very important characteristic of filial consciousness will be that of loyalty. The issue of unity and love will be fidelity. To do this Father's will in real life will be the supreme desire of the one who truly experiences this filial consciousness. Jesus' life was singularly objective. He was in closest harmony with his Father and knew the subjective experience of spiritual union with him, but it was not a moody mysticism or an impractical emotionalism. His fellowship with God issued naturally and logically in objective loyalty to his will. He said, you remember, "My food is to do the will of my sender and to accomplish his work." John 4 : 34. His ober dience to God was the proof of his oneness with the Father. His religion would have been valueless without this. Union with God implies this. And we may consider ours the same today. Only those who do the will of God are truly in harmony with him. Matt. 7 : 21. The test of religion is not revealed in the confessions of St. Augustine or necessarily in the rhapsodies of Thomas a Kempis, but rather in the honest loyalty to what one conceives to be the will of God for us in this world. And just as truly does love express itself in loyalty. Those who love will be on the alert to please, to work for and to seek first the accomplishment of the Father's purposes. Therefore we may know in very truth that personal religion is an experience in which a filial consciousness of God is realized in reverence of him, confidence in him, harmony with him, love for him, and loyalty to him. This is the very foundation of the religion which we are inquiring about. As one experiences this he knows something of personal religion.

RELATION TO ONe's SELF

Personal religion demands something of one's self. It leads the individual to expect something in himself which is vitally a part of himself. His religious experience will move within the arena of his own personality. There will be something going on there which is a reality even if it is something which one is not able perfectly to describe. Personal religion without an experience of some kind within one's self is not the religion that Jesus knew or advocated for others. Some may name it "the new birth," others conversion, and still others "getting religion," it really matters not what the name is, it is something. It is an experience of self and effective within one's self. It is not necessarily some great rush of feeling or some peculiar ecstasy of soul. Such experiences are determined by the peculiar make up and capacity of the personality. The same experience of religion will be manifested differently in several persons. There will be some effect upon self necessary in each case but there will be superfluous accompaniments which result entirely from the mental and emotional natures of the persons in whom the experience is being realized. The case of Hannah Whithall Smith is in point. She writes, —