Lester Start’s Works

1

Relevance of Religion

October 21, 1979

First Baptist, Kalamazoo

In 1643 the Pilgrim Fathers made and published this declaration:

After God had carried us safe to New England

And we had builded our houses

Provided necessaries for our livelihood

Heard convenient places for God’s worship

And settled the civill government

One of the next things we longed for

And looked after was to advance learning

And perpetuate it to posterity

Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry

To the churches when our present ministers

Shall lie in the dust

So began higher education in America. From the beginning our colleges were formed to educate people for the Christian ministry, the early schools were built to teach the rudiments of religion as well as the three Rs, and the famous New England Primer with its simple moralistic stories, prayers and hymns had a structure that was decidedly devout and instructive in the elements of religion. The ABCs began, for example, with A illustrated by “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.”

There was no question about the relevance of religion to college education and the founding of our colleges; our forefathers founded them as they said. “To advance learning and perpetuate it posterity dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches.” And there was no question about their believing that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” and that the elements of religion form the truth that makes men free.

But this surely is not the spirit of education today. Secular learning for a secular society is the rule now. Colleges that had been founded and nurtured by religious denominations have found it expedient to relax or sever their ties to a church. Required courses in religion have dropped from the curriculum and required chapel services are almost unknown.

One reason for this shift, of course, has been the changing needs of America as it has developed especially in the last century. The Pilgrim Fathers were concerned with religious leadership and built colleges to train clergy. But it became increasingly evident that America needed other specialties, other skills, other professions as well. Law and medicine could be learned on an apprentice basis, and was, but schools of law and medicine were clearly better. And it became clearer and clearer that men trained in the new sciences were needed to work for the developing industrialization of America. Businessmen saw the value of persons educated in business affairs and after the Civil War when the land grant colleges were formed, specialization in agricultural sciences was developed which has made America the leading food producer it is.

But with all this, the religious spirit in education was not denied. It was a secularized religious spirit, but still religious. It was like the spirit of Ben Franklin who turned away from Puritan religious dogma, but as a secular Puritan insisted on one’s obligation “to do good.”, to work hard to improve the world, to help others.

And so as the task of education shifted from the training of the clergy alone, to the training of clergy, and doctors, and lawyers, and businessmen, and farmers, and (as in the school of Ezra Cornell, even hotel managers). The spirit of service, the commitment to helping others, to improving the world, to “doing good” in secular ways remained as a religious motive for education. One could argue that insofar as higher education is committed to service, it is indeed religious however secular it seems. The problem, however, is that this spirit seems less and less in the picture. One becomes a doctor or a lawyer not so much to heal the sick or help others but to enter a prestigious and lucrative profession - to make money.

Another reason for the shift from religious orientation may very well be the growing spirit of materialism, militant atheism, and the philosophies based on science that view religion as a mistake, an enemy, or an illusion. As Dr. Russell Becker pointed out in his chapel talk last Friday at Kalamazoo College, vast societies are committed to materialism as official policy. He argued that it is the conflict between science and religion which is the cause of a decline in religious interest as science comes more and more to the fore in the modern world. And yet he seemed hopeful that recent studies, including scientific studies in parapsychology and the occult may lend increasing support to the central Christian dogma - the Resurrection - the promise of immortality. As we learn more and more about the possibilities of changing states of matter and energy we may see how when a man dies he might live again. This suggests that science may ultimately vindicate religion. The curious problem here, though, is, if it does, it is science that has triumphed, and one might well ask, “what merit then is there in faith?” What is the relevance of religion? In what sense can we think of the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, or believe that the truth of the revelation of Christ is the truth that makes us free?

I would argue for the relevance of religion in education in several ways - each of which could be developed to suggest more. I will name three. First, there is an obvious reason why religion is relevant and that it is because it has been and continues to be a dominant element in our culture. It is like that opening song in “Fiddler on the Roof.” - “traditions” it is called. And the theme is we must know our traditions to find out who we are. Of course, “Fiddler on the Roof” is about a Jewish community in Tzarist Russia, and the Jews have always preserved their identity by preserving their traditions.

But the same thing is true for Western civilization nurtured from Greek and Biblical roots. We need to know these traditions to know who we are, what we stand for, as a civilization, what, if anything it means or has meant, to say that we are a Christian society. That is why history is such an important part of liberal education. And we should be embarrassed as educated people if we know or claim to know what is meant by the love of Freud, but know naught of the love of Christ. One can’t even read our magnificent English literature without knowing these rich Classical and Biblical traditions. But we tend in education to neglect the Biblical root.

And the same is true for American civilization. Especially at a time of uncertainty when we wonder about the future of America, about American values, the national purpose, if any, it is necessary to know and explore our roots. The fruits of American democracy wither without nourishment from those roots. And as we explore our traditions, as I think we should in education, we may well find that Puritan covenant theology harkening back to God’s covenant with the children of Israel is as pervasive a source of the American dream as the enlightenment philosophy of John Locke, that religious sentiment is appealed to in the American scripture, “we hold these truths to be self evident.” - not an appeal [to] reason at all, that a rethinking of the American heritage to reveal the roots of our traditions may show why our present day exclusive focus on human rights is perhaps a mistake. Perhaps those who best exemplify the spirit and promise of America - and I think of figures as diverse as Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman and John Dewey - have seen America as a larger promise a larger ideal embracing people in a higher purpose, a transcending of the narrowly individual concern with rights - and this is a religious concern.

A second argument for the relevance of religion is that it must be addressed when we are faced with questions of ultimate values and the ethical conduct of life. We seem honestly confused about ethical values. There is an old story that illustrates this. A little boy asks his father, “Dad, what does the word ethical mean?” “Well, son,” was the reply, “that’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll give you an example. Your uncle and I, you know, have this store downtown. Now suppose a customer comes in, buys an item that’s exactly a dollar, slaps down a $10 bill, and then starts to go out, thinking he’s put down a one. Well this brings up an ethical question. Should I say nothing and pocket that extra nine dollars, or should I split it 50-50 with your uncle.” There are people who would see nothing funny here, no possibility of another alternative. At best, we tend to be very unassertive about what we think is really right or clearly wrong. We speak of different value systems, relativism in ethics, what is right for you but perhaps wrong for me as if - as Shakespeare once said; “Nothing’s either right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.”

But we know there is a difference between thinking something is right and knowing it is really right. And in the big decisions, when ultimate values are involved, as in the right to life as in the abortion issue, the right to die as in euthanasia - notice how we speak of right to life? Why not reverence for life? - when ultimate values are involved, the decision involves a religious dimension. It is not enough to point out values, it is important to see where they come from, how they are based. And the ultimate values involve religious commitment. As Tillich taught, the very concept of God is defined as ultimate concern - one’s ultimate value, commitment. Religion is indeed to relevant to all ultimate questions of value and value theory. This is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

One final argument. Religion is relevant in education because education has tended to take over or usurp the primary function of religion - which is to offer man salvation. Now this may sound odd or extreme but it is true. In one sense, of course, there is a proper role of salvation for education. Education saves man from the tyranny of ignorance and error. The Pilgrim Fathers saw it as a necessary ally of religious truth.

But education extends this role to claim other kinds of salvation as well. There are, of course, all the schemes of political and special salvation taught in the social sciences, religion of the state as 20^th-century religion. But I am more concerned with the spinoff of psychological schemes of salvation - methods of modifying behavior, and promising a better “you.” The book stalls are full of all kinds of “how to” books, how to be your own best friend, how to assert yourself, how to get more out of life, or your marriage, or your job. How to develop your psychic powers, your hidden energies, your future success. How to be a winner. How to be slimmer. Then there is transactional analysis, assertiveness training, sensitivity training, I’m all right you’re all right - the list goes on. And I suppose one might say there’s nothing wrong with this, surely. But there is. They all are based on manipulative techniques of behavior modification and are thus unfree and demeaning. And they almost always promised more than they can deliver. They suggest a salvation they cannot achieve.

They can teach a certain self-satisfaction - they can show us various ways by which we can feel good about ourselves - but - the ultimate promise of salvation as a religious event involving the redemptive act of the love of God through Christ - means to lift the self from its self satisfaction to a new birth in which one lives in the higher spirit of God for a larger purpose than oneself - and it means to respond to this redemptive love of God in acts of love to one’s fellow man. It means not to gratify the self but deny the self for a larger self hood and fellowship in the kingdom of God.

Religion is relevant here, of course. But it functions truly in education as pointing to the ultimate relation to God. Not as a substitute for it, and knowing about God is no substitute for knowing God. Reverence for God, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and living in the spirit of the redemptive love of God is the truth that makes men free.