W.E.A. LECTURE

Southland Times, Issue 20528, 3 July 1928, Page 4

W.E.A. LECTURE

RELIGION AND PERSONALITY. The W.E.A. psychology class met at the Y.M.C.A. rooms last evening when there was an attendance of about 50 members. Mr R. R. McGregor occupied the chair. The lecturer, Mr A. G. Butchers, said that the assumption with which all the churches and sects set out—that there was a great personal first cause, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe—has never been verified. Logic was too cold and unemotional a foundation for a religious system, which could only be built upon the more emotional foundation of men’s primary needs, hopes and fears. The great masses of mankind in the past, unable or unwilling to think for themselves, accepted ready-made the beliefs and opinions of their leaders. Hence the ease with which the great religious systems were built up. For religion was above all things a herd complex. When the State by toleration divorced doctrine from behaviour, the church could only enforce its authority by spiritual and social sanctions. From that time on its hold over the people began to relax. Protestanism, the result and the protagonist of liberty of conscience, had by reason of its own vital principle been shattered into numerous sects with varying indefiniteness of creed, and its organized denominations lacked the hold over their people characteristic of the parent church. Whereas scientists in face of the mystery of life and its origin admitted their present ignorance, philosophers, prophets, preachers and poets had boldly filled the void with anthropomorphic theologies and cosmogonies as detailed as they had been vast. The Bible afforded an excellent example of this. With the rapid increase of scientific knowledge during the last century, the Protestant churches at least made considerable adjustments in their presentation of their religious doctrines. Of this movement “Modernism,” so-called, was the latest development, the exponents of which preferred to dwell upon what they called the “divine humanity” of Jesus, and the moral and spiritual beauty of his personality and teaching. The noblest and best religious leaders had always appealed to men’s higher rather than their lower natures. The Sermon on the its stinging rebuke of the hypocritical ceremonial of the scribes and Pharisees, was the classic instance of this. Church connection was. however, in the first instance, a matter of upbringing. Conditioned from infancy with beliefs driven in by parents, preachers, teachers, and the social and denominational environment, most people adhered unquestionably to the faith of their fathers. That primitive men should have made goqs in their own image- was inevitable. Hence nature gods, sex gods, tribal gods and goddesses—were all more or less anthropomorphic. But the projection of human character upon the Deity did not stop there. Theological dualism—God and the Devil, the personification of good and evil had yielded place in the “new theology” to the belief in omnipotent God alone, Satan having been relegated to the limbo of a discarded mythology. With strange inconsistency, however, according to the needs of the moment, the Almighty was regarded as the God of war, and of peace; of stern justice—visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, and of infinite mercy—pardoning all who call upon him. Worshipped as the God of love, the father of all mankind, he became the centre of the individual’s own struggle towards inification, the repository of his highest hopes, and the confidant of his deepest troubles, “whose service is perfect freedom.” By the process of identification under the influence of great exaltation of spirit, men felt themselves to be his sons and co-workers with him in the salvation of the world; while their highest ideals and hopes, projected upon him, became sanctified as the will of God.

Rationalization played an important part in religion. Christian “apologetics,” as the name implied, were of this character. Classic examples were the rationalization of the belief in miracles—which, as Matthew Arnold kept reiterating, do not happen—by a belief in the over-ruling omnipotence of the Creator; of the triumph of evil, and undeserved suffering in this world, by a belief in divine redress in the world to come; and so on. Where these difficulties occasioned doubts and mental conflict, two courses were open—one, that taken by Matthew Arnold in asserting the supremacy of his own personal judgment over the creed of his church; the other, that of his brother, Thomas Arnold, who, in search of rest from the bewildering uncertainties of Protestantism, made submission of his own right of judgment to the authority of the Church of Rome.

The more colourful ceremonial worship of the Catholic Church appealed more directly to the primary instincts and senses of the people than the purely spiritual worship of Protestantism, which showed a distinct tendency to reintroduce features—for example, pictures in stained glass, organ music, crosses in architecture, and so on — which the original reformers had eliminated. The Protestant Missionaries laboured earnestly amongst the Maoris for ten years before they made one convert. When ten years later Bishop Pompallier and the French priests came, they attracted immediate converts not only from the unconverted, but also from the Christianised (Protestant) natives.

The greatest trial of faith, however, for all sincere believers did not consist in ceremonial differences, or in intellectual or doctrinal doubts, but in submission to severe bereavement, loss and undeserved personal ‘silfrering. This they must meet, as it had been met in the past, by an absolute resignation to the unsearchable will of God. “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The religion of the great masses of mankind who accepted unquestionably the beliefs of their church was, when sincere, a very real source of comfort and consolation in trouble, as well as of strength in resisting the temptations of their environment. No substitute for such a religion had yet been evolved. The menace of the future lay in the increasing numbers of young people growing to maturity year after year without the steadying influence of their fathers’ faith, and with nothing to take its place. The Roman Catholic Church sought to avert this danger from its own young people by providing its own denominational schools. If the national schools were to be continued on purely secular lines, it was all the more imperative that not only grammar, arithmetic, geography, etc., be taught, but also very definitely self-knowledge and the development of high ideals of character and personality strong and intelligent enough, if possible, to take the place of religion as a steadying and integrating force in their lives.

Women were naturally more religious than men, whose instincts were more strongly inclined to self-assertion, combativeness, and similar qualities which did not readily dispose them to prayer and supplication. In times of national or personal crisis, however, if at no other, they were usually brought to their knees. Women, on the other hand, were for biological reasons, more disposed to submission, service, devotion, love, anxiety and fear—qualities which enabled them to enter more sincerely into the worship and service of God. The Catholic Church both in its theology and in its organization made special provision for its women members. The dearth of men candidates for the ministry of some of the Protestant churches was leading to a serious consideration of the advisability of admitting women not only to the boards of management but also to the pastorate itself. One thing was certain, that the world was growing more tolerant, more enlightened, sweeter and kinder than ever before. That it would continue to do so was the faith of the rationalist as well as of the believer. Kindness and courage were the same wherever they were found. St. ( Paul’s eulogy of charity was part of what' might be called the coming universal religion of the human race, which was summed up by the founder of Christianity in the simplest of all rules —“Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even an to them; for Ulis is

the law and the prophets.” If all the denominations could by a miracle be persuaded at once officially to adopt that as their simple and only creed, what a wonderful vista of concord and progress would open up for the whole human race. An interesting and animated discussion followed the lecture in which Messrs R. R. Macgregor, W. C. Denham, W. Fisher, E. J. McLauchlan, I. L. Petrie, M. M. Macdonald, Mesdames Watt, Hannah, Sutton, Miss McFadzien and others took part. The subject of next week’s lecture will be “Sanity and Insanity.’’