Part 12 (1/2)
Of all human acts of the conscientious man wors.h.i.+p is the most highly symbolic. They who wors.h.i.+p are alike, and in their likeness are unlike to others. It is an expression of their awareness of resemblance and of difference. The definitions of consciousness of kind, as a sociological process, go a long way to explain without further comment, both the strength and the weakness of the churches in America.
The churches have to struggle with a narrow and small social horizon.
Few people are so conscious of their kins.h.i.+p with all others in their community that they desire those others to wors.h.i.+p with them. The sense of unlikeness to others is, unfortunately, as strong in their feelings as the sense of likeness unto their own. In the American community with many newcomers, and some foreigners, this sense of unlikeness is natural. It is not to be wondered that men should think themselves more like unto their old neighbors than unto the new. It is not surprising that with new economic processes men should ignore their unity with those who co-operate with them in getting a living, and should be conscious of their unity with those whose living comes in the same form.
As a result, we have working men's churches and ”rich men's clubs,”
”college churches,” ”student pastors,” churches which minister to old families, and new chapels built by tenant farmers. But these phases of wors.h.i.+p are peculiar to the times of transition in which we live. The immaturity of our economic processes, and the greater immaturity of our economic knowledge, explain the failure of wors.h.i.+ping people to a.s.semble by communities; but the process which a.s.sembles men of kindred mind to wors.h.i.+p together now is capable of bringing men together in larger wholes.
The spirit of federation is in the air. The longing for religious unity is a response to the stimuli of common experience in the same locality.
Men who meet throughout the week, if they wors.h.i.+p at all, discover a desire to wors.h.i.+p together. The coming of great occasions and the celebrations of anniversaries, train them in some common a.s.semblies. I remember how the tidings of the death of President McKinley brought together all the people of the community in an act of wors.h.i.+p. Their response to a profound sense of danger was a community response, and the church which was prompt to open its doors, found men of all faiths within.
At a recent meeting of the National Body of one of the greatest Protestant churches, proceedings were halted by the moderator, who read a telegram announcing the friendly action of another religious body.
This action looked toward union of the two denominations. It was a response to overtures from the body there in session. Instantly the whole a.s.sembly sprang up, applauding and cheering, and led by a clear, musical voice, broke out in a hymn. That hymn is profoundly sociological in its language, and its use is increasing among Christian people. It expresses that wors.h.i.+p which is a consciousness of kind. Its words are
Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love: The fellows.h.i.+p of kindred minds Is like to that above.
Before our Father's throne We pour our ardent prayers; Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one, Our comforts and our cares.
We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear, And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.
It would be hard to find a member of a Protestant church in America, among the older denominations, who does not know these words, and is not accustomed to use them in response to the stimuli of kins.h.i.+p with other Protestant Christians.
The consciousness of kind is an awareness of differences and resemblances. It is a finding of one's self among those to whom one is like, and an aversion to those unto whom one is not like. Wors.h.i.+p is an expression of this common likeness. It is an enjoyment of fellows.h.i.+p.
The experience of wors.h.i.+p is impossible in an atmosphere of difference.
This is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of congregations. Without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting, and without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellows.h.i.+p.
This brings us very near to the sacred experiences in which men find G.o.d. A very early chapter in the Bible describes G.o.d as the ”Friend” of a man. In the succeeding pages he becomes the King, the Priest, the Prophet, and the Father of men. In every one of them the mind of the wors.h.i.+per has expressed a profound sense, that G.o.d is found by the soul in society. Herbert Spencer has insisted that all religion is ancestor wors.h.i.+p, that is, it grows out of the family group.
Simmel teaches that religion is the resultant of the reactions of the individual with his group fellows, and with the group as a whole.
Christian folk are accustomed to express this by calling one another ”brothers” and ”sisters,” meaning clearly that religion is a social experience.
This is not the place for extended biblical interpretation, but I am convinced that the whole course of scripture will testify to this, that in the peaceful, continuing, social unities men have found G.o.d, and in the differences, in their group conflicts, in their wars, and in the oppositions to their enemies, there has been found no religious experience. That is, such conflict has intensified unity, and the resulting unity has been ever richer in religion: but the thoughts for G.o.d have come forth clothed always in terms and t.i.tles of fellows.h.i.+p, unity and kins.h.i.+p.
In country communities this principle explains the divisions and the unities of religious life. In many towns, the Presbyterian church, for instance, is the church of the old settler and the earlier farmers. A new denomination has come in with the tenants and the invaders. That is, men have found it impossible to wors.h.i.+p in a constant experience of difference. It is true that their difference is an element in their religion, because the consciousness of difference is an element in the consciousness of kind.
In the Southern States, the white slave-holders wors.h.i.+ped, before the war, in the same congregations with their negro slaves. They were conscious of the plantation group, and of the economic unity with their work-people. When emanc.i.p.ation came and the slaves were made free, they must needs wors.h.i.+p apart; and today, throughout the whole South, the negro churches have been erected to express the consciousness of kind, both on the part of the white and of the black.
If this argument has force, it goes to prove that religion is, in a small community, the strongest organizing force. The seeking after G.o.d requires as a vehicle the consciousness of likeness and difference. It can only proceed along those lines.
The earnest desire of many common folk to know G.o.d is a working force, which follows the cleavage of social cla.s.sification. The churches become expressions of social forms. In the country particularly, where life is simpler and changes are slower, the church becomes an almost infallible index of the social condition of the people.
The duty, then, of the religious worker, and the task of the prophet and the seer, is to enlarge the consciousness of kind. Wors.h.i.+p is to be placed on a larger plane. Americans must be taught to see their unity with immigrants. Owners of land must be made to recognize that they are one with their tenants. The employer must be shown that his alliances are with those who help him to get his living. At once, when this task is put before us, we see the futility of the ideals of our time. Church workers and other teachers have played up before the eyes of the people those ideals which separate men into artificial cla.s.ses. The consciousness of kind has been a consciousness of money and consciousness of belonging to old families, or a consciousness of the ideals of higher education. A great many American families live in the ideal of sending their boys and girls to college. This leads them to feel a difference between themselves and the larger number of people who do not care for higher education, and who discover no energies in themselves that move on the path of learning. The result is that their wors.h.i.+p is narrow; churches become culture clubs: the preachers are exponents of literature: the service of wors.h.i.+p is a liturgy of esthetic pleasure.
The true consciousness of kind must be economic and social. There is no escape from this for religious people. They must go deep down to the unities with men who co-operate with them in getting a living. The Pittsburgh mill owner has no other unity by which he can find himself at one with his foreign born mill-hand, than the fact that he and the mill-hand are fellow workers in the mill.