Part 11 (1/2)

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM

WISE men, in modern times, are striving earnestly and zealously to, as far as possible, free religion from the cramping and deadening effect of creeds and formularies, in order that it may be able to expand with the expanding thought of the day. Creeds are like iron moulds, into which thought is poured; they may be suitable enough to the way in which they are framed; they may be fit enough to enshrine the phase of thought which designed them; but they are fatally unsuitable and unfit for the days long afterwards, and for the thought of the centuries which succeed. ”No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred; but new wine must be put into new bottles.” The new wine of nineteenth century thought is being poured into the old bottles of fourth century creeds: and sixteenth century formulas, and the strong new wine-bursts the bottles, while the weak new wine that cannot: burst them ferments into vinegar in them, and often becomes harmful and poisonous. Let the new wine be poured into new bottles; let the new thought mould its own expression; and then the old bottles will be preserved unbroken as curious specimens of antiquity, instead of being smashed to pieces because they get in the way of the world. Nothing is more to be deprecated in a new and living movement than the formulating into creeds of the thoughts that inspire it, and the imposition of those creeds on those who join it. The very utmost that can be done to give coherency to a large movement is to put forward a declaration of a few cardinal doctrines that do not interfere with full liberty of divergent thought. Thus, Rationalists might take as the declaration of their central thought, that ”reason is supreme,” but they would be destroying the future of Rationalism if they formulated into a creed any of the conclusions to which their own reason has led them at the present time, for by so doing they would be stereotyping nineteenth century thought for the restraint of twentieth century thought, which will be larger, fuller, more instructed than their own. Freethinkers may declare as their symbol the Right to Think, and the Right to express thought, but should never claim the declaration by others of any special form of Freethought, before acknowledging them as Freethinkers. Bodies of men who join together in a society for a definite purpose may fairly formulate a creed to be a.s.sented to by those who join them, but they must ever remember that such creed will lose its force in the time to come, and that while it adds strength and point to their movement now, it also limits its useful duration, if it is to be maintained as unalterable, for as circ.u.mstances change different needs will arise, and a fresh expression of the means to meet those needs will become necessary. A wise society, in forming a creed, will leave in the hands of its members full power to revise it, to amend it, to alter it, so that the living thought within the society may ever have free scope. A creed must be the expression of _living thought_, and be moulded by it, and not the skeleton of dead thought, moulding the intellect of its heirs. The strength of a society lies in the diversity, and not in the uniformity, of the thought of its members, for progress can only be made through heretical thought, _i.e_., thought that is at variance with prevailing thought. All Truth is new at some time or other, and the fullest encouragement should therefore be given to free and fearless expression, since by such expression only is the promulgation of new truths possible. An age of advancement is always an age of heresy; for advancement comes from questioning, and questioning springs from doubt, and hence progress and heresy walk ever hand-in-hand, while an age of faith is also an age of stagnation.

Every argument that can be brought against a stereotyped creed for adults, tells with tenfold force against a stereotyped catechism for children. If it is evil to try and mould the thought of those whose maturity ought to be able to protect them against pressure from without, it is certainly far more evil to mould the thought of those whose still unset reason is ductile in the trainer's hand. A catechism is a sort of strait-waistcoat put upon children, preventing all liberty of action; and while the child's brain ought to be cultured and developed, it ought never to be trained to run in one special groove of thought. Education should teach children _how_ to think, but should never tell them _what_ to think. It should sharpen and polish the instruments of thought, but should not fix them into a machine made to cut out one special shape of thought. It should send the young out into the world keen-judging, clear-eyed, thoughtful, eager, inquiring, but should not send them out with answers cut-and-dried to every question, with opinions ready made for them, and dogmas nailed into their brains. Most churches have provided catechism-sawdust for the nourishment of the lambs of their flock; Roman Catholics, Church of Englanders, Presbyterians, they have all their juvenile moulds. The Church of England catechism is, perhaps, the least injurious of all, because the Church of England is the result of a compromise, and has the most offensive parts of its dogmas cut out of the public formularies. It wears some slight ap.r.o.n of fig-leaves in deference to the effect produced by the eating of the tree of knowledge.

But still, the Church of England catechism is bad enough, training the child to believe the most impossible things before he is old enough to test their impossibility. To the age which believes in Jack-and-the-bean-stalk, and the adventures of Cinderella, all things are possible; whether it be Jonah in the whale's belly, or Tom Thumb in the stomach of the red cow, all is gladly swallowed with implicit faith; the children grow out of Tom Thumb, in the course of nature, but they are not allowed to grow out of Jonah.

When the baby is brought to the font to make divers promises, of the making of which he is profoundly unconscious--however noisily he may at times convey his utter disgust at the whole proceeding--the G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers are directed to see that the child is ”brought to the bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose.”

It is scarcely necessary to say that these words--being in the Prayer-Book--are not meant to be taken literally, and that the bishop would be much astonished if all the small children in the Sunday School who can glibly repeat the required lesson, were to be brought up to him for confirmation. As a matter of fact, the large majority of G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers do not trouble themselves about seeing their G.o.dchildren brought to confirmation at all, and the children are sent up when they are about fifteen, at which period most of them who are above the Sunday School going grade, are rapidly ”crammed” with the Catechism, which they as rapidly forget when the day of confirmation is over.

The Christian name of the child being given in answer to the first question of the Catechism, the second inquiry proceeds: ”Who gave you this name?” The child is taught to answer--”My G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers in my baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of G.o.d, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” Thus, the first lesson imprinted on the child's memory is one of the most objectionable of the dogmas of the Church, that of baptismal regeneration. In baptism he is ”made” something; then he becomes something which he was not before; according to the baptismal office, he is given in baptism ”that thing which by nature he cannot have,” and being under the wrath of G.o.d, he is delivered from that curse, and is received for G.o.d's ”own child by adoption;” he is also ”incorporated” into the ”holy Church,” and thus becomes ”a member of Christ,” being made a part of the body of which Christ is the head; this being done, he is, of course, an ”inheritor of the kingdom of heaven” through the ”adoption.”

Thus the child is taught that, by nature, he is bad and accursed by G.o.d; that so bad was he as an infant, that his parents were obliged to wash away his sins before G.o.d would love him. If he asks what harm he had done that he should need cleansing, he will be told that he inherits Adam's sin; if he asks why he should be accursed for being born, and why, born into G.o.d's world at G.o.d's will, he should not by nature be G.o.d's child, he will be told that G.o.d is angry with the world, and that everyone has a bad nature when they are born; thus he learns his first lesson of the unreality of religion; he is cursed for Adam's sin, which he had no share in, and forgiven for his parent's good deed, which he did not help in. The whole thing is to him a play acted in his infancy in which he was a puppet, in which G.o.d was angry with him for what he had not done, and pleased with him for what he did not say, and he consequently feels that he has neither part nor lot in the whole affair, and that the business is none of his; if he be timid and superst.i.tious, he will hand over his religion to others, and trust to the priest to finish for him what Adam and his parents began, s.h.i.+fting on to them all a responsibility that he feels does not in reality belong to him.

The unreality deepens in the next answer which is put into his mouth--”What did your G.o.dfathers and G.o.d-mothers then for you?” ”They did promise and vow-three things in my name: First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful l.u.s.ts of the flesh. Secondly, that I should believe all the articles of the Christian Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep G.o.d's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life.” Turning to the Baptismal Service again, we find that the G.o.dparents are asked, ”Dost thou, _in the name of this child_, renounce,” &c, and they answer severally, ”I renounce them all,”

”All this I steadfastly believe;” and, asked if they will keep G.o.d's holy will, they still answer for the child, ”I will.” What binding force can such promises as these have upon the conscience of anyone when he grows up? The promises were made without his consent; why should he keep them? The belief was vowed before he had examined it; why should he profess it? No promise made in another's name can be binding on him who has given no authority for such use of his name, and the unconscious baby, innocent of all knowledge of what is being done, can never, in justice, be held liable for breaking a contract in the making of which he had no share. Bentham rightly and justly protests against ”the implied--the necessarily implied--a.s.sumption, that it is in the power of any person--not only with the consent of the father or other guardian, but without any such consent--to fasten upon a child at its birth, and long before it is itself even capable of giving consent to anything, with the concurrence of two other persons, alike self-appointed, load it with a set of obligations--obligations of a most terrific and appalling character--obligations of the nature of oaths, of which just so much and no more is rendered visible as is sufficient to render them terrific--obligations to which neither in quant.i.ty nor in quality are any limits attempted to be, or capable of being, a.s.signed.”

This obligation, laid upon the child in its unconsciousness, places it in a far worse position, should it hereafter reject the Christian religion, than if such an undertaking had not been entered into on its behalf. It becomes an ”apostate,” and is considered to have disgracefully broken its faith; it lies under legal disabilities which it would not otherwise incur, for heavy statutes are levelled against those who, after having ”professed the Christian religion,” write or speak against it. Thus in early infancy a chain is forged round the child's neck which fetters him throughout life, and the unconsciousness of the baby is taken advantage of to lay him under terrible penalties.

In English law a minor is protected because of his youth; surely we need an ecclesiastical minority, before the expiration of which no spiritual contracts entered into should be enforceable. From the religious point of view, apostacy is far more fatal than simple non-Christianity. Keble writes:

”Vain thought, that shall not be at all I Refuse me, or obey, Our ears have heard the Almighty's call, We cannot be as they.”

Is it fair not to ask the child's a.s.sent before making his case worse than that of the heathen should he hereafter reject the faith which his sponsors promise he shall believe?

Besides, how absurd is this promising for another; a child is taught not to break _his_ baptismal vow, when he has made no such vow at all; how can the G.o.d-parents ensure that the child shall renounce the devil and believe in Christianity, and obey G.o.d? It is foolish enough to make a promise of that kind for oneself when changing circ.u.mstances may force us into breaking it, but it is sheer madness to make such a promise on behalf of somebody else. The promise to ”believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith,” cannot take effect until the judgment has grown ripe enough to test, to accept, or to reject, and who then can say for his brother, ”he shall believe.” Belief is not a matter of will, it is a matter of evidence; if evidence enough supports an a.s.sertion, we must believe it, while if the evidence be insufficient we must doubt it.

Belief is neither a virtue nor a vice; it is simply the consequence of sufficient evidence. Theological belief is demanded on insufficient evidence; such belief is called, theologically, ”faith,” but in ordinary matters it would be called ”credulity.” First amongst the renouncings comes ”the devil and all his works.” Says Bentham--”The Devil, who or what is he, and how is it that he is _renounced?_ The works of the Devil, what are they, and how is it that they are renounced? Applied to the Devil, who or whatever he is--applied to the Devil's works, whatever they are--what sort of an operation is _renouncement or renunciation?_”

Pertinent questions, surely, and none of them answerable. A Court of Law lately sat upon the Devil, and could not find him; ”how is the Christian to explain to the child whom it is he has renounced in his infancy? And in the first place, the Devil himself--of whom so decided and familiar a mention, as of one whom everybody knows, is made--where lives he? Who is he? What is he? The child itself, did it ever see him? By any one, to whom for the purpose of the inquiry the child has access, was he ever seen? The child, has it ever happened to it to have any dealings with him? Is it in any such danger as that of having, at any time, to his knowledge, any sort of dealings with him? If not, then to what purpose is this _renouncement?_ and, once more, what is it that is meant by it?”

But supposing there were a devil, and supposing he had works, how could the child renounce him? The devil is not in the child's possession that he might give him up as if he were an injurious toy. In days gone by the phrase had a definite meaning; people were supposed to be able to hold commerce with the devil, to commune with familiar spirits, and summon imps to do their bidding; to ”renounce the devil and all his works” was then a promise to have nothing to do with witchcraft, sorcery, or magic; to regard the devil as an enemy, and to take no advantage by his help.

All these beliefs have long since pa.s.sed away into ”The Old Curiosity Shop” of Ecclesiastical Rubbish, but children are still taught to repeat the old phrases, to rattle the dry bones which life has left so long.

The ”pomps of this wicked world” might be renounced by Christians if they wanted to do so, but they show a strange obliviousness of their baptismal vow. A reception at court is as good an instance of the renunciation of the vain pomp and glory of this wicked world as we could wish to see, and when we remember that the children who are taught the Catechism in their childhood are taught to aim at winning these pomps in their youth and maturity, we learn to appreciate the fact that spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned. Would it not be well if the Church would publish an ”Explanation of the Catechism,” so that the children may know what they have renounced?

”Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe, and to do as they have promised for thee?” ”Yes, verily; and by G.o.d's help so I will. And I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And I pray unto G.o.d to give me his grace, that I may continue in the same unto my life's end.” ”Bound to believe... as they have promised for thee!” In the name of common sense, why? What a marvellous claim for any set of people to put forward, that they have the right to promise what other people shall believe. And the child is taught to answer to this preposterous question, ”Yes, verily.” The Church does wisely in training children to answer thus before they begin to think, as they would certainly never admit so palpably unjust a claim as that they were bound to believe or to do anything simply because some other persons said that they should.

The hearty thanks due to G.o.d ”that he hath called me to this state of salvation,” seem somewhat premature, as well as unnecessary. G.o.d, having made the child, is bound to put him in some ”state” where existence will not involve a curse to him; the ”salvation” is very doubtful, being dependent on a variety of things in addition to baptism. Besides, it is doubtful whether it is an advantage to be in a ”state of salvation,”

unless you get finally saved, some Christian authors appearing to think that d.a.m.nation is the heavier if it is incurred after being put in the state of salvation, so that, on the whole, it would probably be less dangerous to be a heathen. The child is then required to ”rehea.r.s.e the articles of his belief,” and is taught to recite ”the Apostles' Creed,”

_i.e_., a creed with which the apostles had nothing in the world to do.

The act of belief ought surely to be an intelligent one, and anyone who professes to believe a thing ought to have some idea of what the thing is. What idea can a child have of conception by the Holy Ghost and being born of the Virgin Mary, in both which recondite mysteries he avows his belief? Having recited this, to him (as to everyone else) unintelligible creed, he is asked, ”What dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy belief?” a most necessary question, since they can have conveyed no idea at all to his little mind. He answers: ”First, I learn to believe in G.o.d the Father, who hath made me and all the world. Secondly, in G.o.d the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind. Thirdly, in G.o.d the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of G.o.d.” Curiously, the last two paragraphs have no parallels in the creed itself; there is no word there that the Son is G.o.d, nor that he redeemed the child, nor that he redeemed all mankind; neither is it said that the Holy Ghost is G.o.d, nor that he sanctifies anyone at all. How is the child to believe that G.o.d the Son redeemed _all mankind_, when he is taught that only by baptism has he himself been brought into ”this state of salvation?” if all are redeemed, why should he specially thank G.o.d that he himself is called and saved? if all are redeemed, what is the meaning of the phrase that ”all the elect people of G.o.d” are sanctified by the Holy Ghost?

Surely all who are redeemed must also be sanctified, and should not the two pa.s.sages touch only the same people? Either the Holy Ghost should sanctify all mankind, or Christ should redeem only the elect people of G.o.d. A redeemed, but unsanctified, person would cause confusion as to his proper place when he arrived in the realms above; St. Peter would not know where to send him to. Bentham caustically remarks: ”Here, then, in this word, we have the name of a sort of _process_, which the child is made to say is going on within him; going on within him at all times--going on within him at the very instant he is giving this account of it. This process, then, what is it? Of what feelings is it productive? By what marks and symptoms is he to know whether it really is or is not going on within him, as he is forced to> say it is? How does he feel, now that the Holy Ghost is _sanctifying_ him? How is it that he would feel, if no such operation were going on within him? Too often does it happen to him in some shape or other, to commit _sin_; or something which he is told and required to believe is _sin_: an event which cannot fail to be frequently, not to say continually, taking place, if that be true, which in the Liturgy we are all made so decidedly to confess and a.s.sert,--viz., that we are all--all of us without exception--so many _'miserable sinners.'_ In the schoolroom, doing what by this Catechism he is forced to do, saying what he is forced to say, the child thus declares himself, notwithstanding, a sanctified person. From thence going to church, he confesses himself to be no better than '_a miserable sinner.'_ If he is not always this miserable sinner, then why is he always forced to say he is? If he is always this same miserable sinner, then this sanctification, be it what it may, which the Holy Ghost was at the pains of bestowing upon him, what is he the better for it?” Besides, how can the child be taught to believe in one G.o.d if he finds three different G.o.ds all doing different things for him? As clear a distinction as possible is here made between the redeeming work of G.o.d the Son and the sanctifying work of G.o.d the Holy Ghost, and if the child tries to realise in any fas.h.i.+on that which he is taught to say he believes, he must inevitably become a Tri-theist and believe in the creator, the redeemer, the sanctifier, as three different G.o.ds. The creed being settled, the child is reminded: ”You said that your G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers did promise for you that you should keep G.o.d's commandments. Tell me how many there be? Ans. Ten.

Ques. Which be they? Ans. The same which G.o.d spake in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord thy G.o.d, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other G.o.ds but me.” But G.o.d has not brought the child, nor the child's ancestors, out of the land of Egypt, nor out of the house of bondage: therefore the first commandment, which is made dependent on such out-bringing, is not spoken to the child. The argument runs: ”Seeing that I have done so much for thee, thou shalt have no other G.o.d instead of me.” The second commandment is rejected by general consent, and it is almost certain that the child will be taught that G.o.d has commanded that no likeness of anything shall be made in a room with pictures on the walls. Christians conveniently gloss over the fact that this commandment forbids all sculpture, all painting, all moulding, all engraving; they plead that it only means nothing that shall be made for purposes of wors.h.i.+p, although the distinct words are: ”_Thou shalt not make any likeness of anything._'” In order to thoroughly understand the state of the child's mind who has learned that ”I the Lord thy G.o.d am a jealous G.o.d, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children,” when he comes to read other parts of the Bible it will be well to put side by side with this declaration, Ezekiel xviii. 19, 20: ”Yet say ye, why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” The fourth commandment is disregarded on all sides; from the prince who has his fish on the Sunday from the fishmonger down to the costermonger who sells c.o.c.kles in the street, all nominal Christians forget and disobey this command; they keep their servants at work, although they ought to ”do no manner of work,” and drive in carriage, cab, and omnibus as though G.o.d had not said that the cattle also should be idle on the Sabbath day. Although the New Testament is, on this point, in direct conflict with the Old,--Paul commanding the Colossians not to trouble themselves about Sabbaths, yet Christians read and teach this commandment, while in their lives they carry out the injunction of Paul. To complete the demoralising effect of this fourth commandment on the child, he is taught that ”in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,” while, in his day-school he is instructed in exactly the opposite sense, and is told of the long and countless ages of evolution through which the world pa.s.sed, and the marvellous creatures that inhabited it before the coming of man. The fifth commandment is also evil in its effect on the child's mind from that same fault of unreality which runs throughout the teaching of the Established Church. ”Honour thy father and thy mother _that thy days may be long in the land._” He will know perfectly well that good children die as well as bad, and that, therefore, there is no truth in the promise he recites. The rest of the commandments enjoin simple moral duties, and would be useful if taught without the preceding ones; as it is, the unreality of the first five injures the force of the later ones, and the good and bad, being mixed up together, are not likely to be carefully distinguished and thus they lose all compelling moral power.