Seven Sins of "The Churches"
Whitehead, Henry S.
96 THE COMMONWEAL December I, 1926 ginning of the end of Spanish rule. Auspicious was the moment, Spain being then, like the rest of Europe, at sword's-point with Napoleon the Great. Hidalgo...
...This body hardly comes into con- sideration here for that reason...
...Chaste a Thing Is Loneliness So chaste a thing is loneliness, so proud A state, I wonder why the lonely weep, Who, pure and cold as children in their sleep, Meet angels, unbewildered and unbowed, And speak them, with such grace are they endowed...
...it is commonly practised very loosely among those who hold it theo- retically...
...Waste-basket literature comes in a steady stream to American clergymen, whose names probably constitute the largest single "sucker list" in existence...
...First tortured by his captors, he was led to the edge of his grave and shot...
...smoking to excess...
...This con-dition is flatly subversive of Christ's basic teaching that the Church should be one...
...Only three times in IOO years has the executive power been peacefully transferred from one President to another...
...Each of these sects had a human founder...
...AMANDA BENJAMIN HALL...
...Undoubtedly, the prime mover toward unrest has been the Indian, but in the words of Brancroft, "in his own land where the law grants him the title of citizen," the Indian "is regarded by the few as a useful machine only...
...To these it seems a wild medley of frustrations and cross-purposes...
...Americans can pick and choose their "Christianity...
...Evangelical ("Low Church...
...The Bible is not, never was, and could not be, the basis or founda- tion of the Christian religion...
...Christian unity, from every rational and spiritual viewpoint, can be worthy of its name only if it is gen- erally inclusive and is remedial of the general condi- tions which have been outlined here...
...between Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox (by way of submission to the former) in the cases of Uniate clergy and congregations, "Ruthe-nians," etc...
...96 THE COMMONWEAL December I, 1926 ginning of the end of Spanish rule...
...A great and sweeping change must come over the majority of "American Christians" if they are ever to make Christianity count in our land...
...American Anglicanism (which possesses influence far beyond its relatively small membership) thus diffusing its forces to the vanishing point so far as the possible exercise of a recondling function is concerned...
...There seems to be so many critics in these United States that a pessimist might well wonder how many people are left to practise it...
...many ecclesiastical courtesies exchanged between Anglicans and the Orthodox, especially since post-war persecutions of the latter have made tracts...
...Guerrero and It-firbide succeeded...
...Hidalgo captured and executed Morelos, a Mestizo curate...
...many prejudices overcome, many exercises of individual and corporate humility performed...
...This has been the history of the sects, very generally...
...No wonder, then, that he draws back in sullen stubbornness, and clings to old customs...
...and by the mass either as an un- desirable intruder, an incubus, a dead-weight, or as an outcast...
...This is not only frankly admitted, but actually asserted by each sect, with reasons of "apologetic"mi.e., explanatorymna- ture...
...The third trouble is "American Christianity's" cheapness...
...The name of the remedy for this complication of 98 THE COMMONWEAL December I, 1926 diseases affecting our characteristic "American Chris- tianity" is Christian unity...
...This is merely a non-controversial truism, germane to the fact that schism is not a sectarian sin...
...When Christian sectarians attempt to work out their greatest common multiple of "Christianity," the residuum never equals a working basis, even though it be reported as "encouraging" and impressive by the optimists engaged in this popular exercise...
...In the case of any humanly-founded "church," both these hypotheses are demonstrable absurdities...
...tion therein, along with historical continuity (the apos- tolic succession) the Roman Catholic Church is by far the strongest, quantitatively, in the United States...
...But let all see their faces, singular And celibate each one as some white star, Behold their pain and envy their despair, The splendor of their arrogance torlorn, And only ask forever what they mourn-So chaste a thing is loneliness, so rare...
...Methodists look back to John Wesley, born in 17o2, before whom there were no Methodists...
...it is superficial, as having no direct relation with the deeper affairs of human life...
...8,ooo,ooo Mestizos...
...But "holy poverty" (as exemplified by Saint Francis of Assisl, and his foundations, the Friars Minor and the Poor Clares) has no perceptible rela- tionship to the starveling ministries of sectarianismq the claptrap methods of the cheap-john for the rais- ing of "church funds," the undignified competition for "members," or any of the other characteristic devices identified with sectarianism...
...Superficially, one sees Church and state again in conflict, land legislation taking an anti-foreign turn, and petroleum rights once more the subject of diplo- matic correspondence...
...To these different groups must be added the various foreign colonies, comprised mostly of Americans, English, Germans, Spaniards and French, with property interests to man- age and protect...
...and 6,ooo,ooo Indians...
...The discipline expresses the sec-tarian idea of Christian conduct...
...If the falsity of this assumption were one generally realized (and it requires no more than definite statement to make it obvious) the futility of the "Fundamentalist-Modern- ist" controversy, now raging and wasting the time, energy, and resources of millions of Americans, would at once become apparent...
...The general run of Americans hardly consider the Eastern Orthodox, un- less occasionally, and then academically...
...Its Christian value (enormous) is entirely devotional and evidential (including its widespread homiletic use...
...Until 1884, economic power rested largely with the Church and with the Creoles...
...overattendance at dra-matic performances, or countenancing immoral shows...
...The Christian portion of the Bible is thus a product of the ChurchNnot its basis...
...This is obvious in fact as well as logi-cally...
...The Eastern Orthodox have made little impression upon American life...
...American Christian-ity" is being exploited by every aspirant with some-thing to "put across" or something to sell...
...revolution poverty...
...Reconciliation among these three "historic Catholic churches" as a broad basis for church unity is as yet only in its academic stages...
...The "news-value" of certain "Evangelical" or "Modernist" shouters is a common- place in American life...
...at present more than two-thirds of the country's wealth is in foreign hands...
...The number of Creoles has since been greatly diminished...
...Peonage (forced labor for debt) followed the conquest...
...Each of the remaining twenty-seven books (the New Testa-ment) was composed by a person (or possibly persons) already Christians--members of the Church founded by Christ, which had been functioning for years be- fore a word of the New Testament was written down...
...Poverty as a state of life undertaken for the purpose of better serving God, has the sanction of some eighteen centuries of legitimate Christian usage...
...Of the three Christian bodies claiming identity with the original organism, or a high degree of participa...
...From 1884 to 191o, under Diaz, an enforced peace prevailed within the country, and friendly relations were maintained abroad...
...Probably most of these have seen sectarianism and believed it to be Christianity...
...To Ju~rez belongs the credit of wresting his native land from this second foreign con- quest, which was short-lived...
...Perhaps the chief uniting consideration in this alignment is the general sectarian belief that Roman Catholics are, somehow, a "foreign" group---i.e., not so much a church with a preponderatingly large membership of non-Americans, but (more important- ly) a body owing its allegiance to a foreign power-- the Papacy...
...This is a disintegrating movement...
...the last when Calles succeeded Obregon two years ago...
...Anglicanism would of[er a logical basis for unity if it could be reconciled internally in questions of "churchmanship" and practice...
...but all are paper-problems, which a stroke of the government pen would solve...
...Congregationalists look further back, to Robert Browne...
...This controversy has, basically, nothing to do with the Christian religion...
...Something has been done on all three fronts: rapprochement between Roman Catholics and Anglicans (as in the Malines Conversa- tions...
...it cannot be reasonably supported "out of the Scrip- tures...
...It may be said that all other Christian bodies are lined up against the Roman Catholic Church...
...All these humanly-founded organizations effected a greater or less separation from the organism founded by Christ...
...There are more than one hundred kinds of "Chris- tianity" in the United States...
...not, even, its back-ground...
...According to Thompson, the population in 191o represented: I,I5O,OOO Creoles...
...December x, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 97 Such separation involves spiritual and material dif-fusion of force, energy, and resources...
...It is obviously inept to maintain six small "churches" in a town of I8oo people...
...This absurdity is one of the very few matters upon which sectarian Christians are in complete agreement...
...Each is prone to regard its organization as either an improvement upon that organism, or as identical with it...
...It is less obviously inept though destructively more so, to abandon the original organism on some issue and then abandon the issue while retaining the separate organization...
...So far, the Roman Catholic Church has failed generally to commend itself to Americans as a basis for unity...
...I see seven things the matter -" "~ with it...
...Among certain sectarian denomina-tions this feeling has grown into a settled dread and fear, expressed by an open hostility, a large portion of which state of mind is due to ignorance and un-reasoning prejudice...
...It has no appre-ciable relation to the example or teachings of Christ...
...Thompson pictures her a surging Indian sea, recurringly wash- ing from its shores the castles erected by the white man...
...dancing inordinately...
...Since 191o, five bloody revolutions have come and gone--the last in 1923 and 1924...
...Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and the Eastern Orthodox claim to have remained within the organism...
...The sympathies of individual Anglicans (in America "the Protestant Episcopal Church") are, of course, divided according to the school of thought most prevalent among local memberships...
...Anglicans are divided among themselves, accord-ing to the lines of demarkation indicated by their three historic schools of thought: Anglo-Catholic ("High Church...
...Every sect has repudiated one or more of the dis- tingnishing marks of the original organism...
...Political supremacy since independence has rested largely with the Mestizos, the notable exceptions being Ju~irezDa pure Zapotec, Mexico's only Indian Presi- dent, a barefoot boy of the Oaxaca Mountains risen to greatness---and the group of Creoles who gathered about Diaz, himself a Mestizo...
...Thirty-nine of its sixty- six books (the Old Testament) are Jewish...
...it is negative...
...duplication in religious services and with respect to the relations of these separated bodies to the sick, the poor, the sin- ful, etc...
...The second trouble is ineptitude--inevitable con-sequence of variety...
...It is hard to blame such persons, be-came the quantitatively "bigger half" of American Christianity is not only unauthentic according to Chris- tianity's own historic tests, but wastes such power as it possesses through placing emphasis upon the wrong things...
...independence brought turbu-lence...
...Speaking as an American of long heredity and profound conviction, I share the view of the majority that Christianity is the most important element of our national life...
...Getting drunk or too full of food...
...His first recorded miracle was turning water into wine on an occasion where the guests at a wed-ding feast had consumed all that had been provided...
...This fact is not related to the question of inspiration...
...The first major di~culty, as I see it, is that most Christians are using a substitute...
...Christian Scientists to the more mod- ern Mary Baker G. Eddy...
...SEVEN SINS OF "THE CHURCHES" By HENRY S. WHITEHEAD tt AM..ERICA N Christianity," broadly considered, ]--~ is sectarian...
...Quack schemes are tried out on the impecunious sectarian minister, from urging him to distribute "wildcat" stock to his congregation, to becoming agent for some patent jelly l The sixth trouble is the clericaI tendency to experi- ment in "personality stuff...
...If the Church, or even, for argument's sake, any one sect, correctly represents "the mind of Christ," all the others must, necessarily, be more or less wrong...
...In that period of thirty-nine years, the ex- ecutive power changed hands fifty-six times---generally by force...
...I believe this to be the view of the majority because I imagine the active church-members and Christianity's many American critics outnumber the hostile and the totally indifferent...
...Like royal strangers, self-contained and deep, The favor of their thoughts is disallowed Since they have rich reserves that they must keel~--Oh, let no one confuse them with the crowd...
...There are many, of course, who will have nothing to do with Christianity...
...Religiously, the people remain overwhelmingly Catho- lic...
...of Eastern Orthodoxy subject to the application of Christian charity...
...Christ, the unques- tioned Founder, created an organism, the One, Holy, Universal, Apostolic Church, which remained virtu- ally intact until Martin Luther's challenge and seces-sion 409 years ago brought the Protestant movement into existence...
...From 1825 to 1864, the republic had thirty-five different Presidents and dictators...
...During the period from 1864 to 1884, seven changes in government took place, and once more in I864, the nation bowed to a foreign foe, Maximilian, who was crowned emperor with the support of French bayonets, only to fall before a firing squad when France, upon the protest of the United States, with- drew her troops...
...The wholly erroneous and illogical view that the Bible is the foundation-stone of the Christian religion was first seriously alleged by Luther, who attempted to set aside the authority of the Church and to substitute the demonstrable absurdity that the Bible is the source of Christianity...
...next took charge, to meet an even worse fate...
...Humboldt likened Mexico to "a beggar sitting upon a sack of gold...
...Their variety is confusing and destructively wasteful...
...Sectarians, in general, fear and hate her, and possess diverse ideas with respect to ideals and or-ganization...
...This has been going on, continuously, ever since there has been a United States mail...
...and Modernist ("Broad Church...
...The last is the widespread misconception of the Bible's place in the Christian religion...
...Such bodies, considered together, make up the numerical preponderance of "American Christianity...
...This church has the general reputation of being "static," and hopelessly (for "American" religious purposes) "ritualistic...
...The discipline, with hardly a bowing acquaint- tance with Christian ethics, is peculiar to "Evangeli-cal" sectarians, and is thus summarized: the "Chris- tian" must not drink, smoke, dance, attend the the-atre, or play cards...
...To secure this desidera- tum, as Christ prayed for its continuance--"that they may all be one"--a long, hard road must be traveled by American Christians...
...inordinate gambling to the material injury of self or dependents--these are sins, con-demned by the Christian religion and its handmaid, common sense...
...Pan-Protestantism"--i.e., "unity" to the exclusion of Roman Catholics and with little attention paid to the Orthodox, or to Anglicans other than extremists of the "Evangelical" and "Broad Church" orders, would seem, if ever consummated, to divide sectarian- ism and the adherents of historic Christianity more sharply and decisively than ever before...
...in I825, the last of Spain's forces sailed from Vera Cruz, and the republic of Mexico became a reality...
...In the matters of general organization and ideals, Angli- cans and such of the Eastern Orthodox as are repre-sented in our country, are more or less at one with her...
...The fourth trouble is the offensive mental state of critical superiority characterizing that narrow-minded sectarian class generally called "church people...
...Conversions to this type of the Christian religion are very few and far between in the United States...
...Another basic ineptitude is the dis-cipline, a sectarian substitute for the Christian ethics derived from the example and teaching of Christ and the experience of the historic Church through 2,ooo years...
...This ranges from the bookcase-religion foisted upon his congregation by some studious crank, all the way to the severer forms of personality run wild...
...Christ "went about doing good," never finding fault with amusements harmless in them- selves...
...The fifth is exploitability...
...It seems never to have aroused the enmity of the "fighting type" of sectarians--possibly because it is, itself, outspokenly "non-Roman," or even "anti-Roman"--qualities which would serve to commend it to sectarians generally...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 4
