Freedom Is In The Soul 7/15/45
Scripture: Psalm 51: 1, 8-19
More than a year ago, thousands of people in the Congregational Churches were signing a compact, phrased somewhat as the Mayflower Compact of three and one-quarter centuries ago was phrased. The wording of the compact of last year made it a covenant by the signers to work for and support effective measures for building the peace of our world. The people of other church faiths have expressed a similar determination to find and build the ways of peace, each communion in its own way.
This year, we have seen the working out and completion at San Francisco of an imperfect, but real and probably workable agreement for keeping, and building, the peace of the world as this war moves toward its close. Most of us hope that it will be ratified promptly, and that all peace-loving nations will quickly be about the business of rebuilding our desperately shattered world.
But let me call to your attention again the agreement that those Pilgrims of 1620 entered into, before they left the Mayflower to set foot on a new land. Those people had no charter except permission from the British crown to sail and settle. They had not sought, nor were they given permission of the king to set up a new government on their side of the ocean. There was no code of laws which they were obliged to respect.
They were sober and intelligent people. They were people of fine and determined spirit. They knew that there must be some kind of order wherever any people live together. So they did, wisely, what the occasion prompted them to do.
They entered into agreement with one another in a covenant, pledging themselves to discuss the laws under which they would live. And once the laws were decided and agreed upon, they would obey them. Even if one had at first opposed certain of the laws to be enacted, once a specific law had been adopted by approval of a majority, they would obey that law, if it was an arrangement which the best interest of the whole community called for.
These people had come from long lines of those who had been ordered about by kings, overlords, and bishops. Once you get into the way of taking orders, it is not easy to do other than obey orders. But these people were in rebellion against all orders that were unjust or arbitrary. They would no longer submit to the insistent authority of a church whose head was either a pope or a British sovereign. They did not propose to obey the orders of civil overlords, just because the orders were from overlords.
So the decision was reached in that little ship’s cabin not to heed orders, but to make their own laws under which they could establish their communities. They would also interpret and administer those laws. You have to feel that you are of some importance before you undertake an assignment like that.
Probably those folk would never have dared to try it if it had not been for the Protestant Reformation. For Protestant doctrine proclaims the priesthood of all believers.
Rome had insisted on the priesthood of a chosen few. The only way God has of getting his message to humble people, according to Roman belief and practice, is first to tell it to the pope, and let the pope tell it to those below him in rank, who, through the priests, will tell it to the rank and file of people. It has been the business of all to accept, as divine truth and spiritual duty, what is thus told them, without doubts or questioning.
You have to confront yourself with this position, which is still that of Rome, to realize how radically different, and basic to personal freedom, is the Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. We learn in Protestant faith that God has a message for everyone, and that it is possible for everyone to seek and find God’s will for him.
This past week, I have been in school at the University in Madison. Barring some emergency, I expect to be in school there for one more week. An interesting session I attended for two or three days this last week was a discussion group in which the problems and procedures of labor groups were discussed.
Leader of the session was a man named John Ramsey, son of a coal mine manager, who had himself become a labor organizer. He is a layman in the Presbyterian church and takes his religion seriously. The notable thing about him is that he insists on the importance of praying to God, in order to know what is fair and right in the dealings of labor with management, as well as in one’s personal or family conduct. As a matter of interest, he works under a Religion and Labor Foundation. You don’t hear him talking very long before you are convinced that he is not fooling, but that he believes, with all his soul, that people can go directly to God with their problems and receive help. That is the “priesthood of the believer!”
From the delight of Protestants in this particular doctrine has come the confidence of the individual that he can manage his own affairs, think through his own problems, and act for the good of his community.
Of course this doctrine has been under terrific fire during the last ten years. The world has had hosts of people who do not want to think for themselves; to make final decisions for themselves; people who will submit to being told that they are incompetent to make their own decisions, or to handle their own affairs. Nations have been told that they must have a leader, whose decisions whether rational or fanatical must be obeyed without question. Not only must there be obedience, but one must obey with enthusiasm for the decisions of the leader.
American and British and other Allied prisoners of war and internees in Asia have been bluntly taught by Japanese experts in etiquette that they must bow to each Japanese sentry they meet face to face. This is not just an act of obedience, but an acknowledgment of gratitude for the protection of the Japanese emperor. No questioning of the order, or the explanation is tolerated in the Japanese empire.
Really, in a world where so many people have been willing to obey without question, it is astonishing that there are so many more who think so highly of themselves; who believe themselves competent to make important decisions; who have the will to be free under God.
The free churches of Protestantism are still struggling for a host of people who want to arrive at their own decisions. We are not satisfied to listen to a few who, however competent they may be, have power to enforce their decisions.
The stronger our individual determination to do our own thinking, and arrive at our own decisions within a democratic framework of law, the more that influence is felt in other quarters. It has been remarked, for instance, even by certain Catholics, that Catholicism is at its best where it is under the competitive stimulus of the Protestant movement. The same may be true of political hierarchies in the presence of democratic neighbors.
I hear, rather often, the statement that, after all, all churches are about the same. It is an undiscriminating remark. All churches are not the same. One Congregational Church often differs from another. I suspect the same is true among the Methodist churches. There are obvious small differences in the manner of worship between the average Congregational Church and the average Methodist church. And there are somewhat greater differences in their methods of church government. The Presbyterians differ from the Baptists, and the Lutherans from the Episcopalians. It is no more nearly correct to say that they are the same than it is to say that I am the same as my next door neighbor or that his family is just the same as mine. I do not presume to assert that I am better than he. I do not admit that he is better than I. We are neighbors, each with his own worth and abilities. And we are part of a greater community.
It is so with our churches. We make our choice of a Christian fellowship in which we feel at home and where we desire to worship and work. In the Kingdom of God, we cooperate for the common good and the Glory of One God. We may agree upon much. We may disagree in some matters and if the disagreement be sincere and honest we are all the more stimulated to work for the common aims of a holy, universal church of the spirit.
The scene among those Protestant folk back there in history in the Mayflower is enough to take your breath away when you think of its effect on the world. Those people assumed that they had ability, that they had rights, that they would hold and manage property; that they would make laws for the benefit of the whole community; that they might stand upright and uncringing before man and in the very presence of God. They were saying that people, themselves, were able to formulate the rules by which the game is to be played. That is vastly different from the making of rules by a gathering of cardinals or a meeting of dictators.
That little compact was simple enough. It is not a pretentious document. Its chief importance lies in the point of view with which its signers began their life of work and danger and suffering and triumph in a strange land. It made individual people important - not in pomp or circumstance, but in intrinsic value.
It evidenced a different kind of freedom from that which much of the world has known then and since - the freedom to do as some authority permits. It affirmed the truth that real freedom is in a man’s soul. That freedom is so important that it must be guarded by education, by sincere search for what is fair and right, by sacrifice, sometimes, of everything else.
The more those Pilgrims sacrificed, the more they seemed to be worthy. How they did sacrifice to make themselves and their children more worthy!
When it became apparent that an elaborate and extensive program of education was necessary to be worthy, they sacrificed all other considerations so that practically the whole tax burden for several years could be laid in the foundations of colleges. And the teaching was not only how to read, but what to know!
Freedom is a troublesome thing, exacting in its requirements, often stern in its demands. It is easy to carry out commands, to accept another’s thinking, to live without questioning. That is the appeal of authoritarian religion and authoritarian government. Things are settled and one does not have to make troublesome decisions. He has only to obey.
It is hard to make one’s own decisions, to do one’s own thinking, to constantly challenge and question even the sacrosanct. But it builds men to have their freedom in their souls.
A great Scotch theologian was asked by his Catholic friends (and he did have some splendid friends among the priesthood): “Ross, why don’t you come into our church where things are settled? It is bleak out where you are.” “Yes,” replied Dr. Ross, “it is bleak; but it’s bracing!”
How grateful we should be for the introduction into the world of independent men and women, who have made for all the rest of us a chance to live in a bracing and vitalizing atmosphere.
It belongs to all of us to be as diligent as our fathers were; to resolve to be worthy of this that is our spiritual inheritance. It belongs to us to know what this freedoms means, and to see that no despite [sic ] is done to it.
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, July 15, 1945.