Chapter IV: Religion and Secularism

WE are told that modern thought grows more and more secularist and less and less religious. There is a strong tendency to exclude religion from public life altogether. If religion is to be tolerated at all, it must be kept to its proper sphere of private life and the individual conscience. Into those sacred precincts nobody else has any right to intrude. In the privacy of that inner shrine a man may cultivate religion if he pleases and if he finds it of any help to him. But there is no place for religion in public life. Education, business, social, political, and international questions should be kept free from it. That is the doctrine which finds favour in many quarters to-day. Sometimes the modern attitude is contrasted with that of the ages of faith. The ages of faith looked upon pestilence as a scourge sent by God in punishment for sin, and prayed to be delivered from it. The modern seeks to destroy the germs of disease by sanitation and strives by prophylactics to protect the human subject from any germs that escape his vigilance. In such contrasts there is not unfrequently an element of misrepresentation. Whatever may be the teaching of other religions, the Christian religion has never taught that human effort may be dispensed with. St. Ignatius' rule was—Work as if everything depended on yourself, trust in God as if everything depended on Him. Our Lord's own rule was—Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. He did not say—Seek only—but—Seek first. Other duties and cares come after the first. The blessing of God on the work is necessary if it is to prosper, but God has given us energies and talents to use ourselves, and He expects and commands us to use them. God helps those who help themselves. The Christian is encouraged to use all the means which modern science or anything else puts at his disposal, but he still finds room for putting his ultimate trust in God. I never heard of anyone who wanted a house built falling on his knees in prayer and expecting the house to rise like an exhalation from the ground, though all true Christians acknowledge and profess that —"Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Sometimes secularists express hostility against religion because, they say, it distracts man's attention from his material interests, the only interests which matter. Questions of fact are involved in this accusation against religion. If God exists, if man has an immortal soul, if man's will is free so that it is in his power to save or lose his soul, then man's material interests are not the only things that matter, nor are they man's chief interests. I touched upon those questions of fact in the first chapter and I cannot go back and again discuss them here. If man has higher than mere material interests, sound common sense tells us that we should give due attention to what is higher even if the lower interests suffer somewhat thereby. But here I wish to insist on a consideration to which sound common sense also leads us. It is well that man should have something to distract him from being absorbed in his material interests alone. After all, life is more than the meat, life is more than the material means by which it is supported.

If a man becomes too much absorbed in his material interests, he subordinates the higher to the lower, and he degrades himself in the process. He becomes materialised, too much of a piece with the inorganic, senseless, and irrational elements to which he prostitutes the wonderful cosmos that man is. Any large town will afford us plenty of examples of what the process leads to. Even if religion did not rest on realities, even if its doctrines were nothing better than poetic fancies, and its worship nothing more than harmless indulgence of the aesthetic faculties, there would still be room for it. It would help to prevent people from becoming materialised and degraded below the level of the brute beasts. Besides, men who care for nothing but their material interests cannot be formed into peaceful, prosperous, and progressive societies. They inevitably become too fond of money and of the indulgences and pleasures which money can buy. Their cupidity grows by what it feeds on, and it leads them to fight for what they cannot get otherwise. That is the real source and origin of the social unrest which is one of the worst and most widespread of modern maladies. That too is the real cause of modern wars, not excluding the last and the greatest of them all. Modern States do not go to war merely for the sake of conquest, or for some religious idea. Modern wars are brought about by economic causes; they are struggles for the markets of the world; they are fights for wealth. It is quite useless to attack militarism, to assert that it is the enemy, and to propose to destroy it and so prepare the way for universal peace. Militarism is only a means to an end, and that end in modern times is access to, and command of, the markets of the world. A nation that is shut out from the sea and surrounded by economic rivals is severely handicapped in the struggle for wealth. If it wants to have a good share of the commerce of the world it must break through the ring fence that surrounds it and somehow get a seaboard. If material interests are the only things that matter rival nations will bar the way by force; there will inevitably be war, and the war will be a life and death struggle. Do we not all of us recognise that that is the position that confronts us? If material interests are the only things that matter, if religion is relegated to the inner world of the private conscience, then might is right, and the place in the sun with all its advantages belongs to the strongest. If we want permanent peace we must go deeper and attack the roots of militarism. The Prince of Peace taught us what to do. He taught us that avarice, pride, lust of power must be attacked and that their overthrow and permanent subjection is the only way to secure peace. In other words, religion must be restored to its rightful position in public life. I use the words advisedly. Religion has just as good a right to its position in public life as it has to its position in private life. Religion is nothing more than giving God the worship which is His due. Worship is due to Him because He created us and gave us all that we have. Just as we owe reverence, obedience, and love to our parents because under God we owe our being to them, so we owe reverence, obedience, and love to God because in a far truer sense we owe our being to Him. A child does not satisfy its obligations to its parents by merely internal reverence, submission, and love. Merely internal dispositions would be mistrusted unless they sometimes showed themselves outwardly. Even if they existed they could not be lasting unless they were sometimes exercised. Merely internal obedience will not satisfy our obligations in cases where external acts are needed and commanded. Just in the same way merely interior religion will not satisfy our obligations towards God. Both body and soul came from Him, and both should take part in worshipping their Creator and Lord. As man is not a solitary but a social animal, and cannot live a decent life such as his nature requires except in the society of his fellows, and all this is God's ordinance and comes from Him, so man owes God not only private and external worship but social and public worship as well. As long as God is publicly acknowledged and worshipped there is some guarantee that His laws will be respected and obeyed by all. Isolated instances of atrocious crimes may occur, but they will meet with universal reprobation, nor will they be defended by anyone. But if God and religion are banished from public life the State and its temporal interests become the sole arbiter of right and wrong. The universal standard applicable to all nations and individuals is destroyed. Atrocities hitherto universally condemned are hailed with rapturous applause by those to whom they bring temporal advantage. Solemn treaties are regarded as mere scraps of paper, Lusitanias filled with helpless women and children are sunk, wells are poisoned, asphyxiating gases and other horrible means of destruction are used, Hague conventions are laughed at, diabolical hatred of the foe is fostered and encouraged. The justification of these things is that they succeed at any rate for the time being. They bring some temporal advantage, they serve material interests which are the only things that matter, says the secularist. The conclusion is the refutation of the secularist's position. It shows that even if God and religion were not the supreme realities that they are, the best interests of mankind would demand that they should be treated in public and in private with honour, respect and reverence.