Standing on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor, September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur uttered a profound warning. “We have had our last chance,” he said. “If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our … advance in science, … material and cultural developments. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”
And standing on the beach at Melbourne, in Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach, one of the last remaining inhabitants of an earth completely saturated by radiation says, “Maybe we’ve been too silly to deserve a world like this.” The other character replies, “That’s absolutely and precisely right.”
There seems to be little doubt that the American malaise is part of the world malaise. We have our own peculiar symptoms, to be sure, but as the Russian Christian philosopher, Berdyaev, has pointed out, man’s problem and his predicament arise from the fact that he has not only lost the way, he has lost the address. Today’s children do not even know that there is an address. They seem unaware that there is a meaning and purpose to life beyond the immediate problem of survival. No Christian expects that the human race will end up “on the beach”; our faith teaches us otherwise. Yet unless we heed the warnings of a greater than General MacArthur; unless we bring men back to God and to an awareness of God’s law; unless the spiritual fiber of character is put back into the structure of our nation in particular, the future of our great nation is in peril.
A patient generally insists upon hearing the diagnosis before swallowing the medicine. And he who would offer a prescription of national purpose for America must first listen to her heart. The heart of America is still as sound as oak, but her blood stream is being invaded by the toxins of secularism. Or to express it in another way, America is like a country boy who grew too fast and was given too much to eat. Provide a situation in which that boy is required to work hard on lean rations, as his father did, and the good stuff in him will soon become evident. But right now he is overfed and dozing in an asparagus patch. He thinks it won’t hurt if he extends his “break” another hour. He does not realize that the sun is low in the heavens.
When a young disc jockey said he felt that the American way of life was, “I’ll do something for you, now what will you do for me?” he did more than simply explain why he accepted “payola.” He illustrated a philosophy and described a condition that in the opinion of many has completely taken over our country. Dr. Robert E. Fitch of the Pacific School of Religion describes it as “the obsolesence of ethics.”
“We live today,” he says (in Christianity and Crisis, Nov. 16, 1959), “in an age when ethics is becoming obsolete. It is superseded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy; it is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism.… The usual moral distinctions are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we have more feeling for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed; and in which we gradually begin to believe that the really guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim, not the perpetrator, of the crime.”
There seems to be an enormous increase in pure selfishness, without apologies, in our time. A woman out West wrote to a lovelorn column complaining about her husband who had run over the pet of two small children and refused to stop because “I don’t want to miss the first race.” Young men choose their life work with no thought as to the contribution they can make, but simply for the fringe benefits it offers.
Part of the problem is simply a surfeit of material goods in America. It is a well-known fact of human nature that the less one has, the more willing to share he is apt to be. The Good Samaritan had little but he gave it generously. America is the most generous nation on earth, but even her generosity cannot keep pace with her wealth. Someone calculated a few years ago that America has 10 per cent of the world’s population, 52 per cent of its food, 80 per cent of its bathtubs, 75 per cent of its clothes, 95 per cent of its automobiles, 98 per cent of its radios, and 99.4 per cent of its television. In a country so crowded with luxury items, and well indoctrinated by advertising, there is bound to be a demand for more and still more. If the man across the street has a foreign car standing in his driveway, we too must have one.
Furthermore, we are finding ourselves with added leisure time on our hands and are at a loss what to do with it. Even television palls after so many programs. Million of man-hours are idled away in self-indulgence every week end, and our playboy oases in Florida, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii are overrun with people who have nothing to do except look for temptation where they can hardly fail to find it.
The Bible tells us, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” It has a spiritual ring, and that means it has a moral ring. Every citizen of the United States is obligated to work for the moral welfare of the people. Our Constitution’s preamble speaks of “promoting the general welfare” and that means moral welfare too. For example, when we take a stand against the gambling interests that would invade our government and corrupt our people, we are working for the general welfare. When we ask that our local druggist remove copies of Lolita and similar obscene literature from his bookstand, we are not only protecting our children, we are working for the general welfare. And when we demand that the textbooks in our schools be raised above the insulting and “debunking” level in their portrayal of American life, we are working for the welfare of our country.
We need, in fact, a fresh approach to American history if we are going to recreate a sense of American purpose. Patriotism gets a great play during a time of war; why not in a time of peace? We suggest that every lecturer before making a speech, every author before writing a book or article, every movie or television producer before shooting a script, might well take a personal oath along some line as this: “I will not degrade the country I love. I will be fair, but I will not exploit the weakness of her citizenry for my own financial profit. I will not traffic in violence, slaughter or immorality, or glamorize those who commit such things. I will not expose the culture of America to the scorn and ridicule of her enemies. I will uphold the honor of these United States.”
It is not enough, of course, simply to love America. The editors of Life magazine have concluded correctly that most Americans have usually associated their patriotism with goals that transcend the boundaries and seek more than the mere survival of the United States. Christians believe that allegiance to God is the only foundation of national loyalty that he himself will honor. A revival of spiritual values by the turning of our people to the truth as it is in Christ is the one sure, effective, continuing way to stop the deadly attrition of the American malaise.
NATURALISM AT HARVARD AND AMERICAN ‘SUPERSTITIONS’
A Norwegian scientist, Dr. A. E. Wilder Smith, pointedly criticizes an address by Harvard paleontologist Dr. G. G. Simpson to the American Association for the Advancement of Science on “The World into Which Darwin Led Us” (printed in Science, Apr. 1, 1960).
Dr. Simpson spurned belief in the supernatural as a warping superstition. The world and man, he holds, have evolved from the nonliving, and “it is in the highest degree improbable that anything in the world exists specifically for his [man’s] benefit.” The Harvard scientist brushes aside “the world of higher superstition” and reports that, when polled in Chicago, a panel of highly distinguished international experts, considered imminent the experimental production of life in the laboratory, and one panelist contended that this result has already been achieved.
It is remarkable that so few American scientists of stature bother to confute such views. The effort of American Scientific Affiliation, titled Evolution and Christian Thought Today (1960), one of the few works by contemporary scientists espousing Christian theism, grapples with the naturalistic bias.
Dr. Wilder Smith, of the faculty of the Pharmological Institute in Bergen, notes the resemblance of Dr. Simpson’s argument, in tone and substance, to literature on the same subject originating behind the Iron Curtain and “regularly sent gratis from Eastern Berlin for some reason.” He continues:
The interpretation of the Chicago poll is interesting and typical for this type of thought. A highly distinguished international panel considered the experimental production of life in the laboratory as imminent. It is the interpretation of this information which interests me most, namely that, because this is the case, therefore life was not created by a Creator, who therefore can be dismissed from our thoughts as nonexistent.
If the above statement is interpreted with scientific disinterestedness, exactly what does it prove? Surely nothing more than that, with the necessary interference from outside, life may result in a previously lifeless system. That the interference from outside in this case takes the form of changing and controlling the experimental conditions no one doubts. What has, however, been rather overlooked, not only in Dr. Simpson’s article but also generally, is the rather obvious fact that, in scientific experiments of this kind, a scientific mind or intelligence at the back of the experiment is the absolute prerequisite for any hope of achieving success. Otherwise, the highly specific ordering of material and conditions will not occur—at least certainly not quickly enough to outstrip the decomposition processes running counter to life’s synthetic necessities. Even to give the various separate parts of, say, a virus system to an oratorio singer or a plough-boy would scarcely be expected, at least among those skilled in the art, to produce the desired experimental objective, namely life. The requirements to set the reaction off are much too specific—this we do know. It is plain scientific nihilism to attempt to replace the carefully planned scientific experiment by the soup stock pot and to say that billions of years will do what the planned experiment can do but with the greatest difficulty, effort, and planning. The scientist knows that careful hard work (involving complex thought processes, experience, and intelligence, if you wish) and planning represent the basic necessary exogenous interference in a system, if we are to hope to achieve life from lifeless material. Dare we, as scientists, maintain that delicate reactions just ‘happened’ in the past, when we know that in the present, scientific experience has never given the slightest basis for hope of success, unless reaction conditions are meticulously, progressively, and sometimes rapidly adjusted, often in a way chance will not take care of except by undue statistical weighting? And further, the greater the efforts to achieve life synthetically, the greater has the complexity of the problem proved to be. It is just this mounting intellectual effort which has reflected so beautifully and conclusively the mounting refinement in experimental technique required for success, which is just another way of saying that the known intellectually-controlled physical interference from outside necessary to ignite life from the previously lifeless is continually mounting.
Living things are known today to be very much more complex than was thought only a few years ago, to say nothing of thoughts on this subject during Darwin’s lifetime. The mounting complexity brings diminishing possibility for chance ever to have been the Creator. The more laboratory technique is improved and used in the effort to produce life synthetically, the less likelihood is there of this.
All this leads quite simply to something very much approaching the Christian position so much attacked, even though obliquely, in Dr. Simpson’s article. This position simply states that interference from outside took place in matter in the past, resulting in the conferment of order in certain forms of matter to produce life as we know it. In principle, this position corresponds to that which every scientist takes in attempting to attain life in the lifeless in the laboratory; the method is the same in both cases—intellectually exogenously controlled physical interference with matter. Who does the ordering or interfering is immaterial in principle, the main thing is that scientific method has confirmed the mandatory role of exogenous ordering of matter, if life from the lifeless is to be achieved. That this does not occur within our experience endogenously is obvious and as the known complexity of life processes increases so do the statistical possibilities of spontaneous or endogenous ordering to the necessary grade decrease. Man was not there at the start to do the experiment, but why deny that any experimenter did the experiment, when all scientific method demands some sort of an experimenter?
Indeed, the Christian position goes further than this and maintains that the Mind behind Creation endowed his creature with some creative abilities similar to, even though vastly smaller than, his own. It goes even further along this line in calling man a god in some respects. If, however, man succeeds in modern laboratories sometimes, in a small way, in thinking the Creator’s synthetic experiments through again after him, why should this fact be interpreted to prove that, therefore, the Creator does not exist, as indeed Dr. Simpson seems to think? I must confess, I do not follow the logic of this position. If someone succeeds in repeating and confirming my published experiments, who, in the name of Science, would interpret this feat as proof positive that I do not exist, that I never did the experiments and therefore need never be reckoned with?
It seems to me, therefore, that Dr. Simpson’s nomenclature with respect to ‘higher superstitions celebrated weekly in every hamlet in the United States’ is not only rather lacking in Christian grace and tolerance (surely desirable properties cherished by Christians and others) but is without scientific basis—for the word superstition would no longer be correct if these celebrations were soundly founded on fact.
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY DIVIDES OVER NEGRO SIT-IN STRATEGY
German university attacks on Christianity after World War I prompted Rudolf Eucken to predict the Gospel’s declining national power unless it gripped both laboring man and university mind. The subsequent ascendency of naturalism, exalting Hitler as the voice of Germany, is now part of twentieth century history.
Student uprisings are headline news the world over today. Some protest totalitarian oppression. Some are Communist-inspired to champion social revolution. On American campuses, conformity prevails and mass idealism wanes. Student demonstrations are mainly fraternity farces, panty raids, or political circuses.
Now and then, as Christian concern and social radicalism act or interact, some student protests the status quo. Vanderbilt University is a case in point. Faculty resignations have followed administrative refusal to readmit a Negro divinity student expelled for “civil disobedience” after sit-in activity. Administrators held that forced victory over discriminatory ordinances might breed the worse evil of general lawlessness. But national conscience weighed on sectional conscience; the biggest United States social problem turned Vanderbilt into the Gettysburg of the new Civil War. Faculty resignations supported “higher moral law”; in a free land a man ought to be able to patronize a library or restaurant irrespective of his skin. Southern moderates held that spiritual commitment while slower is nevertheless surer than political compulsion. They felt coerced by the academic community, noting that dissenting opinion did not hesitate to rupture an institution. Splintered Vanderbilt thus became a symbol of the South’s forced hand and divided conscience.
‘THE GENERAL WELFARE’ AND THE WELFARE STATE
The American Federationist, official monthly of AFL-CIO, features a full page promotion for a pamphlet titled “Memo to Congress: A Positive Program for America.” The advertisement lifts the noble phrase “to promote the general welfare” from the foreword of the United States Constitution as an umbrella under which the labor lobby propagandizes for government health benefits for the aged, Federal aid to schools, legislative extension and increase of minimal wages, public housing, and other state welfare objectives.
The magazine’s cover jacket provides a religious atmosphere for the thrust. An attractive color plate displays the stained-glass windows in Washington Cathedral recently dedicated to the memory of Samuel Gompers, Philip Murray, and William Green. Each followed one of the three great religious faiths shaping the religious heritage of the West.
The Judeo-Christian heritage has, in fact, very much to say to our times. What it says is, however, often quite distinct from the objectives of organized labor. Not only does the Bible emphasize that wealth is a divine entrustment, but it reenforces personal responsibility and voluntarism, and it refuses to tie the concept of “the good life” to the gross national product, or to government services, or to state security. The confusion about national goals, characteristic of the workers of America (and who is not a worker?) is not wholly unrelated to the tendency of Big Labor as well as of Big Business to set sights upon material objectives and to blur spiritual imperatives out of focus.
Small wonder a concept like “the general welfare” can be twisted out of its historic patriotic sense. The foreword of the United States Constitution affirms indeed that government is to maintain order, administer justice, and promote the general welfare. In context, promotion of the general welfare means the state’s protection of life, liberty, and private property. Today the concept is stretched far off limits by those who would intrude the government into widening support of the masses along quasi-socialist lines. As twisted by twentieth century liberalism, “the general welfare” means government legislation of private property to put a floor under the living standard of all people, as well as other government “welfare” schemes.
A NEW ADVENTURE IN OPEN RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATION
A milestone in public religious discussion in America was passed in David Susskind’s “Open End” TV show the last Sunday night in May. Six Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders, lay and clerical, spent two hours and a half in good-spirited, free-for-all on public and private education, birth control, and other religion-related issues of current interest.
Clashing opinions were frankly stated. There was no debate, and no consensus was reached. Some misunderstandings were cleared up. Viewers were doubtless both enlightened and confused. Regrettably, Roman Catholic clergymen declined to participate. No representative of evangelical Protestantism appeared.
Many American cultural, social and political problems are deeply involved in religious principle. Conflicts are inevitable in a climate of religious pluralism. Prejudice and intolerance build walls and block communication. “Open End” revealed areas of agreement, as well as of disagreement. When intelligent men of varied views meet in an atmosphere of good will, widely-shared values may be discovered as a framework for some unity of action. At any rate David Susskind’s hazardous undertaking may mark the beginning of a new and refreshing turn in American life.
