Is religion a force in the spiritual life of our age?
No.
The question was asked by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, one of the world's ablest theologians. The answer was given by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, one of the most famed medical missionaries in the West African jungle. The occasion was Dr. Schweitzer's appearance in England last October to deliver the Hibbert Lectures, given annually by men of renown at Manchester College, Oxford and University College, London. To report Dr. Schweitzer's words The Christian Century had a stenographer on hand. Last week and the week before that alert U. S. interdenominational weekly summarized the Hibbert Lectures, which will later be published in book form.
"There is still religion in the world," declared Lecturer Schweitzer. "There is much religion in the church; there are many pious people among us. Christianity can still point to works of love. . . . And yet we must hold to the fact that religion is not a force. The proof? The War! ... In the War religion lost its purity and lost its authority. It joined forces with the spirit of the world. The one victim of defeat was religion. And that religion was defeated is apparent in our time. For it lifts up its voice, but only to protest. It cannot command. . . ."
Likening present-day religion to the trickling remains of a once mighty African river, Dr. Schweitzer said that idealism has given way to realism: "What is characteristic of our age is that we no longer really believe in social or spiritual progress, but face reality powerless." Identifying idealism with ethics and with "thinking religion," he recalled that this spirit flourished in the 18th Century, that it gave impetus to such reforms as the abolition of slavery, that its great desire was "to make the kingdom of God a reality on earth." But in the 19th Century Napoleon Bonaparte and philosophers like Hegel put realism to the fore.
Searching for signs of hope, Dr. Schweitzer concluded that there is no other remedy for present-day ills than the ethics of Jesus which, reduced to simplest terms, is "reverence for all life." Said he: "We wander in darkness now, but one with another we all have the conviction that we are advancing to the light. . . ."