Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

IntroductionRELIGION achieves its highest social ministry when it has least connectionwith the secular institutions of society. In past ages, since social reforms werelargely confined to the moral realms, religion did not have to adjust its attitudeto extensive changes in economic and political systems. The chief problem ofreligion was the endeavor to replace evil with good within the existing socialorder of political and economic culture. Religion has thus indirectly tended toperpetuate the established order of society, to foster the maintenance of theexistent type of civilization.But religion should not be directly concerned either with the creation of newsocial orders or with the preservation of old ones. True religion does opposeviolence as a technique of social evolution, but it does not oppose theintelligent efforts of society to adapt its usages and adjust its institutions tonew economic conditions and cultural requirements.Religion did approve the occasional social reforms of past centuries, but in thetwentieth century it is of necessity called upon to face adjustment to extensiveand continuing social reconstruction. Conditions of living alter so rapidly thatinstitutional modifications must be greatly accelerated, and religion mustaccordingly quicken its adaptation to this new and ever-changing social order.CONTENTS:1-RELIGION- CULTURE AND SOCIALRECONSTRUCTION.2-WEAKNESS AND EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALRELIGION ON SOCIETY.3- RELIGION AND THE RELIGIONIST-THEIREFFECTS ON ECONOMICS, POLITICALAND SOCIAL STRUCTURE.4-TRANSITION DIFFICULTIES.5-SOCIAL ASPECTS OF RELIGION AND ITSRULE AS STABILIZER.6-EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION.7-SUMMARY.

8-CONCLUSION.9-REFERENCES.1-RELIGION- CULTURE AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTIONMechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifyingcivilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative ifcultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will notsettle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become reconciledto a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on themarch toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritualprogression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditionsand never-ending economic adjustments.Society can never hope to settle down as in past ages. The social ship has steamedout of the sheltered bays of established tradition and has begun its cruise uponthe high seas of evolutionary destiny; and the soul of man, as never before in theworld's history, needs carefully to scrutinize its charts of morality andpainstakingly to observe the compass of religious guidance. The paramount missionof religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind duringthese dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another,from one level of culture to another.Religion has no new duties to perform, but it is urgently called upon to functionas a wise guide and experienced counselor in all of these new and rapidly changinghuman situations. Society is becoming more mechanical, more compact, more complex,and more critically interdependent. Religion must function to prevent these newand intimate inter associations from becoming mutually retrogressive or evendestructive. Religion must act as the cosmic salt which prevents the ferments ofprogression from destroying the cultural savor of civilization. These new socialrelations and economic upheavals can result in lasting brotherhood only by theministry of religion.A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but true religionis the only power which can lastingly increase the responsiveness of one socialgroup to the needs and sufferings of other groups. In the past, institutionalreligion could remain passive while the upper strata of society turned a deaf earto the sufferings and oppression of the helpless lower strata, but in modern timesthese lower social orders are no longer so abjectly ignorant nor so politically

helpless.Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of socialreconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace withall these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatementsof its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of humanliving and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the formof its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language isrevised.2-WEAKNESS AND EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION ON SOCIETY.Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership inthis impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganizationbecause it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the socialorder and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Onlythe real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully andcreatively in the present crisis of civilization.Institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious circle. Itcannot reconstruct society without first reconstructing itself; and being so muchan integral part of the established order, it cannot reconstruct itself untilsociety has been radically reconstructed.Religionists must function in society, in industry, and in politics asindividuals, not as groups, parties, or institutions. A religious group whichpresumes to function as such, apart from religious activities, immediately becomesa political party, an economic organization, or a social institution. Religiouscollectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of religious causes.Religionists are of no more value in the tasks of social reconstruction than nonreligionists except in so far as their religion has conferred upon them enhancedcosmic foresight and endowed them with that superior social wisdom which is bornof the sincere desire to love God supremely and to love every man as a brother inthe heavenly kingdom. An ideal social order is that in which every man loves hisneighbor as he loves himself.The institutionalized policy may have appeared to serve society in the past byglorifying the established political and economic orders, but it must speedilycease such action if it is to survive. Its only proper attitude consists in theteaching of nonviolence, the doctrine of peaceful evolution in the place ofviolent revolution--peace on earth and good will among all men.Modern religion finds it difficult to adjust its attitude toward the rapidlyshifting social changes only because it has permitted itself to become sothoroughly traditionalized, dogmatized, and institutionalized. The religion ofliving experience finds no difficulty in keeping ahead of all these socialdevelopments and economic upheavals, amid which it ever functions as a moralstabilizer, social guide, and spiritual pilot. True religion carries over from oneage to another the worth-while culture and that wisdom which is born of theexperience of knowing God and striving to be like him. 3-RELIGION AND THE RELIGIONIST-THEIR EFFECTS ON ECONOMICS, POLITICAL AND SOCIALSTRUCTURE.Early Christianity as an example was entirely free from all civilentanglements, social commitments, and economic alliances. Only did laterinstitutionalized Christianity become an organic part of the political and socialstructure of Occidental civilization.