LIVING UNDER TENSION Dying Under Tension
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
LIVING UNDER TENSION Dying Under Tension By HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK This is the first book of sermons which Dr. Fosdick has published reader of his in four years. Every earlier volumes, every member and radio of his vast pulpit a audience, every person seeking successful of purposeful, way this book and living will enjoy benefit from it. What Dr. Fosdick has to say is and doubly important timely now, when mankind seems bent on its own destruction. Each of writ- these twenty-five sermons, ten in the midst of whirling events, is both presently ap- and true. plicable tunelessly Perhaps Dr. Fosdick's greatest lies in his abil- accomplishment to make "That ity people say, for me!" sermon was preached Behind this lies an uncanny in- into human and sight problems a in- human weaknesses, sturdy, , and a colorful vigorating faith, These literary style, qualities ' taa)^ a book which is inspira- ttQttaf in the very highest sense, i 'finish and an ', W which mo, one, ittowiQim rtnifta ffnp Ciiihrt'A mranrw^ Other Books by HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK The Second Mile The Assurance of Immortality The Manhood of the Master The Meaning of Prayer The Meaning of Faith The Meaning of Service Christianity and Progress Twelve Tests of Character The Modern Use of the Bible Adventurous Religion A Pilgrimage to Palestine As I See Religion The Hope of the World The Secret of Victorious Living The Power to See It Through Successful Christian Living A Guide to Understanding the Bible Living Under Tension Sermons on Christianity Today h HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK PUBLISHERS HARPER fef BROTHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON QQJLQPQflJLfljyiflJH^^ QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQOQOQQQQQfltt. LIVING UNDER TENSION Copyright, 1541, ty Earner & Brothers Printed in the United States of America All rights in this look are reserved. No tie look le part of may reproduced, in any manner whatsoever without written permission in the case except of kief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information IO-I WR8T EDITION H-q ^ Contents LIVING UNDER TENSION ! DON'T LOSE FAITH IN HUMAN POSSIBILITIES II WINNING THE WAR OF NERVES 2O CHRISTIAN FAITH FANTASY OR TRUTH? 30 WINNING THE WAR OF IDEAS 40 WHAT KEEPS RELIGION GOING? 51 THE INESCAPABLE JUDGMENT 6l WHEN PRAYER MEANS POWER 71 MANKIND'S DEEP NEED THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY 82 HOW TO STAND UP AND TAKE IT 92 THE MEANS DETERMINE THE END IO2 THE MODERN WORLD'S REDISCOVERY OF SIN 112 THE GOD WHO MADE US AND THE GODS WE MAKE 121 THE FREE SPIRIT CONFRONTS THE WORLD'S COER- CION THE REAL POINT OF CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ^ WHAT DOES THE DIVINITY OF JESUS MEAN? 150 JESUS' ETHICAL MESSAGE CONFRONTS THE WORLD l6l * GOD TALKS TO A DICTATOR 'HVj f" ,, - 172 THIS ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN A VITAL CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE l82 J: CONTENTS COMMON TASKS SEEM 192 r* j THE ft&tU&N TO DISCIPLINE 2O3 HOW BELIEVE IN A GOOD GOD IN A WORLD LIKE THIS? 213 THE DECISIVE BABIES OF THE WORLD 222 THE CROSS, AN AMAZING PARADOX 2J3 A GREAT YEAR FOR EASTER 243 [vi] TnmnnnnroTrr^ Introduction sermons for publication in a time of swift SELECTINGchange like this is obviously difficult. Whatever the sit- uation may be when this volume reaches the reader, it is bound to differ, and it may differ radically, from the scene in which the sermons first were preached. I have tried to meet this problem in part by selecting ser- mons in which the abiding truth is likely to remain constant and clear despite shifting circumstances. In doing this, how- ever, I have not elided contemporary references or expres- sions of conviction concerning immediate issues, which were interwoven with the message when it was first delivered, but have let them stand for what they may be worth, trusting the reader to do his own interpreting. Needless to say, during these tense months I have made other statements dealing more specifically with immediate problems in the national and international situation. As al- ways happens, the more the temporal outweighs the eternal in any statement, especially in a sermon, the less permanence its message has, and in such a volume as this detailed discus- sions of issues likely to be outmoded before publication would have no useful place. Behind these sermons lies the conviction that in an epoch like ours the Church of Christ has a special function, that it ought to be more than the voice of any government or the echo of any popular opinion and passion. What war does to economics, business, politics, to youth and age, to families and nations, is often discussed, but what war does to the Church is quite as tragic. The Church in wartime easily becomes the mere echo of the warring masses, with every distinctive qual- ity of Christ's teaching well-nigh forgotten; it is tempted to [vii] INTRODUCTION lose its international, interracial, ecumenical nature, and to become only one more agency for hallowing and waging war ; it is lured to accept a theology of escape, by which the ethical teachings of Christ are interpreted as inapplicable and un- livable it too divests itself of ; and in the end commonly any function that differentiates it from a world gone mad with mutual hatred and suicidal strife. Against these powerful temptations many in the Church, both pacifist and non-pacifist, are on guard, deeply concerned that Christ's distinctive message should not be submerged in an oblivion worse than any theoretical atheism's denial. If these sermons, even a little, help anyone thus to maintain the Integrity of the Church's message in the midst of this cata- strophic era, I shall be happy. Certainly, they are sent to the publisher with sincere humility, so difficult is it in these days to be wise, so impossible to escape disproportion, so incredible that anyone, however hard he tries, should succeed in telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK June 15, 1941 [viii] Acknowledgments The author wishes to express his appreciation to the follow- ing authors and publishers for permission to quote from their copyrighted works : Pilgrim Press. Stanza beginning 'Thou Life with my life" by Eliza Scudder, from the Pilgrim Hymnal. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company. "Two Gods" from SONGS OF THE AVERAGE MAN by Sam Walter Foss. Harry Kemp. "The Conquerors." Living Under Tension of a mystery ship at sea keeping its course day and night through all weathers lies in the fact that it moves in two worlds. the On one side is the ship itself, the sea it rides the storms that upon, beat upon it, the fogs that encompass it, and all the seen universe that surrounds it. But another world is there, invisible, intangible, playing with unseen magnetic fingers on the ship's compass. That is so strange a realm that for ages man did not dream that it was there at but now the its all, ship keeps course by means of it, an unseen magnetic world that guides the mariner even through night and fog and storm. Human life is like that. We live in two worlds. Sometimes we call this bifurcation "body" and "spirit" the one mate- the other rial, physical, visible, immaterial, invisible, intangi- ble. Like some animals of the sea, whales and seals, that, though their habitat is the water, have another need, and must from time to time come up to breathe the air, so are we. Im- mersed in the flesh, yet we cannot live by flesh alone but must rise into this other realm of spirit, with its faiths, its ideals, its visions of beauty and right. Here is the mystery of human nature, as of a ship, that it lives in two worlds. Even in ordinary times the profoundest problems of our lives center in this fact, but in days like these how tragic are the tensions between these two realms ! Here in this immedi- factual world see ate, we such catastrophe and brutality as will make our generation rememberable for its horror many a from century now. And yet we inhabit as well a spiritual world, with intellectual insights, with ideals of beauty and with loveliness, faiths and friendships, and with aspirations that lay hold on God and goodness. If we could only live all LIVING UNDER TENSION in one world or all in the other, we might have peace, but what tension is involved in having to live in both ! This was the problem, you recall, in Stevenson's story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Henry Jekyll could not endure the tug of war between his lower and his higher self, and he dreamed of a solution. If only some of the time he could live altogether in his lower world as Mr. Hyde, with no disturb- ing intimations of a higher life, and if the rest of the time he could live altogether in his higher realm as Dr. Jekyll, with no solicitations from the lower self, then he might have peace. So he discovered the drug that thus would separate his two selves. Recall his own words: "If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that unbearable the his deliv- was ; unjust might go way, ered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path ... no longer exposed to disgrace and peni- tence." Who here does not understand Henry JekylFs prob- lem? But no subtle drug can thus avail to separate us into our component parts.