McMurry S. Richey - "On Being More and Less Religious Than We Think" (November 8, 1959)

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-	Hi Judy.	0:16
-	"Men of Athens," so the Apostle Paul	0:21
	as he looked around at idols and altars,	0:25
	"I perceive that in every way you are very religious."	0:29
	They were both more and less religious than they thought.	0:37
	Some of my best friends are idol worshipers,	0:49
	and so am I, and so are you at times.	0:54
	And I'd like to say a good word today	0:59
	for idolatry and for idols.	1:02
	For idolatry, surely there is a right instinct,	1:09
	the expression of a real need,	1:17
	the effort to become an organized integrated person,	1:23
	in the giving of loyalty and devotion	1:29
	to that which is beyond us, outside us,	1:32
	and to seeking and finding those objects of devotion,	1:38
	which seem worthy of such allegiance.	1:43
	The discovery of sacredness, the ascription of ultimacy,	1:50
	and worth, and power, and relevance to daily round.	2:01
	The commitment to these relative objects of devotion.	2:12
	Surely there is in the human heart some hunger,	2:23
	some need for such expression.	2:28
	And there's something fine	2:36
	about the person who in such commitment,	2:37
	gives his loyalty and allegiance to a great cause	2:40
	or a team or school or a dream.	2:47
	Perhaps we lack the ancient sense	2:54
	of a pervasive moaner spirit.	2:56
	Through everything symbolized especially	3:03
	in some particular trees or stones	3:09
	or idols made by human hands.	3:13
	But we too sense	3:17
	that we are dependent upon more than we are.	3:19
	We sense forces operative in our existence.	3:24
	We throw in with some	3:28
	and give them our high and costly devotion.	3:30
	"Men of Athens," said Paul, "looking at some such objects,	3:34
	I perceive that in every way, you are very religious."	3:40
	And so are we, we too are more religious than we think.	3:45
	There's a truly religious quality	3:52
	about much of our everyday dealing,	3:54
	with persons, and things, and ideas, causes, institutions,	3:58
	even when we think we're not religious.	4:05
	Such idolatry would seem to vary,	4:10
	to grow From a tentative kind	4:12
	still testing for what is really worthy of devotion.	4:17
	Still keeping the freedom to withdraw from entanglement	4:22
	to extricate from this arms length involvement.	4:28
	You can supply the illustrations,	4:34
	you know exactly what I mean.	4:37
	To a more seriously devoted kind.	4:41
	A really involving devotion or allegiance.	4:45
	A Marine to the core, a Yale man,	4:50
	or more exhaustively to wife or to husband,	4:56
	child or friend or democratic party or labor union.	5:01
	What I like about such idolatries	5:08
	is their open, honest recognition	5:11
	of value laying hold of persons,	5:16
	and their self-giving devotion.	5:21
	Their surrender of self to more than self.	5:24
	Their underlying affirmation that life belongs	5:28
	to more than just ourselves within our skin.	5:31
	Their effort to relate ultimacy to the here and now.	5:35
	Now, a clean idolatry like this,	5:42
	if there is such a clean idolatry	5:45
	perhaps they are sinners as idolaters too.	5:47
	But a clean, honest worship of idols like this	5:53
	would tend to test and rank its gods,	5:59
	until a sort of pantheon emerged,	6:04
	with some given priority over most of life and other idols.	6:07
	Some conflicting idols eliminated or subordinated.	6:12
	It's a good thing, isn't it?	6:17
	To discover what matters more and most,	6:20
	what is better and what is best.	6:25
	This brings us to say a good thing for the idols themselves.	6:30
	There's nothing like a good, honest idol,	6:36
	without any devices to make it look more than it really is.	6:40
	I've always had misgivings about the placing of food	6:48
	before some statue, which when the worshiper was gone	6:52
	could be sneakily taken	6:56
	by the priests for their own sustenance.	6:58
	But giving the worshiper the impression	7:02
	that this was alive and active being before which he bowed.	7:04
	Let idols be out in the open.	7:11
	Big juggernauts going down the street	7:14
	in a homecoming parade.	7:18
	The good thing in such cases is that you can look them over	7:23
	and see how much they really amount to.	7:28
	And if they're just tissue on chicken wire floats,	7:32
	they're gone with the wind and the rain	7:37
	and such a limited idolatry is not very risky.	7:40
	But if it is something real stable	7:46
	and worth devotion, that's different.	7:51
	Perhaps a nation state, it's there,	7:58
	we can give our devotion to it.	8:03
	We can see what is the outcome of such devotion,	8:07
	and measure the worth of such an idol.	8:12
	Or let us say the white race, here is something you can see,	8:16
	and test and try if it really be worthy	8:24
	of a man's ultimate devotion, and discover that it is not,	8:31
	or the god is success.	8:37
	Look her over, try her out,	8:42
	an honest idol like this, not a concealed one,	8:47
	and see if he really is what you want	8:52
	for the surrender of all your being.	8:57
	The good thing about these honest idols out in the open	9:01
	is that they can be examined and superseded,	9:05
	more of that later.	9:10
	Yes, there's much to be said for idolatry and for idols,	9:13
	when they're honest and open and clean.	9:18
	But there's another kind of idolatry that bothers me,	9:23
	where it is not a true devotion	9:29
	but a dodge of responsibility,	9:31
	or a reduction of ultimate claims upon us.	9:34
	For example, you take the audience St. Paul addressed	9:39
	in Athens, not the Jews and the devout persons	9:43
	with whom he argued in the synagogue,	9:46
	they had some commitments.	9:48
	Perhaps not the Epicurean and stoic philosophers	9:51
	who were curious about his deliverances.	9:54
	They too had a view of reality and belonged to it,	9:59
	but at least some of the people in the marketplace	10:04
	including foreigners visiting there,	10:08
	spent their time according to the author of Acts,	10:11
	in nothing except telling or hearing something new.	10:15
	A sort of sermon tasters,	10:18
	purveyors of philosophical tidbits,	10:21
	boasters running to hear and tell the latest.	10:24
	Having a semblance of the seeking of truth,	10:28
	but not really an ultimate commitment,	10:32
	a dallying with ideas,	10:36
	but not an honest surrender to those worth claiming them.	10:39
	One has the feeling	10:45
	that these were not really good, honest idol worshipers.	10:46
	They probably didn't put up the idols or the altars.	10:52
	Probably they superciliously made fun of those who had.	10:55
	Rather, they worshiped themselves.	11:00
	They enjoyed their own inflated egos,	11:05
	spilled with the latest, seeming the brightest.	11:07
	They played the intellectual games of one upmanship,	11:11
	gamesmanship, with refined devastating ways	11:15
	of contemptuously or patronizingly	11:19
	reducing others to humiliation.	11:23
	This kind of idolatry, this self worship,	11:26
	this projection of self out beyond	11:30
	and then bowing down to this,	11:34
	this is a bogus kind.	11:37
	And it's a worse for its semblance of devotion to truth.	11:40
	Deceptive, dishonest, a problem not only	11:46
	of Ancient Athens, but of much of our intellectual life.	11:50
	And perhaps you and I sometimes enter into such idolatry.	11:56
	"They exchange the truth about God for a lie	12:02
	and worship then serve the creature	12:05
	rather than the creator."	12:07
	Said Paul in another connection.	12:10
	The trouble with this kind of idolatry	12:13
	is partly in its self deception	12:15
	and deception of others.	12:17
	In its protection against the discovery	12:20
	of what is really true and worthy of devotion.	12:22
	Another dangerous idolatry results	12:28
	when an idol exerts a total,	12:30
	a disproportionate claim successfully upon us.	12:35
	Paul Tillich, that other St. Paul	12:42
	of our intellectual Athens of today,	12:47
	has spoken of the ultimate concern with success	12:51
	and with social standing and economic power.	12:55
	He writes, "It is a God of many people	12:59
	in the highly competitive Western culture,	13:02
	and it does what every ultimate concern must do.	13:05
	It demands unconditional surrender to its laws,	13:08
	even if the price is a sacrifice	13:11
	of genuine human relations,	13:13
	personal conviction and creative (indistinct).	13:15
	Its threat is social and economic defeat	13:19
	and its promise indefinite as all such promises,	13:22
	the fulfillment of one's being.	13:26
	It is a breakdown of this kind of faith,"	13:28
	says Tillich, "which characterizes	13:31
	and makes religiously important	13:33
	most contemporary literature.	13:35
	When fulfilled the promise proves to be empty."	13:38
	Still another perilous idolatry occurs over and over	13:45
	in organized religion itself.	13:50
	When we sneak our little gods into the Holy of Holies,	13:53
	when we make of our little values ultimate values,	13:59
	when creeds and codes and cults,	14:06
	these necessities as media are the expression of God	14:09
	to man and of man responding to God,	14:13
	these needed elements in religion.	14:16
	When these are given intrinsic	14:21
	rather than extrinsic meaning.	14:23
	Worship, liturgical worship,	14:28
	the beauty of music, all the way over on the other extreme,	14:33
	for those who criticize this precious informality.	14:37
	Either of these can become, need not, idolatry.	14:44
	Or our sermons, making, delivering or submitting to them.	14:51
	When we worship, not the eternal God	15:00
	but a lesser good meant for His glory, not our own.	15:03
	The institution of religion, another necessary means	15:07
	or medium of the expression of God to man, and man to God,	15:13
	becomes a dangerous end in itself,	15:19
	with its perennial tendency to exalt itself.	15:24
	Let's be honest about it.	15:28
	Our own perennial tendencies as individuals	15:31
	and as leaders to give ultimacy	15:34
	to whatever institutions express our length and shadows.	15:37
	Its tendency then, our tendency,	15:45
	for this kind of corporate self exultation,	15:48
	the promotion and protection	15:52
	of the institution taking precedent over truth,	15:54
	and love, and service, idolatry.	15:59
	Where you may have your forms and I have mine.	16:06
	Religious experience can become another idol	16:09
	rather than confrontation by God	16:14
	or religious nurture or theology itself.	16:17
	We may slowly solve our own particular ways	16:23
	of interpreting the reality of God in our experience.	16:26
	That conformity to this, rather than correction	16:30
	of our ideas by what the eternal God really is	16:34
	and says to us, becomes our idol.	16:37
	In various ways we succeed in reducing the meaning	16:42
	and demand of the eternal God	16:46
	and of projecting our own exalted egos.	16:48
	We like manageable, domesticated deities.	16:53
	I do, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands	16:59
	of the eternal God.	17:04
	It's much nicer to have a friendly, helpful,	17:07
	cosmic bellhop.	17:13
	And to criticize or to expose seems sacrilege.	17:17
	The norm is obscured, criticism is rejected,	17:23
	loyalty demanded, and oftentimes coercively secured.	17:27
	The point seems clear though, we may be more religious	17:33
	than we think when we are honestly serving idols.	17:37
	And less religious than we think when covertly serving self	17:42
	and little gods of self undercover of high religion,	17:46
	and all of us are so involved.	17:52
	While we're at it let's just say	17:58
	just one passing good word for atheism too,	17:59
	and agnosticism with it.	18:04
	The early Christians and the Jews before them	18:08
	were often accused of atheism,	18:11
	because they would not worship the little idols around.	18:15
	They had an eternal principle of criticism	18:19
	which showed that not these things of every day	18:22
	and all around but the eternal God himself	18:26
	was alone worthy of their devotion.	18:30
	And so there may be among us many good, honest atheists,	18:35
	who want the truth so much that they are willing	18:43
	to sacrifice these little idols of various kinds	18:48
	of intellectual conformity, and all the superstitions	18:52
	which may involve us.	18:57
	In other words, sacrificing idolatrous religion	18:59
	in search for real truth.	19:05
	Wasn't it Tennyson who's struggling over the sorrow	19:09
	when his friend Arthur Hallam died,	19:14
	and facing the breakup of much traditional religious thought	19:17
	in the Darwinian century,	19:22
	who affirmed that there lived more faith in honest doubt,	19:25
	than in half the creeds.	19:33
	But then of course there are other kinds of atheism too,	19:37
	and maybe we don't always have the clean, honest,	19:40
	open kind of atheism either.	19:45
	There are atheisms, which are again	19:47
	simply a hidden idolatry of self,	19:50
	a rejection of the claims of the eternal God,	19:54
	because we prefer our own ways.	19:58
	And we reduce Him to what we see as supposed manifestation	20:02
	of Him around us and this we can easily sweep aside.	20:06
	And so we claim in a sort of intellectual arrogance	20:10
	that we don't believe those silly superstitions.	20:14
	There can be a good atheism,	20:18
	a sort of tentative provisional seeking of the real truth,	20:22
	and a sweeping away of much to the shallow and insignificant	20:27
	or and we have amazing talent for using such possibilities,	20:34
	or a dishonest idolatrous kind of atheism itself.	20:41
	Well, I've spoken well of idolatry, and of atheism.	20:51
	Insofar as these represent a real devotion of the self	20:58
	to that which seems at least provisionally	21:06
	to be worth one's ultimate devotion, but we can't rest here.	21:09
	In the words of Emerson. "When the gods arrive,	21:15
	the half gods go."	21:20
	And the real test of honest idolatry	21:23
	is its response to what actually proves itself	21:27
	finally worthy of all our devotion.	21:31
	Comes a time when the unknown God who is behind our worship,	21:36
	who has evoked this seeking of Himself, says to us	21:42
	through one or other of His spokesmen,	21:47
	"The God who made the world and everything in it,	21:52
	being Lord of heaven and earth does not live	21:55
	in shrines made by man,	21:57
	nor is He served by human hand as though he needed anything.	22:00
	Since He Himself gives to all man life and breath	22:04
	and everything, being then God's offspring,	22:08
	we ought not to think that the deities like gold or silver	22:13
	or stone, a representation	22:17
	of the art and imagination of man.	22:19
	The times of ignorance God overlooked,	22:23
	but now He commands all men everywhere to repent.	22:26
	Because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world	22:32
	in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed.	22:35
	And of this He has given assurance to all men	22:39
	by raising him from the dead."	22:42
	The great and glorious thing	22:47
	about our Jewish and Christian heritage,	22:49
	is that a stringent searching prophetic principle	22:54
	which says to us in all our idolatries,	23:02
	"Beyond these is reality itself.	23:06
	Search and try and prove that which is good,	23:11
	but be ready to discover	23:16
	that your idols are simply provisional."	23:17
	Sometimes high religion	23:22
	has completely eliminated such idols.	23:27
	And one of the problems in our Protestantism	23:31
	arises from the fact that having swept aside so drastically	23:35
	the ways in which men perceive and represent	23:41
	the eternal God who speaks through symbols	23:44
	to the human heart.	23:47
	We have oftentimes substituted ourselves, and our utterances	23:49
	and our ideas as a new kind of intellectual idol,	23:54
	taking the place of visual ones.	23:59
	On the other hand, other kinds of Christianity	24:03
	have tried to convert the idols rather than eliminate them.	24:08
	Have taken over from the cultures	24:14
	which they're converting many of the little gods	24:16
	and practices, and festivals and representations	24:20
	with the hope that, and this is a good hope,	24:26
	these would not become finalities, but media,	24:29
	symbols that God could use	24:35
	and speak through these things, and times,	24:39
	and persons of the visible institution of the great church.	24:46
	But here again, just as in Protestant radicalism	24:52
	we have found our other idolatries,	24:57
	soul in Catholic inclusivism.	25:01
	We have found ourselves lapsing also over and over again	25:05
	into giving finality to that	25:10
	which is only provisional, temporal representative	25:12
	of what is good and what is ultimate.	25:17
	Yet, there is a testing tendency	25:23
	in human nature and a disclosing power in ultimate reality,	25:26
	which will not leave us content with these idolatries,	25:33
	these within our churches or within our secular life.	25:37
	I like that story of Arthur Compton	25:43
	the great physicist in his earlier days	25:46
	when he was commissioned to run an experiment	25:48
	to test and hypothesis, given a grant for his exploration.	25:52
	And after months of patient work	25:58
	setting up his equipment and running as many tests	26:00
	he was walking across the campus one day	26:03
	and met an older physicist who said,	26:05
	"Arthur how are things going?'	26:09
	And he confessed with some discomfiture	26:13
	that they weren't proving what he had hoped to prove.	26:15
	Said the older physicist, "Well, Arthur, the way things are	26:20
	is tremendously more exciting	26:26
	than the way we thought they were."	26:28
	And this is a perennial discovery.	26:32
	The discovery, not so much bias as to us	26:37
	of what is finally worth all we are.	26:43
	What does all this mean for us, for the church	26:48
	what is needed for myself and you?	26:52
	First such openness to prophetic criticism	26:57
	such penitence for our own limited idolatries,	27:02
	such concern for what is really true and good,	27:07
	such recognition in short of the rightful norm of Christ	27:11
	over the church, over us,	27:15
	that we may hear and heal,	27:17
	having our faith and our life corrected by what is.	27:21
	And second such on anxious trust, faith,	27:28
	in the real ultimacy of God	27:34
	and His Lordship overall our other gods.	27:37
	That we need not coercively, manipulatively,	27:42
	control others to bolster our little faith	27:46
	or serve our ecclesiastic, theological or moral idols.	27:50
	Third, such recognition and experience of God in our lives	27:57
	such perception of Him in our history,	28:02
	that we can and confidently take the indicative	28:06
	rather than the imperative mood,	28:09
	that we can point to what really is	28:12
	rather than putting the pressure on others' super egos	28:16
	as to what they ought to do and believe and practice.	28:20
	And fourth, such love for God and men	28:27
	that we demonstrate or mediate His accepting love	28:32
	and claim to others with integrity and winsomeness	28:37
	and unfailing concern, ready to go the second mile.	28:43
	Who is sufficient for these things?	28:49
	"Thine oh Lord, is the greatness and the power	29:06
	and the glory and the victory and the majesty,	29:09
	for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine.	29:13
	Thine is the kingdom oh Lord	29:18
	and thou art exalted as head above all.	29:20
	Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	29:25
	the love of God,	29:29
	the communion of His Holy Spirit be with us all."	29:30

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Title:

McMurry S. Richey - "On Being More and Less Religious Than We Think" (November 8, 1959)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4st7jz47

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November 8, 1959

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Richey, McMurry S.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0084
ref5367_9b3
uachapelsermaud
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ark:/87924/r4st7jz47
e1dec598-9ec6-4dc5-b396-b478819cace6

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McMurry S. Richey - "On Being More and Less Religious Than We Think" (November 8, 1959)

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