The Church and the Press. The Public Significance of Preaching

In the past year, before a public interested in religious questions, we had the honor to set forth several reflections regarding the religious-moral condition of the heterodox West at the present time, and there we attempted, among other things, to present a principled characterization of the confessional foundations of Orthodoxy in distinction from the systems of Western Christianity[1]. This question has not lost its lively interest now and, perhaps, has even grown to the degree that one generally observes a growing interest in our society for the elevated problems of religious-moral life. We live in a most significant time. That wave of unbelief and materialism which in the middle of our century swept through the spiritual life of Europe is visibly weakening. Crude materialism, which, finding a temporary ally in the natural sciences, laid its merciless hand upon all that is ideal and holy and wished to sweep out, so to speak, all religious ideas from the realm of human spirit, is noticeably losing its fascination for all more or less thinking people. This worldview, which proudly came forward with the promise to give enlightened humanity in place of the old “God of religions” a new “god of science,” suffered, as was to be expected, a complete fiasco. It could not satisfy the deepest needs of the human spirit, and the spirit turns away from it. Materialism wished to explain all the mysteries of being through scientific, palpable principles; but these principles are too simple to embrace all the mysteries that occupy the human mind. After the most careful and thorough explanation of spiritual phenomena, the human spirit somehow instinctively feels their incompleteness and inadequacy, and these very explanations serve merely as one step toward that unattainable temple where the mystery of being lives in all its mysterious inaccessibility. And so we see that the mind of contemporary humanity, no longer satisfied with materialism, is manifestly inclined toward the opposite worldview, which gives greater satisfaction to the growing thirst for the mysterious. After the recent wholesale denial of all that is mysterious and supernatural, it becomes almost incredible to what degree a thirst for the mysterious and supernatural is now observed everywhere. The contemporary cultured person with a kind of sickly sensitivity listens to strange voices in the gloomy séances of spiritualism, hears with reverence the mysterious knockings and movements of a soulless table, is drawn to the enigmatic trick of guessing others’ thoughts, and even people of positive science are not averse to believing in the possibility of an unknown fourth dimension. It is clear that with such a disposition religious worldview again obtains significance and interest, which in the end gives the best satisfaction and peace to a weary and aimlessly wandering mind. And indeed, we see unmistakable signs of the revival of religious interest not only among the people but in educated society as well. This fact should cause only joy; but unfortunately in this very turning there is an element which hinders its full fruitfulness for religious-moral life. Here we see, so to speak, the return of a lost reason to religion; but the preceding wandering through the thickets of rationalism and complete unbelief has so harmfully affected the spiritual life of the contemporary cultured person that he now, even in returning to religion, does not have sufficient moral self-control to humbly submit to the teaching of the Church, but brings into the realm of religious worldview that corrupting rationalism with which his spiritual life is infected. This is undoubtedly the reason for that sad phenomenon, that our famous writer, who considers his return from spiritual and practical nihilism to a religious-moral worldview to be the greatest happiness of his life, in his religious-theological works essentially remains enslaved to his reason corrupted by former skepticism. But the same is observed generally in our educated society. After a shameless enthusiasm for negative doctrines, returning now to a religious worldview, it does not wish to humbly bend before the teaching of the Orthodox Church but seeks satisfaction of its religious thirst where religion is taught in the form of piquant and sensational speculations. It is no secret that in two locations of our capital there has been regular preaching of the most extreme sectarian ideas, and this preaching attracts not a few persons from that society which, feeling a religious thirst, does not wish to quench it from the common spring of the Orthodox Church. And indeed, generally in the disposition of our educated society one observes a fermentation which has not yet sufficiently defined itself, but in which one cannot fail to discern a tendency in the direction of what may be called religious individualization—that is, the arrangement of religious life according to personal considerations of reason. This is evidently a sectarian tendency, and to oppose it is the sacred duty of each person to whom the interests of the Church and a healthy spiritual-moral life are dear. By these reflections, among others, we were guided when we chose as the subject of our Great Lenten readings the question of the religious-moral condition of the overseas West. America is the classical land of sectarianism, and the study of its religious-moral life can therefore be of the highest importance and profound interest, precisely in the sense of clarifying what results may follow from the dominion of personal reason in the spiritual-religious life, in the absence of firm ecclesiastical principles. With the religious-moral life of the North American Republic we had the opportunity to become acquainted through direct observation, the results of which we have already shared with the reading public in print both in our correspondences and in separate publications. But this field is so broad that even after all this there is the possibility to communicate some such data which by their novelty are not lacking in some interest for clarifying this most interesting and instructive life, all the more so that in the very recent time phenomena have occurred on American soil which during our sojourn there could serve only as the subject of uncertain conjecture.

To give a clearer and more definite understanding of the religious-moral life in North America, we shall broaden our subject and examine it from two sides, both of which have special interest—namely, from the side of the general religious-moral condition of the American people, and from the side of those particular phenomena which constitute the fruit of the principles lying at its foundation. With such a portrayal both the bright and dark sides of this life will emerge, and at the same time its instructive side for us will become clearer and more tangible.

First of all, it must be said that in the religious respect the American people of the United States differs very sharply from the peoples of the old world. This is a completely young people, which is seething with the fullness of their youthful spiritual life. They do not yet have that discord between the different forces of the spirit which the decrepit Europe suffers from—no contradiction between reason and faith. After the soulless skepticism of the old world, on the soil of the new world one feels the breath of new, fresh, and healthy life. The American people develop uniformly in all their powers and faculties. Their cultural-social development proceeds parallel with the religious, and therefore in their essence they lack that moral flabbiness which is a striking characteristic of the cultured classes of European peoples. America does not know such an intelligentsia as that which would undermine its moral existence through the denial of the religious principle; in it there is no society separated from church communion, and there is no literature ignoring religion as one of the important agents of cultural and social development. One can hardly find anywhere so many educated secular persons occupied with religious questions as are encountered in the United States of America. And this is all the more remarkable because America by its cultural character is a country of positive knowledge. In spite of this, science there lives in a harmonious unity with religious faith and the skeptical works of the old world there find almost no sale. It will therefore not be surprising that the whole life of the American people is pervaded with a religious spirit, and upon all manifestations of state and social life lies a strong imprint of religious influence.

The first proposition may seem incredible and inappropriate to those who know that in America the principle of the complete separation of Church and State prevails. In this regard, as is known, America serves, so to speak, as a commonplace to which all European culture-bearers constantly refer, considering the union of Church and State a hoary anachronism for our enlightened age. But it must be said that in this regard there exists great obscurity among us, arising from insufficient acquaintance with the general character and form of life in America. Church and State are indeed separated there, but this juridical fact does not yet determine the actual state of things. The closest examination of the relationship in which Church and State stand in America can only lead to the conclusion that in reality Church and State are inseparable, as soul and body are indivisible in a living organism. We have already been attacked once by our culture-bearers for this statement, those who only dream of benefiting our fatherland by transferring to its soil the principles and arrangements of the beloved West, under the name of clerical. But nevertheless we again repeat this assertion, because it is based not on theory but on the study of reality. The separation of Church and State in America means only that the State there, having encountered a diversity of confessional forms, did not identify itself with any one of them in particular, which would have violated the natural sense of justice and equality in relation to all others, but by this means did not separate itself from religion as the general religious-moral principle. This fact of American life again proves that the principle of separation of Church and State is not a denial of religion on the part of the State, but only one form of their mutual relationship. A denial of religion on the part of the State represents as impossible a fact as the denial of a fact that indisputably exists. The State cannot deny religion by the very nature of its purpose. It has as its aim not to destroy the essential elements of social life but to support them, to give them better conditions for development than singular and scattered life can provide. If religion constitutes an essential element of social life (which the most extreme representatives of atheism and unbelief did not dare deny, who, for all their hostility to existing forms of religion, were still forced to devise their own religions, such as the religion of reason, of humanity, etc.), then certainly the State cannot deny this element without contradicting its own aim and purpose. And history has not yet presented an example of a non-religious state. Religion has always been and is the natural spring which constantly pours forth streams of the highest and ideal principles, which condition the healthy moral development of social and state life. To deny religion for a State or society would mean to choke up this spring of living water with the garbage of ordinary sensual needs, and the result of this would be the inevitable death of higher moral life with all the consequences of dissolution. What importance religion has for the State is historically attested by the fact that the State has always sought a union in religion or the Church. Therefore, the principle of the juridical separation of Church and State is merely a new form of their internal union and mutual relationship, as we see in the United States of America. This internal union manifestly makes itself known both in positive and negative ways, but since this question was investigated by us earlier in sufficient detail[2], we shall here limit ourselves to only noting such facts as have direct bearing on the current reality of American life. On the negative side, what attracts attention in this regard is the remarkable fact that the American State is not at all indifferent to the confessional forms of the religious life of the people and consequently far from permits that unlimited freedom of religious conscience which is usually understood by the principle of separation of Church and State. Strictly speaking, the State allows only such confessional forms which in their content do not contradict the general religious-moral principle lying at the foundation of the American State and constituting, so to speak, its state religion or church. Since this principle is undoubtedly a Christian principle, any deviation from it is directly punished by the State. On this basis the American State, for example, cannot at all permit the existence on its territory of such religious sects as would consider it a duty of their conscience to offer human sacrifices or to perform rites contrary to Christian morality. From precisely this principle there logically flows that long-standing and stubborn struggle which the government of the United States of North America wages against Mormonism, which practices, as is known, polygamy contrary to Christian morality. This struggle at present, thanks to the energetic efforts of the current President Cleveland, has taken a severe turn, and the government does not stop even at depriving Mormons of certain important civil rights—election to government offices, for example—and has even subjected many to imprisonment, and this solely because Mormons believe in such a divine revelation, in their understanding, which contradicts the religious-moral code accepted by the State or its state religion[3].

But the connection of the American State with religion is also proven by a series of facts showing positive interaction between them. For instance, the government in America concerns itself with maintaining religiosity among the people. It is a well-known remarkable fact that in 1777 the American Congress entrusted a special commission to purchase in Europe twenty thousand copies of the Bible for distribution among the people in view of the fact that due to turbulent political circumstances one could not obtain paper and type for printing the Bible in America. In 1780 the same Congress appointed a special commission to oversee the printing of a domestic edition of the Bible in Philadelphia, and motivated this appointment by the fact that it highly values this pious and praiseworthy enterprise as contributing to the interests of religion, and recommended this Bible edition to the entire people of the United States. The very Constitution of the United States states: “Religion, morality, and science are necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind.” The famous Declaration of American Independence of July 4, 1776 was preceded by a solemn religious service. Subsequently all general public and state institutions bear upon them a clear imprint of Christian religion. Attached to Congress and legislative assemblies are special chaplains or clergymen, by whose prayers the sessions are ordinarily opened. Chaplains also serve with the army, navy, and prisons. The inviolability of worship is protected by strict laws. For trading in spirits in the proximity of a church the offender is subject to a fine, and a Black person to corporal punishment. Violation of worship through improper conduct, coarse conversation inside or even outside a temple or prayer meeting is punished with a heavy fine (from 25 to 500 dollars) or imprisonment.