“FREETHOUGHT: THEN AND NOW”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
People sometimes ask me how I find a sermon topic. Sometimes the topics find me. In this case I read in a news magazine and saw on a television broadcast the observation that for the first time in a long time, if ever, the best-seller lists of books include several books arguing for atheism or against religion. Those who observed that wondered why. Conventional wisdom tells us that traditional religion is stronger than it has been in at least fifty years. Conservative churches are still growing, and we are led by a President who wears his religion on his sleeve more than any other President I can remember.
So how is it that the voice of atheism or skepticism, or secular humanism, the infidel, or the “unbeliever” or what was once called “freethought” can find such an audience today?
It sounded like a good question to me. Before I’m done I will comment on some of those current “best-sellers,” and why they may be popular, but first I want to look more carefully at the “freethought” tradition and its role in our country.
The umbrella word that covers several different traditions of religious skepticism is “freethought,” and I use it here because I think it includes and excludes everything I’d like to believe it does. The term dates back at least two hundred years. It describes a kind of thinking that doesn’t have boundaries imposed by scripture or church tradition. It denies any external authorities from religion over the mind. The mind, and its ability to reason, is the only authority to justify your beliefs. Therefore, those within the freethought movement by definition deny the authority of the Bible or of creed. They are not necessarily atheist, but they certainly deny the God that is taught by church tradition.
The
These two paths were to some extent incompatible. One led to theocracy, the other to religious liberty. When the time came to write the Constitution, of course, the call for religious liberty became the law of the land, though the longing for theocracy – for a nation and government based on explicit Christian precepts – took solid hold in many segments of society, in spite of the Constitution.
Alongside both
of these views, a relatively new kind of thinking about religion was taking
shape. It took the position that
traditional religion is not only inadequate, it is misleading, that the only
oracle for true belief is reason – not bibles or clergy or creeds. That voice was the American expression of
Enlightenment thought that was prominent in much of
This view was perceived, with some justification, as being hostile to religion in general and traditional Christianity in particular. Those who held some sympathy for that new line of thinking tended to call it “freethought,” and those who felt that way were “freethinkers.” Those who were horrified by this new school of thought were more inclined to call it “infidelity,” and those who believed that way were “infidels.” The word “infidel” was coined to indicate simply that someone does not practice obedience, or fidelity, to the creeds.
That school of thought traces back to the earliest days of our nation. Among the earliest was Ethan Allen, a hero of the Revolution. As in the tradition of freethought, Ethan Allen believed that traditional Christianity, with its demand for dogma, was an impediment to the strength of human reason. He wrote that “Witchcraft and Priestcraft were introduced into this world together,” and he made it clear that in his view they shared the same superstitions. He predicted that in the future,
“knowledge of nature and science will exalt the reason of mankind above the tricks and imposture of Priests, and bring them back to the religion of nature and truth. . . . While we are under the power and tyranny of Priests. . . . it ever will be in their interest to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”
Allen’s voice was followed by an even stronger freethinker, Thomas Paine, who was respected for his political call for liberty, but was held in contempt by many for his critique of the church and creeds. In his well known book, The Age of Reason, he spoke of the Bible as
“the trash the church imposes on the world as the WORD OF GOD; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the HOLY BIBLE! this is the rubbish called REVEALED RELIGION.”
Strong words. Yet his animosity was toward the church and orthodox Christianity. He himself was a deist, and held a strong belief in the God of deism. Elsewhere, he wrote:
“my motive and object in all my publications on religious subjects. . . have been to bring man to a right reason that God has given him; to impress on him the great principles of divine morality, justice, mercy, and a benevolent disposition to all. . . to excite in him a spirit of trust confidence and consolation in his creator, unshackled by the fable and fiction of books, by whatever invented name they may be called.”
I mention
Deism, and historically it falls under the umbrella of “freethought.” Deism is the view that God created the world
but does not interfere in it. Deists
were at least suspicious of, if not often hostile to, the creeds and the
orthodox church. And it is true that
many of the founders of this country fall within the deistic school of
freethought – certainly Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. While most in the country revered
There is an
interesting piece of trivia that need not to be relegated to an historical
footnote. In the early 1800s, as
I should also
say a word about the relationship of Unitarians and Universalists to the
tradition of freethought during this period in the early nineteenth
century. They were certainly not aligned
with the anti-religious stand of Thomas Paine, and the New England Unitarians
were not sympathetic to
And now for another piece of trivia. I have not yet seen, though I hope to, the current movie by the title “Amazing Grace,” that is the story of William Wilberforce, a devout Christian in England who is portrayed as being the primary voice in making slave trade illegal in England. It turns out the Wilberforce deserves a footnote in Unitarian history, too. In a speech in 1797, Wilberforce described Unitarianism as being a “halfway house to infidelity.” Here is how he said it:
“From nominal orthodoxy to absolute infidelity, Unitarianism is a sort of half-way house, if the expression may be pardoned; a stage on the journey, where sometimes indeed a person finally stops, but where not infrequently, he only pauses for a while, and then pursues his progress (to infidelity).”
The metaphor was to become widely popular in American orthodox religious circles, and Unitarians were often found on the defensive, renouncing infidelity. It can be said, of course, that there was, and is, a grain of truth to Wilberforce’s observation. Such a journey sometimes passes this way, but as a general observation it clearly falls short.
Even the strongest voice of Unitarianism, William Ellery Channing, was caught in the crossfire of this accusation. He did his share of distancing himself from the charge of infidelity, but he also defended not only the free speech rights of freethinkers, but also their inclination to reject misuse of Jesus’ teachings by the traditional church. Here is one way he said it:
“To reject Christianity under some of its corruptions is rather (more) a virtue than a crime. . . . I cannot, then, join in the common cry against infidelity as the sure mark of a corrupt mind. . . . I cannot look upon unbelief as essentially and unfailingly a crime. . . . I do not condemn the unbeliever, unless he bear witness against himself by an immoral or irreligious life.”
I should also offer a look at Universalism in this story. Universalists were known throughout the country, and especially in the mid-west, for offering a platform for unpopular causes, whether they agreed or not with the speaker. Universalism in general disavowed the more extreme versions of freethought, like that of Thomas Paine, but they were often accused of it because they gave speakers a forum.
Then there’s
the interesting case of one Abner Kneeland, ordained as a Universalist minister
in 1804, but after 25 years, in 1829, declared himself an atheist and resigned
from the Universalist church, and became a professional lecturer centered in
In 1834, he was
arrested and tried in the state of
Though neither the Unitarians nor the Universalists offered sympathy for his views, they both rose to defend his free speech rights and condemn his criminal conviction. Channing wrote a petition to the Governor for his unconditional pardon, and it was signed by prominent Unitarian voices, including Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The nineteenth
century was to become the great days of freethought in
Ingersoll was
the son of a Presbyterian minister who spoke out strongly against slavery. Ingersoll fought in the Civil War as a
Colonel, and came home from the war as a hero.
He was active in the Republican Party, and though he once served as
Attorney General for the state of
In the
nineteenth century, before television or radio or amusement parks, the public
lecture was the primary form of entertainment, and became quite popular. He spoke on a variety of topics: women’s
suffrage, Shakespeare, politics, evolution, and so forth, but the most popular
topic was religion and agnosticism. His
name was as widely known in those days as “Dr. Phil” is known today, and
tickets to his lectures went as high as one dollar – a very steep price at the
time. In
Ingersoll had an engaging lecture style that attracted masses of people. It is said that he would memorize his three-hour speeches and he had dozens of them. On the topic of religion, his favorite subject may have been not just the hypocrisy of the traditional church, but the damage it had done over centuries of violence against innocent people. Here’s a snippet of Ingersoll’s style in a lecture on “Heretics and Heresies”:
“Men and women have been burned at the stake for thinking there is but one God; that there was none; that the Holy ghost is younger than God; that God was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though he had a nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; . . . for attending mass; for refusing to attend, for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, for being a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. . . . “
I abbreviated the list he gave of sins for which people have been executed by the church. What I read was less than half of what he gave, but you get the flavor, I think.
Ingersoll died in 1899, though the freethought movement remained vigorous up until World War I. And then, something happened. For the bulk of the twentieth century, the freethought movement – skepticism, agnosticism, atheism, unbelievers and infidels – lost much of their influence and held a very low public profile. Yes, the movement was far from dying out at any point, but it no longer seemed to peak the public’s fancy. There have been intellectuals like Bertrand Russell, but there has never been a voice like Paine or Ingersoll to attract public interest.
The historical question of the reputation of freethought is an interesting one. Why had such a major cultural phenomenon for 150 years seem to become so minor during the twentieth century?
Church historian Martin Marty suggested an answer quite a few years ago in his historical study of this topic in a book he called “The Infidel.” After asking why the movement seemed to stagnate in the 20th century, he wrote:
“The partial answer must be that there was progressively less to be infidel about. Stated in another way, this means that, though they seldom admitted it, the infidels were getting what they wanted. In this long view the churches were winning the battles while losing the war; they were defeating secularists against a background of increasing secularization. . .”
In other words, the freethought critique of the church was having some effect. At least the mainline churches were opening up to more liberal theologies that were less harsh and judgmental. Churches actually spoke of religious tolerance and ecumenical organizations were formed for cooperation among traditions that at one time killed each other. The church’s hold over public policy loosened as courts began enforcing separation of church and state, such as banning prayer in schools and recognizing religious minorities. The culture that in the nineteenth century was shocked but still intrigued by the irreverent writings of a Mark Twain, by the twentieth century was no longer shocked, and thereby perhaps less intrigued.
I once entitled a sermon “Whatever Happened to Existentialism?” Those of you who are my age or older will recall the popularity of existentialism in the 1950s and 1960s. It asserted, simply, that we are alone in creating who we are, that we can’t depend on either religion or science to make life meaningful. Freedom and will are our only hope. For more than a generation, existentialism deeply influenced literature, art, music, and even theology. This wildly popular philosophy ushered in beatniks, hippies, and anarchists. And then it seemed suddenly to disappear.
Which led me to ask in my sermon, “Whatever Happened to Existentialism?” My answer was that it was largely absorbed within society, its precepts were so widely accepted that its challenges to our cultural ethos no longer carried a shock-value.
I suggest something similar may have happened to the “freethought” movement. Like existentialism, freethought never ascended to dominate the culture, but it influenced so much of our society that it eventually lost its shock-value. And in losing its shock-value, it also lost its strength to challenge the dominant culture.
But what is interesting is that there seems to be a new wave of freethought, especially of the more extreme schools. I spoke last year on the book “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris in which he declares that it is time to recognize religion itself as the enemy of human civilization, and he carefully recounts all the damage religion – whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and whether, in his view, fundamentalist or moderate – has done to humanity. He now has another best-seller, a shorter version with the same theme he calls “Letter to a Christian Nation.”
Another current bestseller is called “The God Delusion,” by renowned British biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is recognized as one of the best writers on science for the general reader, and this book is well written for a broad audience. It is both a philosophical defense of atheism and an all-out attack on all religion everywhere. He takes no prisoners, allows no slack.
Neither Harris nor Dawkins make room for religious liberals or moderates as different from fundamentalists. Religion is a disease, and whether one is at stage one or stage five of the disease, he or she is still infected and sick.
It is not unusual that such books are being published. What is unusual is that they are popular. For most of the 20th century, such books were limited to small audiences, usually those already convinced. But these are now extraordinarily popular. Has freethought made a come-back?
I don’t know. No one can say for sure. I suspect that people are gradually becoming more nervous about the influence of religious fundamentalism. In the last two decades of the 20th century, religious fundamentalism had grown in influence, culminating in the rise to political power of this view in the Congress and the White House. That power has not been entirely successful as Congress had a meltdown by scandal and the President is bogged down in an unpopular war.
And of course, not long into the 21st century, we face the real threat of Islamic fundamentalism in destroying not just our way of life, but our lives. In the face of fanaticism, perhaps people are becoming somewhat weary of religious fanaticism of any stripe. Where once it was untoward to say something negative about religion, perhaps now religion has lost some of its luster and immunity from criticism.
What I am most curious about, though, is not what these authors are saying, but rather my reaction to what they are saying. I know what I think about what they’re saying; I just can’t quite figure out how I feel about it. Here’s what I mean:
I have always had an appreciation for freethought, even the more radical ones like Thomas Paine and Mark Twain and Robert Ingersoll. I can read their critiques of religion and the church and cheer them on. Sometimes they exaggerate to make a point, I know, but their perspectives were healthy and needed when they gave them. The religion they critiqued was, by and large, just as they said it was: rigid, intolerant, divisive, and destructive.
But now, a hundred years later, religion has broadened beyond what they would have recognized. There is such a thing now as religious tolerance within a religious perspective. There are believers who keep an open mind. Mainstream Christianity, while I have plenty of intellectual and existential issues with it, no longer is a threat to my welfare or anyone else’s. The threat still exists in various fundamentalisms, but by and large American religions are extraordinarily more open to civil discourse than they were during the heyday of freethought.
Here may be the trouble I’m having. For me, one practical definition of fundamentalism is this: a fundamentalist is a person who feels personally threatened if someone believes differently than they do. I say that is a “practical” definition, because I know it doesn’t have anything to do with what people believes, though it has everything to do with how they believe it. The trouble I’m having is that the new wave of freethought seems to fall under that definition of fundamentalism. When reading these authors, one gets the feeling they are on a crusade to eliminate metaphysical and religious error from the face of the earth, that any belief different from theirs is a threat.
One of my favorite writers that blends religion with science is the physicist Freeman Dyson. He wrote a review of another bestseller that critiques religion, though with less vitriolic fervor. It is called “Breaking the Spell” by philosopher Dennis Dennett, which seeks to de-mystify religion into a natural human quality that can be studied scientifically. But in that review Dyson makes this cogent observation.
“There are two kinds of atheists, ordinary atheists who do not believe in God and passionate atheists who consider God to be their personal enemy.”
I suppose that helps identify my uneasiness with what I’m calling this “new wave” of freethought. As with religious fundamentalists, they seem take it personally if someone believes differently about religious ideas than they do.
I have said that the difference between freethought in the nineteenth century and freethought in the twenty-first century is that now there are strains of religion which are open and tolerant and no threat to human welfare. I agree with the recent authors in observing that we are facing a new threat of religious fundamentalism. I agree with them that that threat needs to be stopped. Where I differ is this, I guess.
In their view Christian and Muslim fundamentalism can be stopped only when humanity rids itself of all religion. From my view that goal is utopian and untenable. Rather, it seems to me that the best antidote to fundamentalism is to strengthen and encourage within Christianity and Islam the elements and traditions which are tolerant and open and promote cooperation and peace. The difference between the old freethinkers and the new freethinkers is that we live in a world where alternatives to fundamentalism exist. If someone believes differently than we do, we do not have to feel personally threatened. To feel so threatened is to embrace the spirit, if not the practice, of fundamentalism itself.
READING from Robert Ingersoll’s lecture,
“Constructive Freethought” (1890)
The object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth – the conditions of well-being – to the end that this life will be made of value. This is the affirmative, positive, and constructive side.
Without liberty, there is no such thing as real happiness. . . . The highest possible idea of happiness is freedom.
All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded – certain things must be believed – certain things must be done – and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of individuality or hope of intellectual growth and progress.
The religionist informs us that there is somewhere in the universe an orthodox God, who is endeavoring to govern the world, and who for the purpose resorts to famine and flood, to earthquake and pestilence – and who, as a last resort, gets up a revival of religion. That is called “affirmative and positive.”
The man of sense knows that no such God exists, and thereupon he affirms that the orthodox doctrine is infinitely absurd. (Some call this) a “negation. But to my mind it is an affirmation, and is a part of the positive side of Freethought. A man who compels this Diety to abdicate his throne renders a vast and splendid service to the human race.
As long as there is tyranny in heaven they will practice tyranny on earth. Most people are exceedingly imitative, and nothing is so gratifying to the average orthodox man as to be like his God.
The Freethinker knows that all the priests and cardinals and popes know nothing of the supernatural --- they know nothing about gods or angels or heavens or hells – nothing about inspired books or Holy Ghosts, or incarnations or atonements. He knows that all this is superstition pure and simple. He knows also that these people – from pope to priest, from bishop to parson, do not the slightest good in this world – that they live upon the labor of others – that they earn nothing themselves – that they contribute nothing toward the happiness, or well-being, or the wealth of mankind. He knows that they trade and traffic in ignorance and fear, that they make merchandise of hope and grief – and he also knows that in every religion the priest insists on five things: First: There is a God. Second: He has made known his will. Third: he has selected me to explain this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection, and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned.