These books are collections of sermons from early and late in the career of possibly the most influential liberal churchman in American history. Histories of religious thought in America often speak of a decline in the influence of liberal theology following World War I and/or following the Great Depression, but this preacher had a radio program that was heard nationwide for decades during and after the Depression.
Fosdick was a Baptist who happened to be hired by New York’s First Presbyterian Church and became well known as a preacher and writer there, from 1918 to 1924. He is credited with having coined the term “fundamentalism,” and waged a very public battle with it in the 1920s (The Living of These Days: An Autobiography [Harper, 1956] 144&ndasndash;76). Asked by the Presbyterian General Assembly to pledge his acceptance of Presbyterian creed, he resigned his post, writing that such “creedal subscription” was “dangerous” to individual integrity (Living, 172). He went on to an even more prominent position at the non-denominational Riverside Church in Manhattan, where he preached until 1946. He also taught at Union Theological Seminary. His books were read by millions, but he was most well-known for his program on NBC radio for 19 years.
The sermons collected in these books are persuasive, accessible, and moving. Fosdick brings out essential aspects of the gospel without being pedantic, and speaks of Christian character without becoming moralistic. If “liberal” means an emphasis on growth, experience, and the responsible use of freedom, then Fosdick’s liberalism is clear from beginning to end. The first sermon, “Adventurous Religion,” identifies the gospel as a way of living, not a doctrinal system. “Discipleship was a costly spiritual exploit [that] required insight and bravery” (Adventurous, 2). Over time, faith “was increasingly drained of its vital elements” and turned into creeds and institutions “awaiting only the credence of the faithful” (3-4). Removal of creativity from the spiritual life is fatal, and a reformation is needed every time it happens. The religion of Jesus is not about passive acceptance.
“Moral Autonomy or Downfall” affirms the values of inward thoughtfulness and responsibility. Our problem, in America, is not our lack of science, technology, or external structures, but a lack of good inner direction and self-control. This problem is made worse by a materialism that tells us we are mere collections of atoms, “mechanically determined” (27). Fosdick could be speaking to our own generation when he says that churches need to counter this depressing belief with “the internal world, with its possibilities of goodness, truth, and beauty,” and take seriously “the vital needs of their generation” (28-29).
The essay “I Believe in Man” effectively makes the point that what got Jesus in trouble was not his belief in God (his enemies had that) but his belief in humanity, his “seeing people in terms of their possibilities” (34). Fosdick takes this to a new level, arguing that “this attitude of Jesus . . . is one of the major springs of Western democracy,” as it affirms the potential of ordinary people (35). Such connections are not argued systematically, but this is a book of sermons, not an academic work, and it works here. Fosdick assumes an intelligent reader who can follow his occasional leaps.
Science and religion is the subject of several sermons. Fosdick’s father had no difficulty believing in evolution (107), and Fosdick refuses to believe that “evolution crowds out God” (123). God may work through “slow gradation” (126). The advances of science do not replace religion’s uniqueness, its “warm confidence that something abides forever, grows and bears fruit” (182).
Liberalism and modernism are the themes of the last third of the book. Religious liberalism will only thrive through a “deepening of the spiritual life” and by clarifying what it affirms, not what it denies (240). Modernism arose as a critique, but to abide “it must pass through protest to production” (273–74). The last two sermons are on modern religious leadership and reformation. “The Master’s spirit has not divided Christians” though theories about him have (326).
The later book affirms the same values, but deals with complexities more deeply. “A Religion That Really Gets Us” returns to the dichotomy of creedalism and lived religion, but this time he gives creeds and institutions their due. They provide “some steady truth” in “a chaotic society” (What Is Vital, 56). Further, conservative religion affirms transcendent realities and can speak against those who would reduce man to a thing, as did the Bishop of Berlin against the “terrible creed” of Nazism (58). Fosdick argues that the battle against tyranny is also a battle against mechanistic philosophy, to which Christianity answers “man is the child of the Eternal Spirit,” and so “love is the law of life” (63). There is such a thing as objective religious truth, and it does not imprison the mind, any more than does scientific truth (64).
The next two sermons stress that honesty of character is essential; belief is not enough; “only the pure in heart can see God” (70). Even honest doubt and inquiry are valuable: “the sturdiest faith has always come out of the struggle with doubt” (91).
“Conservative and Liberal Temperaments in Religion” brilliantly uses the ark of the covenant as an illustration of the tendency to over-value symbols. Joshua thought God dwelt in the ark of the covenant, but Jeremiah was more advanced when he said we no longer need the ark nor even its memory (75). Differing views of the ark simply cannot be “iron[ed] out to one level” (77). There is such a thing as progress in religion. We all have an ark, a “special doctrine [or] ritual, some special theory of the Atonement” that acts like a fetish for us (83). This is not despicable, since genuine faith is involved. The symbols are like trellises around which our faith has grown. Liberalism makes a big mistake when it wants to smash all arks, because it will also be smashing the faith that has grown up around them. Some liberalism would cleanse religion with an acid that eats away religion itself, but we need a cleanser that does not destroy (84).
Fosdick remains liberal in the 1955 collection (progress is still necessary), but he has come to respect conservative instincts. He notices that “we Christians are separated by our creeds and rituals but are united by our prayers and hymns” (86), and gives examples from Unitarian, Catholic, and Quaker hymns.
The intriguing title “The Danger of Going to Church” pays off with an indictment of mind-numbing types of religion. Worship may give needed peace, but “it is not a lullaby. . . . I want some ethical consequences from our worship” (138). Instead, we often get a focus on appearances, adoration of popular preachers, or sectarian snobbery (135). It is religious people in Nazareth who are ready to kill Jesus after he speaks of God’s grace toward “Syrians and Sidonians” (134), and it is the religious who hurry by without helping the wounded, in the Good Samaritan story.
In “A Religion to Support Democracy” Fosdick returns to an earlier theme, but with a sobered awareness that “democracy stands now in critical peril” (199). Democracy depends upon the continuous renewal of certain spiritual factors; its enemy is not external, but an internal loss of certain “ideas and qualities,” the loss of “a religion that dignifies personality” (200). Democracy “trusts people with freedom to think,” and utters the revolutionary view “that the state exists primarily for the sake of persons,” not vice versa, but Jesus had first established the principle that “it is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish” (201). Jesus is one of our essential sources for the valuation of persons: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”; Fosdick says “our democracy has sprung from two main sources: early Greek experiments with popular government and Christ’s emphasis on the worth of persons” (202). Democracy is not simply the rule of the majority, which can also happen in a dictatorship, but is rather the respect for minorities, which one does not see in communist or fascist states (204). But democracy is in danger when character and public-spiritedness are in decline (209).
The next sermon states that the mature are those who begin to build—and are able to finish (215). But this can then lead to “The Temptations of Maturity”—complacency and pride (216). On the other side there is the temptation of sad bitterness (218). What is the secret of staying power, of sustained dignity?—“Creative faith” (219).
Finally, in “Faith and Immortality.” Fosdick argues that immortality is an inseparable part of the gospel. “Many cannot believe it” because they do not accept the Christian philosophy itself (222–24), which asserts that life is about always finding more truth, more goodness, and especially more love; we do not have a “God of unfinished business” (229–30). “Without faith in immortality, a closed door is the ultimate symbol of this universe” (231).
This review may seem, to some readers, to be too full of quotes, but surely a good sermon inspires thought as well as faith, and this was the best way to show that these sermons do both. Whether first uttered 55 or 85 years ago, these sermons still possess that power. Stimulated by their logic and their passion, I found myself imagining my own ways of elaborating these truths.
