BY REV. JOSEPH L. LENNON, O.P.
Religion is nothing more than man's acknowledgement of his dependence upon God.
That being so, the more heavily a religion insists that everything a man was, is, and hopes to be, comes from God, the greater the moral force that religion can generate.
Those religions which exert the most potent moral force teach that man's every action, his every need, his every desire, and ultimately his very salvation depend upon God. Indeed, the state of a person's spiritual health can be gauged by how frequently he refers all his actions to God.
A thriving religion also recognizes that in return for the gifts given him, God requires man to fulfill certain duties and obligations. The greater the duties and obligations, the greater the vitality of the religion. This is a general rule.
For example, Islamism is thriving today, even more than it has in the past, because of the spiritual demands it makes upon its adherents. A Moslem must bow to Mecca and pray five times daily at set times, he must attend services in the mosque regularly, he must observe strict religious proscriptions concerning food, he must follow a strict ethical code, he must scrupulously observe a variety of religious customs and conventions and, finally, he must regulate his life in accordance with the precepts of his holy book, the Koran, and strive to make converts. While all this causes inconvenience and discomfort, it is also a source of vast spiritual strength.
The Moslem willingly observes these requirements because they remind him of his daily and hourly dependence upon Allah, whom he regards as his supreme benefactor. Such rigorous spiritual sacrifice leads people to think that the Mohammedan might be attracted to an easier religion, to one that doesn't demand so much. Yet Christian missionaries attest that even in our own time it is well nigh impossible to convert a Moslem. Why? Simply because the Moslem wholeheartedly believes he is obeying the will of Allah. Dominican Bishop Bertrand Boland, who worked in the Pakistan apostolate for many years, observed that the number of Mohammedan converts could be counted on one hand.
The Catholic Church also makes demands upon its faithful, demands which, even though they have been relaxed somewhat in recent years, are nonetheless considerable. This accounts for much of the Church's strength and vigor. As with the Mohammedans, these demands make Catholics conscious of their identity, and attract others, because the duties of religion satisfy man's psychological need to recognize his dependence upon God.
Other religions which ask much of their faithful – Orthodox Jews, the Mormons, the Amish, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah Witnesses – all tend to be loyal and are not easily dissuaded from belief. The Catholic Church wins few converts from these denominations. On the other hand, "liberal" religions, particularly the major Protestant religious bodies in America, in which demands upon the faithful are minimal, are steadily losing their followers to the cults of agnosticism and humanism.
There are 65,000,000 or more Americans who believe in God but who do not go to church. Many are persuaded that it is possible to be religious, moral, and decent, without belonging to any church and believing en masse. They feel the individual can get as close to God as any priest or institutional church can bring them. Everyone knows upright, good-willed people who do not go to church, yet lead good lives.
But those of us who are conscious of the effects of Original Sin know that all humans are subject to a degree of spiritual laziness, and there can be no more effective antidote for laziness than a religious belief which makes substantial demands upon the faithful. Spiritual indolence tends to breed moral indolence.
Non-churchgoers, by their very absenteeism, are less forcefully reminded of their own sinfulness, and in any case, they cannot be counted upon to perpetuate, in any effective way, a tradition of awareness of sin. Without consciousness of sin, there is no need for salvation. Creedlessness begets a sense of sinlessness, and nowhere is creedlessness liable to be more evident than among non-churchgoers. Yet, the sage avers, "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."
In the long run, merely to believe there is a God is an inconsequential concession to religion. It is not enough to worship an impersonal, indiscriminate God who demands nothing by way of service, belief, or moral behavior.
So, while national opinion polls reveal that over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, they fail to point out that the United States has a vast reservoir of creedless Christians whose religion does little or nothing to help them maintain their awareness of sin, to avoid the dangers of being spiritually proud, or to provide detailed moral guidance for themselves or for their children.
Rev. Joseph L. Lennon, O.P., is a resident of St. Thomas Aquinas Priory at Providence College
