Collectivity in Humanity through universal Self-Sacrifice
The role of sacrifice has long been prominent in the religious practises of faiths throughout the world, be they ancient or modern, of Eastern or Western descent. Its prevalence rests on the underlying awareness of the power involved when one gives of what one has for the growth and prosperity of contemporary ages or those yet to come. As such, it is the common strand, all too often ignored, which unites humanist intentions of varying faiths, an identifiable thread which should motivate our generation to focus on bettering the welfare of our fellow women and men. In emphasizing the personal and collective duty of widespread self-sacrifice, religion must not only leave the realm of armchair theologians, poised for conflict in a drawing room of countless antagonists and their contingencies, but must abandon that forum altogether if we are positively to act in communal fashion for the salvation and rehabilitation of our dying world. If matters of theology and scriptural interpretation persist in detracting from the immediacy of environmental and humanitarian concerns, we run the risk of retracing the steps of those spectres past and present in letting polemics and debates divert energies where they might be more constructively channelled. Herein lies the most important lesson of so-called ‘liberal’ religions, for their ecumenical structure allows for a boundless diversity of personal attitudes towards faith and worship, while they bring together members of the local and global communities which can then get involved in small and large scale planning and activities.
The confusion between faiths and social paradigms has a long history in the development of Christianity, especially over the last five centuries. Controversies between the papacy and ‘reformist’ theologians pre-date the reformation by centuries, but it was during the sixteenth century that the issues were so lodged in the forefront as to be not easily dismissed. The dialectic which emerged from the ‘faith vs works’ controversy pitted Protestants against Catholics, each of which sought to discredit one another by masking the real issue beneath aggressive condemnations of each others’ beliefs. The fact remained that Catholics regarded the service of good works as a fundamental manifestation of one’s duty to and faith in God. Thus, involvement with relief efforts for the poor and needy were integral components of a Christian lifestyle. When Luther contended that ‘by faith alone’ one was destined for salvation, he by no means offered license for an apathy or immoral stance towards such community involvement. In fact, he held that “he who does not these works is a faithless man”. Do we not see that inter-denominational quarrels of this sort, which are surely prompted by personal ambition and ego-centric motives, can only lead to further rifts between faiths and, more importantly, schisms within the human community?
One might argue that we are beyond such petty squabbles and have become more ‘liberal’in our thinking. Surely this is not the case when we reserve salvation or enlightenment or redemption for that exclusive group which adheres to our beliefs and thereby maintains our prejudices. Until each of us is willing to acknowledge those forces, sometimes latent and at others visibly dominant, which are prone to be at work in every one of us, we shall never reach the stage where we can empathize with the plights of our global brethren and the environment in which we all live — it is then that we can mobilize and activize for the mutual benefit of our world and our souls.
All of the great religious classics of the world point us in the direction of the kinds of sacrifice we should all perform. The Vig Reda, which details the beliefs and rituals of the practitioners of the ancient Vedic religion, the precursor of Hinduism, emphasizes the oblation of the Soma to Gods such as Indra, Agni and Varuna. Here, a compound of religious importance is offered for the betterment of the community through the medium of the brahmin. The Taoistic classic, the Tao Tae Ching reads:
The universe is everlasting. The reason the universe is everlasting is that it does not live long for Self. Therefore it can long endure.
And in the analects of Confucius, the first book states that those who are “filial and brotherly” men go “for the root, when the root is solid the (beneficent) process starts growing, filiality and brotherliness are the root of manhood, increasing with it”. Then there is the “zakat” alms tax of Islam, called for by the elders of the faith in following the words of the Qu’ran. And again in the New Testament, we read:
The Commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself. (Romans 13:9–10)
When we begin to project our concerns outwards and see in the betterment of our fellow women and men the fulfilment of the duty of our own sense of humanity, artificial partitions collapse, and we reveal to the world the core essence of our being as we start to realize the true potential of the power of giving.
Examples of such self-sacrificial motivations abound all around us, in various forms and through the actions of diverse institutions and individuals. A definite problem arises when humanitarian efforts are subsumed beneath a banner of a specific faith or denomination, for those who might otherwise participate in the cause are often reluctant to associate themselves with a particular religious movement. Thus, when considering the missionary activities of Christians in parts of the Third World, a common reaction is to dismiss of reject theses efforts fully due to concerns over the underlying motives of the missionaries; i.e., it may be positive that schools, hospitals and public works programmes are erected, but it comes at the price (or so the common consensus runs) at the conversion of the native inhabitants and the loss or submission of their ancestral belief systems. Surely there are organizations which act independently of any religious affiliation, and likewise the good done by religious institutions cannot be denied. However, it is when we begin to conventionalize magnanimous activities and strictly associate them with certain institutions that divisions and partitions once again begin to materialize. Better that we act out of our faiths and humanitarian impulses to unite causes and organizations rather than using them to play off or undermine one another.
Such is the effort of many ‘liberal’ theologians and activists. The likes of William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Susan B. Anthony provide past examples. Others such as John Murray Atwood and Frederick May Eliot are more recent figures who worked in the liberal tradition. The stress is placed on the brotherhood of our common humanity, and from an ecumenical base are launched programmes to address and work towards the resolution of challenges facing the world. This century has seen numerous attempts to work towards a ‘United Liberal Church’, which would embrace traditions Christian and non-Christian alike. A step in this direction was taken in America when in 1961 the Unitarians and the Universalists merged to create th Unitarian Universalist Association. Previously, there had been a good deal of co-operation in public work activities between the two groups, but now, they could more comprehensively work alongside one another in meeting the needs of parishioners and extending the scope of their community involvement.
This is but one example of the goals and motivations of the various liberal religious movements which exist today. It is not a matter of collapsing all faiths into a hasty, and perhaps prematurely, constructed universal belief system, but it does involve a recognition of the universal factor of humanity which few of us could deny is our common lot. Whereas one might reject the concept of a United Liberal Church and argue that what makes individual faiths special is their uniqueness from one another, surely we must cease upholding our own beliefs if degrading others is part of the process. To do so would only add fuel to the catastrophes our planet is facing. Let us instead follow the wisdom of the ancients in laying the foundations for the future; let us come together in affirmation and celebration of our humanity; let us do so through a diligent insistence on individual and communal self-sacrifice.