James T. Cleland - "How Do We Look at Religion?" (August 9, 1970)

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	(light gospel music)	0:03
-	Let us offer unto God, our prayer of confession.	6:34
	Let us pray.	6:38
	Almighty God, our father in whose blessed son, our Lord,	6:41
	the divine life became flesh	6:49
	and dwelt among us full of grace and glory	6:52
	and who in Jesus has set before us	6:58
	an achievement of the highest potential of human life	7:00
	and of all thou doest intend for us to be.	7:06
	In shame and confusion do we confess before thee	7:11
	that with this light of truth shining upon us	7:16
	we have turned, every one, unto his own way,	7:21
	and we have walked in darkness.	7:25
	Forgive our broken and partial response to our high calling	7:29
	as children of God and joined as with Christ.	7:34
	And look with compassion, we beseech thee,	7:39
	upon the feeble and ofttimes tarnished spirit	7:43
	and tenor and quality of our lives.	7:48
	In Jesus name, amen.	7:52
	Dearly beloved, it is the holy and blameless example	7:59
	of Jesus that brings us into judgment	8:04
	and calls forth our confession of sin	8:08
	and acknowledgement of guilt.	8:12
	Measured by the standard of his life,	8:15
	we know we fail and fall short,	8:19
	far short of God's design.	8:24
	Yet, this same Jesus is the Lord	8:29
	who emboldens us to ask for mercy.	8:33
	Remember how he said that he came	8:38
	not to call the righteous, but sinners?	8:41
	Once, when a bad character would not even lift his eyes	8:46
	to Heaven but beat his breast saying,	8:51
	"God, be merciful to me, a sinner."	8:56
	Jesus said of him that he returned home a saved man.	9:00
	And when our Lord was put to death,	9:08
	a thief who was crucified beside him called out,	9:11
	"Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power."	9:16
	To him Jesus replied,	9:22
	"Today, you will be with me in paradise."	9:25
	Remembering his words, let us now offer our litany	9:33
	of thanksgiving unto the loving and compassionate Father	9:37
	who forgives our sins and heals our inequities.	9:43
	Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.	9:57
	Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.	10:05
	And gathered in from the lands	10:11
	from the east and from the west,	10:12
	some wandered in desert wastes	10:18
	hungry and thirsty.	10:24
	Then, they cried to the Lord in their trouble.	10:29
	He led them by a straight way.	10:35
	Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love.	10:40
	For he satisfies him who is thirsty.	10:48
	Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,	10:54
	and let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving.	11:01
	(light gospel music)	11:08
-	Let us hear the word of God	13:54
	as is contained in four passages of the holy scriptures,	13:57
	three from the "Old Testament",	14:04
	one from the "New Testament".	14:07
	Psalm one, one to three.	14:10
	"Blessed is the man who walks	14:14
	not in the council of the wicked,	14:16
	nor stands in the way of sinners,	14:19
	nor sits in the seat of scoffers.	14:23
	But his delight is in the law of the Lord.	14:28
	And on his law he meditates day and night.	14:32
	He's like a tree planted by streams of water	14:39
	that yields its fruit in its season.	14:44
	And its leaf does not wither.	14:48
	Micah six, six to eight.	14:53
	With what shall I come before the Lord	14:59
	and bow myself before God on high?	15:02
	Shall I come before him with burned offerings,	15:07
	with calves a year old?	15:12
	Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,	15:17
	with 10 thousands of rivers of oil?	15:20
	Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,	15:26
	the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?	15:32
	He has showed you, O man, what is good.	15:38
	And what does the Lord require of you?	15:44
	But to do justice and to love kindness	15:46
	and to walk humbly with your God."	15:53
	The gospel according to St. John,	16:00
	the first chapter, one to five and 14.	16:02
	"In the beginning was the Word.	16:09
	And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.	16:13
	He was in the beginning with God.	16:21
	All things were made through him	16:26
	and without him was not anything made that was made.	16:29
	In him was life.	16:36
	And the life was the light of men.	16:39
	And the light shines in the darkness.	16:43
	And the darkness has not overcome it.	16:46
	And the Word became flesh	16:50
	and welcome among us full of grace and truth.	16:54
	We have beheld his glory,	17:01
	glory as of the only son from the father."	17:05
	Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34.	17:12
	"'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord,	17:18
	'when I will make a new covenant	17:22
	with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,	17:24
	not like the covenant which I made with their fathers	17:29
	when I took them by the hand to bring them	17:34
	out of the land of Egypt.	17:37
	My covenant, which they broke,	17:40
	though I was their husband,' says the Lord.	17:45
	"But this is the covenant which I will make	17:50
	with the house of Israel after those days,' says the Lord.	17:53
	'I will put my law within them.	17:58
	and I will write it upon their hearts.	18:04
	And I will be their God,	18:10
	and they shall be my people.	18:14
	And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor	18:18
	and each his brother saying, "Know the Lord."	18:21
	For they shall all know me from the least of them	18:27
	to the greatest,' says the Lord.	18:31
	'But I will forgive their inequity.	18:35
	And I will remember their sin no more.'"	18:39
	Here endeth the lesson.	18:47
	(light gospel music)	18:50
-	The Lord be with you.	19:32
	Let us pray.	19:36
	Our heavenly father who art willing to receive	19:46
	and answer each sincere and earnest prayer	19:52
	and who has taught us that in returning	19:58
	and rest we shall be saved	20:01
	and in quietness and confidence shall be our strength.	20:05
	By the might of our spirit, lift us, we pray thee,	20:10
	to thy presence where we may be still	20:14
	and know that thou art God.	20:18
	Hear our prayer for others and ourselves.	20:23
	Since thou doest also mark the sparrows fall,	20:29
	we seek thy help, too, for all in sore distress and need,	20:35
	for the anxious and careworn,	20:42
	for the faithless and errant,	20:47
	for the bereaved and broken-hearted,	20:51
	for all those young and old who have lost the joy of living.	20:56
	We would pray for all sorts and conditions of men	21:07
	to whom Jesus was want to give special thought and care.	21:10
	For those lacking food or drink or raiment,	21:17
	for the sick and all who are wasted by disease,	21:23
	for the blind, for the maim and lame,	21:29
	for prisoners,	21:37
	for those oppressed by any injustice,	21:41
	for the lost sheep of our human society,	21:46
	for lonely strangers within our gates.	21:51
	We pray also for those friend and foe alike who are torn	21:57
	and ravaged by the scourge of war	22:03
	and stained and terrified in the carnage of battle.	22:07
	Guide and strengthen the efforts of men of all nations	22:14
	who strive for peace, who work to establish justice,	22:19
	to banish fear, to lift from us the heavy burden	22:27
	of hate and suspicion and greed.	22:33
	So do we pray for peacemakers in every walk of life	22:39
	who bring healing to the nations and comfort	22:45
	and hope to the children of men.	22:49
	Especially do we remember before thee with love	22:53
	and gratitude two servants of our community.	22:56
	Rosa Warren Myers, for her glad life	23:04
	as devoted faculty, wife, and mother,	23:12
	for years of leadership and inspired service	23:16
	in the Duke University choir,	23:21
	we give thee thanks, O Lord.	23:24
	And Richard John Sheeley,	23:29
	who prepared himself and devoted his life	23:36
	as a physician's assistant,	23:42
	for his scholarly attainments	23:46
	in the Duke University Medical Center,	23:48
	and for the giving of himself in skillful	23:53
	and loving dedication to patient care,	23:55
	we give thee thanks, O Lord.	23:59
	May it please thee to their families	24:03
	and friends by fatherly kindness in the midst	24:06
	of bereavement that they	24:10
	and we together may receive perfect consolation	24:14
	and deliverance in time of trouble	24:19
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	24:23
	And now, as our savior Christ has taught us,	24:27
	we pray together saying our father who art in heaven,	24:31
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	24:37
	thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.	24:41
	Give us this our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses	24:45
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	24:51
	and lead us not into temptation,	24:56
	but deliver us from evil.	24:58
	For thine is the kingdom and the power	25:01
	and the glory forever, amen.	25:04
-	Grace to you and peace from God, our father,	25:30
	and the Lord Jesus Christ.	25:35
	There is one major difficulty	25:41
	in conducting public worship for	25:43
	and with an interdenominational congregation such as this.	25:47
	It is the perplexity of appreciating	25:55
	and satisfying the different denominational emphasis	25:59
	of the faith at one and the same time	26:05
	in one and the same service.	26:10
	No matter how much goodwill we try	26:15
	to bring to bear on the matter,	26:19
	some person will feel annoyed,	26:22
	if not positively rebellious,	26:25
	at some aspect of the interpretation of Christian life	26:29
	and work as it is spelled out from the lectern	26:33
	or from the pulpit.	26:38
	Now, such a tension cannot be	26:41
	completely relaxed by one sermon,	26:44
	but maybe an examination of three or four attitudes	26:48
	will help us appreciate the problem,	26:54
	the problem which arises when people	26:58
	of differing Christian interpretation	27:01
	and emphasis come together in corporate worship.	27:05
	Therefore, let us ask the question,	27:12
	how do we look at religion	27:16
	and listen to the various answers?	27:20
	Perhaps we'll find one answer	27:24
	which is more satisfactory than the others.	27:26
	The first reply to the question, how do we look at religion,	27:32
	is religion defined in law.	27:37
	Now, that is a thoroughly understandable answer.	27:42
	There are folk who like precise detail,	27:48
	everything cut and dry down in black and white,	27:54
	easily read, plain to follow precept upon precept,	28:01
	line upon line.	28:08
	It is the blueprint approach to living.	28:11
	One follows the plan, abides by the prescription,	28:16
	one obeys the rules.	28:23
	Now, that appeals to many of us,	28:25
	because it leaves no room for beating about the bush.	28:28
	We know what we ought to do, whether we do it or not.	28:33
	Now, this point of view has been seen	28:40
	in religion in two great instances.	28:42
	It is to be observed in Judaism,	28:47
	the Deuteronomic Code of 621 BC	28:51
	and the Priestly Code of the year 500,	28:57
	where the valid but sometimes unspecific generalizations	29:02
	of the profits were put down in black and white	29:08
	so that people knew what to do so as to be right with God.	29:15
	I suppose one group of verses	29:22
	which we love as well as any in the Old Testament	29:24
	are those from Micah.	29:27
	"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord	29:30
	and bow myself before the high God?"	29:32
	Then, he makes his suggestions:	29:36
	sacrifice, rams, rivers of oil.	29:38
	"Shall I even give my first born for my transgression,	29:43
	the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.	29:49
	And the answer comes.	29:55
	He assured thee, O man, what is good	29:57
	What does the Lord require thee	30:01
	but to do justly and to love mercy	30:03
	and to walk humbly with God?"	30:06
	And that is beautiful, even clear,	30:11
	until we start thinking about it.	30:15
	What does it mean to do justly?	30:18
	What's it mean to love mercy?	30:22
	What's it mean to walk humbly with God?	30:26
	And the law scaled out in detail what Micah rhapsodized.	30:29
	It said here is what you do.	30:37
	And the people said, "Thank you, thank you very much.	30:41
	Now, we know what to do."	30:46
	And the first Psalm shows us the joy of the law,	30:50
	not the curse of the law, the joy of it.	30:52
	"Blessed is the man that walketh	30:56
	not in the council of the ungodly,	30:57
	but his delight is in the law of the Lord	31:00
	and in his law that he meditate day and night."	31:05
	Now, in the Christian faith,	31:10
	that point of view was seen in puritanism.	31:11
	It used to be evidenced in Presbyterianism.	31:15
	Take, for example, the sabbath.	31:20
	It's an interesting thing that Presbyterianism	31:24
	took over from Judaism the word for its holy day.	31:28
	They did not take the Christian word,	31:35
	which is the Lord's Day.	31:38
	They took sabbath,	31:42
	because they wanted to make of the Lord's Day a sabbath.	31:46
	A different from any other in the week.	31:52
	And it was different.	31:55
	There was church attendance all day long.	31:59
	I can remember that.	32:02
	Five times at church on the Scottish sabbath.	32:04
	Oh, don't think it made us bitter; it didn't.	32:10
	What we never forgot was that God could have had	32:15
	seven days like that if he'd wanted,	32:18
	but he chose only one.	32:25
	He was a decent soul.	32:28
	Dr. Jowett, who came from England	32:34
	to Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York,	32:36
	said that when he went to study theology in Edinburgh,	32:40
	he knew when the holy day had come,	32:44
	because on Saturday night,	32:48
	the landlady locked the piano and opened the harmonium.	32:50
	And on Monday, she locked the harmonium	32:56
	and opened the piano.	32:59
	There was even a holy instrument.	33:02
	That was one visible sign of righteousness.	33:06
	Now, this is religion conceived	33:09
	as law divinely given, obeyed to the utmost.	33:11
	There's good in it, of course there is.	33:16
	I speak of Presbyterianism,	33:19
	but there are two dangers.	33:21
	One danger is that of spiritual snobbery	33:24
	in those who keep the law.	33:30
	Read what our Lord said about the Pharisee,	33:33
	particularly the story of the Pharisee and the public.	33:37
	Or study the elder brother in the prodigal son.	33:43
	Now, there's a good man in the worst sense of the word.	33:48
	On the other hand, if we don't meet with spiritual snobbery,	33:55
	we come upon spiritual pessimism.	34:00
	Read Romans Seven.	34:03
	The problem of those who cannot keep the law	34:05
	and who are in despair.	34:09
	This interpretation of religion may be good,	34:12
	but it's not good enough.	34:16
	There's a second answer to the question,	34:20
	how do we look at religion.	34:21
	It is religion expressed in a standard.	34:24
	Now, let me approach by means of an analogy.	34:30
	Back in the '30s, my goodness, 20 years ago,	34:34
	there appeared in "Harpers Magazine"	34:38
	an article entitled "Then, What is Cricket?"	34:40
	I've never forgot it.	34:46
	It began, "You, sometimes, hear an Englishman	34:49
	say it isn't cricket.	34:52
	And by that, you know he's damning someone's conduct.	34:54
	What is cricket?	35:00
	It is not that extraordinarily tedious game	35:02
	which takes two days to play	35:06
	and which judged by its soporific effects	35:09
	upon the spectators has in it the properties	35:12
	both of an aspirin tablet and a lullaby.	35:15
	No, cricket is a standard.	35:20
	It is a norm."	35:25
	And then, he makes the following	35:27
	very shrewd remarks about in England.	35:29
	"The English don't like rules.	35:32
	They prefer standards, practical working standards,	35:36
	which they can see with their own eyes.	35:41
	And standards they have many.	35:44
	For in England, you may look	35:48
	in almost any department of life,	35:49
	and you'll be pretty sure to find at least one unit there	35:52
	towering above all others as a standard of high quality.	35:56
	The Rolls-Royce, for instance,	36:02
	in the field of motor manufacturing,	36:04
	the "London Times" in journalism,	36:07
	or "Punch" among comics,	36:12
	the country's choir as a pattern of rural public spirit,	36:15
	Harley Street doctors,	36:21
	heads of the large joints' top banks, judges,	36:23
	and those at the top of what they call the services."	36:29
	Then, he adds this.	36:33
	"You may not own a Rolls-Royce nor read the "Times",	36:35
	and you may be bored as many an Englishman is by cricket,	36:42
	but you're constrained to recognize	36:49
	the value of these various standards	36:51
	as practical influences for good."	36:54
	He finishes the article,	36:58
	"These institutions, then, taken together	37:00
	are what may be termed the higher conscience	37:05
	of the Englishman."	37:10
	The higher conscience of the Englishman.	37:13
	Now, this is England as contrasted with Scotland.	37:16
	This is Episcopalianism as contrasted with Presbyterianism.	37:21
	Religion in terms of a criterion of excellence.	37:27
	What is the Episcopal prayer book?	37:34
	It is "The Book of Common Prayer",	37:37
	not a book of common prayer.	37:41
	It lists the gospel and the epistle for the day.	37:45
	It lists any general confession,	37:54
	but I've never heard an Episcopalian	37:57
	refer to the prayer in those terms.	37:58
	He calls it the general confession.	38:01
	And for good measure, he adds the general thanksgiving.	38:05
	This is religion expressed in	38:10
	and judged by a criterion of excellence.	38:13
	But religion in terms of a standard	38:18
	is not the sole possession of Episcopalians.	38:20
	The Bible is a standard in theory for many folk.	38:25
	If that's too much of a muchness,	38:29
	then the scope is reduced to the gospels,	38:32
	or to one gospel or to "The Sermon on the Mount",	38:35
	or to John 14, or to First Corinthians 13,	38:41
	or to Psalm 23, or to the Golden Rule.	38:46
	Such is the norm for religious people	38:52
	who try to live according to a standard of excellence.	38:54
	Now, of course, there's a danger in this.	38:58
	The highest virtue is conformity.	39:02
	Perhaps that is why Anglicans are correct,	39:07
	rather than enthusiastic.	39:11
	Someone has said at Oxford University	39:15
	they practice fastidiousness and call it holiness.	39:18
	There's too often a lack of criticism,	39:23
	an unwillingness to change the standard.	39:27
	The gallant conservative may become a Tory diehard.	39:30
	He may accept the tradition instead of interpreting it.	39:34
	Even so, at its best religion expressed in a standard	39:39
	is more flexible than religion as law,	39:46
	but let's go on.	39:51
	A third answer is religion interpreted by an example.	39:53
	Now, we've moved away from the written code.	39:58
	We've moved away from a practical standard.	40:00
	Now, we are evaluating religion	40:03
	and shaping our lives in terms of a person.	40:06
	One who believed such an interpretation	40:12
	of life was Thomas Carlisle.	40:15
	He expounded and defended it in heroes and hero worship,	40:18
	where he sought to understand a movement	40:25
	in terms of the leader at the heart of the move.	40:28
	Now, of course, that point of view collapsed	40:33
	for a time before economic man,	40:38
	that Frankenstein of the ec department.	40:43
	Other things being equal,	40:48
	then economic man will do so and so, and so and so.	40:50
	Of course, other things are seldom equal.	40:57
	Therefore, he seldom doesn't.	41:01
	That's why classical economics is so often a branch	41:05
	of mythology rather than a science.	41:09
	But economics did defeat heroes	41:13
	and hero worship until what happened?	41:16
	What happened was that he that sitteth	41:19
	in the heavens laughed.	41:22
	And there arose Lenin, and Abacha, and Stalin,	41:25
	and Mussolini, and Hitler, and Winston Churchill,	41:33
	and Franklin Delano Roosevelt,	41:39
	and the Kennedy brothers, and George Wallace.	41:42
	And once again, we saw movements in terms of men.	41:48
	A man or a woman may be the guide of millions of people	41:55
	in some area of their lives.	42:02
	Now, while this answer to the interpretation	42:05
	of life is accepted all over the world,	42:08
	it's particularly prevalent in America.	42:11
	Life in terms of a hero.	42:15
	Life modeled on and evaluated by man.	42:20
	The word, any word, love, loyalty, sport, religion,	42:26
	is much more easily understood	42:35
	when it becomes flesh and dwells among us	42:37
	and we see the glory of the word in a person.	42:42
	That's why the prologue to the fourth gospel	42:47
	is such a notable piece of interpretation.	42:51
	Now, you know the two dangers here.	42:56
	One is that the hero may let us down.	43:00
	Do you recall the poem that Robert Browning wrote	43:06
	when Wordsworth ceased to be a liberal	43:11
	and became a conservative?	43:14
	"Just for a handful of silver he left,	43:18
	just for a riband to stick in his coat."	43:24
	And he thought of the days before that.	43:30
	"We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,	43:32
	lived in his mild and magnificent eye,	43:37
	learned his great accent, caught his clear accents,	43:40
	made him our pattern to live and to die."	43:44
	And then, Wordsworth left them for the right-wing party.	43:48
	Terrible thing when the idol is discovered	43:55
	to have feet of clay.	43:58
	What's going to happened to George Washington	44:01
	now that his expense account has come to light?	44:03
	So if the hero is alive, we may be let down.	44:11
	If he's dead but still a hero, what happens?	44:17
	Imitation becomes the highest virtue.	44:22
	May be the sincerest form of flattery,	44:26
	but it will breed spiritual parrots.	44:29
	I think that's even true of Jesus worship.	44:31
	If you haven't read it,	44:36
	get hold of Henry Cadbury's wise book	44:36
	"The Peril of Modernizing Jesus".	44:39
	And you'll see that.	44:44
	This is the faith more or less of adolescence.	44:46
	Maybe that's why it's so popular in the United States.	44:49
	There's a fourth answer.	44:56
	Religion embodied as an inner spirit.	44:56
	There, we come to religion at its purest.	45:00
	The emphasis upon the state of the heart upon character.	45:05
	And the interesting fact about it is this.	45:09
	That note comes ringing right down	45:12
	through the centuries in all kinds of places.	45:16
	Listen to Jeremiah, 600 BC.	45:21
	"I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.	45:25
	I will put my law in their inward hearts	45:30
	and write it upon their hearts and will be their God."	45:35
	Now, come 200 years on from Jeremiah	45:42
	and leave Palestine for Greece.	45:45
	Here is Socrates talking about the daimon,	45:50
	the spirit inside of him.	45:54
	"This is the voice which from childhood	45:58
	has frequently come to me and which makes itself heard	46:01
	only to turn me back from what I'm about to do,	46:08
	never to impel me forward, negative guidance.	46:15
	And Xenophon says writing of Socrates,	46:22
	"He yielded to it the most implicit obedience."	46:26
	Now, come 450 years on and go back to Palestine.	46:34
	Heareth St. Paul.	46:39
	"I live,	46:41
	not I,	46:44
	Christ liveth in me."	46:46
	Hear him again.	46:50
	"As many as are led by the spirit of God,	46:51
	they are the son of God."	46:55
	Or come 1,400 years on to France	47:00
	and watch St. Joan standing before her accusers,	47:04
	trying to posit the voice of the spirit within her	47:09
	against the decrees of the church.	47:13
	And the church did the only thing the church could do.	47:16
	It burned her at the stake.	47:21
	Or at least it persuaded the English	47:24
	to burn her at the stake.	47:26
	And then, it canonized her.	47:28
	Not just one or the other, but both.	47:32
	The church had to burn this kind of Christian,	47:36
	because she was dangerous as a fact.	47:40
	And the church had to canonize her,	47:45
	because she was and is admirable as an idea.	47:48
	Now, you see the difference between that way of living	47:55
	and living by law or by standard or by example.	47:58
	It's not confirming to an external law.	48:03
	It's not adherence to a standard.	48:06
	It's not the copying of a person.	48:09
	It is the overflowing of an inner spirit.	48:12
	And to describe it,	48:15
	you've gotta use such metaphors as radiation,	48:16
	the outgoing of the inner man,	48:19
	the transfiguration of the soul.	48:22
	Paul described it as the spirit which giveth life.	48:25
	Now, is a danger here, a tremendous danger.	48:32
	We know it.	48:35
	Paul knew it.	48:36
	He wrote about it to the Corinthians.	48:38
	Subjectivity, I decide, individualism.	48:41
	If each person has the spirit,	48:48
	if each person knows what is good, the good,	48:50
	then we may have spiritual anarchy.	48:54
	It can lead either to a rampant individualism	48:58
	or to the formation of an exclusive set,	49:03
	a spiritual oligarchy.	49:08
	I think the Quakers do the best job with this spirit.	49:10
	But even they don't have to seek their troubles	49:16
	regarding the interpretation of it.	49:19
	And so there is very briefly a fifth	49:24
	and the last answer I leave with you for this question,	49:26
	how do we look at religion.	49:30
	The last answer is religion as inner spirit	49:33
	expressed as standards, interpreted by example,	49:42
	and formulated in law.	49:52
	There is no doubt that the person whose life is controlled	49:57
	by the indwelling spirit of God comes closest	50:01
	to the ideal of a religious Christian.	50:06
	And the peculiar danger of spiritual anarchy	50:11
	can be anticipated,	50:15
	and it can be overcome by the use	50:17
	of the other three as safeguard.	50:21
	Test the religion of the inner life	50:25
	by evaluating the standards.	50:28
	Are they still valid or are they heirlooms?	50:31
	Are their claims reasonable?	50:37
	Are they worthy touchstones?	50:39
	Test it by choosing the examples.	50:43
	Read the biographies of the saints.	50:46
	What makes them leaders rather than signposts?	50:49
	Let our spirits find in them kindred spirits	50:55
	as we begin to know what is meant	51:00
	by the communion of saints.	51:02
	Let's test it by examining the law codes of religion.	51:08
	Let us sift them, weigh them, amend them.	51:12
	Let us remember the tremendous value of law	51:17
	in hindering hindrances to the good life.	51:21
	Law may not always	51:27
	or even intentionally promote the good life,	51:29
	but it can hinder hindrances to the good life.	51:34
	Let's keep in mind the practical value	51:40
	of law for ordinary man.	51:42
	I think it's in interrelation of all four answers	51:46
	that the true interdenominational answer is found,	51:50
	but we shall have to meditate and meditate	51:56
	and meditate on the interrelation.	52:01
	It takes time.	52:04
	It's not an act.	52:07
	It's a process.	52:09
	It is a religious discipline.	52:11
	And what will the result be?	52:13
	As many as are led by the spirit of God,	52:16
	they are the sons and daughters of God,	52:21
	Sons and daughters of God,	52:26
	because of the spirit within	52:31
	expressed through law in standards by personal example.	52:34
	And the question for each one of us to ask	52:47
	is how does each one of us look at religion?	52:48
	Let us pray.	52:57
	Almighty God, who doest continue to reveal thyself	53:02
	in the working of thy holy spirit,	53:06
	grant us to know that the control of our spirits	53:10
	by thy spirit is the hallmark of our faith	53:13
	and that thy spirit manifests itself	53:19
	in standards, persons, and laws,	53:23
	so that we may understand one another	53:29
	and offer to thee a united worship to the honor of thy son,	53:35
	Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	53:43
	(light gospel music)	53:53
-	Oh God, most merciful and gracious	1:04:15
	of whose bounty we have all received,	1:04:20
	accept this offering of our people,	1:04:24
	a token and pledge that our lives are thine.	1:04:27
	Remember in thy love those who have brought it	1:04:33
	and those for whom it is given	1:04:37
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	1:04:40

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "How Do We Look at Religion?" (August 9, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4vd6t60v

Date:

August 9, 1970

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0533
ref6269_3qr
uachapelsermaud
duke:628232
dcrau002522
ark:/87924/r4vd6t60v
02bd4600-992c-442e-966a-55fd755f2bf6

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - "How Do We Look at Religion?" (August 9, 1970)

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1. James T. Cleland - "How Do We Look at Religion?" (August 9, 1970)

Duke University Archives

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James T. Cleland - "How Do We Look at Religion?" (August 9, 1970)

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