The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-11-07
RELIGION AND THE NEW DEAL
SO what?

THE question often is raised as to what the
church can do in the present social crisis.
The answer would seem to be that the church
has an ample field for productive activity if
it will enlist in the struggle for social justice,
industrial decency and world peace. 1t can
with great propriety and helpfulness get be-
hind the New Deal and oppose the forces Of
corporate greed. 1t will meet all the obstruc-
tons and difficulties portrayed by Winston
Churchill in his Inside of the Cup" but here
is where the church belongs if it wishes to
justify its existence in the contemporary world.
In two articles in The World Tomorrow"
Dean Luccock. of the Yale Divinity school and
Rabbi Edward l.. Israel, of Baltimore, defend
the place of religion in advancing social radi-
calism. Dean Luccock comedies that in the
past religion has been an aid to conservatism
rather than to social progress.
Much organized religion has been an OBJ
struction to social progress, to the liberation of
the people, to the securing of justice Much
organized religion has been and is a reflection
Of the codes and morals of the privileged
groups who make up its adherents. The church
has frequently been conformed to this world
rather than acted as transforming agent"
Dean Luccock finds some four definite
contributions which religion may make to So
cial radicalism. It supplies zeal and energy
through the conviction that the individual is
acting in rapport with cosnic causes. 1t in
spires sympathy for human suffering 1t pro-
duces social rebels and reforming prophets. 1t
supplies standards by which to judge greed,
social evils and economic oppression.
Rabbi Israel believes that he can detect
signs Of increasing radicalism in contempo-
rary religion. The first great movements
against the evils of early capitalism following
the industrial revolution were carried out by
secular agencies, often in the face of clerical
opposition. Beginning, however, with the
work of Maurice and Kingsley and the encycli-
Gals of Pope Leo XIII, the church has come to
reckon with the sufferings of those who have
been sacrificed on the altar of riches and
cupidity.
Catholicism frequently has come out
against the gross materialism of American
capitalism. The Central Conference of Ame<-
lean Rabbis also has taken an aggressive stand
for a revision of the capitalstic order.
The trend right now in the church seems
to be in the direction of greater liberalism 1t
was the church report on Centralia which
finally secured some semblance of delayed
justice in that lamentable situation 1t was a
band of eminent churchmen who defied the
threats of Kentucky coal operators and
sheriffs, visited the mining areas there and
exposed the atrocious conditions to the clear
light of day Church bodies and their afili-
ates issue more devastating attacks upon I'M
restrained capitalism than emerge from any
secular source save the Socialist and Commu-
mist parties
There is one major limitation on religious
radicalism today. The water of supernatural
theology still appears to be thicker than the
blood of common devotion to social justice
and human betterment. Theological differ
ences all too often destroy community of inter
est in the battle against greed, oppression
and corruption. This not only prevents mod
ERNST churchmen from cooperating with
benevolent agnostics like Clarence barrow, but
even leads them to shy off from such adj
vanced modernists as the Humanists.
We shall never have any radical religion
worth the name so long as it remains closed
shop limited to devotees of supernaturalism
A radical religious leaders must have more of
a fraternal feeling for an agnostic crusader for
social justice than he does for some SNUG
apologist for the vested interests who happens
to wear clearical garb.