Blog
Greetings, St Gertrude’s day revelers. It is time to settle back down and get to it. Seriously, we are on deck for seven weeks of class without a break and with the bulk of the work for the semester due in all classes. You will note that the examination is up (yeah) and that we need to be thinking in terms of our own finishing up second assignment. At least the most difficult reading is done.
There are several points that emerge from the reading and the blogs for discussion.
1. The first and most important is to note how Schleiermacher’s identification of religion with feeling or self-awareness allows him to relate religion and art and religion and music. There is some profoundly similar to how one responses to a well-said mass or other religious act and how one responds to a classical work of art or of music. And there may be theological bridges there as well. The chord structure of the B Minor Mass (Bach) does seem to convey a Trinitarian understanding of God.
2. Schleiermacher is both a loyal Christian and a person who believes that all religions have some value and that each religion has its own unique response to the Ultimate. There is, thus, something valid in Buddhism that is simply not present in Christianity and vice versa. He also recognizes (as much of present day liberalism does not) that there are places where different religions are not easily related. See John Cobb on the world religions for a liberal position similar to Schleiermacher’s.
3. Schleiermacher is not a moralist. He does not meditate much on the problems of good and evil, and in many ways, he and his enlightened friends share the belief that as modern people become more scientific and more secure in their humanity, that much of non-natural evil will disappear. But, even if not, it is not his concern. His interest is in how religious symbols, such as the devil and others, make it possible for people to deal with the evils in the world.
Thanks for struggling through with this. See you tomorrow.
Sandra Lucas
Your point on music and art were very important for Schleiermacher. His understanding of religion as essentially a modification of self-consciousness is one that allows religion to make contact with other subconscious human responses.
Schleiermacher: 4th
Speech
This fourth speech by Schleiermacher was much more accessible than his other speeches, at least for me.
I liked his thoughts on the impossibility of capturing and expressing the religious experience. He states that words don’t convey the depth or the mystery of the Divine. Poetry, art, and music help capture that experience. “In sacred hymns and choruses to which the words of the poet are but loosely and airily appended, there are breathed out things that definite speech cannot grasp,” he writes. (p. 152) He makes a strong case for using various artistic forms as a way of communicating the spiritual nature of the human being, Nature, the Universe, and God.
I also like his strong assertion that religion, unlike the sciences, cannot be studied or categorized. Nor can it be communicated or discoursed casually. “On sacred subjects it would be rather sacrilegious than fitting to be ready with an answer to every question and a response to every address,” he writes. (p. 150) Rather, the discussion of religion should be more like a conversation between friends “or the dialogue of love” he writes, “where glance and action are clearer than words, and where a solemn silence also is understood.” (p. 150)
I have experienced that kind of conversation in spiritual direction or in prayer at the bedside of a dying patient. Sometimes I experience it during liturgy but often I discuss religion or spiritual matters with a matter-of-factness or a casualness, like one is discussing the price of gasoline or the weather. It’s a good reminder that one needs to remove one’s (metaphorical) shoes before entering this “intercourse with the heart of man.” (p. 151)
I like Schleiermacher’s reflections on the distinctions and lack of distinction between priest and layman although it seems idealistic and unrealistic at times. I also wondered if he uses the word “man” inclusively; I think he does because he insists that everyone is an essential part of the whole. “Everyone knows that he is both a part and a work of the Universe, in him also its divine life and working being revealed. (p. 180). This extends from the individual to all humanity into eternity.
Gary Cyr
Schleiermacher
3/26/08
In doing the readings for this session, I’ve found myself “stuck” on the notion of universal salvation and atonement. There is a hint of universalism that challenges the belief that salvation is through the Church alone. Here, Schleiermacher carries the Lutheran idea of the priesthood of all believers to an inclusive level that nudges the proselytizing efforts of reformed and Catholic missionaries who preach salvation through Christ and only Christ. For me, I come away thinking about the export of religion and the import of religion.
Colonialism exported a religion that sought to convert an indigenous population from primitive belief to true belief with no compunction to their methods. Perhaps,. But there is much evidence that his picture of missionary work was more a product of western critiques of religion than it was of what actually happened on the field. What I hear in Schleiermacher is a realization that religion has imported other practices and beliefs into its own system of belief. Those who adhere to rationalization alone or overt pieties are extremes that distort true religion and the ability to encounter the sacred in the other. I come away with a sense that one religious practice cannot convey the all of God. In other words, the heart of the matter is not the surface of religion or society, but the interior workings of the spirit that is stirred through art, nature, and the universe as a whole. That is Schleiermacher’s point
What arises for me from these readings is the Platonic theory of Perfect Forms. Our exterior embodiment is but a reflection of the Perfect. It’s our interior selves that resonate with the Universal, which is most notable when we encounter art or music. When art stirs us or music emotively awakens us, we encounter that which lies deepest within us, a true religion that unites us in our diversity. Neither exterior legislation nor moral piety can do as much.
This raises a question for me: Does religion shape the social sphere, or does the social sphere shape religion? Schleiermacher seems to be speaking of a communion that includes both instead of the exclusion of one or the other. Extreme piety or knowledge and reason alone are neither able to quench the thirst for connection with one another and nature nor fully shape our moral ethics. I come away thinking that the individual finds his/her fullest self in the communal, and that the communal shapes and forms the individual Yes, that is close to what Schleiermacher intends to say..
Schleiermacher speaks of the essence of the church being fellowship, a true communion of seekers in all their diversity. It’s this diversity that enriches religion in the face of a teaching that unity (universality—catholicity) is found in only one form of religion. It’s a concept that is still being wrangled over today. Schleiermacher seems to have set the stage that continues to challenge doctrine, whether social or religious, that only one way of living and believing is able to structure a society properly. That social and religious community can be legislated from above, which only orders the exterior leaving the interior empty and longing (searching?) for more. Uniformity is found in plurality, not singularity of belief and thought. It questions, in my opinion, both the Geneva reform where religion shapes society, that biblical truth governs the laws that govern society, and the Roman churches belief that salvation is only through the church Or the Anglican belief that there is a church within a territory.
I come away from these readings questioning where theodicy fits into the picture. What was Schleiermacher’s understanding of the harm humanity can inflict upon nature and fellow humans? What is his concept of evil in the world? Did I miss it in the readings? This reading did not deal with evil. For Schleiermacher, morality is related to religion but it is not a matter of religion. One of the dangers in most philosophical forms of theology is that since evil is part of the possibilities of creation; that is, part of ontology, it does not effect the soul, except insofar as the soul responds to the world. Evil only becomes a problem is the ground of existence really is good or the ground of existence ought to be good. Otherwise, evil acts are among the possibilities for humans, and one hopes to build societies and other structures that make them less likely, not for the sake of God, but for the sake of humanity’s own self-interest. The moralism of much of contemporary piety and theology would strike Schleiermacher as dull, uninteresting, and deadly. We do what we can do to make human life human.
CH 1502 Phyllis
Merritt
Christian
Movement II
Glenn Miller week of
Schleiermacher
On Religion: Speeches to
Its Cultured Despisers
Speeches Three, Four and Five
In beginning
this speech, Schleiermacher states that it is the “character of religion” (119)
to try to make converts. While that
attempt is not always successful, he feels that we should not feel distressed
about that “unsuccessful issue.” (119) In fact, he says “it would be foolish to expect that many
could be fit to cultivate and retain religious feelings which prosper best in
quiet.” (121) Even in the best of
conditions, all one can do is to communicate an idea that another will
associate with his/her own ideas and remember at appropriate times. We cannot teach piety, only doctrine.
With that in
mind, I began to read this speech thinking of my years as an elementary school
principal. Comparisons loomed
large! Maybe it is not the foes of
education, those who constantly moan that American children lie in the cellar
when compared with their age- and grade-mates around the world, who are
destroying our public school system; it may be the well-meaning people who
craft benchmarks and create grade-level expectations who are crushing the
desire of teachers to teach and children to learn. I, like Schleiermacher, “regard the longing
of young minds for the marvelous and supernatural” (125) with great reverence. I agree that “Without regard to their real
want, there is given them that of which far too soon there will be too much.”
(126)
I felt the
comparison helped me understand Schleiermacher’s points. He feels that too many times we are taught
that we need to analyze everything to death; that love of art is an extravagance;
that knowledge should always assist our practical lives; and that we are to
pity anyone who goes beyond our little circle of “truth”, our doctrine of
belief. Having true religion, we must
remember and feel that we are
surrounded by the Infinite. We must be
reflective.
When I read
page 155, and because a friend and I have been talking about the purpose of
missions, I began to think about the position of the missionary. It doesn’t seem to me that Schleiermacher
would support missions or a mission-type attitude (“How can it be their
business to change the minds of those who already profess to have a definite
religion, or to introduce and initiate persons who have none at all?”). There’s a point for more thought.
Much of this
speech lent itself to my next purpose…I began marking passages “for more
thought.” This is the first course I
have taken where we have read theological writing. So far, I find myself agreeing with something
that each of our “designated authors” has written. Will I find me in all of this? I am too much of a
Platonist to believe so. You may find
some writing that awakens something already present in your heart or buried
deeply in your mind. Sometimes is useful to compare ideas and truth. Any student who reads is continually
bombarded with ideas, more than the mind can stand, but most of us learn only a
few truths through the course of our education and our lives.
Another point
that I marked to think about more was on page 158: “Not religion, but a little
sense for it, and a painful, lamentably fruitless endeavor to reach it, are all
that can be ascribed to even the best of them, even to those who show both
spirit and zeal.” As I read that
passage, I wondered if that was me.
I marked page
163: “…this spirit of division with all that is unworthy in it and all its evil
consequences, is not brought about by religion, but by the want of
religiousness in the multitude.” I can
see that want here could mean lack of or need/desire of. I will think
about which Schleiermacher means.
A question I
had concerned Schleiermacher’s words at the bottom of 168-top of 169…(“ And who
bears the blame if unworthy men replace ripe saints, and if, under their
supervision, everything creeps in and establishes itself that is most contrary
to the spirit of religion?”) Is this what happened to the Roman curia that Luther
denounced? Is this what we see in the
“we’re swell; you’re going to hell” attitude of some denominations in America
today? One religious competitors are rarely one’s real enemies. In my experience liberal and mainstream
Christians take too much time and effort cursing the fundamentalists (despite
all their cant about tolerance and diversity) and not enough time searching
their own souls. The same is true of
fundamentalist and evangelicals who are all too ready to condemn the faithless
of the mainstream churches. But what
about those things that are directly our responsibility. If we admit poor candidates into the
ministry, then we are to blame for the havoc that they raise in the churches
much as a person who allows a cat into a nursery is responsible for the cries
of delight or pain of the children.
Although I
still have about 20 pages to read in this book, I have had to write my e-mail
submission now. I went back to read sections
of the foreword again, and they make greater sense to me. I wonder how Schleiermacher would want us to worship? Does he have
a plan for what we call “organized religion”?
As much as I hate to say it, considering all the trouble I have had with
his lengthy sentence structure and with his style, this is a book that I will
have to read again.
Barbara Chodkowski
Christian Movement II
Schleiermacher 3-5
You probably meant more than you
wrote here. Schleiermacher sees art and
ritual as important parts of human experience that condition our innermost
feelings and apprehensions. Truly
religious people see God differently when they have been in a church than when
they have only conversed with nature. At
a later point, Schleiermacher will insist that we encounter Christ’s own experience
of God in Church and that His consciousness of God and ours become one. And people yearn to have an experience of God
that is personal, vibrant and alive. One
cannot “teach this experience;” at best, one can catch it.
Your young person is right, knowing
the doctrine and completing the ritual, will not make her Christian or even
religious. The encounter with God must
be her own. After she has had it, she
may appreciate the truth in dogma and ritual, but she will not until she has
that experience.
Reading Speeches 3-5 was an interesting experience. By the end of Speech 5, I struggled with what the “church” was for Schleiermacher. I can’t help but come to the conclusion that for him, church is a part of who we are as people. It is the part of us that hold comparatively same beliefs (with the life of Jesus Christ at the center) and that chooses to be consciously Christian. The church is needed, because on our own we can stray within our thoughts and perceptions, however, what type of organizational structure does not matter. Society is important, idea exchange is important, but how that happens does not and should not have to coincide with a set of rituals and dogma.
In The Speeches, we have read a message to the Romantics of the time; a way to suggest to Schleiermacher’s friends and colleagues that they really don’t understand what religion is. For a Christian, there must be new life in Christ – the person of Jesus matters. This was probably formulated from Schleiermacher’s Moravian background. Religious beliefs within a person and the actions that follow from those beliefs have to come from inside, for no matter how we teach them, we cannot teach feelings for those are personal. Therefore, the experience of Christ must be internal to the person.
Instruction in religion, meaning that piety itself is teachable, is absurd and unmeaning. Our opinions and doctrines we can indeed communicate, if we have words and our hearers have the comprehending, imagining power of the understanding. But we know very well that those things are only the shadows of our religious emotions, and if our pupils do not share our emotions, even thought they understand our thought, they have no possession that can truly repay their toil. This retreat into oneself, there to perceive oneself, cannot be taught (p 122).
Romanticizing, glorifying ideas is not enough. The experience must come from inside. Schleiermacher even goes so far as to say that art and its depictions abounding everywhere are looked at by the folks viewing them as “mystical charms” for the deadened sense (p 123), and that these make people feel. He is telling everyone that they have it wrong. The art comes from the feelings – the feelings do not come from the art.
After reading the remainder of “On Religion”, I spent some time on Sunday with an upset teen trying to deal with the question of whether she wished to be Confirmed. She had been looking for something to happen inside of herself during the process of the class learning that had not happened. She used words like “inspiration” and “spiritual experience”. I think she is searching for the “feelings” that Schleiermacher describes and what the class is teaching is the dogma, institution and doctrine that she needs to get beyond. I told her that no one can teach you the “feelings” and that the path that she was looking for was more than likely within herself. I was smiling inside during the entire conversation. This child is searching for her communication with God, looking for the Spirit and searching for Christ, and she understands that the class that leads her to a ceremony and a ritual is not leading her to where she needs to go. She doesn’t feel that she needs the title that the ritual bestows to be a part of the church, and in fact sees the title as something that moves her away, and constrains her. This child reminds me of another who questioned her teachers and discarded her class many years ago.
Kathleen M. Batchelder
CH 1502 Online Seminar #7
Schleiermacher’s Speeches
Schleiermacher’s
speeches for this week are easier for me to understand than last week’s
selection. Perhaps I slipped back into
the diction and syntax of his time, or perhaps they become more direct as he
completes his case and speaks directly to his reader. In “Cultivation of Religion,” Schleiermacher
begins interesting comparisons of art, the classics, and religion which thread
through all three essays for this assignment.
He also uses terminology which almost seems “code” such as “positive
religion” and “universal religion” in these speeches as he defines his position. In Germany, positive religions were what we usually call
historical religions, such as Christianity, Islam, etc As he concludes, Schleiermacher comes to a
convincing thesis that true religions will be adapted and understood
differently as time passes until people
can see “the Father as all in all” (page 251).
As
Schleiermacher writes of religion, he brings in references to art and the
classics. For example, on page 123, he
writes of the world’s many religions by saying, “ The
whole world is a gallery of religious scenes, and every man finds himself in
the midst of them.” The timelessness and
universality of religion are a thread which weaves throughout these three
speeches. He includes references to
mysticism and early religions. He also
brings in classical Roman background; for example, on page 174 Schleiermacher
is discussing the separation of church and state as they claim the loyalty of
priests; he gives his opinion as “my Cato’s utterance to the end.” I wonder if his reference to Cato the Elder,
who was both a soldier and statesman known for his wise and decisive
“utterances,” is
Schleiermacher’s way of bringing
authority to his own ideas (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder for more information). Cato is the most probable one.
A second
aspect of Schleiermacher’s speeches which intrigues me is his use of terms such
as “positive religion,” “universal religion,” “natural religion,” and “definite
religion” as if they are accepted by his readers. The would have been/ In the fifth speech, “The Religions,” the syntax and diction
seem simpler as Schleiermacher comes to his thesis. He describes Christianity as the “religion of
choice.” He warns against “rigid systematizers” and “shallow indifferentists” (on page 238)
as he encourages the reader to choose Christianity. He adds that Judaism is dead and is to be
valued primarily as the creator of Christianity (page 241). In fact, he says, “This is how Christianity
most and best is conscious of God, and of the divine order in religion and
history. It manipulates religion itself
as matter for religion. It is thus a
higher power of religion, and this most distinguishes its character and
determines its whole form” (page 242).
He does not claim that Christianity has stayed free of worldly involvement
and problems. Schleiermacher backs away
from claiming Christianity the only true expression of God’s involvement in our
world. He writes of Jesus, “He never maintained He
was the only mediator, the only one in whom His idea actualized itself” (page
248). Schleiermacher proceeds, “Nor
did Christ say that the religious views and feelings He Himself could
communicate, were the whole extent of the religion that should proceed from
this ground-feeling” (pages 248-49). I
would be interested to discuss these ideas with Schleiermacher in light of our
current climate of tension over world religions. He was very much part of this discussion in
its early stages
Schleiermacher’s
conclusion fits with his first speeches when he writes on page 250 that
“Christianity will yet have a long history” as it is understood by future generations. He believes “a time will come.
. .when there shall no more be any mediator, but the Father shall be all in
all.” This Christianity of the future
will have adopted and adapted “as nothing is more irreligious than to demand
general uniformity in mankind, so nothing is more unchristian than to seek
uniformity in religion” (page 252). Schleiermacher writes clearly and directly to
his reader about language holy enough to describe the Spirit and concludes that
the words “may gnaw at the shell as they are able, but to worship the God that
is in you, do you not refuse us” (page 253).
This conclusion makes sense to me as Schleiermacher had written earlier
about individual intuition of truth.
These speeches are much more unified than I had predicted at first. He reflects the Romantic and individualistic ideas
of his time. Finally, I hear him call
for belief in Christianity which is adaptable to
our growing awareness of the Father all in all.
This is his point of view. He always saw Christianity as the higest
Michael Kasevich
Christian Movement
March 26, 2008
Schleiermacher
Pure
religion is a matter of the individual soul.
Of this, Schleiermacher is convinced.
Yet, as you note, he realizes that humankind is necessarily or naturally
social. Without the intercourse with
other people, we would not a language or forms of thought in which to express
our feelings and deepest convictions. It follows that religion, like everything
else that human’s value, must seek social expression. It is a subtle dialectic, and one that many theologians and
preachers miss. But it is not confined
to matters of human improvement. Human
beings act socially and define them socially.
If the doctrines and other symbols of their social expressions of
religion are not ultimate, they are nonetheless useful ways of forming and
defining our common life. Indeed, as
non-ultimate, Schleiermacher suggests, these symbols and definitions may be of
even more value because stripped of their seeming scientific claims, they are
able to relate more directly to the religious feelings that were their ultimate
foundation.
Again, as I read Schleiermacher, I look for answers to the question he purposes to us. They are there but they are hidden underneath the words of his mind. I like to talk about his theory about “What if there is no religion?” (pp 148) That is how I read this part of the text. It is his explanation and takes on the religion of the Time and the time to come.
Schleiermacher writes about the nature of man. Aquinas speaks of the fall of man and that is his nature. Augustine says that man is spiritually dead and that is the nature of man. Pelagius rejects the idea that the nature of man is so corrupt that it cannot obey God.
Schleiermacher says the nature of man is to be social. I tend to agree with him. Man has formed many societies within society itself. All we have to do is look around any town and we can see different social clubs, or organizations that benefit human kind.
The church is as hot bed of social activity. I like how Schleiermacher says that what we think and come up with within our own minds may be morose or warped from what God has created. If we try to preserve these thoughts and keep them to ourselves than we are acting upon an un-natural act of self-preservation.
Schleiermacher states that we, humankind, should give what we have outwardly into the fellowship of our society and as we can surmise from his writing, to the church. It is in this giving to the act of religion that will cement the beliefs that man has. Schleiermacher talks about violent movement. Where are you in the text? I see that as a spiritual awakening in a person. Violent also can mean ferocious and ferocious can mean intense. Therefore, a violent movement can be an intense movement towards the will of God.
The religious feelings one receives may just come from another human as Schleiermacher states. Knowing what we do now as seminarians, we know that everything we have comes from God, and the human feelings that Schleiermacher is writing about do come from God and there fore are spiritual in nature.
Religion he says is not to make someone else believe what we want them to believe but is to come to an agreement that one person can relate to other people in the common welfare for the society in which they exist. It is an outward practice of human nature, and as Schleiermacher claims human nature is being a social being.
Religion therefore connects societies together in a common theology with in the church, or society. To receive the true realm of spirituality, I understand Schleiermacher to be saying that the person has to come to a belief that some “alien” not from earth, or some “unworthy power” has produced such feeling of a social community.
Therefore, we can see where Schleiermacher points to a spiritual being
as the cause of such a violent or intense urge to learn and grow in a social
society that we may call the church.