Last week’s post on Thomas More’s Utopia promised this week I’d focus on the
religion of the Utopians. Some of you might have been puzzled by Mildred
Campbell’s understanding of More’s Christian humanism as a “fusion of faith
with the pagan belief in reason and virtue…a kind of humanitarian deism which
abhorred religious intolerance.”
“Isn’t
that what we progressive Christians believe?” you might have asked yourself,
“What’s pagan about reason and virtue?”
Though
I’ll get to that, I first want to point out what I’ve been saying all along on
this blog. Progressive Christianity is not new, it is traditional. Evangelical
and fundamentalist Christians who say that our ideas are some kind of
contemporary accommodation to modern day values and beliefs are mistaken.
Actually, they are the new kids on the Christian block.
Let
me clarify that when I use the term “evangelical” I mean the political movement
bent on enforcing their limitations on belief and behavior. I happen to
consider progressive Christians as evangelical in the traditional—since Jesus—sense
of the term, as bearers of good news (gospel).
American
founding fathers and mothers are best described as humanitarian deists, in my
view, not as fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. Their faith was as much
informed and inspired by the Enlightenment (Reason) as the classical concepts
of virtue and truth. They may have read some Bible stories literally, but they
recognized truth and virtue beyond its pages and valued human reason.
So
now I get back to explaining Campbell’s reference to More’s faith, mirrored in
that of his Utopians, as being combined with “pagan belief in reason and
virtue.” More was influenced by Plato, a “pagan” only because anyone who was
not Christian was so-called, and frankly, in Plato’s defense, he preceded
Christ by four centuries. But Plato has something in common with the
monasteries of More’s age as well as the first church: his support of communal
property. More believed deeply in the ideals of monastic orders, which included
shared property.
Not
surprising then, that More’s “mouthpiece” explaining Utopia, the mariner
Raphael Hythloday, would explain that in Utopia there was no private property. (See
last week’s post.) There were other monastic influences on the religion of
Utopia, including the belief that meditation and worship focused better in the
shadows of worship centers, lit by candlelight and stained-glass windows. But
in Utopia, women could be priests, though reserved for the widowed and very
old.
What
is surprising is how Utopia itself came to be. It makes me think of our own
religious and political divisions in this country and beyond. Its predecessor
nation was so divided by religion and religious quarrels, King Utopus could use
their divisiveness against them to conquer the country. (Think, win the
election!) Their religious divisions resulted in political divisions that
prevented their unifying to fight him off! Thus, when he assumed control, he decreed
freedom of religion, believing that “God likes and inspires a variety and
multiplicity of worship” and further, that such freedom would increase rather
than diminish religion.
Utopians did resist those who refused to believe in the human soul, or who
believed “that the universe is carried along by chance without an over-ruling
providence,” disallowing them from public service, but no more, “for [Utopians]
are persuaded that no one can make himself believe anything at will.”
When
the mariner’s colleagues introduced Christianity they gained some converts
(especially Utopians appreciated that early Christians held all things in
common). But one whose zeal and testimony “began to wax so hot on his subject
that he not only praised our religion above all others, but also utterly
despised and condemned all others, calling them profane, and the followers of
them wicked and devilish and children of everlasting damnation,” was punished not
for his different beliefs but as “an inciter of dissension among the people.”
The most and wisest number [of Utopians]…believe
that there is a certain divine power, unknown, everlasting, incomprehensible,
inexplicable, far above the capacity and reach of [human] wisdom, dispersed
throughout the world, not in size, but in virtue and power. … To [this God]
alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the
changes and the ends of all things.
One
person commented on last week’s blogpost about Utopia that she had read the
book as “dystopian” rather than “utopian,” because of its seeming inability to
incorporate all human conditions. But, like what I said about saints not being
perfect: utopian treatises point the way without necessarily arriving.
The
preamble to the U. S. Constitution includes the high-minded goal, “in order to
form a more perfect union,” and we’ve been trying to get there ever since!
I
will be co-leading a contemplative retreat April 27-May 1, 2020 to which you
are welcome:
https://app.certain.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x3039640abcd
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