1/24/54

Scripture: (Read Acts 7: 30-60)

Text: Acts 7: 39; “In their hearts they turned to Egypt.”

With what frantic and determined effort the people of a flood-threatened area fight the rising waters! Whether it be in Holland where high seas and storm endanger the dikes, or along the southern reaches of the Mississippi River in early spring, hosts of people rush extra sand bags and all sorts of other precautions to keep the rising, raging waters under control in the channel. Day and night, while the flood waters continue to rise, people keep on working, fearful of the flood and hopeful that it can be contained. When, after hours and days of struggle, they know that the crest has been reached and the flood will recede, what a reward of relief comes to those who have stayed by the struggle! Some such picture as this comes to mind when we try to understand the crises of our time. Most of the freedoms we enjoy are being threatened and curtailed by opposition and suspicion.

Is there a Christian attitude toward this “fear of freedom” which grips so many in a rising tide today? If there be a Christian attitude, let us try and find it and adopt it for ourselves.

An ancient Greek writer [Demosthenes] described the functions of a statesman as these: “To discern events and their beginnings; to be beforehand in the detection of movements and tendencies, and to forewarn his countrymen accordingly; to fight against the political vice from which no state is free, against procrastination, ignorance and jealously; and to impress upon all the paramount importance of unity and free thinking.” Perhaps there are elements in the Christian faith, in the Bible, and in our heritage of spiritual liberty that can bring out the statesman in our natures.

One setting for our thought is in the fragment of Stephen’s sermon which was used as the Scripture lesson this morning. Stephen, it turns out, was on trial for his life before hostile folk who later did him to death as the first Christian martyr. In the course of his defense, and of his testimony to the faith he had found vitalized in Christ, Stephen described the renunciation of the covenant by their Hebrew ancestors. He told of their being nearly overcome with fear just as they stood on the borders of Canaan. “In their hearts, they turned to Egypt.” They were standing on the threshold of a Promised Land when there came this terrible crisis of fear. Upon what did they look back? To Egypt, the home of tyranny! Egypt, the land from which they had wanted, so long and so earnestly, to be free! But in a time when they saw danger ahead, even Egypt looked better to them than the uncertainty before them at this time of testing.

Once the danger was that the Egyptian ruler, the Pharaoh, might overtake them and force them to return. Not so now! What Pharaoh and his armies had failed to do, fear was about to achieve. They thought of going back, not by coercion but by choice! “In their hearts, they turned to Egypt.”

It is a vivid story. Moses had led his people out of Egypt, as he was commissioned to do. And after years of struggle with desert and wilderness living, they had come to the place where they could send scouts into the promised land. The scouts came back with the report that the land was indeed beautiful and the crops excellent. But also the inhabitants were big fellows, giants beside themselves. Beside those Canaanites, the Israelites felt about as big as grasshoppers. Some were not afraid; they wanted to move in. But others who had gone and seen, became afraid. “So they brought to the people of Israel an evil report of the land.” They were impressed with its dangers. When their report got around, the people of Israel began to say, “Would it not be better for us to go to Egypt?” [Numbers 13, 14: 1-4].

What a familiar kind of crisis! There are few stories of great advance without, at some point, this crisis of fear. At some time, fear and faith confront each other in a contest for decision at an hour when it is either “turn back” or “go ahead.” This testing in peoples’ souls is spiritual, the crisis of fear! It comes to any people committed to freedom. We are at one of those points in our American democracy. What is a Christian way of looking at our situation today?

For one thing, we must be honest enough to admit that in part the problem is within us. We are prone to believe that Christianity, and freedom to choose it, are under attack from the outside. This is true, but only part of the truth. There was a time when we gloried in our freedom of choice. We chose a form of faith, or none. And allowed others to do the same. But some of the people of the world and a few in our own nation, have expressed a choice of a form of life that flatly denies Christian principles and is in avowed, disciplined opposition to religion itself. So now we are afraid. And some wonder if it wouldn’t be better to return to reliance on a form of tyranny we thought we had escaped, in this nation at least, knocking at the very gates from which our ancestors fled.

I wonder if our fear is not disproportionate to the reality. We are terribly afraid of communism. Does not this measurably explain the circumstance that our investigations become intimidations? We get reckless in our labeling. We are prone to label any differences of thought subversive. In so far as we do that, are we not tending to the same error that, in extreme form, became the hated “thought control” of militaristic Japan and Nazi Germany?

I recall the sense of frustration and futility that filled the voice of a man in our own land who said, “It’s terribly discouraging to find that your attempts to do something constructive for common people get labeled ‘communistic.’” He was a sincere fellow who felt that his ideas had been mislabeled unfairly. There is far too much fear of freedom among us!

Think of a parallel in the realm of physical health. There is, in us, a normal fear of disease. This is necessary for the maintenance of health. It alerts us to take the necessary precautions against infections, against foolish exposure to contact. It turns attention to normal observance of rules of hygiene and health. But when our fear of disease becomes disproportionate, and increasingly demanding, then it becomes not our protector but a new problem. When fear of disease become not a precaution but an obsession, it is a serious illness of itself. Fear which was given us for our own protection, when it runs wild, is not a benefit but is harmful.

The same thing can happen within a nation. Mature people can, and will, observe the necessary precautions to protect their freedom. But when this becomes a dominant concern to the point of panic that can be capitalized by political figures, the fear that ought to protect us becomes a threat. Freedom, in fact, is the only protection. The ease with which investigation has cast subtle doubts on the sincerity and loyalty of some Protestant Christian leaders; the ease with which the press can be made cautious, academic leaders over-discreet, pulpits non-committed, is a revelation of the fear at work in our thinking. We feel challenged in differentness, even on Christian grounds.

When investigation of universities was announced, confusion, misunderstanding and tension arose in some quarters that should have been better informed and more level-headed. Protestant Christian leaders have had doubts thrown around their sincerity by accusations and suggestions that are without proof. An active churchman, Herbert A. Philbrick, who served the FBI working with the communist organization for information, says, “First and most important, don’t go misunderstanding every minister, rabbi and priest in the land. Don’t go looking for Communists under every pulpit. Moreover, we must not mistake religious individualism for subversive activity --- the freedoms that we enjoy today ----- what are they but the fruits of our lively and liberal Protestant heritage? The fearless championing of such freedoms must not be abandoned.”

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(2) We of the Christian churches have an obligation to stand for the right of nonconformity. This runs deep in our tradition. We have a great tradition of dissent and nonconformity running at least as far back as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace because of their dissent from an autocratic decree. [Daniel 3: 12-30]. We would not have the free right to worship as we do here today were it not for the right to dissent, championed by men and women who have gone before us who feared and respected God more than man! The Bible was translated into languages most people could read because of the dissent of some righteous people. Our freedom to read it, to interpret it in the light of conscience and God’s guidance, and to use it as we will in worship was brought by dissenters -- many of them -- who like Martin Luther before his accusers could and did say, “My conscience is lashed to the word of God, and it is neither safe nor honest to act against one’s conscience --- God help me -- Amen!” Have we the courage to allow free thinking that does not altogether conform?

In the heat of the Reformation, Catholic priests were invited to Lausanne by Farel to debate the ten Evangelical theses. Farel said: “You may speak here as boldly as you please; our arguments are neither fagot, fire nor sword, prison nor torture; public executioners are not our doctors of divinity ----- Truth is strong enough to outweigh falsehood; if you have it, bring it forward.”

A fundamental belief of our democracy is the ability of people to make a sound judgment when they have heard all sides of a question, the conforming and the non-conforming, the traditional and the dissenting. When we begin to stifle viewpoints because we think they are not safe for people to hear, we have turned our hearts to Egypt. We are confessing that we do not really believe in the fundamental premise of democracy -- that the people given the freedom to write, think and speak will in the long run make a sound judgment.

In this 20th century, enough is written on the pages of history so that we should be able to read that the church has often been the bulwark against this pressure to conformity. It should not be necessary for us to suffer what people in Europe have had to suffer to make our Christianity real in responsible freedom. Our really fundamental task is to combat fear with faith -- not the faith of escape to comfort, but the faith of confronting responsibility. True freedom is not irresponsible liberty in preferences, but is in discovering what is necessary on the highest and most comprehensive level, and then willingly performing that necessity. In religious terms we call this “the will of God.” The yielding of some of our random personal liberty to responsibility is not a curtailment of freedom, but is a contribution to freedom. It is the way a free spirit addresses itself to a common need.

If democratic government is to last, we must cease to accept it as a boon, and take it as a stiff assignment. If freedom of worship and religious expression is to continue ours, we must cease to accept it as a boon and take it as a stiff assignment. As believing Christians it is our task to put faith before fear, to fill the vacuum that appears in the hearts of some of our people, where fear has rushed in. If we believe, as we sing in our fine national hymen, that God is the “Author of Liberty,” then let us not remain cowering, or even calm in the storm. But let us proclaim our faith like Paul who exulted, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” [Romans 8: 31].

Let Christians be not uniform, but unified and steadfast in this ferment. And let us not be afraid of freedom. Let us try to be worthy of it!

And let us pray God not only to be saved from our sins, but also from the fear that is afraid of justice and fair play among all conditions of mankind.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 24, 1954.

Below is the text of a handwritten letter to Robert Wells Kingdon from Henry Perrine Baldwin, which letter is filed with this sermon.

[Dear Bob,

I have read your sermon on “Fear of Freedom” over twice. There is so much in it that I ascribe to I wonder if where I do not “conform” to your ideas I can state them clearly.

(1) Certainly there is no unity like that of a people unitedly fighting a disaster, fire, flood, invasion.

(2) The crisis (not crises tho we have had many and probably will have more) of our day is combating the desire for security. It is this desire the communist plays on. Unwittingly the “free-thinking” liberal plays the same. “Free love” should not be preached from the pulpit. People have a right to protest. “Free money?” is just as dangerous. The innuendoes - the half statements - are not one sided. If your idealist hero has any Christian guts he will not be stopped.

(3) Your idea that in every crisis comes a time when fear confronts faith is excellent. I don’t think Pusey or McCarthy have any fear. I do think that Oxham has done some very foolish things. I wish he had had some “fear” not just “blind” faith. When Swan, after his recent trip to Europe, wrote, “I am more convinced than ever ....” I think he wasted his time, for he sees no change in a changing world.

(4) Those who fear McCarthy I agree have a fear disproportionate to the situation. He knows he will never be President. It is the opposition that keeps saying he will.

We should fear communism. We should be sorry that Molotov said the things he did - the half truths really sound very plausible. What a terrible country we would be if what he said was even half true. (From the Russian point of view there is a lot of truth in what he said.)

It is not our fear of communism that will give us dictatorship like Japan and Germany, but an overweening desire for security.

(5) Fear that ought to protect us does become a threat and freedom is the only protection. What is the opposition trying to do to Ike’s administration but loose this “fear of losing one’s security.”

(6) Did you read the prepared statement of the Committee of University Presidents published about a year ago, “welcoming” investigations, saying freedom to think and speak should be protected, that the only person to be considered circumspect was one who hid behind the 5th amendment? There is no fear in a Mac Giffert, a Williams, etc. There should be fear in a MacMurray (but you hadn’t come when he used to come up here).

(7) “Have we the courage to allow free thinking that does not (altogether) conform?” Yes we should, but we should not tolerate libel, license or immorality.

(8) Last but not least “our conscience” should rule us, but our biggest fear should be whether our conscience is listening to the devil or to God.

(Guess that’s enough for this evening)

Thanks,

Henry.]