Chapter Four - Religion in Confusion
"We are adrift without answers.... We are witnessing the death of the old morality.... No single authority rules our conduct.... No church lays down the moral law for all...."
So wrote a Senior Editor of Look magazine several years ago, reporting the then-emerging American moral crisis.
An elder statesman of the National Council of Churches said at a meeting in Boston recently: "Beneath all the social unrest there is an even profounder unrest of the human spirit - a sense of meaninglessness; disenchantment, a search for ultimate meaning"
Religion in general, like education and the home, has faded to give an answer to the most important question of all - the PURPOSE OF LIFE!

Weak Influence of Religion
Never has the influence of religion been at a lower ebb in the United States. The same could be said of Britain-where many churches have been put up for sale-or any other nation in the Christian-professing world! Yet 130,000,000 Americans claim a church affiliation.

Let's note this paradox between church affiliation and church influence.
Nearly everyone knows religion is losing influence. Gallup polls for over a decade have reported a rapidly growing majority of Americans acknowledging the decline of religion in American life. In 1957, Gallup reported only 14 percent of Americans thought religion was "losing its influence" on American life. By 1967, ten
years later, 57 percent held the same opinion. And by 1970, the percentage jumped dramatically again to 75 percent. Gallup reported that this "represents one of the most dramatic shifts in surveys on American life".
The growing feeling among Americans, Britons, and others is that religion, as commonly presented to them, is "sterile," "outmoded," "irrelevant" to today's needs and problems. To youth it is especially meaningless, a part of the hypocrisy of the Establishment that drastically needs changing.
As one youth put it, "The Church has no meaning - a place full of old ladies in felt hats ... boring sermons, meaningless prayers." As a result, church membership is in a decline.

There is no lack of religious form and ceremony in today's modem America and Britain. There is plenty of that. It is just that it does not seem to have the power to change lives for the better. Today's religions are not bringing peace Rather they only serve to deepen the divisions between people. People have a form of godliness, but they deny God's power in their lives! (II Tim. 3:5.)
Reporting on this trend, a clergyman and professor at George Washington University said in the early 1960's: "Never has Christianity been so ineffective and irrelevant.... The distance between professed faith and our daily performance is astronomical."

In other words, despite an almost unanimous belief that "a little religion is good" for society, it hardly makes a dent in altering the massive problems of our time. It doesn't change the way people live their daily lives. Why has this happened? It can partially be understood by what happened to ancient Rome.
Roman Religion
With the ascent of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300's A.D., Christianity became the favored religion of the Empire. It demanded a higher standard of morality than ancient paganism, but it had no profound effect on the Roman citizen. "For the vast majority of ordinary men Christianity caused no fundamental change of attitude" (A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 1063).
Let's not misunderstand. The institution of universal religion received growing acclaim, converts, and political leverage. But individuals professing "Christianity" did not allow it to alter their basic corrupt cravings and materialistic values.
While the adoption of "Christianity" brought the Empire closer to the ideal of unity, its conflict with ancient paganism made it a surface unity. And paganism did not lose out entirely!
To the average Roman any Christian moral teaching seems to have made little practical difference.
If Dr. George Gallup had been alive in 400 A.D., he might well have discovered that a sizable portion of Romans felt religion was "losing its influence."
Besides this, corruption and abuse of power were widespread in the Church. Splits and schisms caused much strife, bloodshed and disunity. Confusion and ignorance concerning doctrine were rampant - as they are today!

Sophisticated Rejected "Myths"
Hellenized education caused some highly sophisticated Romans to view weak ancient religious traditions as superstitious. "For the sophisticated Roman, myth was not enough.... The old beliefs were NOT forsaken in response to the challenge of a more profound understanding of higher spiritual values, but merely because they failed to satisfy intelligent people. When the appeal of a higher moral purpose is absent men seek their own sensual satisfactions" (E. B. Castle, Ancient Education ,and Today, p. 120).
And today, many educated have "seen through" the superstitious approach many people have toward religion, even in America and the Western world, and therefore reject religion entirely and fall back on liberal values of their own reasoning.
But another trend affected a greater majority.
The confusing, abstract religious concepts of the old Roman religion didn't fill the spiritual void in the Roman populace. This was especially true among the rapidly multiplying free-slave class whose ancestral roots were in the Middle East rather than the Italian peninsula.
These people felt right at home with the imported Eastern sun cults and mystery religions which began to stream into the Empire.
Samuel Dill, in his work Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, wrote: "The paganism which was really living, which stirred devotion and influenced souls ... came from the East - from Persia, Syria, Egypt ... foreign traders, foreign slaves, travellers, and soldiers returning from long campaigns in distant regions, were constantly introducing religious excitement, and then penetrated to the classes of culture and privilege" (pp. 74-76, 78).

Carcopino also noted the decay of traditional Roman religion.
He wrote: "The Roman pantheon still persisted, apparently immutable.... But the spirits of men had fled from the old religion; it still commanded their service but no longer their hearts or their belief.... In the motley Rome of this second century it had wholly LOST ITS POWER over the human hearts" (Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, pp. 121, 122).

Similar to Conditions Today
Many trends similar to those which affected Rome are with us today.
Religion is in a state of confusion and turmoil.
The Roman Catholic Church has been wracked with controversy up to its highest levels of authority. The hierarchy is deeply concerned over the increasing number of priests leaving the ministry.
Meanwhile, Protestantism - divided into hundreds of sects -is having its own "identity crisis."
"We Protestants are tired and confused," confessed Dr. Walter D. Wagoner, director of the Boston Theological Institute. He was writing in a widely circulated nondenominational magazine. He criticized the trend toward theological "fadism" exemplified by the short-lived "death of God" movement, espoused by some Protestant theologians.
He complained of a widespread "spiritual malnutrition" among ministers and laymen alike. His conclusion? There is a growing awareness among Protestants that "we have no direction to go but up."
The strong, but simple and clear-cut teaching of Christ and the apostles has been so watered down by modern religionists that it is too often a meaningless mishmash, irrelevant to the daily life of the average individual.
It fails to provide clear-cut solid goals or values. God, the Bible, the Ten Commandments have been ridiculed, questioned, doubted by modern theologians and clerics. Educators have called the Bible "myth." The average layman has nothing solid to base his life upon.
How can such religion teach any values, ultimate goals or ideals related to problems of humanity today?
Religious Hypocrisy
Today, growing numbers of clerics are in the forefront of civil disobedience marches; they advocate "situation ethics" morality, condone premarital and extramarital sex relations, homosexuality, and other formerly recognized sins. Thousands of clerics remain silent about the sins of their parishioners or nation.
But in today's world, there are no "sins" - just "behaviorist abnormalities" or "social maladjustment's." There are crimes against man, but not against God. A clear definition of "sin" or wrongdoing is lacking, although it is clearly explained in the Bible. The apostle John states that " ... sin is the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4).
It's the age of "dial-a-prayer" for a non-praying society and casual come-as-you-are drive-in churches for those marginally interested in religion.
It's the age when millions of Americans have accepted churchgoing without bothering to learn much about it - just like the pagans who flocked - unchanged in heart - into the church after Constantine. Millions are ignorant of even the most basic tenets of their faith or the Bible.
Said one Bible translator: "It is one of the curious phenomena of modern times that it is considered perfectly respectable to be abysmally ignorant of the Christian faith. Men and women who would be deeply ashamed of having their ignorance exposed in matters of poetry, music, or painting, for example, are not in the least perturbed to be found ignorant of the New Testament" (quoted in Christianity Today, Aug. 30, 1963).

It's the age of hypocritical religion.
A student who came to Canada from Ghana expressed it well. His grandfather had spread Christianity and his parents were schoolteachers. He is now an atheist. Asked why, he said: "Since coming here, I've discovered the white man has two gods. One that he taught us about, and another one to whom he prays. A mission school taught me that the tribal doctrines of my ancestors who worshipped images and believed in witchcraft were wrong and almost ludicrous. But here you worship larger images - cars and electrical appliances. I honestly can't see the difference."

"Mystic Revolution"
In the midst of pervasive religious and moral confusion, many are turning to astrology and the occult in hopes of finding the answers to the big questions in life: "Who am I?"; "Where am I going?"
Many who have found little solace in conventional Christianity are now seeking spiritual enlightenment by attempting to "expand the mind," explore the experience some psychic thrill or sensation.
Ours is the age of unusual, of marijuana, "speed," LSD and
other mind-scrambling drugs - of psychedelic music, bizarre art and fashions. Now we have the "mystic revolution."
According to a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, "Sociologists argue that in a stable society religion provides the necessary answers to the great questions of life, death and man's fate. But when stability is upset, persons experience a sense of being lost, and, in a peculiar state of receptivity, they turn desperately about, looking for new answers.
"Some are looking for new answers within the framework of organized religion. Hence such trends as speaking in tongues,' underground masses,' or the introduction of jazz and contemporary dancing into religious services."
But for the most part, the seeking of "new answers" is conducted outside the church, and has fueled the upsurge in interest in astrology and the occult.
It was this way in Rome, too, at the time when the mighty Empire was crumbling.
"Predictive astrology, like divination and occultism generally tends to take hold in times of confusion, uncertainty and the breakdown of religious belief. Astrologers and assorted sorcerers were busy in Rome while the empire was declining and prevalent throughout Europe during the great 17th century waves of plague. Today's young stargazers claim to be responding to a similar sense of disintegration and disenchantment..." (Time, March 21, 1969).
One weekly U. S. news magazine estimates that 10 million Americans are "hard-core adherents" to astrological forecasting. Another 40 million, it reported, dabble in the subject. Said the magazine: "It appears clear that what was once regarded as an offshoot of the occult is a rapidly evolving popular creed."
In Canada the story is much the same. Robert Thomas Allen writes in the October 1969 issue of Maclean's Magazine: "Canadians are going in for what is probably the biggest revival of astrology since the fall of Babylon."

""Colossal Increase' In Britain
In Britain, the new "psychic" age is perhaps more entrenched than anywhere else in the Western world. A leading London consultant in psychosomatic medicine says: "There is undoubtedly a colossal increase in interest in mysticism of all kinds. The unmistakable trend is for more professional people to pursue a search for a glimpse into the future."
The respected Sunday Times in Britain estimates that over two thirds of Britain's adults read their horoscopes. Of these about a fifth - or seven million - take them seriously.
Some estimate that over a third of the adult British public believes in fortune telling and nearly half in telepathy. Today, the finest bookstores in any town have racks reserved for books on astrology and the occult.
There are horoscope cookbooks, books on how to diet by the stars, astrological guides to beauty and, of course, love and marriage, Other books delve much deeper into the field, According to The New York Times
Book Review of August 11,1968: "American publishers have discovered of late that there is a great deal of money to be made in convincing readers that the fault is not in themselves but in the stars. Books on parapsychology, mysticism and the subjects that seem to follow inexorably from them - yoga, ESP, clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy, astrology, witches, mediums, ghosts,Atlantis, psychokinesis,prophecy, and most of all, reincarnation - are flourishing."
According to LeBaron R. Barker, executive editor of Doubleday & Co,: "People in general want to read about these things. After all, there's the possibility of discovering the meaning o f life." Yet in spite of all this, no answers are forthcoming.
Millions of moderns - like the ancient Romans - admit to the "irrelevance" of traditional concepts and beliefs. They know organized religion has no power.
Eastern mysticism and the occult are bruised religious reeds that confused, uncertain and fearful moderns are often leaning on. But they are not providing the sought for spiritual support.

Just as ancient Rome welcomed Eastern mysticism and occult practices, so modem Israel - the United States and Britain - are following suit. All the same symptoms of religious and spiritual sickness are present.
Speaking of the last days, God says of the modem House of Jacob: "because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers [foreigners]" (Isa. 2:6).