Religious Worries and Worriers : Part 1

Quit Your Worrying!
by George Wharton James

(Page 13 of 22)

Misunderstandings, misconceptions, and ignorance in regard to what really is religion have caused countless millions to mourn - and worry; indeed, far more to worry than to mourn. Religion should be a joyous thing, the bringing of the son and daughter into close relationship with the Father. Instead, for centuries, it has been a battle for creeds, for mental assent to certain doctrines, rather than a growth in brotherhood and loving relationship, and those who could not see eye to eye with one another deemed it to be their duty to fight and worry each other - even to their death.

This is not the place for any theological discussion; nor is it my intent to present the claims of any church or creed. Each reader must do that for himself, and the less he worries over it, the better I think it will be for him. I have read and reread Cardinal Newman's wonderful Pro Apologia - his statement as to why and how he entered the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and it has thrilled me with its pathos and evidence of deep spiritual endeavor. Charles Warren Stoddard's Troubled Heart and How It Found Rest is another similar story, though written by an entirely different type of man. Each of these books revealed the inner thought and life of men who were worried about religion, and by worry I mean anxious to the point of abnormality, disturbed, distressed unnecessarily.

Yet I would not be misunderstood. Far be it from me, in this age of gross materialism and worship of physical power and wealth, to decry in the least a proper degree of solicitude for one's personal salvation. The religious life of the individual - the real, deep, personal, hidden, unseen, inner life of a human soul - is a wonderfully delicate thing, to be touched by another only with the profoundest love and deepest wisdom. Hence I have little to say about one's own inner struggles, except to affirm and reaffirm that wisdom, sanity, and religion itself are all against worrying about it. Study religion, consider it, accept it, follow it, earnestly, seriously, and constantly, but do it in a rational manner, seeking the essentials, accepting them and then resting in them to the full and utter exclusion of all worry.

But there is another class of religious worriers, viz., those who worry themselves about your salvation. Again I would not be misunderstood, nor thought to decry a certain degree of solicitude about the spiritual welfare of those we love, but here again the caution and warning against worry more than ever holds good. Most of these worriers have found comfort, joy, and peace in a certain line of thought, which has commended itself to them as Truth - the one, full, complete, indivisible Truth, and it seems most natural for human nature to be eager that others should possess it.

This is the secret of the zeal of the street Salvationist, whose flaming ardor is bent on reaching those who seldom, if ever, go to church. The burden of his cry is that you must flee from the wrath to come - hell - by accepting the vicarious atonement made by the "blood of Jesus." In season and out of season, he urges that you "come under the blood." His face is tense, his brow wrinkled, his eyes strained, his voice raucous, his whole demeanor full of worry over the salvation of others.

Another friend is a Seventh Day Adventist, who is full of zeal for the declaration of the "Third Angel's Message," for he believes that only by heeding it, keeping sacred the hours from sunset on Friday to Saturday sunset, in accordance with his reading of the fourth commandment, and also believing in the speedy second coming of Christ, can one's soul's salvation be attained.

The Baptist is assured that his mode of baptism - complete immersion - is the only one that satisfies the demands of heaven, and the more rigorous members of the sect refuse communion with those who have not obeyed, as they see the command. The members of the "Christian" Church - as the disciples of Alexander Campbell term themselves - while they assent that they are tied to no creed except the New Testament, demand immersion as a prerequisite to membership in their body.

The Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, and many others, are "evangelical" in their belief, as is a large portion of the Church of England, and its American offshoot, both of which are known as the Episcopal Church. Another portion, however, of this church is known as "ritualistic," and the two branches in England recently became so involved in a heated discussion as to the propriety of certain of their bishops partaking in official deliberations with ministers of the other, but outside, evangelistic churches, that for a time it seemed as if the whole Episcopal Church would be disrupted by the fierceness and anger gendered in the differences of opinion.

To my own mind, all this worry was much ado about nothing. Each man's brain and conscience must guide him in matters of this kind, and the worry, fret, stew, evolved out of the matter, seem to me a proof that real religion had little to do with it.

Recently one good brother came to me with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes, worried seriously as to my own religious belief because I had asserted in a public address that I believed the earnest prayer of a good Indian woman reached the ear of God as surely as did my own prayers, or those of any man, woman, minister, or priest living. To him the only effective prayers were "evangelical" prayers - whatever that may mean - and he was deeply distressed and fearfully worried because I could not see eye to eye with him in this matter. And a dear, good woman, who heard a subsequent discussion of the subject, was so worried over my attitude that she felt impelled to assure me when I left that "she would pray for me."

I have friends who are zealous Roman Catholics, and a number of them are praying that I may soon enter the folds of "Mother Church," and yet my Unitarian and Universalist friends wonder why I retain my membership in any "orthodox" church. On the other hand, my New Thought friends declare that I belong to them by the spirit of the messages I have given to the world. Then, too, my Theosophist friends - and I have many - present to me, with a force I do not attempt to controvert, the doctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and urge upon me acceptance of the comforting and helpful doctrine, to them, of Reincarnation.

About the Author

George Wharton James (1858 - 1923) was a prolific popular lecturer and journalist, writing more than 40 books and many articles and pamphlets on California and the American Southwest. James was born in Lincolnshire, England. He was ordained as a Methodist minister and came to the United States in 1881, serving in parishes in Nevada and southern California.