Paper 99 Overview: The Social Problems of Religion

Religion works best when it is least connected to society's political and economic institutions. Religion has often helped maintain existing social orders by focusing on replacing evil with good within current systems. True religion should not be directly concerned with creating or preserving social orders, but it should support peaceful evolution rather than violent revolution.

In modern times, religion faces challenges adapting to rapid social changes and economic reorganization. Religion must serve as a moral compass and spiritual guide while society undergoes constant transformation, helping people maintain stable ideals during times of transition.

Religion achieves its highest social ministry when it has minimal connection with society's secular institutions. In the past, religion focused on moral improvement within existing social systems, which unintentionally helped maintain those systems. Religion has indirectly supported existing civilization types by working within their frameworks.

Religion should not directly create new social orders or protect old ones. While true religion opposes violence as a method of social change, it supports intelligent efforts to adapt society to new economic conditions and cultural needs. In the twentieth century, religion must face extensive social reconstruction and adapt to rapidly changing social conditions.

Technological advances and knowledge growth are changing civilization, requiring economic and social adjustments to avoid cultural disaster. Humanity must accept ongoing changes and adaptations as we move toward an unknown planetary destiny. The human race is embarking on a journey toward a new future.

Religion must provide moral stability and spiritual growth during these changing conditions and ongoing economic adjustments. Society has moved beyond the safety of established traditions and set sail on the open seas of evolutionary destiny, making religious guidance more necessary than ever. Religion's main social mission is to stabilize human ideals during transitions between civilizations and culture levels.

Institutional religion cannot provide leadership in worldwide social and economic reorganization because it has become part of the social order that needs changing. Only the genuine religion of personal spiritual experience can help during this civilization crisis. Institutional religion faces a difficult situation where it must change itself before it can help change society.

Religious people must function in society as individuals rather than as part of groups or institutions. When religious groups act outside religious activities, they become political parties or social institutions. Religious collectivism should focus only on religious causes. Religious people offer value in social reconstruction only when their faith gives them spiritual insight and the desire to love God and treat others as brothers.

Early Christianity was free from civil entanglements and social commitments, unlike later institutionalized Christianity which became part of Western civilization's structure. The kingdom of heaven is not a social or economic system but a spiritual brotherhood of people who know God, though this brotherhood creates remarkable social and economic effects.

Religious people are not unsympathetic to social suffering or injustice. Religion influences social reconstruction directly by spiritualizing individual citizens and indirectly through these individuals' influence in various social groups. An ideal society requires both ideal citizens and proper social structures through which these citizens can control economic and political institutions. Individual social reformers, while sometimes rejecting organized religion, often have religious motivations driving their efforts.

True religion makes believers socially appealing and helps them understand human relationships. However, when religious groups become formalized, they often destroy the values they were created to promote. Religion adds meaning to all group activities when personal growth balances with harmonious relationships. Religion transforms social leadership and keeps groups focused on their true goals.

Religion's challenge during transitions is to avoid becoming standardized or stereotyped. Genuine religion is worthwhile if it creates experiences where truth, beauty, and goodness prevail. What people believe affects their behavior more than what they know, especially when beliefs become emotionally activated. During unsettled times with economic upheavals and moral confusion, people need the stability of sound religion more than ever.

While religion is a personal spiritual experience of knowing God as Father, knowing others as brothers involves adjusting to other people, creating the social aspect of religion. Religion starts as personal adjustment and becomes social service. Religious groups naturally form because humans are social beings, and intelligent leadership determines how these groups develop.

True religion is knowing God as your Father and other people as your brothers, not fearful belief in punishment or magical rewards. The religion of Jesus powerfully motivates humanity by breaking traditions, eliminating dogma, and calling people to achieve their highest ideals in time and eternity—to be perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. Religion functions best when religious groups focus purely on spiritual matters rather than mixing with other social groups. Any religion that truly spiritualizes believers will positively affect their social relationships by producing in them the "fruits of the spirit" in their daily lives.

Narrow-minded division is a disease of institutional religion, and such intolerance enslaves the spirit. It is far better to have a religion without a church than a church without religion. Religious turmoil doesn't necessarily indicate spiritual decline but may precede growth or change. The socialization of religion has valid purposes like dramatizing religious loyalties, highlighting truth and beauty, and promoting fellowship. Living religion promotes friendship, safeguards morality, and clears the way to spread the gospel of eternal salvation.

When religion becomes institutionalized, its potential for good decreases while possible harms increase. The dangers include rigid beliefs, vested interests, fossilized truth, competitive divisions, oppressive authority, claims of special status, exaggerated sacredness, hollow religious routines, and focus on the past while ignoring present needs. Formal religion often stifles personal spiritual growth instead of encouraging spiritual service.

Religious groups should avoid secular activities, but not hinder social coordination. Life must continue growing in meaning as humans reform philosophy and clarify religion. In social reconstruction, religion provides stable loyalty to higher goals beyond immediate objectives, giving perspective during confusing changes. Religion inspires courageous and joyful living, combining patience with passion and insight with enthusiasm.

Humans cannot wisely decide temporal issues or overcome selfishness without considering God's sovereignty and spiritual values. Economic interdependence and social brotherhood will eventually lead to true human fraternity. Science balances human tendencies toward religious fanaticism, while economic realities ground people in the practical world. Personal religious experience connects people with the eternal realities of their expanding cosmic citizenship.