Rush Rhees

The Religion That Jesus Lived

The picture of Jesus given to us in the Gospels, especially by the synoptists, is for the most part that of a singularly objective life. Not that there is not much of self-disclosure, direct and indirect. Inwardness and searching of the heart of man are moreover the characteristics of his teaching. Otherworldliness, too, in preeminent degree, marks both the life and the teaching of Jesus. But the mood of the Confessions of St. Augustine, or of The Imitation, one does not find. His fellowship with God, constant, conscious, predominant in all his life, appears as the most natural, the most joyous, the strongest life a man can live. This strong, joyous, natural communion with God may be seen in various traits of his character.

What Did Jesus Undertake to Do

The Romans, under whose procurator, Pontius Pilate, Jesus was put to death in the reign of Tiberius, got control of Palestine in 63 B.c., when Pompey intervened to stop a civil war which was harassing the peoples life. The Roman sway was exercised over Judah and Samaria in the time of Jesus, through her procurator Pontius Pilate; over Galilee and the region beyond Jordan, through the vassal King Antipas (Herod). The contemporaries of Jesus regarded this Roman dominion variously. In idea all resented it. The people of wealth and social position, for the most part, accepted and made the best of it. These people of wealth and position constituted the party of the Sadducees-a name probably derived from Zadok, who was high priest under King Solomon-for the aristocracy of Judaea consisted principally of the great high-priestly families, and their social and political followers. As the priestly party, the Sadducees were guardians of the temple and its ritual. How far that worship had fallen into formalism may be seen from the toleration extended by them to the market which energetic traders had set up within the temple itself-forsooth in order to make it easy for worshipers from a distance to procure fit animals for sacrifice and correct coins for money gifts. Circumstances also developed among the Sadducees some acute students of the Hebrew Scriptures. Such scribes were extreme literalists, and opposed any religious ideas which were not explicitly written in the Law. That which more than anything else called out the intellectual activity of these Sadducean scribes, or teachers, was the great popularity of certain other teachers of the Law, who were known as the Pharisees. That name did not indeed designate a party

The Required Religious Services of a College

The older colleges of this country from the beginning required all students to attend public prayers morning and evening every weekday and church twice on Sunday. Later the requirement was made for morning prayers only and for one service on Sunday. This is now the custom in nearly all colleges and in some universities. State institutions do not require attendance on religious services. Objection is made by some persons to a requirement respecting religion. They say it is wrong in principle to compel anyone to be present in a place of public worship, while the very fact that attendance is compulsory destroys the religious value of the service. A further objection is made, that the circumstance of college prayers is unfavorable to worship. In the morning the students rush from breakfast to chapel, and, after a few minutes, pass to the lecture-roomy where their minds are engaged on secular subjects. These objections will be noticed after the character and advantage of a daily religious service in college have been considered. I have had opportunity to observe in only one college, but, after several years there, I am convinced that the advantages are very great, and that it would be a distinct loss not to have the college together daily at a religious service. I am aware that conditions are not the same in a university having thousands of students as in a college having hundreds. Yet Yale and Princeton require attendance of undergraduates, and students in those universities favor it. Whether attendance is required or voluntary, much depends on the character of the service. Those who attend should be participators, not merely listeners. I found the service at Amherst so ordered that the students had but little direct part. There was first a doxology, then a chapter of the Bible read, a hymn, and an extemporaneous prayer; the whole occupying nearly or quite fifteen minutes. There was much inattention, though the students, for the most parte

Religious Education as Affected by the Historical Study of the Bible

LET me ask you to consider very concisely certain of the things which we may claim to have been accomplished and effected by modern historical study of the Bible, in order to consider how these will influence the modern conception of religious education. In the first place, modern historical study of the Bible has effected a recedence of emphasis on theories of inspiration behind the recognition of what we may call the fact of inspiration. By the fact of inspiration I mean the recognition that in the Bible the human spirit finds stimulus and instruction for those deeper movements of the soul which we call religious. This stimulus and instruction the modern historical study of the Bible brings out in clear emphasis. The theories of inspiration are the various ways in which men have undertaken to express their notion of how an infinite God ought to have indicated his will and thought to men. With these, modern historical study of the Bible has nothing whatever to do. Secondly, this study has led to the recedence of the theory of inspiration, because it has shown the essential reverence of criticism. Criticism is the modern effort to answer certain questions which are forced upon readers of the Bible by traditional views. It is most natural to ask who wrote certain books, when they were written, and why they were written; and criticism is simply the modern, fearlessly honest, effort to answer these questions with a, perhaps bold, disregard of the answers that have been handed down by the tradition which furnishes the