Thor Hall - "Let Religion Be Religious" (May 29, 1966)

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-	The day of Pentecost or mid Sunday	0:35
	as some church calendars had it	0:38
	is something of a stepchild among the great festival days	0:43
	of the church here.	0:48
	As religious festivals go, Christmas and Easter	0:51
	far outshine the celebration of this day.	0:56
	Traditionally at Pentecost,	1:02
	the church commemorated the descent of God	1:05
	in the form and mode of the Holy Spirit	1:09
	as the active in inspiratory power in the life,	1:12
	faith of the first Christians,	1:17
	and this event would seem to be of such magnitude	1:21
	that it was constitutive in the history of the church.	1:27
	But the church in our time gives only peripheral attention	1:33
	to the recollection of this event.	1:38
	Pentecost, it's one of those Sundays	1:39
	which seem to sneak up on us unawares, and here it is again.	1:42
	If you read the sermon titles	1:50
	listed in the newspapers yesterday,	1:51
	you will find that a surprisingly large number of preachers,	1:53
	as far as one can tell	1:57
	from the listing of their sermon titles	1:58
	have other things in mind for this morning.	2:01
	You may ask your roommate tomorrow morning	2:06
	what Pentecost is all about,	2:08
	and you'll find in his face,	2:11
	an illustration to the second verse in the Bible,	2:12
	the earth was without form and void	2:15
	and darkness was on the face of it.	2:18
	I must say that I have wondered a little	2:23
	why we seem to have lost the touch for this day.	2:28
	Is it perhaps because the whole event	2:35
	as recorded in the book of Acts	2:36
	is made up of such odd material	2:39
	that we don't quite how to handle it?	2:41
	Or is it perhaps because we have all run	2:46
	into those religious fanatics	2:48
	who would want to make every outward feature	2:53
	of that day normative for every day, and at all times.	2:55
	And in rejecting them, we put aside the whole event?	3:02
	Is it perhaps because the holy spirit,	3:09
	the third person in the Trinity is the least real	3:13
	and most enigmatic of all the manifestations of God	3:19
	in our book?	3:25
	Or is it perhaps simply because we do not understand	3:29
	what it is to be a Christian at all?	3:32
	I recognize that that last question deals	3:37
	and illegitimately low blow to us	3:40
	particularly if we put our belts around our necks	3:43
	and outlaw any punches to the heart,	3:46
	but it is itself a fully legitimate question.	3:50
	It's prompted for me by a renewed study of the New Testament	3:57
	and the solid conviction that has dawned on me	4:03
	as a result of it, that it was at Pentecost	4:05
	that the Christian faith finally came into full flame	4:11
	in the life of these first Christians.	4:16
	It was at Pentecost, not by the River Jordan,	4:19
	not by the mountain side, not by the lake shore,	4:25
	not even at the cross.	4:31
	No, not even at the open tomb, but at Pentecost	4:35
	that their relationship to Christ became truly faithful,	4:42
	truly religious, if you will.	4:46
	Up to that point, they had simply been wavering	4:49
	and floundering about,	4:53
	oscillating between insight and blindness,	4:55
	shifting from doubt to dedication,	4:59
	from faith back to frustration again.	5:03
	But here at Pentecost, all that was changed.	5:06
	From now on, they knew who He was in relation to them	5:11
	and who they were in relation to Him.	5:17
	They had really only been observers before.	5:21
	Now, they were true participants.	5:26
	I'm anxious to understand what happened to these people.	5:33
	I mean, what really took place	5:38
	behind the odd symbolism of the story,	5:41
	the sound like the rush of a mighty wind	5:44
	or tongues of fire and all the rest of it?	5:48
	Perhaps if we understood that,	5:53
	the meaning of this religious festival	5:56
	would be a little clearer to us.	5:59
	And perhaps if we understood the message	6:03
	of this day a little better,	6:05
	we might be able to grasp the nature	6:07
	and meaning of our Christian faith a little firmer.	6:11
	And in our time, that is sorely needed.	6:16
	Now in order to get at the meaning of Pentecost,	6:21
	I propose that we go not to the story of it	6:23
	in the book of Acts,	6:26
	but to a piece of theological reflection	6:29
	published by Saint Paul in the second letter	6:33
	to the Corinthians.	6:37
	I'm reading from chapter 5:14-17,	6:39
	he says "The love of Christ controls us	6:44
	because we are convinced that one has died for all.	6:48
	Therefore, all have died and He died for all	6:52
	that those who live might live no longer for themselves,	6:57
	but for Him, who fro their sake, died and was raised.	7:01
	From now on therefore we regard no one	7:06
	from a human point of view,	7:09
	even though we once regarded Christ	7:12
	from a human point of view, we regard Him thus no longer.	7:14
	Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.	7:19
	The old has passed away.	7:27
	Behold, the new has come."	7:31
	"From now on," he says, "The new has come."	7:37
	What is this old that he's talking about?	7:44
	And what is the new he's speaking of?	7:47
	And what is that now of transition?	7:50
	Well, Paul gives clear directions	7:55
	towards finding the answers.	7:57
	The old is obviously the human point of view,	8:00
	the worldly way of looking at things,	8:05
	what as he expresses it, looking at things Kata Sarka	8:09
	or according to the flesh,	8:13
	he indicates that even Christ can be considered	8:17
	from that perspective.	8:19
	That is simply historically, factually,	8:22
	common-sensically, there is facticity in his life.	8:27
	Paul is in no doubt, whatever about that,	8:33
	the human existence of Jesus can be ascertain.	8:36
	Historically, the historical Jesus was not in Paul's mind,	8:40
	a fluffy myth.	8:45
	He was a real man, solid flesh, red blood.	8:48
	But to say that is not really very significant for Paul,	8:56
	particularly not after Jesus' death.	9:00
	If the factual description of His historicity	9:05
	was all that one can talk about.	9:08
	Then once reason for talking has now actually passed away,	9:11
	one's relationship to this person has been brutally broken.	9:16
	And it is because of that, that the new point of view	9:22
	must be found.	9:28
	From now on, says Paul,	9:31
	we regard no one from a human point of view.	9:34
	What then is the new perspective?	9:37
	Paul indicates that it has to do with an inward	9:40
	or existential awareness of an identification between us	9:44
	and Him, a relationship of mutual love and self-giving.	9:51
	It's obviously a responsive or an interpretive standpoint,	10:00
	a commitment to a spiritual view of things	10:07
	to looking at life particularly the life of Christ	10:11
	according to the spirit, it takes the historical facts	10:18
	even the most drastic fact of all	10:23
	is cruel death on the cross.	10:26
	And it sees it as symbolic of religious meaning,	10:29
	the cross is no longer a frightful sign of tragedy	10:36
	and obliteration.	10:41
	It is now even the lovely symbol of Christ's	10:43
	(indistinct) self-giving for us on our behalf,	10:48
	for our redemption.	10:53
	And it is in this new way of seeing things	10:56
	that Paul could look the ugly fact straight in the eye	10:58
	and say, He died for me and such love and sacrifice	11:03
	demands my life, my soul, my all.	11:09
	That was the new which had come to place the old.	11:15
	The new way of looking at things	11:19
	and a new life to go with it.	11:22
	But how did he find it?	11:25
	What was that now that set a limit to the old	11:28
	and marked the transition to the new?	11:33
	Paul calls it a conviction.	11:38
	I am convinced,	11:42
	but he might as well have called it conversion	11:45
	had he only remember to tell us what the Greek word	11:48
	for conversion really means, metanoia is the word.	11:51
	And it means to have a new mind.	11:57
	What happened actually was that some little switch	12:02
	in his mind snapped over from the outward observation	12:09
	of worldly facts,	12:15
	to an inward interpretation of their spiritual meaning.	12:18
	It was not that the old was forgotten,	12:23
	it was more that it had been superseded by a new dimension	12:26
	much as if you switch from common recordings to stereo,	12:33
	the gospel had now become internalized in Him,	12:43
	inspired in Him.	12:48
	And from that moment, everything was new.	12:52
	Now, if that was Paul's experience,	12:58
	I would propose that it is in essence	13:02
	the experience of the first in community also at Pentecost	13:06
	they had finally here reach their decisive now,	13:11
	the moment of their metanoia,	13:17
	when their mind was changed.	13:19
	And after that, nothing was ever the same again,	13:23
	the old had passed away.	13:26
	The new had come,	13:29
	the gospel of Christ had found full response	13:31
	in their own conviction.	13:36
	The spirit of it filled them now with new meaning.	13:39
	If you look a little closer,	13:46
	at the largest cycle of the experience	13:49
	of these early Christians,	13:51
	you can fairly easily uncover the clearer features	13:54
	of their old and their new life.	13:59
	And that moment of transition between them,	14:03
	the story of the disciples	14:07
	as we have it in the New Testament, of course,	14:10
	is written in retrospect from the point of view of Pentecost	14:13
	it is looking back over their former experience	14:18
	from the standpoint of their new,	14:22
	and this has quite naturally influenced these sources	14:24
	to a certain degree.	14:28
	We do not in the New Testament have straight recordings	14:29
	of historical events,	14:34
	which simply describe	14:35
	the external actual objective happenings.	14:37
	These stories mix together, fact and faith,	14:41
	interpreting facts faithfully,	14:46
	expressing faith factually, but in view of this,	14:49
	it is so much the more surprising	14:56
	to find that not in any one of these stories	14:58
	in the New Testament is any attempt made at all	15:01
	to glorify the picture of the disciples	15:04
	or to (indistinct) the impression they leave	15:08
	of confusion and blundering on practically every page.	15:13
	One wonders why,	15:19
	could it be that these writers writing in retrospect	15:21
	from the vantage point of Pentecost,	15:26
	did not for a moment want to give the impression	15:29
	that the Christian faith and the Christian life	15:32
	is simply a matter of hearing Jesus' words,	15:36
	joining the disciples circle,	15:41
	receiving the religious instruction,	15:45
	observing His life and death and affirming His resurrection.	15:49
	Well, that's how it really looks.	15:54
	Even from the first day of their call to discipleship.	15:58
	When Christ said to them, follow me	16:04
	and I will make you fishers of men.	16:07
	We recognize that	16:10
	if these men were going to be anything at all,	16:11
	it was He who would have to make them	16:14
	and all along the line, as the story proceeds	16:17
	we are held in suspense to see if He really would make it.	16:21
	There was first a period of initial instruction	16:25
	when they were given a beginner's understanding	16:30
	of the kingdom and the first awareness	16:32
	of the needs around them.	16:34
	And with that bifocal orientation,	16:37
	they were sent out to face the world on His behalf.	16:40
	Now, they came back with great enthusiasm.	16:44
	They'd seen some marvelous things happening out there	16:48
	and now they thought they were ready for the big league.	16:50
	So Jesus instruction took on a new dimension.	16:54
	His parables were no longer the simple analogies of nature,	16:59
	transparent at the first glance.	17:03
	His teaching now took on depth	17:06
	and developed the cutting edge.	17:10
	When they heard it, they worried	17:14
	and they went to Him and they said,	17:17
	did you know that you offended the Pharisees just now?	17:20
	And Jesus turned around	17:26
	and said, so what?	17:29
	They are blind guides.	17:31
	And if a blind man leads a blind,	17:35
	both will fall into the ditch.	17:38
	Well, how are we to understand a statement like that?	17:42
	They say, or something to that effect.	17:46
	And Jesus looked them in the face and said,	17:51
	are you still without understanding?	17:55
	And there were others such disappointing moments	18:02
	for the teacher.	18:06
	Jesus found them with a sick boy,	18:08
	standing around not knowing what to do.	18:10
	And He looked at them and He said,	18:14
	how faithless and perverse you are?	18:16
	How long am I gonna have to be with you?	18:19
	Perverse is right.	18:24
	They began to discuss among themselves who it was	18:26
	that was to be the greatest in the kingdom.	18:30
	And He said to them,	18:35
	don't you know that unless you turn up about	18:36
	and become like a little child,	18:39
	you won't even enter the kingdom at all?	18:40
	They pushed the children aside	18:44
	when their mothers desired His blessing and He snapped,	18:45
	don't you see,	18:50
	these are the ones to whom the kingdom belongs.	18:52
	They were plainly astonished	18:57
	when He turned a rich, young ruler away, sorry.	18:59
	And they were equally surprised	19:06
	when He didn't desire to crush His opponents.	19:08
	Now, there was one bright moment of revelation.	19:13
	Peter, as you remember in response to Jesus direct question	19:17
	did manage to utter the grand confession	19:21
	thou art the Christ, the son of the living God,	19:25
	but when Jesus took the lead from it	19:30
	and began to tell them what now was to take place	19:31
	since they had reached that level of understanding,	19:35
	Peter fell flat on his face again.	19:39
	Could not understand why the tragedy of His suffering	19:42
	and death could not be avoided.	19:46
	It was like that it seems all the time.	19:51
	As Jesus said to Peter, Peter, you are on the side of man	19:56
	and not of God.	20:02
	So when Jesus died, they all seemed to be finished also,	20:06
	"We had hoped He was the one to redeem Israel, they said,	20:13
	commiserating together."	20:16
	As they walked on the road about what had happened.	20:18
	And still in the story, He comes back in His old role	20:24
	as a frustrated teacher and says to them,	20:31
	"Oh, you foolish, men, how slow you are to believe."	20:35
	How did they ever find the nuke	20:42
	when they were so solidly stuck the old all the time?	20:44
	Well, there are some pointers that keep reoccurring.	20:49
	We heard some of them read to us earlier in the service.	20:52
	They're actually promises of something more,	20:57
	something dramatic that was to take place.	21:00
	Something essential that was to happen to them.	21:02
	I have yet many things to say to you,	21:06
	but you cannot bear them now.	21:10
	I did not say these things from the beginning	21:12
	because I was with you, but now I'm going.	21:14
	It is to your advantage that I go away.	21:18
	But if I do not go away, the counselor will not come to you.	21:21
	The counselor, the Holy Spirit,	21:25
	whom the Father will send in my name.	21:27
	He we'll teach you all things and bring to your remembrance	21:29
	what I have said to you, He will glorify me	21:35
	or He will take off all His mind and declare to you.	21:41
	I'll say that these are pointers to something more.	21:46
	They're actually direct pointers toward Pentecost.	21:51
	"Behold, I send the promise of my father upon you."	21:56
	He said, "But stay in the city	21:59
	until you are clothed with power from on high.	22:02
	And I will pray the Father.	22:07
	And He will give you another counselor	22:09
	to be with you forever.	22:12
	Even the spirit of truth."	22:14
	And as Acts opens the record,	22:17
	it is said He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem,	22:22
	but to wait for the promise of the Father	22:27
	as he had said before many days you shall be baptized	22:30
	with the Holy Spirit.	22:36
	You shall receive power	22:38
	when the Holy Spirit has come upon you	22:41
	and you shall be my witnesses.	22:43
	These were the promises of the New	22:48
	and Pentecost was the answer.	22:51
	The fulfillment, that is obvious from what took place.	22:55
	And I'm not thinking now of the odd phenomenon	23:00
	of speaking in tongues,	23:03
	much more significant by far is a dramatic change	23:05
	which occurred in them, in their faith.	23:10
	Look at Peter, for example,	23:14
	the very same man who had taken Jesus' side	23:16
	at Caesar Philippi and suggested that there must be a way	23:20
	by which suffering and death could be avoided.	23:24
	Now, he stands before the people and pronounces openly,	23:27
	this Jesus delivered up	23:35
	according to the foreknowledge of God, whom you crucified	23:37
	and killed by the hands of lawless men,	23:41
	being therefore exalted at the right hand of God	23:45
	has poured out this, which you now see and here.	23:49
	Let all the House of Israel therefore know assuredly	23:54
	that God has made Him both Lord and Christ.	23:58
	This Jesus who you crucify.	24:04
	What had happened was nothing less	24:08
	than a radical transformation.	24:12
	At this point, Peter at last understood the gospel.	24:15
	The meaning of it all had finally dawned on him.	24:22
	At this point for the first time, all that he had heard	24:28
	and seen in this sojourn with Jesus fell into place	24:33
	and made sense.	24:38
	Before that moment,	24:40
	the gospel had simply been Jesus teaching.	24:41
	And now it became Peter's own conviction.	24:46
	Before that moment,	24:54
	Peter had been scared of the ugly event of Jesus' death.	24:57
	Now it was a center of his triumphant faith.	25:04
	Before he had looked at everything	25:11
	from a human point of view.	25:13
	Now, he was on the side of God and he saw something new.	25:16
	We see then that it was only in the moment	25:25
	when the historical and factual perspective on things	25:28
	was superseded by the personal conviction	25:33
	of spiritual meaning,	25:37
	that the faith of the first Christian believers	25:39
	reached its true character.	25:42
	That was when their religion became religious.	25:45
	When the Jesus they had known before in the flesh	25:50
	came near to them in a new way,	25:55
	in a more significant kind of presence, in the spirit,	25:59
	filling their life existentially.	26:05
	Now finally, if this understanding of Pentecost	26:11
	points to the true nature of the Christian faith and life,	26:14
	what are the consequences for our understanding of our life	26:19
	and faith now in 1966?	26:24
	What is it to be a Christian now?	26:30
	Is it to be a follower of Jesus?	26:34
	Walking in His footsteps as we so often hear?	26:38
	Is it to know his teaching	26:45
	or to join in the company of his friends	26:47
	or to imitate to the best of our ability those things	26:53
	which He exemplified in life?	26:56
	Yes, we may say it is that, but it is much more than that.	27:00
	What is it then?	27:07
	Is it to know more of His teachings	27:09
	or to be more active as participant in the life	27:13
	and work of the church?	27:16
	Or to go further in the imitation of Jesus suffering	27:19
	and death?	27:24
	It might, we may say, but the more that we are talking about	27:27
	is not simply a matter of quantity,	27:34
	it's a matter of quality.	27:38
	It's the result of a transformation of the inner man,	27:41
	not just an extension of our outward reach.	27:46
	It is actually a moment of conversion, of metanoia,	27:50
	of the transformation of one's mind,	27:58
	of one's point of view.	28:02
	It is to have the mind of Christ.	28:06
	It is to be in Him,	28:09
	in His love or as the Pentecost story expresses it	28:13
	to be filled with the Holy Spirit.	28:18
	I'm sure that you can sense the struggle	28:25
	I've had to break open the secret of this transformation,	28:27
	this now in relation to which everything that goes before	28:31
	is old and everything which follows is new.	28:35
	I must struggle with it because I do want to understand	28:39
	what it is that makes our religion truly religious.	28:44
	It's an old struggle.	28:50
	Luther worried about it	28:52
	before he had his marvelous power experience.	28:54
	Wesley brooded over it before his heart was strangely won.	28:58
	And I can see the church still struggling with it also.	29:05
	Every one of us each in his own way,	29:10
	we do not really find spiritual satisfaction	29:14
	in the outward observation of a ritual of worship.	29:16
	We do not in the final analysis find personal fulfillment	29:21
	simply in performing certain duties we have responsibly.	29:25
	We do not when all is told,	29:31
	find ultimate meaning in the theoretical understanding	29:34
	of some Christian teachings or do we?	29:38
	Has our religion simply become synonymous	29:44
	with these things,	29:47
	with liturgical and ecclesiastic activity?	29:47
	With ethical obedience and social righteousness	29:52
	or with intellectual arguments about theological theories,	29:57
	is that perhaps the reason why we are so upset	30:03
	when someone suggests that the institutional church	30:07
	is a hindrance to true religion and should be given up	30:10
	in favor of a total Christian involvement in the world?	30:14
	Is that the background for our shock?	30:21
	When someone proposes that a legalistic conformity	30:24
	to moral rules and regulation is actually immoral	30:27
	and should be replaced by personal ethical decision	30:33
	in every kind of relationship.	30:38
	Is that also why we arise with indignation	30:41
	when someone indicates that our theoretical ideas about God	30:43
	are idolatrous and unchristian and should be blown to bits	30:48
	and pieces to make room	30:52
	for the true agnosticism of Christian confession?	30:55
	Is it perhaps that our religion is still old,	31:00
	still simply human, not new, not inspired.	31:06
	Is it for chance that we have not yet reached the moment	31:15
	when we are convicted within and convinced without?	31:19
	When our worship is worship in spirit and truth.	31:25
	When our ethics is the ethics of free responsibility.	31:29
	When our theology is a glad confession	31:34
	of faithful reflection.	31:38
	Here is perhaps the core of our problem,	31:41
	is our forgetfulness of Pentecost	31:53
	simply a sign that we have stopped short	31:56
	in our religious quest of a full faith?	32:00
	In that case, I have a word to say,	32:06
	a pointer toward Pentecost, for on our side of Pentecost,	32:12
	Jesus the Christ is still standing	32:18
	as He stood with His disciples before us	32:21
	and He lifts His hands on us.	32:25
	He breathes our way and He says,	32:30
	"Receive ye the Holy Spirit."	32:35
	Come Holy Spirit, heavenly love	32:51
	with all thy quickening powers,	32:53
	kindle a flame of sacred love	32:56
	in these whole hearts of ours,	32:59
	look how we gravel here below,	33:02
	fond of these earthly toys, our souls how heavily they go	33:05
	to reach internal joys, come Holy Spirit, heavenly love	33:10
	with all thy quickening powers,	33:18
	come shed a broader saviors love,	33:22
	and that shall kindle ours.	33:25
	And now unto Him, who is able to do exceeding abundantly	33:31
	above all that we ask or think,	33:34
	according to the power that worketh in us	33:38
	and to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus	33:41
	throughout all ages, world without end.	33:45

Item Info

Title:

Thor Hall - "Let Religion Be Religious" (May 29, 1966)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4668dm1j

Date:

May 29, 1966

Speaker:

Hall, Thor

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0339
ref5883_4kn
uachapelsermaud
duke:628470
dcrau002336
ark:/87924/r4668dm1j
01bf0b21-97f7-4f30-9d8d-2ae642a13438

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Thor Hall - "Let Religion Be Religious" (May 29, 1966)

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1. Thor Hall - "Let Religion Be Religious" (May 29, 1966)

Duke University Archives

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Thor Hall - "Let Religion Be Religious" (May 29, 1966)

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Duke University Archives

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