Harold A. Bosley - "Pardon My Idealism" (June 1, 1958; October 5, 1958)

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	(ethereal choral music)	0:04
	♪ Amen ♪	0:05
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	(soft piano music)	1:08
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	(ethereal choral music)	1:41
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	♪ Amen ♪	5:00
-	The title of this sermon was lifted from	5:49
	a letter that came to me from one of the hundreds	5:54
	of our young people from the church	5:59
	who are engaged in college and university training.	6:01
	I confess to a selfish reason in keeping up	6:07
	a general correspondence with them.	6:10
	I find myself constantly indebted to them for	6:14
	the lucidity of their insights	6:18
	and insight into the genuine agony of spirit	6:22
	with which they face their future.	6:25
	And above all for their adopted determination	6:29
	to try to do something to arrest	6:32
	the pell-mell flight into disaster of this sad old world.	6:35
	Now, the phrase, pardon my idealism was gleaned	6:42
	from a letter of one who after confessing his own confusion	6:45
	wrote, "Pardon my idealism."	6:49
	But then he went on to state the main issues of our day	6:52
	as he sees them	6:57
	and to indicate the directions he thinks we ought to take	6:59
	in regard to them.	7:02
	That introductory phrase struck fire all around	7:06
	the circumference of my mind as I read it.	7:10
	Why should anyone least of all a young person	7:15
	feel apologetic about being idealistic?	7:19
	It would have been a little easier to understand	7:24
	if he had said, pardon my pessimism	7:27
	or pardon my materialism or pardon my confusion,	7:30
	but why pardon my idealism?	7:36
	Yet he is far from alone in his hesitant	7:41
	affirmation of idealism.	7:45
	In fact, I should say that probably one of the most	7:48
	eloquent characteristics of our time,	7:52
	at least the last 40 years has been the compromising	7:55
	if not the ditching of the ideas of our culture,	8:01
	both religious and social.	8:08
	To say that the way of the idealist is hard today	8:13
	is to put it mildly.	8:17
	The way of the idealist has always been hard.	8:21
	There is no reason to think that it will be different	8:26
	in the future.	8:29
	Now this is a matter of primary concern	8:32
	in a day like our own when,	8:35
	the battle of ultimates has been joined in dead earnest	8:38
	and neutralism is not permitted.	8:43
	Paraphrasing a line from Frost's poem Mending a Wall,	8:49
	something there is in this world in which we live that does	8:54
	not like a spectator and will not permit any one of us	8:58
	to pose as spectator for very long.	9:03
	We find it tempted just as difficult to be content with	9:10
	the little things of life	9:14
	as it is to avoid confronting the big issues.	9:17
	You may find some comfort as I do from a story which	9:23
	came out of Belgium a good many years ago.	9:28
	A certain old church they're engaged in order to just	9:32
	brighten up and repair the lovely artwork.	9:35
	That had become a little faded with the years.	9:39
	He completed the job and sent them a bill	9:42
	for a $67.30 cents,	9:45
	which the good folks thought it had been steep.	9:48
	They asked him to itemize the bill and he did	9:52
	on this complete list where these items,	9:56
	far correcting the 10 commandments, $5.12 cents.	10:00
	For renewing the heavens	10:05
	and adjusting the stars $7.14 cents.	10:06
	For touching up purgatory	10:11
	and restoring lost souls $3.6 cents,	10:12
	for a brightening up the flames of hell	10:17
	and doing odd jobs for the damned $7.17 cents.	10:19
	Now I mentioned this because I have a suspicion	10:25
	that some of you may be of the opinion	10:28
	that the world in which we live is in such a state,	10:30
	that all you can hope to get done	10:32
	is a few odd jobs for the damned.	10:35
	Now it's all right for the artist to feel this way	10:38
	about his work, but it's suicide	10:41
	for the rest of us to feel that way about our work.	10:43
	And I would urge you not to be too pessimistic	10:48
	about what you may be able to get done	10:50
	with the life and the time you have.	10:52
	Above all do not approach whatever work	10:56
	you choose to do with a dark and bitter attitude	10:58
	about its ultimate relationship to the human enterprise.	11:02
	Tennyson lifted what I've always regarded as a word of	11:07
	wise warning on this matter, when he causes one	11:11
	of his young men to cry out,	11:15
	"Oh, what shall I be at 50 should nature keep me alive.	11:18
	If I find the world so bitter when I am, but 25?"	11:22
	Unless you are going to be content with doing	11:27
	some odd jobs for the damned with your life.	11:30
	You will want to address yourself	11:33
	to some of their great issues of our day	11:35
	knowing full well that no one man	11:37
	and no one generation is going to be sufficient	11:41
	for the task, but the task will never be attempted,	11:44
	let alone be completed.	11:48
	Unless people with limited abilities	11:50
	and limited time addressed themselves to it,	11:52
	until the task is done.	11:56
	I know of none, no task that is more pressing	11:59
	than trying as best we can to get	12:03
	a notion of the proper relationship between the way of	12:06
	life that we love called the democratic way of life	12:11
	and the religious tradition in which most of us	12:15
	have been reared namely the Christian tradition.	12:18
	One thing is sure we're living at a time	12:21
	when the democratic way of life is being	12:25
	weakened by fears from within and assailed by foes	12:29
	from without as never before,	12:33
	in it's relatively long history.	12:36
	I will leave to others more competent than myself.	12:39
	A study of a specific problems confronting democratic	12:43
	institutions, I know they are many.	12:47
	But I should like to center our attention for the moments	12:50
	we have to gather.	12:54
	A bond what seems to me to be	12:56
	the most sadly neglected factor in all our thought	12:58
	about the problems and the future of democracy.	13:03
	Namely the relationship between religious faith	13:07
	and the democratic ideal.	13:11
	Now both religion and democracy are on the defensive,	13:15
	there's no denying that.	13:18
	Religion has been having a hard fight of it	13:21
	for some kind of prestige and importance in this	13:23
	world for the last 300 years.	13:27
	The testing days swept down on democracy	13:30
	at the more recent time.	13:33
	Beginning with the Russian revolution in dead earnest.	13:35
	And during the intervening years, 1917 to our own day,	13:40
	we have seen democracy derided	13:45
	as a delusion in all corners of the world.	13:48
	We have seen increasingly large segments	13:53
	of the human family lose faith in it.	13:55
	And even within our own ranks,	13:59
	the questions have begun to emerge as to its	14:03
	ultimate value and worth.	14:06
	A reappraisal is being forced upon us.	14:09
	And if democracy is to have any future, as an idea,	14:13
	as an ideal, as a way of life,	14:16
	it will be because we rediscover its religious rootage	14:20
	and nourish that rootage in our own thought and life.	14:24
	Now believing as I profoundly do	14:29
	in the Christian faith as the true view of life.	14:31
	And in democracy as that form of society,	14:36
	best fitted for the Christian view,	14:39
	do mature and bear fruit in.	14:42
	I want to indicate those points at which Christianity	14:45
	can contribute something essential to democracy,	14:49
	but warn you as I warn myself day by day,	14:55
	the only place where this contribution can be made	15:01
	is not on paper, but incarneth	15:06
	in lives of people like ourselves.	15:11
	I suppose that basic problem we have to face is	15:15
	whether or not democracy is possible.	15:18
	There are a great many people who believe that it cannot	15:22
	survive the challenges being leveled against it,	15:25
	largely because it simply is a misreading of human nature.	15:28
	Democracy has been defined altogether too many ways	15:33
	I suspect, at one end of the spectrum	15:36
	we have Carlyle's definition of it.	15:39
	Democracy he said is a plurality of blockheads	15:42
	that seems to leave a little out though	15:46
	upon occasion about every four years	15:48
	it seems to explain a good deal to.	15:50
	But a much better definition came from	15:54
	Abraham Lincoln in his famous phrase,	15:56
	"A democracy is a government of the people by the people	15:59
	and for the people."	16:03
	But there's no denying that this conception of democracy	16:05
	has had hard sledding in history.	16:08
	To begin with, I suppose we might as well admit	16:12
	it's seldom been tried,	16:14
	and where it has been the results have not been encouraging.	16:15
	Democracy in Periclean Greece had a good try there	16:20
	within severely limited circumstances.	16:23
	it lasted a 100 years.	16:27
	It weakened and fell may cause first vices within the sword	16:29
	of Macedonia was simply the last	16:36
	and most obvious historical blow.	16:38
	It was the provincialism of the city state.	16:42
	It was the selfishness of the Greek citizen.	16:46
	It was his belief that somehow or other God had ordained him	16:50
	to rule the whole world that in a later phrase,	16:54
	the world was his oyster and that he could open it with	16:58
	whatever instrument he chose.	17:01
	He was his own master.	17:04
	He believed that about himself.	17:06
	He believed that about his city state in evidently collision	17:08
	came not only between and among the Greeks,	17:13
	but finally the great city states,	17:17
	Athens and Sparta squared off against each other and opened	17:19
	the veins up one of the greatest civilizations	17:23
	the world has ever seen.	17:25
	Did die before their very eyes because of their own vices.	17:29
	You wonder sometimes whether democracy can ever avert that.	17:37
	Certainly we're suffering from it today.	17:42
	We've seen it in operation in the Western world	17:46
	for several hundred years.	17:49
	It's now fighting for its life against doubts	17:52
	and vices within and opponents without.	17:54
	How is it that the democratic ideal	17:59
	has so much trouble when we try to live it up?	18:02
	One of the best answers I've ever	18:06
	come across was given by Dr. T.V. Smith.	18:08
	One of the few philosophers statesman of our time.	18:12
	He said, "That men will live for private gain we know,	18:16
	that they will die for our public ends we know,	18:21
	but whether the average man in the continuous long run	18:25
	will work efficiently for public ends we do not know."	18:31
	Nor is he alone in this stuff.	18:37
	Some of the most disciplined minds,	18:40
	the human race has ever produced are sure	18:42
	you cannot count on the average man's loyalty to anything	18:46
	other and bigger than himself.	18:52
	He will talk about the ideals of democracy	18:58
	and general welfare	19:01
	and the rights of other people, but put the pinch on him,	19:03
	he's talking about his own welfare and his own rights	19:08
	and he doesn't care a hang about others.	19:11
	How a formidable array of thinkers	19:17
	from Plato to Thomas Hobbes will	19:19
	stand up and say amen to that indictment of the average	19:22
	man's neglect of the fundamental ideals of democracy.	19:26
	Well, if giants like these, aren't interested in it	19:33
	you have a right to ask who is?	19:36
	Who does think that man is capable of democracy?	19:39
	As far as I can understand the situation,	19:43
	there are two groups of people in our society who have some	19:45
	confidence in the democratic ideal just now.	19:49
	One is the secularist and the other is the religionist	19:53
	if I may use those two times for a moment.	19:56
	A secularist is a man who does not think religion has very	20:00
	much of importance to contribute	20:04
	to the solving of problems like this.	20:06
	He believes that we may be able to develop a civilization on	20:10
	a minimum basis of live and let live.	20:13
	He argues that possibly with this as the beginning,	20:17
	we may be able to build up a culture over a period of	20:20
	several hundred years in which we train people to respect	20:23
	each other's rights.	20:27
	Not because we love each other or are really interested in	20:28
	each other, not at all,	20:32
	but just because we don't want the other person to hurt us.	20:33
	The whole motif moves from the center out,	20:37
	It's I, me and mine.	20:40
	That's the center of the thought of the secularist.	20:43
	He says, it's possible for us to build	20:47
	a powerful social ethic on this basis.	20:49
	And it may even approach the grandiose formulation	20:52
	one for all and all for one.	20:55
	No matter how selfish and individual is	20:59
	the secularist continuous,	21:01
	he will finally realize he must learn	21:03
	to respect the rights of others if he is to survive.	21:06
	And since he's interested in surviving himself	21:10
	and the only way he can is to let another person survive,	21:13
	he may over a period of time, be willing to do that.	21:16
	Thus, he reasons the reasoning is always self-centered	21:23
	and self seeking.	21:28
	And it is for this kind of a thinker that the modern admin	21:30
	have coined a phrase on the billboards,	21:34
	be careful how you drive the life you save may be your own.	21:38
	That's the ultimate in ethical appeal.	21:43
	Your own hide your own welfare, nothing more.	21:49
	Can you build a democratic society on that ethic?	21:58
	That is the question.	22:04
	Looks plausible but it suffers from one fatal weakness	22:08
	it overlooks what Adam Salim once called the gravity of sin.	22:12
	Are certain weaknesses in human nature.	22:18
	We must do our thinking about ourselves and our capacities,	22:22
	not with what good boys we are,	22:28
	but with our prejudices, our passions,	22:33
	our selfishness and our greed.	22:38
	Any thought about ourselves that ignores this	22:43
	as points of departure is certain to be	22:47
	superficial and useless.	22:51
	Now we do not begin with greed for an example,	22:54
	is the fact to be found and face sometime in the future	22:57
	we begin with it as a part of who we are right now.	23:01
	We do not consciously choose to be prejudiced,	23:06
	we begin our conscious life by being prejudiced.	23:10
	We do not suddenly come to a stage in our early maturity.	23:14
	Look about us and say,	23:17
	we're against this or that minority group before	23:18
	this or that reason.	23:22
	From our earliest infancy, we breathed in the prejudices	23:24
	that are now molded into every pattern	23:28
	of our mind and spirit.	23:30
	There's no point at which we consciously, for example,	23:33
	decide to begin to be prejudiced against the Negro.	23:37
	There is however,	23:42
	a point in our life when consciously recognize that	23:43
	prejudice for the blight it is why do we cherish it then?	23:46
	The answer is hard and simple.	23:52
	We cherish this prejudice because it ministers to our desire	23:55
	for status, esteem, honor, privilege.	23:59
	We like to regard some people as less than we are,	24:05
	because we thus then feel greater than we actually are	24:08
	without earning it.	24:13
	We like to have people weaker than we are because we feel	24:15
	stronger than we actually are.	24:18
	We like to have people work for us in service,	24:21
	because it gives us the illusion of pride, mastery	24:24
	and superiority and that's food we all like to feed on.	24:28
	Therefore we continue feeding prejudice	24:34
	because it ministers do that rapacious	24:37
	self-esteem called pride,	24:39
	which knows it cannot stand up to the criticism	24:41
	of reason, conscience and Christian faith.	24:45
	Now these then pride, greed, prejudice, ignorance.	24:50
	These are the basic spiritual problems of democracy that we	24:53
	must win over if the democratic ideal is to triumph.	24:57
	The secularist has no answer for them,	25:03
	he he admits defeat in the face of them.	25:08
	They cannot be solved by overthrowing some external power,	25:12
	or even by altering by law some social system,	25:18
	no matter how many external enemies we conquer,	25:23
	these internal challenges must be met and overcome.	25:27
	And if not, every attempt at democracy	25:31
	will die in the throes of a	25:35
	revolution that ushers in some form of tyranny or other.	25:38
	Now I am convinced that the Christian religion has the	25:43
	courage to look at these problems squarely.	25:46
	And having looked at them do suggest ways of overcoming them	25:49
	ways found in faith in God.	25:55
	And in man, the secularist says, well, give us time	25:59
	these problems will work themselves out.	26:03
	I do not know of a single page anywhere in human history,	26:06
	that can be quoted as evidence for that fatuous hope.	26:11
	They did not work themselves out in any single	26:16
	previous civilization.	26:19
	They've had a 100 years in which to do it	26:21
	in other civilizations and many hundreds in our own.	26:24
	I'm impressed with the way all previous civilizations have	26:28
	gone down pleading for a little more time.	26:32
	They thought they could work them out with time alone	26:36
	problems like these never solved themselves.	26:40
	If time is the only agent applied,	26:44
	they get worse with the passing of time.	26:47
	And the one thing we do not have today is time.	26:52
	The Christian faith has a long acquaintance	26:59
	with these spiritual problems.	27:01
	From bitter experience we know that a man	27:04
	must struggle at them from the very inmost texture	27:06
	of his soul if he's to overcome.	27:09
	With full realism then the Christian faith looks at them	27:13
	and says,	27:15
	"If you are willing to base your life on faith in God	27:17
	that he created you, that he created other people	27:22
	that by his will he destined you for a human family,	27:25
	living together in a spirit of fraternity in community.	27:29
	If you are willing to base your thought in life	27:33
	on that premise, you can overcome these internal enemies	27:35
	upon no other basis can you hope to do it."	27:42
	In answer to the question are we capable of democracy?	27:45
	The Christian faith answers with God's help and under his	27:48
	guidance and in obedience to him, we are,	27:52
	but under no other circumstances is it possible.	27:57
	This is the discipline,	28:01
	a hard discipline in thought and life.	28:04
	Great ideas always require it.	28:07
	They're not given to us for the asking	28:10
	or even for the needy.	28:13
	Democracy cannot survive without a rebirth of Christian	28:16
	idealism incarnate, in people like ourselves.	28:19
	I suspect you would expect to preach like me to say that to	28:24
	you, but I'm not alone in saying that to this generation,	28:27
	other men from other walks of life,	28:31
	I've said it in times that cannot be mistaken.	28:33
	I think of what William Faulkner said when he was given the	28:38
	Nobel prize a couple of years ago, he said,	28:42
	"I do not accept a pessimistic estimate of man now current,	28:46
	I refuse to accept it because I believe that man was not,	28:52
	will not merely endured.	28:55
	He will prevail why?	28:57
	Because he is immortal, he has a soul,	28:59
	a spirit capable of compassion, sacrifice, endurance."	29:02
	Now, whenever you'll find Bertrand Russell	29:09
	studying the The Sawdust Trail,	29:11
	things have really reached a difficult situation.	29:13
	Yet in 1950, he was looking at it very fixedly	29:17
	asking what lay ahead of us	29:22
	and whether there was any way out?	29:24
	He said, "The road of the matter is a very simple	29:25
	and old fashioned thing, a thing so simple	29:28
	that I'm almost ashamed to mention it	29:31
	for fear of derives it smiles with which wise cynics	29:33
	will greet my words.	29:37
	The thing I mean, please forgive me	29:38
	for even mentioning it is love,	29:40
	Christian love or compassion.	29:43
	If you feel issue, have a modif existence,	29:45
	a guide for action,	29:48
	a reason paradise necessity for intellectual honesty."	29:50
	Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the most sensitive	29:57
	and courageous thinkers of our time.	30:01
	Was asked recently by someone,	30:04
	whether there was anything that an individual could do	30:05
	in the face of the complexity of our time.	30:08
	He answered,	30:12
	"Why yes, we can help because we can love one another."	30:12
	Yes, we can love one another providing there's any reason	30:19
	behind it or for it	30:22
	We can do it only because we feel that it is congruent with	30:26
	the fundamental nature of the world in which we live.	30:29
	Religion can and will pour courage and foresight into the	30:35
	flagging democratic ideal.	30:39
	Providing we are willing to give the religious approach	30:41
	to this problem that kind of rootage in our life	30:45
	that it must have, if it's to mean anything at all.	30:49
	Whatever else religious faith is,	30:53
	it is not a collection of high sounding words.	30:55
	But before you feel apologetic about your religious	30:59
	idealism, remember then that the Christian faith makes three	31:02
	indispensable contributions to the democratic ideal.	31:07
	First it tells us who we are.	31:13
	We are the children of God.	31:18
	Secondly, it places deep within us,	31:22
	a quality of imperishable worth that no man, no institution,	31:24
	no society has right either to compromise on neglect	31:31
	in spiritual worth.	31:37
	And thirdly, God help us all.	31:40
	It expects us to live that way.	31:43
	We are back on our ultimate ethical resources now.	31:48
	Democracy can survive if there is a rebirth	31:53
	of Christian faith deep within the heart	31:56
	and the soul of those of us who have been brought up	31:59
	where these two traditions flow together.	32:02
	The Christian faith stands far beyond any known form	32:06
	of democracy criticizing every form and every institution	32:09
	at the point of their weakness	32:15
	asking us always to seek to be more perfect embodiments	32:17
	of the will of God.	32:22
	I'm sure I shall not be telling you anything new	32:26
	if I make two predictions.	32:28
	First, the next 25 years are certain to be the roughest	32:31
	parts of the voyage of the enterprise to date.	32:37
	Only those who have spiritual compasses in true relationship	32:43
	with the magnetic field of the universe,	32:47
	in which we live can hope to contribute	32:50
	to the safety of the journey.	32:54
	The second prediction is this.	33:00
	You're going to be either the best generation	33:03
	morally and spiritually speaking that this old world has	33:10
	ever seen or you're going to be the last.	33:13
	Now, pardon my idealism but I think you can come through.	33:20
	Oh God of all men who givest unto each one of thy children,	33:37
	a uniqueness of spirit that shows for even thy knows	33:41
	spirit laid thy hand upon these thy children.	33:45
	And by thy judgment,	33:49
	grace and love guide them in the way everlasting.	33:50
	May their life and work be blessed with such insight	33:54
	and foresight that their children	33:57
	and their children's, children will rise up	34:00
	and call them blessed.	34:02
	And fold us with thy blessing and thy benediction.	34:04
	May the peace that passeth all understanding	34:08
	and the love that will not let us go	34:10
	enter into our lives and make them radiant	34:13
	for Christ's sake.	34:16
	Amen.	34:18

Item Info

Title:

Harold A. Bosley - "Pardon My Idealism" (June 1, 1958; October 5, 1958)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4j67dz3q

Date:

June 1, 1958
October 5, 1958

Speaker:

Bosley, Harold A.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0055
ref5323_ie1
uachapelsermaud
duke:628696
dcrau002094
ark:/87924/r4j67dz3q
2d8c28b4-d552-46f9-8f6d-0827f2d6271e

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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.

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Harold A. Bosley - "Pardon My Idealism" (June 1, 1958; October 5, 1958)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

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