RELIGION IN ASIA1
BY HERBERT A. MILLER
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University
WHILE the nurses outside my hospital window were singing and the church bells were ringing vigorously on Palm Sunday, I looked out on the beautiful villages dotting the Lebanon mountains and realized that the intense religious feeling in them did not give them unity but hostility to one another. Unhappily they have fought each other with sectarian bitterness for centuries. Here within a radius of two miles of where I am writing there are probably more indigenous religions than in any other similar area in the world. There are Muslims of two sects, Druses, Bahá’ís, Jews, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Gregorians, Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Maronites and several lesser sects.
This condition suggests two interesting facts, namely, that all the important religions are of Asiatic origin, and that the most characteristic phenomenon about Asia is the prevalence of religion. Although modernism and doubt are creeping in, religion is still unconcealed and unashamed in Asia and must be taken into account in explaining social and political movements.
During this last year I have met the three greatest spiritual leaders of our time, and they will, I think, measure up well with the religious leaders of all time—Kagawa, Tagore, and Gandhi. I have also talked with Shoghi Effendi, head of the Bahá’í Movement.
I have been the length of the Buddhist world, from Honolulu to Burma. I have caught something of the spirit of the Hindu religion, and have seen a hundred and twenty-five thousand Muslims praying together. I have lived with Christian missionaries in many countries, but the large majority of the people with whom I have talked have been non-Christians.
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1From World Unity, December 1930.
Time is the first factor in explaining Asia’s development of religion. Organized social experience has existed longer here than anywhere else; and many cultures have grown old and died before any were born in the West. There have been centuries enough to develop persons of unusual insight, who, by reflecting on human experience and the relation of the individual to the universe, have been able to utter the prophetic wisdom that has diverted the course of religious expression from mere superstition to codified systems. Other factors in the explanation are population, climate and geography—too vast a field for this discussion.
In Japan, Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity are fusing to form something new. Kagawa is the fruit of them all. He has a remarkable insight into the central spirit of Christianity and is trying to bring it to bear on an ultra-modern interpretation of contemporary problems. All that is intrinsic in Russian communism and the capitalistic system he thinks can be remoulded by the spirit of love as found in Christianity. He is not a prophet of despair and repression, but of the spiritualization of the evolving social system. He is an internationalist in the midst of rampant nationalism.
China is an anomaly in the religious
world. Its prophet Confucius was a moral
philosopher and not a mystic, but his
teachings have been so persistent that they have
the power of a religion without theology.
While there are some lesser sects that are
native to China, it was the alien religion of
Buddha that penetrated the whole life of
China and Korea, but after a thousand years
of free sway it has left scarcely a trace
of real influence. Superstitions gather around
Buddhist symbols. There are priests and
temples everywhere, but there are few
worshipers,[Page 417]
and
Confucius and modernism go
on as serenely as though the Buddhist
missionaries had never come.
A synonym for India might be “area of religious experimentation,” both individual and social, but under the limitations set by the Vedas written thousands of years before the Christian era. It is at the antipodes from China. It was mystical in origin and continues mystical in practice. The encrusted and stereotyped social system never offered an obstacle to individual variation through direct communion with God. Always the keynote has been repression and self-control. The noblest souls in Indian thought are those who have renounced the world. Buddha was a true Indian who chose Benares as the place to begin his preaching because it had been a Hindu religious center for thousands of years. This spirit enables the Indians to endure the hundreds of thousands of disgusting “holy men” who torture their bodies and live as parasites.
Rabindranath Tagore is the son of a man of wealth and learning who was one of the founders of a reform sect. He spent long periods in solitude and reflection in true Hindu fashion. His son dedicated his ashram (place of retirement) to a modern educational institution that strikes at caste, sect, nationalism, and the limitations of women. Religion is emphasized but with great care that it shall not be divisive. His intellect, philosophical principles, and sincerity have carried his influence to the uttermost parts of the world.
Tagore resents the British government in India as much as Gandhi, but his methods for getting rid of it would be different. He is, nevertheless, next to Gandhi the most esteemed man in India, for he is spiritually consistent with Indian tradition. He has given his whole wealth to his school, and like multitudes of Indian reformers having defied the hidebound ritual is still honored rather than crucified.
Gandhi belongs in a class by himself. Even within his lifetime he is accepted as one of the saints of the ages. Although he has borrowed widely from many religions he represents a summation of Indian religion. His influence has become so widely extended because the people are familiar with his type of religious expression and admire it. Gandhi is a racial and spiritual brother of Buddha. His consistent saintly character, and practical wisdom, give him a power over more people than any other man has ever wielded in his lifetime.
In his own conduct he does everything that he asks of others. He lives as the poorest of India must live. His energy is marvelous. He reads widely and writes prodigiously. While he was on his march for two months before his arrest, he kept informed of what was going on all over India, made several speeches each day to enormous mass meetings; gave interviews to the papers; advised the women in detail how to picket liquor shops; gave recipes for making salt, and exact direction for making spindles; he commiserated the wounded and wrote to the bereaved; and all this time, preserved his gentleness of spirit and preached the ideal so insistently that everyone knows that it is the development of character that he really wants and nothing short of it will be worth having. The independence of India is an objective because he thinks that striving for it is the only way by which to become worthy of possessing it. He has no interest in independence for its own sake. I have read most of his speeches and all of his writings since the march began and my respect for him increases with my understanding. While one might disagree with him intellectually, one cannot know him and deny that morally he has conquered sin.
What is now going on in India is one of the greatest religious experiences of human history, and it will have long and wide-reaching results.
Christianity is also of Asiatic origin, but its vogue is mainly outside of Asia; when it comes back it is so involved with western civilization that its influence cannot be measured. It will never become a dominant religion here because the field has already been preempted.
I have just read the remarkable historic
novel The Splendor of God portraying the
life of Adoniram Judson in his pioneer
missionary work in Burma. He was a very
unusual and heroic character whose trials and
faith were like those of Job, but to
me[Page 418]
he
carries little conviction. In spite of the
implications of the book he did not make
Burma either Baptist or Christian. His
wretched city of Rangoon is now cleaned
up, and the jungle where he lived near the
great golden pagoda has tarvia roads and a
beautiful park, but the pagoda is still the
most interesting thing in Rangoon and
crowds as great as ever worship there.
Burma, Siam, and Ceylon are the strongholds of Buddhism. While there is some tendency to reform that will prolong its life, it seems to be accepted by those who know best that it is moribund. It was a noble offshoot of Hinduism.
Judaism touches only the sixteen million Jews who mostly live outside of Asia. Its present political complications in Palestine make it most potent of the many forces that are awakening Islám.
Islám, Muḥammadanism, (or Muslimism as it is variously called) is still a religion with which the world will have to reckon. It had its militant period of expansion hundreds of years ago and almost conquered Europe. In modern times it has been symbolized to the outside world by the “unspeakable Turk”; it has been so interpreted by Christian missionaries that its inner qualities and great potentiality have been despised. It is now being revitalized by the encroachments of modernism and by complicated political entanglements.
Geographically it covers a wider area than any other religion except Christianity. It extends not only over all of northern Africa whence it is penetrating southward, and the Near East, but also embraces sixty-seven millions in India, forty millions in Java, about half of the Philippines, many millions in western China, some even in Peking.
Due to their geographical isolation with its consequent lack of contact with modern movements, the Muslims taken as a group are the most backward economically and have a higher proportion of illiterates than any other conscious group in the world. This condition may not last long when the awakening which has begun gains momentum. Except for its common religious zeal, Islám is altogether inorganic. Because they originated at a point where three continents and four races meet the Muslims have no race consciousness. In fact, there is no word in the Arabic language yet which can be used to designate race. In Islám, black, white, yellow and brown are all brothers under Alláh actually and not ideally as with Christians.
A Christian platitude with regard to Muslims is that a thing cannot rise higher than its source, meaning that as a source Muḥammad is not so high as Jesus. But in this case the real source is the belief that there is “no God but Alláh.” Muḥammad is merely his prophet. Given a conception of God there is no limit to the attributes that may accrue to Him. I have asked many Muslim scholars, whom I thought might be emancipated, if Islám could be modernized and maintain itself. They all insist that it is perfectly possible.
It is a mistake to measure the qualities of Islám by a study of the Qur’án alone. In fifteen hundred years there has been constant accretion and evolution.
We have been explaining certain backward customs as due to the religion itself but many of them preceded its origin. For example, Muḥammad actually improved the condition of women. Now the emancipation and education of women is going on rapidly in the Muslim world though there have not yet emerged many women who are outstanding as leaders. I anticipate that it will not be long before they will.
The development of nationalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, ‘Iráq, and Arabia on the one hand and the pan-Arabic movement on the other, though pulling in opposite directions, are both stimulating the awakening of Islám.
Although the Muslim is rarely converted to another religion and rarely gives up his own, he has formed several sharply differentiated sects. The Druses in Syria are one example. The most important probably is the Bahá’í Movement which originated in Persia from Islámic inspiration and furnishes the one case where a Muslim influence has penetrated the West.
The Bahá’í Movement is only ninety-six1 years from its mystical origin, but it has
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1Should be, eighty-six—EDITORS,
[Page 419]
several
million2 adherents scattered all over
the world. Shoghi Effendi is the fourth in
the line of leaders though he claims none
of the spiritual authority of his predecessors.
The Bahá’ís retain only a few modified
forms that show Muslim origin and their
thinking is more closely related to that of
advanced Christians than to Muslims. Their
largest membership is still in Persia.
The Bahá’í Movement is based on revelation. Its prophet, Bahá’u’lláh, will probably gain increasing authority as a personality with divine attributes but the intrinsic quality and breadth of his principles will make both an intellectual and a moral appeal. Although these principles were formulated before the modern period had clarified its mind, they are in conflict with nothing that a modern liberal now believes. This intellectual appeal may hinder the spread of Bahá’ísm as a religion, but real adherents pursue the program with spiritual zeal.
The central drive of the Bahá’í Movement is for human unity. It would secure this through unprejudiced search for truth, making religion conform to scientific discovery and insisting that fundamentally all religions are alike. For the coming of universal peace, there is foresight and great wisdom as to details. Among other things there should be a universal language; so the Bahá’ís take a great interest in Esperanto though they do not insist on it as the ultimate language. No other religious movement has put so much emphasis on the emancipation and education of women. Everyone should work whether rich or poor and poverty should be abolished.
The Bahá’í is the first religious movement that does not insist on the alienation of the convert from his own traditional religion. Instead, he approves of his becoming a better Muslim, Jew, or Christian. In actual fact, however, the Baha’is do form a distinctive sect and, though they firmly
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2Should be, thousand.—EDITORS,
believe in progressive revelation, the emphasis on the authority of Bahá’u’lláh may make further revelation difficult. In the meantime the world has considerable distance to go before it can catch up with his program.
Since all existing governments are liable to corruption and tend to use any means whatever for the continuance of their own sovereignty, thus making for separation rather than unity, a Bahá’í may not take part in politics though he may hold administrative positions. Like all new religions it has suffered such persecutions as could have been survived only through absolute devotion and zeal. The martyrdoms in Persia have amounted to many thousands and still continue, but they have only increased the followers. Bahá’u’lláh was himself imprisoned for more than forty years by the Persians and the Turks. What will be the course of the Bahá’í Movement no one can prophesy, but I think it is no exaggeration to claim that the program is the finest fruit of the religious contributions of Asia.
There are many lesser religions in Asia, but they are either related to the others or of relatively slight importance.
One learns from Asia that cultures and religions are very persistent, and that they change from within rather than by conversions from without.
In America there still seems to be a fear that the domination by the Vatican is imminent and that the whole world will become Roman Catholic. Asia proves that whatever happens to the West there is no possible danger that any one religion will dominate the world until all religion has become so purified that there will be no danger from it.
The world’s theological and ecclesiastical cards are now on the table. Isolation has been broken down and each player must depend more and more on his merit. As the influence of Asia begins to reassert itself as it soon will, out of its long search in religious experience to find salvation, it will bring forth a fund of findings of incalculable value.
