American Literature and the Teaching of Religion

Abstract

PROBABLY EVERY teacher has felt at one time or another that boundary line which divides his group of courses from that of another is particularly fluid and ever-receding, and has perhaps with a certain amazement during a class room discussion discovered himself seemingly far afield in history, philosophy, sociology, and so on. It is surprising, when teaching American literature, to find oneself deep in nineteenth century theological speculation during a discussion of historian Bancroft, or in reading Franklin to become lost in eighteenth century scientific controversy over phlogiston, or nature of electricity. Usually teacher suspects at this point that oft-times artificial compartments into which knowledge is poured for purposes of a college education are not wholly leakproof, that business of living and thinking is like a huge pool which has been carefully diked and dammed to prevent its parts from seeking a common level. When it is suggested that walls of two of these compartments, those between religion and literature, be removed, and that use in one study be made of materials of another, it is, I think, a step in right direction. This is particularly evident to a teacher of American literature, using term literature in a broader than belletristic sense, for in body of American thought lies much that should prove useful to teacher and student of religion. Human problems are much same whether they be of today or yesterday, whether they be in art, ethics, society, or religion; many of thinkers who happened to choose literature as a vehicle of expression were searching for answers to same questions which confront thinker and seacher of today. Whether form quest took was literary or theological really matters little for purpose of its solution. Emerson tried to bridge gap between man and Oversoul-shall we call him, philosopher, artist, or theologian, or was he perhaps all three? Thoreau wanted to see man and state ruled by moral, spiritual law-ought he to be named political scientist, ar ist, or philosopher ? The poet Philip Frene u envisioned a society governed by a religion of nature, a future world moving in social patterns as harmonious and divinely ordered as those of God's universe itself. Shall he be called social, literary, or religious thinker? As Professor Wilder says,' the partitions are thin between ancient quests and modern quests; he implies, and rightly so, that perhaps they should not be there at all. Great artists in most cases have ultimately come to conclusion that beauty, truth, and goodness are but different facets of same glittering jewel, that priest and poet are one. Thus it seems only logical that student of religion today, as illuminating and as stimulating as relationship of contemporary literature to his purposes can prove to be, should not forget literature of past as a means toward an equally stimulating and illuminating relationship. The world of Freneau, Emerson, and Thoreau, has something, still, to say to world of General Motors; search on human level for spiritual values in art and religion has not fundamentally changed. There is a kinship between literature and religious study which offers opportunities for valid use of affinities existent between them in both fields.