Many Religions—What Are Their Fruits?
‘THERE is some good in all religions.’ That is a widely accepted belief among many people today. They feel that a little religion will make a better person out of anybody.
Is that how you feel about it? Do you think that religion, as a whole, has been an influence for good on mankind in general? Do you feel that the different religions have produced positive, wholesome fruits in the lives of their followers?
Such questions, of course, should not be answered on the basis of personal feelings alone nor, in fact, should they be answered just by the claims made by religious organizations. Rather, we must examine the facts, doing so as objectively as possible.
Examine the Facts
In these days of rapid communication and mass media, it is not difficult to get to the facts. But what should you look for? Well, what kind of fruits would you say religion should produce? In this respect, most people would agree that religion should make people more loving, honest, moral, peaceable, spiritual, and so forth. This is certainly true. In fact, almost all religions have as their basic tenet something similar to the Bible’s teaching of “love thy neighbour as thyself.”—Matthew 22:39, Authorized Version.
While nearly all religions teach such a concept in theory, what about in practice? Do we see a higher standard of morality among their members? Are they more loving, more peaceful, more honest? Yes, what kind of fruits are the many religions producing?
Religion and Morals
Threatened by the tide of divorce, venereal disease, unwanted pregnancies, pornography, homosexuality and sexual permissiveness, many people are looking to religion for help. They may reason that if governments and schools are not providing the moral guidance they need, then religion must. The push to bring back prayer and ‘scientific creationism’ in public schools in the United States is an indication of this. But what kind of guidance is being offered by religion today? Consider some examples.
● The United Church of Canada (that nation’s largest Protestant denomination) sent out a report entitled In God’s Image . . . Male and Female to all its member congregations as suggested guidelines on marriage and sex. According to the newsmagazine Maclean’s, the report “recommends considering the acceptance of homosexuals for ordination; says sex outside marriage may be acceptable under certain circumstances and when the relationship is ‘joyous, caring, liberating, mutually supportive and socially responsible’; and suggests that marital fidelity need not necessarily include sexual exclusivity.” Final decision on this resolution has been postponed until later this year.
● In an article entitled “‘Born-Again’ Christians Are Discovering the Sexual Revolution,” Russell Chandler, Los Angeles Times writer on religion, reports: “Study panels of several major Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church have concluded that . . . under certain circumstances . . . sexual intercourse between unmarried persons may not be sinful, homosexual practice may be an acceptable alternate life style for Christians and masturbation or self-stimulation may be normal and appropriate.”
● While reporting on “Homosexuals in the Churches,” particularly those in the Roman Catholic archdiocese of San Francisco, Newsweek magazine points out that “over the last decade homosexual caucuses . . . have sprung up in mainline Protestant denominations and inspired similar organizations among Mennonites, Pentecostals, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh-day Adventists and Jews. In many cities gays have organized their own churches, synagogues and even Zen Buddhist centers.”
● The National Clergy Council on Alcoholism estimated in 1977 that at least 10 percent of American priests and nuns are alcoholics, according to an Associated Press report from Los Angeles. But a separate report published in the Baltimore Sun says: “While alcoholism among the clergy has been cited as a problem of world dimensions by superiors of Catholic religious orders, it is no longer the most pressing problem. . . . What was true in the Fifties and Sixties about alcoholism is now true about homosexuality. Certainly the whole problem of homosexuality looms now.”
With this kind of guidance and example, it is not surprising that the moral climate among church members is no better, if not actually worse, than that among the population as a whole. Here are just a few examples:
● The London Times reports: “Official statistics indicate that about a quarter of the prison population of England is designated Roman Catholic, although only one in 10 of the population is.” A conference was arranged to discuss “why Roman Catholics comprise such a large proportion of drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and criminals in prison,” says the report.
● In the United States, a recent Gallup poll shows that 70 percent of the adult population claim church membership and 40 percent actually attend religious services in a given week. Yet, according to the 1983 Britannica Book of the Year, there was one divorce for every two marriages in 1981, and “reflecting both increased divorces and births to unmarried mothers, . . . one of every five children lived in a one-parent family.”
● The magazine To the Point says: “Nearly one-third of the married Roman Catholic men in the archdiocese of Lusaka (Zambia) have live-in concubines, according to a report by Archbishop Emanuel Milingo.” Out of 10,903 Catholic households in that archdiocese, 3,225 have concubines, says the report.
It is just as Jesus said long ago: “A good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit.” (Matthew 7:18) The bumper crop of moral decay around the world is a reflection of the spiritual condition of the religious ‘trees’ of the world—diseased and dying.
Religion and War
Realizing that “the world is on the brink of great peril, perhaps the suicide of the race in a nuclear war,” Zakir Husain, former president of India, appealed to a panel made up of leaders of all the major religions of the world “to play a fuller and more conscious part in the future than they have in the past” in working for world peace. To achieve this end, Husain urged, “they will have to look beyond dogmas, rituals, and practices which obstruct the flow of life from different religious circles towards a new sense of harmony and collaboration.”
That was in 1968, at the International Inter-Religious Symposium on Peace held in New Delhi, India. In attendance, and apparently in agreement with what was proposed, were leaders representing Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Protestantism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism. What has happened since that time? True, there have been renewed efforts at further conferences, symposiums and discussions. And due to the mounting threat of nuclear annihilation there have been statements, proclamations, indictments and letters issued against governments and other agencies. But have the religions of the world worked toward doing away with the “dogmas, rituals, and practices which obstruct . . . harmony and collaboration”? Have they produced the fruits of love and peace in deeds and not in words alone?
Quite to the contrary, in the years since, the world has seen more wars and conflicts, in which religion, though not the only cause, played a significant role. Some are wars and conflicts between followers of different religions; some are between members of different sects of the same religion.
Among more recent examples can be listed the violent outbreaks in the Indian state of Assam, in which Hindus battled Muslims; the ongoing war between Iran and Iraq, in which Shiite Muslims fight Sunni Muslims; the by now notorious conflict in Northern Ireland, in which Protestants slaughter Catholics and Catholics slaughter Protestants; the war and massacre in Lebanon, in which Christians, Jews and Muslims are entangled; and even the Falklands war, in which “army chaplains urged Argentine conscripts to fight to the death because it is God’s will,” according to the San Francisco Examiner.
This list by no means exhausts the current state of affairs, nor does it include the countless instances in the past of conflicts between nations and peoples fanned by religious fervor.
Such wars may be touched off by political or territorial disputes. Sooner or later, however, religion is found deeply involved in them. Time and again members of the clergy on both sides are found appealing to the same God for blessings over their troops, calling their efforts ‘just’ or ‘holy’ wars, and promising instant heavenly reward to those who may be killed in such battles.
Does this not make you wonder if there is something inherent in the religions of the world that contributes to the violent nature of their followers? In a Time magazine essay entitled “Religious Wars—A Bloody Zeal,” senior writer Lance Morrow stated: “Men who have fought in the name of religion and journalists who have observed them detect an eerie difference from more conventional warfare—a note of retribution and atonement, a zealotry that exists outside time and immediate circumstances, an implacability that is directed from within. . . . The paradox of religion-at-war remains shocking.”
This “paradox,” or contradiction, is perhaps the strongest indictment against religion. Speaking about Christendom’s role in wars past and present, Reo Christenson, a political science professor, wrote in a recent issue of The Christian Century: “Perhaps nothing has done more to discredit Christianity than its practice of taking a stand virtually indistinguishable from that of non-Christians on the practice of war. That Christians on the one hand espouse the faith of the gentle Savior while on the other they warmly support religious or nationalistic wars has gone far toward damaging the faith and promoting the kind of cynicism about religion that has been pervasive among thinking people for centuries.”
What Do You Think?
We have examined the fruits produced by the world’s religions in just two areas—morals and war—and what we have seen is nothing less than shocking and disgusting. They have fallen far short of what should be expected. The same ugly kind of fruitage can be seen in many other areas—racial prejudice, involvement in politics, dishonest commercial dealings, enslaving superstition, and so forth. Yes, religion has indeed filled the earth with rotten fruitage, all to the hurt of mankind.
Perhaps these very things have turned you away from religion. If so, you are not alone. Many people today have given up on religion on account of its bad fruitage. But is that the wise course? Is that the course that will bring the greatest satisfaction and happiness? Or is there something better? We invite you to consider the next article.
[Picture on page 9]
Two examples of the bad fruitage produced by world religion: acceptance of homosexuality and involvement in war