Volume 7, Issue 8, June 1998

WHAT IS RELIGION DOING TO YOUR CHARACTER?

Character, like a photograph develops in darkness.
(Yousuf Karsh, portrait photographer)

We mass-produce almost everything in our country, but we cannot mass-produce character, because that is a matter of personal identity. It belongs to those who have found the part they are to play; who are doing the work for which they are endowed; who are satisfied that the are filling a vital need; who are meeting their obligations and standing up to their tasks.

Character is a positive thing. It is not protected innocence, but practised virtue; it is not disgust of vice, but love of excellence.

Character takes no account of what you are thought to be, but what you are. You have your own laws and court to judge you, and these persuade you to be what you would like to seem. Character is having an inner light and courage to follow its dictates. As Shakespeare put it: "...to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man."

The practice of the good life is the very life of religion. Yet the religious manual of conduct of many a person or group almost always lags behind the current moral standards of a people. Church politics can be as destructive and hurting as in government, or elsewhere.

Persons who make no profession of religious faith sometimes achieve better character than those who do. Many who seldom, if ever, enter a church door often shame devout worshippers by the high ethical quality of their lives. This is not only a disturbing fact, it is disastrous. All the great religions have enunciated principles of conduct and teach these principles. Failure to accept and live by these principles causes censure and condemnation to fall upon those who do this.

Everyone has the right to think and act and believe as they will, but also the responsibility to give an accounting sometime, somewhere, for what they choose to think, and believe, and do. There are hundreds of things in this world which are right but can't be legislated for; things that will never be done unless someone is prepared to do them for no reward except their integrity to principle and the feeling that they are contributing what they expect of themselves. Conventional followers of a religion usually fail to produce such character and integrity. Though they may be professing Christians, for example, they can be dominated by personal animosities, social snobbery, and delight in critical and sometimes slanderous gossip concerning their fellow Christians, racial enmities, and long range oppression of others in their power.

ON BUILDING CHARACTER

One thing I have observed is that everyone's life is spent in the pursuit of self-fulfillment, but not everyone reaches their objective. The person who succeeds is a person who has realized in time that satisfaction does not come merely from being good at something, but also from being a certain kind of person.

Recently I was invited to give leadership in a discussion on "Doing Justice." in a group of 30 persons composed of Baptist and United Church people from neighbouring congregations in the community. A very intense and thoughtful discussion took place. Of particular interest to me was that the two and a half hours was spent defining their understanding of "justice" and they never got to the work of justice. This was fine because when one understands justice and has justice in ones heart that person will do justice. And justice can only be done or expressed because it is a virtue, a general moral goodness which results in right thinking and action.

Seven cardinal virtues were listed by early Christian writers who added to the four virtues of Plato and the Stoics (prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice) three "theological virtues" (faith, hope, and love).

REAL, NOT ASSUMED

A person of character endeavours to be really what he or
she wishes to appear. Character deals with substance, not show. It is complexion, not cosmetic: the outward expression of an inner reality, not something stuck on from outside.

Good character cannot be developed overnight. It is built over a period of time. It involves observation, reasoning and study. It entails imagination, experiment, and action.

I remember years ago when I was team teaching in the primary department of a church school a teacher asking when the teaching session would begin. My reply was when the first child enters the door. The demeanor of those who greet the child, the help given to the child, the atmosphere of the teachers and the room, all contributed to the success or failure of the session as far as learning character was concerned for the child.

PROPORTIONAL GROWTH

Knowledge, emotion, conscience, will, and action, each and all are necessary to growing to full stature in character. Religion embraces a knowledge of divine things, of the highest truths, and experiencing the eternal reality of life.

The early Christian church manual the Second Letter of Peter instructs Christians to "try your hardest to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with fortitude, fortitude with piety, piety with mutual kindness, and mutual kindness with love." ( 2 Peter 1:5-7 ).

These verses treat of the growth of Christian character and of its ingredients. They speak of moral strength, which enables one to do what one knows to be right; of spiritual discernment; of self-control, by which one resists temptation; fortitude, by which one bears up under persecution or adversity; right feeling and behaviour towards what is holy, and towards others. The word for love used here is the Greek word agape which is the New Testament word for love at its excellence. This brings character to its highest level.

Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. As our faith deepens, so does our capacity to understand and experience love in all its reality.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.