Removing Religious Prejudice

Purification in Panorthosia

Today we continue our series on the purity principle, also known as the elimination of prejudice, in John Amos Comenius's Panorthosia. The sixth chapter of this work is entirely devoted to the "evils which are powerful barriers to the universal reform of our affairs, and how to remove them." Before dealing with the systematic therapy in this chapter, however, I would like first to look over the several other locations throughout the first half of Panorthosia where Comenius deals with prejudice.

The two centuries known now as the Reformation brought with it in Europe a universal desire to reform that soon sank into partisan, sectarian violence, the Inquisition and sporadic witch hunts, literally. Old women were periodically dragged out to woodpiles where they were burned. Comenius himself suffered greatly from religious persecution and was forced to spend his life in exile from such Ad Hominem attacks. He devoted his life to showing that the best way to reform is to change bad thought and habits without resort to repression or violence. The weapons we bear should be intellectual ones directed against bad ideas rather than flesh and blood men and women,

"Therefore let everyone come to this sacred world-assembly; but (just as the Germans and the Gauls of old used to come to their assemblies fully-armed) let them all be well-armed with zeal and light, even with fire to burn away all the tares and stubble of the entire world." (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 10, p. 137)

The only way to use mental acumen to unite without attacks would be through a program of promoting education as free, universal and magnanimous as possible. Instead of taking sides and fighting, we need instead to suppress,

"all sects and all partisan desires. That is to say, it requires 1. that no kindred state should be suppressed, but all should be reformed (just as a good doctor does not remove diseased limbs, but heals them); 2. that no reality' or science or art should be suppressed, but all should be reformed; 3. that no nation, language, philosophy, religion or political system should be oppressed or cast into darkness, but all should be enlightened and restored to harmony. The effect will be that all philosophies become one supremely good philosophy under one supreme teacher, Christ, and all religions will become one supremely good religion under one supreme priest, Christ, and all political systems will become one supremely good system under one supreme monarch, Christ." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 10, p. 156)

Reform in Religion; Three blocks to integration

Even today religion is rarely understood as anything but partisan. Comenius's determined ecumenism was rare in his age and only has spread significantly in liberal Christian denominations and the interfaith movement during the past fifty years. Only the Teaching of Baha'u'llah rivals this ecumenism, since while He saw world religions persisting permanently, at the same time He held that God wishes all humans to find common cause in matters of faith, in what He calls "one universal faith, one common cause."

Comenius was all but unique in that he was pioneering reformer in both religion and science. As we have seen in the previous series on science and religion, he pictured science, politics and religion as the wings and body of the bird of humanity. All three need to grow together in order for the bird to fly. Again like Baha'u'llah, he saw the main obstacles to progress coming from our failure to reform the religious wing of society. Before going on to scientific reform, let us briefly look at what he proposed for religion.

Comenius pointed to three obstacles blocking the purifying waters of a river that could integrate our many beliefs into a single faith for all humans. The first is a tendency to become distracted, "We prevent the current of God's works in nature from reaching us by the turmoil of our own works and preoccupations." The second is a lack of confidence in our ability to express the God reflected in the mirror within the heart,

"Our instinctive desire for God is thwarted by evil murmurs forever echoing round us, as witnessed by Solomon, who says; 'This only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions' (Ecclesiastes VII, 29)."

The third obstacle we set up for ourselves comes from our reluctance to delve into the Holy Word of God, and to take in the empty calories of light entertainment.

"The Books of the Bible are prevented from shedding their supernatural light upon us by the piles of human books around us, which merely titillate their readers and pre-occupy them to the exclusion of the Scriptures." (Panorthosia, Ch. 3, para 41, pp. 80-81)

Next time let us look at the Panorthosic vision for universal reform in science.

John Taylor

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