LESSONS IN ANATOMY

A book recently published in England has been described by some British reviewers as frightening. It is Anthony Sampson’s Anatomy of Britain. One writer, while commenting upon the claim made in the book Honest to God that man has become “mature” and no longer needs the orthodox concepts of God, points out that anybody who has bought the idea of man’s maturity ought to read Anatomy of Britain.

Sampson, who is conceded to be an able and cultured journalist, takes a hard look at the forces controlling British life, all the way from the courts and parliament to big business and the universities, as well as TV and radio. “It is a terrifying picture of uncoordinated drift,” says one commentator on the book. Those who have the most power in British life seem frustrated and thwarted by others. It is a nation of people who are rapidly losing their autonomy, for everyone seems adrift upon currents outside his control.

The nation seems to be moving aimlessly, with no clearly defined goals. As one cabinet member was quoted as saying: “The trouble is we don’t believe in anything; we don’t believe in Communism, or in anti-Communism, or in free enterprise.

The author himself describes his research as “a baffling journey.” He finds his country confused concerning its values and uncertain concerning what it is supposed to believe. It proved to be a disturbing lesson in anatomy, both to its author and to its readers.

Such a journey into anatomy might be helpful to those of us on this side of the Atlantic. What would a book on Anatomy of America have to say? Have we reached that maturity that Bishop Robinson speaks of, which makes the old ideas of a God in heaven irrelevant. Indeed, has man “come of age” in America? This might be questioned since we lead the world in crime, alcoholism, broken homes, juvenile delinquency, and mental illness. Our foreign policy has been so inconsistent that many nations of the world doubt our sincerity, and we are engaged in a terrible war abroad that has involved us in internal disputes at home. And for the first time in the history of the world a nation has a serious problem with the mental illness of its children, and that dubious honor is ours.

Surely the seeds of decay are present in American culture. When Toynbee listed the causes for the fall of the great nations of history, he included the decline of agrarian life, militarism, heavy taxation by centralized power, breakdown of home life, decline in morality, sexual looseness and perversion even in high places, and increasing loss of individual autonomy.

It is a tragic truth that most of these or all of these have long been characteristic of our society. Despite civilian control of the military, our budget and foreign policy betray us as a militaristic nation, or one that is certainly moving in that direction. There can be no question about the decline of agricultural life in these days of mechanized farming. As a teacher in both high school and college I am made increasingly aware of the disappearance of the farm girl. Future generations of Americans will not be talking about the things that happened “back on the farm,” and that tragic fact may effect our values as well as our poetry, novels and plays.

When Toynbee referred to taxes as a sign of decay, he was speaking of only 25%. That is, whenever a nation taxes its people one-fourth of what they make, that nation begins to decay. We have already passed the 25% mark, if one considers the whole range of our tax system.

Books like The Lonely Crowd and The Organization Man point out the extent to which we have departed from that “rugged individualism” that made our nation great. There is an “other directedness” that seems to motivate us more than our inward forces. Our nation’s smoking habit well illustrates our tendency to conform to those around us. Even now that it is an established fact that smoking is hazardous to one’s health, the practice goes on unabated, yea even increasing among our youth. If Emmanuel Kant was right in insisting that one’s action cannot be moral unless it is autonomous, then our inclination to become carbon copies of each other is a moral hazard. Our way of life seems to make us less sensitive to the sense of oughtness within.

Our people’s preoccupation with sex is so evident that we can hardly quarrel with Billy Graham when he says that America is on the greatest sex binge of any nation in all history.

This can be seen in many small ways, even in little humorous episodes. While reading a stamp news magazine the other day, I noticed one ad that was headed with that one word of all words in caps — SEX. The advertiser went on to tell about his product, which had nothing at all to do with sex, despite Freud’s contention that everything does, but I suppose he figured that was the way to turn all eyes to his ad. It reminds me of the English prof at a college where I once taught. Whenever attention lagged in his classes, whether amidst Chaucer or the split infinitive, he would startle his class by sounding forth with SEX!, which always restored attention, even if it were Chaucer.

What is vital to me just now is not an anatomical view of Britain or America, however important that is, but of the church, which is the only thing, with Christ as its Head, that can save the world from its collision course. Let’s have the courage to enter into a study in depth on the anatomy of the church, with the same kind of honesty and precision that were present in Sampson’s study of Britain.

It will call for the asking of the same kind of questions that Sampson asked about his country. Do we as Christians really believe anything? Is Christ a reality in our lives? What do we love? Have we a sense of destiny? Have we any real concern for suffering humanity?

A series of seminars on the anatomy of the church could begin with two important descriptions of the church. One pictures the church as “the habitation of God,” while the other speaks of it as “the pillar and ground of the truth.” These are tremendous concepts that surely relate to every area of human concern. What is the truth, and how does it relate to all the sciences and humanities? In just what way does the druggist, the geophysicist, and the architect as members of Christ depict the church as the pillar and ground of truth. And what does the habitation of God mean in terms of the marriage counselor that is trying to mend a broken home or the psychiatrist who is trying to mend a broken heart.

Such a lesson in anatomy will, of course, call for critical self-examination. It might become a terrifying experience, as was that book about Britain. And as is often true in studies of . anatomy it may call for some cutting.

But we will be the healthier because of it. And we will save the world.