Re-visiting Josiah Royce’s “The Problem of Christianity” and a note about the connection with Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988), John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964) and Community Religion

This morning, the two volumes of Josiah Royce’s “The Problem of Christianity” (1913) arrived in the post [pdfs of Vol. 1 available HERE and Vol. 2 HERE]. 

Royce was an early, major influence on my thinking, and in 1999, this book of his was the subject of my first proper philosophical paper, written for my theology degree at Oxford University (you can read that HERE should you wish to). At the time, I was a student at Harris Manchester College, and it was no coincidence that Royce first gave these lectures at the college, where the kind of thinking he was engaging in was felt to be highly congenial to early twentieth-century Unitarians.

However, following graduation, my philosophical and theological attentions turned to other thinkers and, consequently, I haven’t read any Royce for many years. But he’s recently come very strongly back into my thoughts because at the end of last year, thanks to the research and translation project I’m in the midst of connected with Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988), the important Japanese twentieth-century Japanese “Yuniterian” and advocate of jiyū shūkyō (free-religion or creative, free spirituality). In 1974, whilst reminiscing about his time at Harvard University between 1914-1916, Imaoka-sensei wrote:

When I went to Harvard, Professor William James, who was famous in Japan as the author of “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, had already passed away. However, I had the opportunity to meet the philosopher Professor Josiah Royce (ジョサイア・ロイス教授), who held differing views, as he was still active. Once I heard the professor’s speech at a Harvard University morning assembly. It was customary for the speaker to end the assembly with their own prayer, but Professor Royce finished without praying. Professor Royce, in his own way, was a sincere Christian, but he did not pray aloud. It made me think. Another time I met Professor Royce was when I accompanied Anesaki-sensei (姉崎先生) on a visit to the professor’s home. When Anesaki-sensei spoke about Buddhism, particularly the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren, the professor seemed very interested. I believe the publication of “Nichiren, the Prophet” by Anesaki-sensei in 1916 by Harvard University Press probably originated from this discussion. Although I missed the opportunity to attend Professor Royce’s lectures during my time at Harvard, since returning to Japan I’ve extensively studied his works. I am interested in the points where he differs from James, particularly in viewing religion more as a collective, societal issue than an individual one. Even today, his work, especially “The Problem of Christianity”, remains one of my most treasured books.

Given this connection, I thought it was about time to revisit Royce, and as for some reason I never got round to buying my own copy of “The Problem of Christianity,” I was lucky to find a second-hand set for sale online. Naturally, I didn’t need my own copy at Oxford because my college had its own copy, and not only that, one was that gifted by the author himself. 

Anyway, it seems fitting to end this brief post by offering you a short quote from Royce’s book itself, which will help you see both why it appealed both to Imaoka-sensei and to me. I chose this quotation because it appears at the beginning of another book that had a profound influence upon Imaoka-sensei, namely John Haynes Holmes’ 1922 book, “New Churches for Old: A Plea for Community Religion.”

What is practically necessary is this : Let your (religion) be the practical acknowledgement of the Spirit of the Universal and Beloved Community. This is the sufficient and practical faith. . . . All else about your religion is the accident of your special race or nation or form of worship or training, or accidental personal opinion, or devout mystical experience. . . . The core, the center of the faith is not the person of the individual founder, and is not any other individual man. Nor is this core to be found in the sayings of the founder. . . . The core of the faith is the spirit, the Beloved Community. There is nothing else under heaven whereby men have been saved or can be saved. 

          ... Since the office of religion is to aim towards the creation on earth of the Beloved Community, the future task of religion is the task of inventing and applying the arts which shall win men over to unity, and which shall overcome their original hatefulness by the gracious love, not of mere individuals, but of communities. Now such arts are still to be discovered. Judge every social device, every proposed reform, every national and local enterprise, by the one test: Does this help towards the coming of the universal community? If you have a church, judge your own church by this standard; and if your church does not yet fully meet this standard, aid towards reforming your church accordingly.