"ERNEST NEVER WANTED A CHURCH"

During the twenty years I have been involved with the United Church, I have heard that quotation thrown about. It usually is used as a buffer for dissatisfaction with the organization, lack of success of a church or churches and so on. I recently had a conversation with a long time friend and associate of Ernest Holmes who had a different perspective. I asked him to share his viewpoint. Obadiah S. Harris, Ph.D., was a minister ordained by Dr. Holmes, moved on to independent ministries and served for more than 25 years as a senior executive and educator with Arizona State University. He is currently President of The Philosophical Society. Dr. Harris offered the comments which follow.

In search of clarity,
Rev. J. Robert Gale, Ph.D.

Ernest Never Wanted A Church

Every now and then I hear a quote of Dr. Ernest Holmes and it is almost always repeated out of context, leaving one with a distinctly wrong impression. The misinterpreted lines are those in which he says "I never wanted a church."

To understand this partial statement requires a grasp of the spiritual climate in the country during the early part of this century. It was undergoing a spiritual renaissance, particularly in California, and Dr. Ernest Holmes was a major voice.

What Dr. Holmes wanted future generations to understand, (because those around him already knew), was that the Church of Religious Science was not a product of his ambition. He saw the origin of the church as a virgin birth.

It had no earthly father, no external cause. Consciousness was its genesis. Once the child was born, for which he took no credit, he welcomed its appearance and embraced his role to nurture, inspire and give it council. He watched it grow beyond his expectations. Did he love the church? He cherished the church. The ministers were his colleagues - every one. He was at their beck and call day or night. He was devoted to the welfare of every church, large or small. He treated for each one of them. He envisioned their success, imaged their prosperity, visited them with parental affection.

But the church was not born out of the wants or needs of Dr. Ernest Holmes. He did not see himself as anyone's guru. The church literally gave birth to itself. It was a spiritual happening, an evolutionary awakening in community after community. He never took credit for that, not because of some false modesty or feigned self-effacement; he believed he was merely a conduit, a kind of vehicle for a higher expression of consciousness appropriate to his time and place. As he would say, it couldn't have been otherwise.

He was grateful to be that instrument. But his denial of a desire for a faithful following or some pious recognition is genuine. It is a noble gesture, a quality of humility that comes with wisdom derived of metaphysical insight and internal honesty.

So in this context, it is true, Dr. Ernest Holmes never set out to found a church. He had no such religious ambition or theological craving. But once the church was born he loved it with every fiber of his being. He gave it everything he had.

 

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