Skateboarding with Rollo May

The Influence of Humanism Abounds, Watch Out

Back in 1969 and 70, I can remember riding my skateboard from Spenard, the airport area of Anchorage, to downtown. I guess I was probably 12 or 13. Usually it would be an early Saturday morning, obviously in the summer time.

I went downtown to browse the books at the Book Cache on 4th Avenue. I remember walking the aisles in the philosophy section and picking up Rollo May. I really didn’t follow his presentation much, but I liked his pithy quotes. For some reason I was drawn to sentimental, gooey philosophy and psychology. It’s a bit stunning to think what influences 12 and 13 year olds.

Here are some of his quotes from the internet.

Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness. Rollo May

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. Rollo May

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Rollo May

Depression is the inability to construct a future. Rollo May

Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves. Rollo May

Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is. Rollo May

Wikipedia informs us that May graduated from Union Theological Seminary of New York in 1938 with a Bachelor of Divinity. So, his later psychology stems from mixtures of religion and philosophy. Union has reeked with humanism since the days of the German critical influence on its Bible department (1870s-1890s). What does this mean? Essentially, the Bible is a product of the human mind.

Theologian Paul Tillich, one of Rollo May’s teachers at Union, for example, taught that the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is impossible, but the story of Christ rising from the dead restores dignity to Him. After all, remember all the good things Jesus did. It makes a useful, helpful conclusion to His story. Good feelings and human concerns get a measure of satisfaction if in your mind His rising from the dead is true. People of this sort think it to be true, and so, if it’s true in your mind, put your thoughts down into a story. That’s what the apostles did, Tillich taught.

The apostles had lived with Jesus for the three years. When He was arrested, crucified and buried in the tomb they knew Him as He was. So, in order to have the dignity of Christ restored in their own thinking, and in order to have a message for the world around them, the apostles produced gospels and letters (the NT).

Writing the stories about Jesus was good, and it was a help with the concerns, anxieties and needs of the apostles. It is theology based on feeling, not statements of historical truth.

If you go back over the quotes by May, you’ll see this liberal theology unpinning. May wants to weave personal quests, adventure and purpose into humanitarian effort, being wishful and hopeful. It’s about getting more and more into yourself in order to find a story that satisfies your anxieties. It’s meaning found within.

So, back there at that time in Anchorage, a 12 or 13 year old was poking a nose into some of Rollo May’s writings trying to find answers to anxieties and concerns.

Man too readily looks inward for help. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 16:25.

G. Mark Sumpter