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 Reverence for Life
Preface Marvin Meyer
Two recent sets of events give a particular poignancy to this book. In the spring of 2001, my longtime friend and the coeditor of this book, Kurt Bergel, passed away after a brief illness. Kurt spent his life devoted to living according to the ethics of reverence for life, and he died a person of conviction, compassion, and love. In the autumn of 2001, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, and many died. Since then, many more have died in Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere in the world, and the pain and death continue.
If ever there was a time for reflection upon Albert Schweitzer and reverence for life, it is now.
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Introduction by Marv Meyer
Preface Marvin Meyer
Two recent sets of events give a particular poignancy to this book. In the spring of 2001, my longtime friend and the coeditor of this book, Kurt Bergel, passed away after a brief illness. Kurt spent his life devoted to living according to the ethics of reverence for life, and he died a person of conviction, compassion, and love. In the autumn of 2001, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, and many died. Since then, many more have died in Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere in the world, and the pain and death continue.
If ever there was a time for reflection upon Albert Schweitzer and reverence for life, it is now.
We search to find meaning at such times of pain and death. In the light of recent events, I thought of what Schweitzer wrote more than once about what he called the fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain. In Out of My Life and Thought Schweitzer observed, "Those among us who have learned through personal experience what pain and anxiety really are must help to ensure that those out there who are in physical need obtain the same help that once came to us. We no longer belong to ourselves alone; we have become the brothers and sisters of all who suffer." According to Schweitzer, such people constitute the fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain.
We know who these people are. They are the friends and relatives of those who suffer, of those who pass away and leave the rest of us behind. They are the people of New York and Washington, D.C. who carry on through it all. They are the people of the United States who wipe away tears and dig through rubble. They are the Palestinians and the Israelis who see their loved ones die in the streets. They are the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so much for over two decades. They are the many other people throughout the world who have gone through pain, grief, and injustice and have found a way to continue on in their lives. All of us who feel the pain and experience some healing are members of this fellowship. All of us are the brothers and sisters of the suffering; we all belong to each other.
The question and challenge Schweitzer raises, then, is: what shall we do about it? How do we work to alleviate the suffering of our brothers and sisters -- whoever and wherever they are in the world? In the present climate that includes the rhetoric of hate and the promise of vengeance, how can we become instruments, not of violence, but rather of justice and healing and peace?
These are some of the questions that this book seeks to address.
Marvin Meyer
Director, Albert Schweitzer Institute
Chapman University
March 2002
Introduction Marvin Meyer
Whatever Albert Schweitzer, the acclaimed philosopher, theologian, musician, and medical doctor in Lambarene, Gabon, did, he did with gusto.
As philosopher, Schweitzer earned a doctorate in philosophy, wrote a scholarly work on Immanuel Kant, and developed a philosophy of ethics in The Philosophy of Civilization. As theologian, Schweitzer composed revolutionary books on Jesus and Paul, including The Quest of the Historical Jesus, which has remained one of the most influential works on Jesus of the twentieth century. Many would consider it the single most important book on Jesus of the modern era. In addition, the theologian Dr. Schweitzer was also the Lutheran minister Rev. Schweitzer, who preached sermons and functioned effectively as pastor and as head of a theological seminary for a number of years.
As musician, Schweitzer was one of the leading organists of his day, and his book on Johann Sebastian Bach and his edition of Bach's chorale preludes established him as a great interpreter of Bach. He used measured tempos when he played Bach -- he may be thought to be plodding by contemporary standards -- and he said that the organist "who plays too fast will go to hell." He was an advocate of traditional organs and organ building, so that it was said of him, somewhat unkindly and with no particular cultural sensitivity, that at Lambarene he saved old Africans and in Europe he saved old organs.
As medical doctor, Schweitzer traveled to equatorial Africa to build a hospital and practice medicine. There, at Lambarene, in the Republic of Gabon, he was the hospital's architect, builder, director, and chief medical doctor. And when, later in his life, he might have chosen the quiet life of retirement, he learned about the grim realities of nuclear physics and became an outspoken opponent of nuclear testing and an advocate of peace in the world. For the humanitarian and devoted life he lived he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, and in a manner typical of him, he then used the cash award from the prize to build a leper village at Lambarene.
Of all his accomplishments in his life and thought, his greatest achievements may be found in what he said and did in the name of the ethic termed reverence for life. In his autobiography Out of My Life and Thought he says that the phrase "reverence for life" came to him in a flash of insight as he passed, on a boat, by islands and hippopotamuses on the Ogowe River. Later he would say this ethic is actually the same as Jesus' ethic, "the ethic of love widened into universality." He also realized his ethic has much in common with aspects of Chinese and Indian thought -- especially the Jain commitment to ahimsa, radical nonviolence or noninjury -- and he would admit he came up with the concept of reverence for life when he was thinking of the Buddha.
"Basically I am a philosopher;' Schweitzer wrote in a letter to Helene Bresslau, and his philosophical exposition of reverence for life in The Philosophy of Civilization and elsewhere may be his clearest presentation. Looking for an appropriate place to begin thinking, Schweitzer rejected Descartes's cogito ergo sum, and he told Norman Cousins that he was not impressed with the dictum: "One might as well say, 'I have a toothache, therefore I exist' " (Norman Cousins, Albert Schweitzer's Mission, 74). Instead, Schweitzer proposed to locate the beginning point for thinking about ethics in the aware ness of our will-to-live in the midst of other wills-to-live. We recognize our own urge to become, to realize our life fully, and we cherish and revere that life. Ethics, then, entails reciprocity: Revere the life of the other, Schweitzer says, as you revere your own life; maintain and encourage the life of the others as you maintain and encourage your own life. If this ethic of reciprocity sounds like Jesus' love command and the Golden Rule in the Sermon on the Mount, Schweitzer confesses that he himself is a philosopher caught by Jesus, "the most divine of all philosophers." We might add that Schweitzer may also be caught by a host of other thinkers and religious figures from a wide variety of traditions who similarly advocated one form or another of the love command or the Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you want them to do to you.
Schweitzer had high hopes for his ethic of reverence for life. He proposed it as an ethic that applies to all life, human, animal, and plant (and to crystals, he added with Schopenhauer). "Life as such is sacred," he states in The Philosophy of Civilization, and all of life is equally sacred. No life is second or third class -- all life is equally valuable. Schweitzer's ethic is an ethic of thinking clearly and reasonably, and of making hard decisions based on necessity. The ethic of reverence for life is absolute and limitless; it is "responsibility without limit towards all that lives." Yet the taking of life cannot be avoided in our eating, our drinking, our maintenance of health, our everyday lives. Schweitzer himself acknowledges that as a medical doctor he is a mass-murderer of bacteria. So, he says, face ethical conflicts squarely and honestly, make ethical decisions thoughtfully, and violate the absolute voice of the ethical only if you must. Schweitzer encouraged the maintenance of a guilty conscience, but his preoccupation with guilt may seem overly Lutheran. We may prefer to think, with Mike W. Martin, of regret, responsibility, and healthy realism, rather than guilt, as the appropriate response to the hard ethical decisions in our own lives.
Schweitzer's ethic is an ethic that is practical. It can be lived and is meant to be lived. Schweitzer's ethic has been dubbed a philosophy with calluses on its hands, for it is an ethic that works. Schweitzer lived reverence for life at Lambarene, and he encouraged others to find their own Lambarene. And throughout the world, in differing ways, people have.
Schweitzer recommended reverence for life and lived it, but he was no saint. His daughter Rhena Schweitzer Miller recalls his authoritarian traits, and Schweitzer himself describes and deplores his temper. Today we feel properly uncomfortable with his colonial attitudes, his statements about "primitive people" in, for instance, the article from Christendom presented in this volume. That he reflected the colonialist and paternalistic attitudes of his generation is no surprise, but that he was able to transcend, to an extent, some such attitudes is encouraging. Sylvere Mbondobari's essay below is very helpful in addressing this matter forthrightly.
Schweitzer was no saint, but rather he was just a sinner, just an ordinary person like the rest of us. But that fact might make his call to reverence for life more powerful, more human. It is not a call from one who is ethically superior to us but from one who is ethically similar to us. It is a call from one of us to the rest of us, and to himself, to consider our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters among human beings, animals, and plants. Saints may be extolled and put on a shelf, and their words may be admired from a distance and ignored. The words of sinners, of thoughtful but ordinary folks, are more difficult to ignore. We may need to listen and respond.
This book is intended to provide an appreciative and critical assessment of the ethic of reverence for life. The contributions bring together three related sets of materials. First, there are several contributions by Albert Schweitzer (and Helene Bresslau) on reverence for life, from early letters between Albert and Helene to later, more mature reflections on ethical concerns. Second, many of the contributions in this volume derive from an international conference titled "Albert Schweitzer at the Turn of the Millennium." These contributions include essays by James Brabazon, Marvin Meyer, Sylvere Mbondobari, Erich GraBer, Mike W. Martin, Ara Paul Barsam, James M. Robinson, and Nikki Lindberg. (The essay by Mike w: Martin is actually not the same as the paper he delivered at the conference. This essay has been incorporated here because of its central significance as a philosophical critique of reverence for life.) Third, the remaining contributions reflect the ongoing interests and commitments of the Chapman University Albert Schweitzer Institute. There is an essay by Kurt Bergel, founder and codirector of the Albert Schweitzer Institute, which he composed shortly after World War II; an introduction to Jainism and ahimsa by the late Ronald Huntington, former codirector of the Albert Schweitzer Institute; my translation of the Sermon on the Mount; and several essays by undergraduate students enrolled in the Chapman University course "Albert Schweitzer: His Life and Thought."
The conference " Albert Schweitzer at the Turn of the Millennium" was presented on February 19-21,1999, on the campus of Chapman University, Orange, California. Held in celebration of the eightieth birthday of Rhena Schweitzer Miller and the life of Alice Bergel, the conference was convened by Kurt Bergel and Marvin Meyer of the Albert Schweitzer Institute, with the support of the Chapman University Department of Religious Studies, the Griset and Huntington Lectureship endowments, and the Wang- Fradkin Professorship. In addition to the academic papers presented by the Schweitzer scholars mentioned above, the conference featured dramatic, liturgical, and musical presentations. Edith M. Schwartz directed "Albert Schweitzer, and Helene Bresslau: Letters of Devotion," a dramatic reading from the correspondence between Albert and his future wife (see the letters below). Ronald Farmer officiated at an interfaith workshop service, and the Dembrebrah West Mrican Drum and Dance Company played West African music on traditional instruments and performed dances from that region of Africa. Christiane Schweitzer Engel played a Mozart piano concerto, Chapman music faculty member Margaret Dehning sang "A Requiem for Schweitzer," and Chapman students performed as instrumentalists and singers. Antje Bultmann Lemke conducted an interview with Rhena Schweitzer Miller.
The chapters of this book are divided into four parts. In part one, "The Vision of Reverence for Life," Brabazon and I present a twofold introduction to the contemporary discussion of reverence for life. Brabazon's essay is an invitation to consider, with Schweitzer, life and reverence for life as the most fundamental of the values in our lives. In part two, "Albert Schweitzer on Reverence for Life;' six contributions by Albert Schweitzer (and Helene Bresslau) provide reflections on his ethic from different periods in his life. These six contributions are arguably the most significant contributions he made to the discussion of reverence for life. In part three, "Assessing Reverence for Life," several essays explore and critically assess aspects of Schweitzer's ethic. Three opening essays, by an American (born in Germany), an African, and a European (Bergel, Mbondobari, and GraBer), discuss reverence for life generally, in the context of the Second World War, German and Gabonese literature, and contemporary ethical challenges. The following essay, by Martin, offers a careful philosophical evaluation of the ethic of reverence for life and reveals its complexity. Martin identifies what he judges to be unpalatable features of the ethic but suggests that they can be jettisoned without causing irreparable damage to the ethic itself. The next four essays examine aspects of Jain thought (in Huntington and Barsam) and the life and thought of Jesus (in Robinson and the Sermon on the Mount) in order to shed light on religious dimensions of the ethic of reverence for life. In part four, "Reverence for Life and Education," Lindberg outlines strategies for teaching Schweitzer's thought in elementary, middle, and high school, and university students explore aspects of reverence for life in research papers on the meaning of life and twelve-step programs, ordinary decision making, eating habits, the abortion issue, animal rights, and everyday activism.
Albert Schweitzer proposed an ethic that was meant to be global in its outreach. Rooted in a variety of philosophical and religious traditions and reflective of a variety of ethical statements from around the world, the ethic of reverence for life deserves to be evaluated and debated in the current discussion of ethics and religions in a global context. Schweitzer proposed a universal ethic, applicable to all living things. He also proposed reverence for life as "a logical consequence of thought;" attainable by all people, regardless of individual differences and beliefs, as long as they think clearly, sincerely, and well. Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we may appreciate Schweitzer's vision anew, for we recognize that we need to discuss creative ways in which life may be revered and maintained throughout the world. In various ways we need to explore, evaluate, and live an ethic like reverence for life. It is our hope that the present book may contribute to such an ethi- cal discussion and such an ethical life.
In Memoirs of Childhood and Youth, Albert Schweitzer advises us to "allow our inner thankfulness to find expression." He adds, "Then there will be in the world more sunshine and more strength to do good." Here we follow Schweitzer's advice. We acknowledge with gratitude the generous support of the Chapman University Department of Religious Studies, the Griset and Huntington Lectureship endowments, and the Wang-Fradkin Professorship for both the Schweitzer conference and this book. The cooperation of Chapman University faculty, staff, and students helped make the conference a truly memorable event for all the participants. Linden Youngquist has provided excellent assistance in the electronic preparation of the manuscript of this book, and Jonathan Meyer has helped with proofreading. The editorial staff of Syracuse University Press has worked with us to produce a volume that we hope will be intellectually and aesthetically pleasing. To these friends and colleagues, and others unnamed, we express our thanks.
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