Deteriorating Religious Life Perils U.S. From Within, Warns McQuade

America is threatened by an internal destruction far greater than any foreign power can bring about, Father Vincent A. McQuade said last night at a Dudley House colloquium on "The Place of Religion in the Student's Life."

One of three speakers, McQuade joined Rabbi Maurice L. Zigmond of the Hillel Foundation and Professor Henry J. Cadbury of the Divinity School in stressing the need for a greater awareness and understanding of religion on the part of the student.

Religion divorced from the student's life has caused a deterioration of basic values, obligation to God, duty to fellow man, and responsibility to country, said McQuade.

"The University might offer courses taught by leaders of the various religious clubs to bring out the meaning of religion to life and daily living," McQuade said.

Zigmond was in complete accord with McQuade's belief that religion was not a faith to be believed, but a life to be lived.

Withdrawal from religion, said Cadbury, is a reaction of the individual against the pressure of the age for conformity through thought control.

"There is a religious revival in progress," Moderator George H. Williams, acting dean of the Divinity School, noted, "and the College has become the center of new emphasis."

Education must be free of any kind of dogma and creed, Zigmond said. There must be liberty for those who don't held proclaimed beliefs.

Judaism places tremendous importance on study and learning, Zigmond continued. "The sheer act of study in itself is a religious act; seeking of truth is on a par with prayer."

Cadbury said that the visio-audio ago in which we live has conditioned us as spectators. This method of vicarious participation carries over to our religious observances, he felt.