Human beings hunger for information

A high virtue of human beings is their thirst for information. We are always looking for more and better information. We never have enough information. We always need more.

I recently watched a PBS special on the Chautauqua movement. Chautauqua was an enormously important American movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement started in 1874 in Chautauqua, N.Y., by a Methodist minister. Initially, it was a program to train Sunday school teachers. It quickly expanded to cover a broad range of interests in religion, culture and politics. Entertainers soon found the Chautauqua network and further broadened the movement. Chautauqua parks sprang up across the entire United States.

Such big names as William Jennings Bryan and Mark Twain found their way to the Chautauqua circuit. The movement was largely rural, and since it predated the automobile was served by rail travel.

As a young boy in the middle of the great depression, I was introduced to Chautauqua. Pontiac, Ill., was the Livingston County seat and was located on the railroad that connected Chicago and St. Louis. The Pontiac Chautauqua was located in a park setting in a loop of the Vermillion River. Several times I went with my parents to the Pontiac Chautauqua. I do not recall, and probably was not interested in, the program that was being conducted. I was more attracted to a swinging bridge that had been built across a pond just off the Vermillion River. I remember walking back and forth on the swinging bridge. It was great experience for a 6- or 7-year-old kid.

I do remember that there was always a big crowd at the Chautauqua gatherings.

The movement was so powerful that every U.S. president from Grant to McKinley spoke at Chautauqua meetings.

President Teddy Roosevelt called Chautauqua the most American thing in the country. While entertainment was important, the driving force behind the Chautauqua movement was the desire of Americans for more information.

The automobile and the radio made the Chautauqua movement archaic. The availability of newspapers, magazines and books moved learning into different arenas.

However, nothing was quite like the information explosion created following World War II. America promised every person who served in the U.S. armed forces a college education at government expense.

The world had never seen information made available to masses of people on the scale that took place in the United States following World War II. Information placed in the hands of masses of young people transformed the nation.

The Chautauqua movement had a huge impact on American life. It brought information to an American population that was hungry for information. Chautauqua had its day and fulfilled a purpose. After about half a century it faded away. Today, few Americans have any knowledge or understanding of its importance.

The impact of the education given to World War II veterans has now run its course. We live in a different world with different challenges and needs. I do not believe we have any shortage of young people who want to expand their knowledge. Pursuing information is a part of their nature.

Following World War II, America made the pursuit of knowledge and information available to millions of eager learners. Collectively, through our federal government, we picked up the entire cost of educating our military veterans.

We are now a part of a different age. It is the information age. Our body of information is expanding. As always, a new emerging generation of learners is at hand. By our very nature people are searchers looking for more and better information. How information and learners in large numbers will be brought together may be the greatest challenge that faces America.

What has this to do with religion? I find churches and denominations facing the very same problem as America does. We live in a world of significant information expansion. More information relative to religious pursuits is available than ever before. We have more highly trained theologians and Bible scholars than ever. Good books, written by knowledgeable scholars are available in abundance. The Internet has produced a flood of religious information. Young people have lost none of their desire for information that will allow them to formulate a faith that is honest and satisfying. Yet young people under 30 are leaving churches in droves.

I recently read “American Grace” by sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell. They describe in great detail what has been happening to American churches since World War II. They never tell the reader why it is happening. I am willing to speculate.

People are looking for knowledge and information on which they can build an honest faith. I suspect we have too many sermon preachers and not enough teaching rabbis.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.