FATHER DIVINE
The interview opened with the secretary speaking as follows:
FATHER DIVINE this is Dr. Dakin.
FATHER: Happy to see you again, Doctor. Take a seat.
Dr. Dakin: I thank YOU for being here with YOU. Will this be alright here?
FATHER: Yes; either one of them.
Dr. Dakin: This is a happy fellowship YOU have here and I appreciate what YOU are doing. You have done a very great thing and are doing a very great thing for these people who are assembled here. They are all aware of spiritual uplift and power in their lives. There has been a real house cleaning for them. There has been a physical house cleaning, a mental house cleaning and a spiritual house cleaning.
FATHER: There certainly has. As I said in part a little while ago, to think of the great mental and spiritual change! Even the vocabularies are changed and they are new creatures characteristically and dispositionally. I mean an Actual regeneration such as the ordinary professed Christian has not had, because they have, the majority of them with whom I come in contact with have the same old disposition they had in the old consciousness before they were converted. But this goes deeper than just a mere conversion; they are changed, they are new creatures. If you could see some of those who were habitual gambles and drunkards and murderers and people that had committed the most hideous crimes!
Dr. Dakin: I have seen the power of God, at work in many people and I have seen it here revealed after its completion, after GOD had had HIS Hand on some of these people for a little while. I would like to say this: I think YOU would appreciate it: during these three years, as I indicated at the Communion, I have gotten to see the leaders, chosen leaders, of one hundred and forty-five different religious bodies. Sometimes the leaders of these different bodies are the most brilliant men in the fellowship, but not always so. When they are not the are usually trusted leaders, competent, efficient; but the thing that has interested me has been to discover what choice people GOD has in all of these Church fellowships.(At this time Dr. Dakin made mention of several different faiths under various Bishops but stated that he had found them very much alike and at one in heart, having but one GOD, expressing love and good will and brotherhood toward one another. He then continued speaking thus wise.) Jesus, as YOU remember, always treated people as though they were significant and important, no matter who they were. He never treated them in terms of what they had been or what they had or where they came from but in terms of what they might be. I am sure YOU will appreciate the ministry I am rendering. I wonder if there is any question YOU would care to ask me about it.
FATHER: Well I do not know of any question there would be just now.
Dr. Dakin: This leaflet (referring to a leaflet concerning the conscientious objectors) will give YOU some information about these men and what they have been doing, the significant service which they have been rendering for the service of human lives, etc. ( At this point
Dr. Dakin: outlined in further detail just what the conscientious objectors have done for humanity during the most recent world war, such as helping scientists discover DDT which saved so many persons in New Guinea, etc.)
FATHER: It is wonderful!
Dr. Dakin: Yes, it is truly wonderful how GOD can work with us and through us and especially when we recognize, as we do i a Democracy, that we do not have to think alike in order to be connected to one another and be brothers; but however, many men think we have to be of the same race or same nationality. We still can cross all of these barriers. What YOU said about Democracy, Christianity and Americanism being the same thing in heart, they are that. I quite appreciate the fact of that contribution and an effort to [put into practice, as YOU are doing here, the things that we sometimes talk about as the ideals of Christianity; but ideals have to have boots on them so they become incarnated in human flesh. So, it isn't so much what a man says but what he does.
'By his fruits ye shall know him.'
FATHER: It reminds ME of what you just said concerning the origin of the nations and nationalities; in other words, in MY version, the amalgamation of all nations, of all nationalities, of all languages and of all tongues and of all people , to bring an abolition to that belief in separation or segregation, and by so doing we have unlimited spiritual resources and it also gives unlimited access to the graces of GOD and the blessing to which we are all heirs, and it is just marvelous! And when you mentioned a little while ago about the different one of whom you mentioned that you had contacted and, of course, you used the term that we do not use but anyway; I will use the term so that you will understand that I understand what you mean, These different groups you mentioned of the religious beliefs; and yet you found some good in practically all of them.
Dr. Dakin: I found good in all of them.
FATHER: That is right! Good, GOD , in all of them; and I thought of the amalgamation and of the unification or the uniting of the waters of the seas and the rivers all together, and so we bring an abolition to all division. Now it appears to be that the external physical appearance of MY Personnel, MY individual Personnel. may appear to be different from yours but you can see I am not representing what you may appear to be, neither what I may appear to be; but I am representing something transcending all mortal limitations. Therefore I do not even, say, use a term that is segregational in illustration or in comment because it has a psychological bearing, according to MY Personal appearance; so I work cancellation on everything that is not according to the plan and purpose for which I came, to bring about the universal brotherhood of man.
Dr. Dakin: I see the advantage of care in the use of one's vocabulary because of the use of the wrong words you perpetuate a wrong attitude.
FATHER: That is right! And create an adverse thought at times, in the which should not be. Many times people may not, even as MY own followers since they have been freed from races, creeds and colors, even as, say, use a discriminatory word. Some may feel it has an obnoxious conflicting sense of embarrassment. So therefore we try to abstain from the preconceived ideas and opinions that have been detrimental. I often have said there are many games people play that are not sin in themselves but they have been infected with the germs of profanity and of obscenity and vulgarity. Many vulgar terms people use in reference to certain things have been so constantly used vulgarly and through obscenity and profanity, they carry the germs of profanity and vulgarity and obscenity with the very spoken word, from a psychological point of view, the person who is allergic or susceptive to such would be quick to be infected with it.
Dr. Dakin: I have noticed that on the Pacific coast where people talk about Japs, when they are really meaning to speak of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and they are Japanese-Americans. Well I happen to be Canadian-American. Then there are Irish-Americans, French-Americans, Spanish-Americans, N Americans. (The letter "N" is used as we consider the word which it represents to be vulgar and such words we abstain from the use of.) But if we could learn, as YOU suggest, to speak only of Americans, on a democratic basis, without these adjectives that imply segregation and discrimination, it would go a long way toward eliminating the cause we perpetuate. (At this time
Dr. Dakin: related to FATHER some of his own experiences in entertaining, as well as housing in his own home, people of supposedly different complexions or so-called nationalities and further stated that their fellowship was greatly enriched and their hearts were blessed! He then spoke as follows:) This has been a delightful experience to be with YOU and I appreciate the courtesy.
FATHER: Well, you are hurrying away already?
Dr. Dakin: Well, I don't want to but I don't want to take up too much of YOUR time.
FATHER: Well, as a rule, I Am customarily quite busy but we are always pleased to hear from someone who is noteworthy. We are open for instruction and we are open for constructive criticism, if there be any to present.
Dr. Dakin: I have no criticism. I came only as a bearer of information concerning the organization that I represent and the boys or YOUR fellowship who have been in the camps for which the people have been responsible, and that I have been working with, and I knew that YOU would be interested to know that we hope that they will all be coming home soon and that when they do come home they will be more or less stranded. That is to say they will be without money to go on. They will not be guaranteed a job and many of them will be very definitely discriminated against, likely to be.
YOUR Church Fellowship can determine a great deal for these men, the way in which they are received. They are made to know, to feel from the beginning, that there are no lines drawn, that nobody is looking at them with an eye as to recognizing they have been doing what, under GOD, they felt they had to do and that, I think, is a significant thing. If all of us in our Churches were concerned primarily to discover the will of GOD and do it , no matter what our mothers or our fathers or anybody else thought, just go straight ahead according to the Divine Will, then we would all have a richer life.
FATHER: It is true. Naturely, as I have often said, there is no deeper depths and higher heights and there is light and brighter lights as we go on. According to the scripture , Biblically speaking.
'the path of the just glows brighter and brighter until the perfect day.'
So, we really see why it is. And when you spoke declaring one thing, I almost
interrupted you because it came forth volitionally just endorsing you, to say
it was true, because I had spoken the same thing just last Sunday, I think it
was. in reference to our present system. The conscientious objectors are still
held as conscientious objectors in conscientious objector camps, they are not
free; and so many people are beginning to think on terms of our government or
representatives of the government are using or keeping them as slave labor and
I had thought along that line, an we do not want our government, as patriotic
citizens, to be criticized with the enemy nations and enemy alien nations that
represent barbarism and slavery and slave labor, as have been spoken about the
Japanese and the Germans and others because of their being enemy nations and
having slave labor. Now it is coming to the point that others are thinking along
that line criticizingly concerning our nation; not just because they are conscientious
objectors, as you say of this fellowship in the camps, but because I think, human
being should be free and especially after six months, according to the agreement,
after the duration.
Dr. Dakin: Quite so. An Appeal For The Release Of The Conscientious Objectors
FATHER: I had thought deeply or strongly along the line of writing or contacting the senators or representatives and see what they could do about releasing the boys now, because it is creating criticism among the enemy nations and others, even among us.
Dr. Dakin: Quite so. The fact is that when we as a Nation, fight against another nation that is doing barbarous and atrocious things, we are in danger of adopting their methods, that is to say, use Hitler to defeat him, conquer him by adopting his methods and excelling him in the thing that he was doing, and now it would be just to bad if we would overcome Hitler's Germany and then ourselves be Hitlerized in our own national life, that we fought against Germany to get rid off; and to have conscientious objectors and treat them unjustly, means that if we can do it to a small grout we will do it to a large group and we did a very great injustice to our Japanese citizens and that is only symbolic of continuous injustice that has persisted toward the slave people who are realizing they are still slaves. They are the last to be hired and the first to be fired. They have injustice upon injustice heaped upon them; social, economic, and through the South particularly, political, and it is the sort of thing which hinders other nations in thinking about us, the leaders of democracy. Especially does it hinder Japanese, Chinese and Indian and other c--- people in Asia from thinking well of us when we, as w--- people, treat then in un- Christian and in uncivilized and un- democratic and really barbarous ways, people who come out of the slave states.
FATHER: Now I have often thought of that just as you said it. It may not have been in just the exact words as you have been speaking but the same thought in a way conveyed, the thought of how other nations will not accept of our doctrine of our democracy effectively so long as they can see that the under-privileged and non-privileged in and under this democracy will not have justice given to them.
Dr. Dakin: Why, in other words what YOU want to say is this: that we cannot hope to be evangelists of democracy in other nations until we prove that democracy works in America.
FATHER: That is true; and yet, I have striven implicitly, conscientiously and sincerely, to emphasize the doctrine of Americanism, Democracy and Christianity as synonymous, in the which I know it is when it is lived and put forth into expression. We have it according to the law, documentally we have it and theoretically we have it but we want to have it in reality. (At this point/d made mention of the fact that we have good church buildings and dress well and have very ornate and beautiful church services and yet be disrespectful toward those of the under-privileged and those who are not permitted to worship GOD in the same sanctuary. He then continued speaking as follows;) It is a disgrace before GOD and it is a misrepresentation of democracy and until under GOD we are released from it can e scarcely hope that other people who do not know democracy will feel that they want to have it.
FATHER: It is true: and especially to say that they want to embrace it under our Constitution or subject themselves to our Constitution for which we all have been fighting. I have persistently sought to see that the unification of the nations would be made a living reality first, as first-aid defense. I sent letters and cablegrams to the different South American Countries and Central American Countries as well as the heads of this Country, for the unification of the three Americas, but we cannot hope to have the South American Countries and the Republic of Canada as one of the North American Countries to be willing to come in and under this Democracy and adopt our Constitution as the Constitution of all of the countries and unite as one big united Democracy or Republic of the twenty-one Republics to be united as one, we cannot expect them to do that unless we prove here in North America that we are representing a true Democracy that gives equality and justice to everyone.
Dr. Dakin: I am concerned now with a movement known as Pax Christian Movement, The Peace of Christ based on the idea of Jesus declaration
'By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.'
My interest, therefore is in creating a better relationship among Christian people
in whatever church they may be, that they, as members of the body of Christ and
that as members of the Body of Christ they should demonstrate such love as would
bind them together. If all of the Christian people of the Christian Churches
in America would link hands thus in good will and in expression of the will of
God as You express it in brotherhood and democracy, then if the Christian people
would do it, the community as a whole would have a demonstration from Christianity.
Our Christian Science friends speak of giving a demonstration well I think that
is what Jesus did in His incarnated Life; He gave to the world a demonstration
of what it means to live as a child of God here in human flesh; what YOU, Yourself
are trying to do in YOUR Leadership, YOU give to YOUR people a demonstration
in YOUR own Personality of the Presence and Power of the eternal Almighty God.
Every one of us as Christians should be just channels through whom the infinite
power of the Infinite could have an access for demonstration in our lives. Let
all of the kingdoms of my mind, of my body and of my social relations, all the
kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and
when He reigns everywhere in me and in YOU, why, we will not have any trouble
in getting along with one another.
FATHER: Then shall the Kingdom truly have come; for wheresoever a king reigns there is where his kingdom is. So the mission of Christ on earth, to and among the children of men, was to establish themselves in Him so convincingly that they would, through His demonstrations, be convinced and believe in Him and select and elect His as Lord of lords and King of kings in them and over them and in their affairs, even over their physical bodily form and in and on their offices and affairs as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Whatsoever Christ did do, one should think and one should say, "that is only what I will do"; and with such a version Christ has been selected and elected and when one enthrones the Christ on the throne of their minds or on the throne of his mind, then and there the Kingdom has truly come for wheresoever a king reigns there is where his kingdom is and will bring all of the power of the one on whose throne He reigns into subjection to Him. So that is MY version of the coming of the Kingdom for which we all have prayed.
Dr. Dakin: Quite so. So He said
'He that chooses Me is not walking in darkness but shall have the light of life;'
and then He said to His disciples.
'You are the good seeds,'
that is the children of the Kingdom and so he is sowing us, as His children,
to the furrows of the world that we might bring forth a harvest that will be
pleasing to Him, in terms of character and in terms of service and in terms of
a new civilization.
FATHER: It is wonderful! It is true!
Dr. Dakin: I am under orders not to get too tired until I get strong again, so I will be excused and I want to thank YOU again for the courtesy and the honor of having this conference.
FATHER: You are welcome I am sure and thank you for your visit. (And with a few more remarks this interview concluded.) Thank YOU, FATHER DIVINE.
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