Kenneth W Morgan

Life

“Sympathetic study of religious ways other than one’s own helps religious seekers to see the realities of their own path more clearly . . .” - Kenneth Morgan, 1964

Kenneth William Morgan was born on October 15, 1908, in Great Falls, Montana, into the “devout Methodist home” of Rev. Walter A. Morgan and Della Moore Morgan. The family returned to Iowa in 1910 where Walter served as pastor in several churches. Morgan graduated from Des Moines High School in 1925 and enrolled in Des Moines University. Planning to become a Methodist minister, he transferred to Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned his BA in 1929. His interest in philosophy took him to graduate school at Harvard University, where by 1933 he had completed the necessary coursework for a Ph.D. when he transferred to Harvard Divinity School. Morgan found his spiritual development was enhanced by understanding the commonality of all religious quests for truth. He attended a variety of worship services in his personal search for religious understanding, and took advantage of opportunities to meet Asian religious scholars. An introduction to Swami Nikhilananda at the Ramakrishna Mission Center in New York City led to an invitation for residency at ashrams in India to live as swamis did, without special accommodations. In 1935, shortly after completing Divinity School with an S.T.B. degree, he was on a boat to India for a year of residence and study in Hindu ashrams. He spent several months living at Belur Math temple on the banks of the Ganges River in Calcutta and several more at Mayawati Ashram in the Himalayas. Traveling between ashrams, he visited universities and holy sites where he met Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore as well as many scholars and educators. More doors opened for him after it became known that British CID agents brought him in for questioning because he talked with people known to advocate independence.

“It is a good rule always to speak of a religion other than one’s own as if the speaker were in the presence of a good friend who is a follower of that religion.” - Kenneth Morgan 1964

When he returned to New York in 1936 he served as Director of the National Council on Religion in Higher Education. Two weeks later, Morgan married his Cambridge sweetheart Amy Cowing Scott. In 1937 he became Director of the Student Religious Association at the University of Michigan. When World War II began, his well-known pacifism and religious conviction enabled him to receive Conscientious Objector (CO) status. In 1942 he served as Director of a work camp for COs in northern New Hampshire and later served as Director of Education in the Civilian Public Service Program for Conscientious Objectors at the Philadelphia offices of the American Friends Service Committee. After the war he made the formal step of becoming a Quaker. Colgate University hired Morgan as Chaplain in 1946, and by the following year he was also teaching Philosophy. Student interest in his experience with Asian religions led to a Hinduism course in 1948, and the following year to courses in Buddhism and Islam. The lack of teaching materials about Asian religions prompted him to develop and edit three books by Asian scholars in the 1950s, one each on Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Also in the 1950s, he helped establish Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions, and at Colgate established both Chapel House and the Fund for the Study of World Religions. He became Professor Emeritus at Colgate in 1974 and moved to Princeton, NJ, with Amy. At 75 he learned to use a word processor and wrote Reaching for the Moon: on Asian Religious Paths about his experiences with sharing religious insights among friends of different beliefs. Amy died in 2003. Ken Morgan died in 2011 at age 103.

Books

“The first task in studying an Asian religion is to try to see the religion as it is seen by a believer; obviously our judgments will be invalid if we see the religion through the eyes of German, or French, or American scholars, colored by the biases of Christian, Jewish, democratic, colonial or anti-colonial scholarship.” - Kenneth Morgan, 1964

After World War II, American college students showed increased interest in non-Western religions, but only a handful of universities in the US or Europe offered undergraduate courses or opportunities for graduate research. The field of non-Christian religious studies had few trained scholars, and most teaching materials reflected the bias or perspective of its Western author.

Morgan proposed to the National Council on Religion in Higher Education a book about Hinduism written by Hindus. With the support of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation, he spent most of the academic year 1951-52 traveling in India seeking recommendations from religious and academic leaders about Hindu scholars who were best able to explain each major aspect of their religion to westerners. Seven authors were selected from around India, all capable of presenting their material in nuanced English. Published in 1953, The Religion of the Hindus also included Selections from Hindu Sacred Writings. Supplementary materials published as a result of Morgan’s 1951 trip were a Folkways recording Religious Music of India recorded by Alain Daniélou, and a set of color slides published by Yale University showing Hindu temples and ceremonies. Morgan then edited two companion books by scholars of Buddhism and Islam. The Path of the Buddha was published in 1956. Islam - The Straight Path was published in 1958. The three books were initially published by The Ronald Press. Since the 1980s all three have been reprinted several times in India by Motilal Banarsidass and remain available worldwide.

“. . . though intended primarily for the western reader who seeks a sympathetic understanding of Hinduism, should be of lasting interest to Hindus themselves.” – The Times of India review of The Religion of the Hindus

Institutions

In early 1954, Morgan was approached by an anonymous donor who wanted to endow a university center for the study of the world’s great religions. Morgan suggested Harvard Divinity School for the location, and with Godfrey Dewey mediated between the donor and Harvard University until they reached agreement. “We said that we were interested in helping to establish at Harvard a center where graduate work would be offered in great religious traditions, where people could study a religion other than their own. We said we would like to see those religions first presented as they are seen by the people who follow them.” The Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) was inaugurated in late 1960. In 1956, Morgan returned to the donor with an idea of his own that dated back to his ashram experiences in India: a non-denominational center for personal meditation and study of religion. With facilities for short-term visitors, it would offer a chapel, library, music room, and religious art. The donor immediately supported the idea, and Chapel House opened in the hills above Colgate University in 1958.

The Fund for the Study of World Religions (FSWR) was established at Colgate University by the anonymous donor at the same time as Chapel House. As the original administrator of the Fund, Morgan used it to send many young academics to study in Asia, to bring Asian religious educators to teach in US universities, and to produce educational materials.

None of these institutions bear the donor’s name. "I am an old woman," she said, "and soon I shall be going over to the other side where I'll see all my friends. If I had done something for the Lord and added my name to it, I'd be ashamed to see them."

The American Society for the Study of Religion (ASSR) was organized in 1959 by Edmund Perry, Kenneth Morgan and Joseph Kitagawa.

Academic Reception

Western scholars generally appreciated the “broadminded, sympathetic approach” that presented other religions through the perspective of each religion’s own scholars. “Over the centuries, Hinduism has been subjected to being `understood' by the Westerners who generally describe and judge Hindus and Hinduism by the Western standards. . . . This is a perfect book for those who are curious about or want to study Hinduism from the Hindu point of view.”

Other academics found Morgan’s approach too limiting because it rejects descriptions and analyses of a religion by scholars who are not practitioners of that religion. Morgan’s own religious background is blamed for his position that a scholar’s own religious background distorts his perspective on other religions.

“. . . [Morgan] is convinced that only the word of scholars who are also insiders of a particular religious tradition is authoritative. In other words, the standard for valuing the accuracy of statements about any religion should be the experience and testimony of adherents. In this passionate plea for giving the word to the believers – and, consequently, refusing it to the non-believers – Morgan anticipates the celebrated (albeit highly disputed and disputable) argument raised by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000) in an epoch-making article dated some years later: “No statement about a religion is valid unless it can be acknowledged by that religion’s believers” (Smith 1959: 42 = 1976, 46). Definitely, it is no coincidence that both Morgan and Smith were adherent to a broadly ecumenical Protestant vision – the former having been brought up in a Methodist, Wesleyan milieu, the latter in a Presbyterianism converging into the United Church of Canada.”