RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 24

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

DR. MAJOR'S CREED. '

THE MODERNISrS FAITH, j i Jt-TMARKABI.- AND OUTSPOKEN I SERMON. ! I

I (From Ojr Special Correspondent.) LONDON, April 10. The Rev. H. D. A. Major, D.D., principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, who is editor of "Modern Churchman," was the preacher yesterdny at Westminster Abbey at morning service. His sermon was a remarkable one in itself, but has the added interest to us that this leader of progressive Christian thought to-day is a New Zealander born and bred in Auckland. He gave as his creed, which he had taken from the writings from St. John: "We believe that God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. "We believe that God is light, and that if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with another. "We believe that God is love, and that everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. "We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. , "We believe that we are children of j God. and that He hath given us of His spirit. I We believe that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. "We believe that the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but that he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.—Amen." Modernism, he said, had three great advantages in the appeal it made to the younger generation. It satisfied the modern Christian's intellect by giving freedom of research; it satisfied the j modern Christian's conscience by giving freedom to teach truth as he learned it; it satisfied the modern Christian's heart j by admitting to Christian fellowship all who called Jesus Lord. In this way Modernism promised to become the great reconciler between Christianity and the new learning on the one hand, and on the other between the separatist Christian sects. The great choice for a Christian today, he declared, was not whether he should be a Baptist or a Wesley an or a Presbyterian or an Anglican. They were not great choices; they referred to dying issues. There were only three live issues—Romanism, Fundamentalism, | Modernism. The Modernist setting of i the spirit as an authority above the j Church of the past and the ancient I Scriptures was regarded by many as a most dangerous procedure. So it was. Nevertheless, the rule of reason and conscience, of right and truth, of reverence and unselfishness, could be recognised and relied on for personal character and social life. Did not the Modernist claim that the Spirit is the supreme authority lead away from Christ? Why should it? It had not led the Quakers away. The guidance of the Spirit, which the Modernist claimed as the supreme authority, did not mean that he despised the Bible and Church, but that in cases of conflicts between ancient Church decrees and the Christian consciousness, Scripture statements and the Christian consciousness, the Christian consciousness must be yielded to as the supreme authority. There were a large number of Bible statements and Church doctrines that were no longer accepted by the Christian consciousness. Legends, myths, superstitions and doubtful speculations were discrediting the Christian religion in the minds of many educated people, to their own great detriment and the detriment of the nation. The needs of the rising generation had to be considered. Should youth knock in vain at the door of the most conservative of institutions? The elder must serve the younger. Beliefs of immemorial antiquity and authority discredited by modern research must be discarded. The time had come for another reformation of religion; indeed, we were now in the midst of it, and the spirit of the new reformation was the spirit of Modernism, and the test was its motto. Modernism recognised that violence and hatred could not accomplish the Divine will. The Modernist believed in evolution not revolution, and in education as the only sound method of reform. To call Modernism intellectualist and hitrhbrowed was merely playing to the uneducated gallery. While rejecting many things in traditional Christianity, Modernists believed that they held fast all the essentials. For the Modernist "the truth is in Jesus" was a very simple and very profound thing. It was that the highest unveiling we have of the Divine nature in- human history is seen in the character and Gospel of Jesus Christ.

ROMAN CATHOLLIC RELIEF BILL. The text of the Koman Catholic Relief Bill was issued yesterday, says the Liverpool "Post" of March 13. The Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday by Mr. Dennis Herbert, conservative member for Watford and a member of the Church of England and was read a first time. It proposes to rehere Roman Catholics of a number of antiquated disabilities. Interviewed by a "Daily Post" representative Archbishop Keating said he was very pleased that the Bill had secured its first reading in the House of Commons, and he was particularly pleased that the Bill should have been introduced by one who was not a member of his church. "We have no objection to the proviso to ensure that the Sovereign should be a Protestant, as we recognise that the country wants a Protestant I monarch," said the Archbishop. "As to I the ban placed on Catholics in the mat-1 ter of the Lord Chancellor, I do not I see why that should not have been swept away along with the other disabilities. It would stand in the way of an eminent Catholic lawyer, such; as the late Lord Russell, of Killowen, ever aspiring to the Woolsack. In this, as in other matters, Catholics should be on the same footing as other people. Still, it is not a very serious matter. The Lord Chancellor is supposed to be 'the Keeper of the King's conscience,' but that is no more than a historical figment." . With regard to the legalising of trusts and the benefit of religious orders and bequests of money or property to a reugious house, the Archbishop said that the disabilities in the past had Becessitated special precautions being

taken in respect to legal documents. and the lawyers had had to put their head 6 together to ensure that certain kinds of gifts could be legally held. The repealing of the disabilities would make the discharge of Catholic legal business a much more simple affair than at present. The wearing of vestments by priests | while exercising rites outside a Roman Catholic'place of worship, which will be sanctioned by law if the Relief Bill passes, will, in the Archbishop's opinion, facilitate the holding of Roman Catholic processions outside the boundaries of private property. At present certain of the monastic orders are by law prohibited from appearing in public in their religious dress. CURRENT NOTES. The Salvation Army has acquired a vast building in Paris, for use as a house for single women. Dr. Peter Ainslee, of Baltimore, has been appointed resident professor in Biblical literature at Gouchen College. Tbe Rev. R. McCheyne Paterson, of the Church of Scotland, has completed 40 years' service as a missionary in the Punjab. One of the last messages of the late Cardinal Mercier was a plea that everyone should give up some small pleasure to assist the Assyrian Christians. The biggest Wesley Guild of Italy has been shut down by the Government as a "seditious organisation."' A vigorous effort is being made to get the order rescinded. A scheme Ims been launched in Bristol to raise £200,000 for the purpose of building Anglican Churches in the suburbs, also to repair, and complete existing buildings. At the inaugural meeting the bishop announced he had privately received donations and promises totalling £80,000. We must get back to the great themes that preach themselves, to the great topics that a man can preach with the consent of all his faculties. If we get back to the theme that a self-respect-ing man can jubilantly press upon his fellows, we shall get hack to the great preaching again.—The Key. J. Morgan Gibbon. A humorous reply was given by Dr. Parkes Cadman to the following question sent to him: "A member of the Presbyterian Church moves into a town where the only church is the Unitarian denomination. Should he affiliate himself with local interest and attend the Unitarian Church, or go to an adjoining town to his own church?" The answer was: "I think he may as well put on an asbestos suit and got to the Unitarian Church." In the course of a recent address, the Bishop of Winchester advocated the need for real comradeship. He emphasised his point with the statement that, at the recent Coal Commission, the exhibitions of the outlook of both employers and employed had been deplorable. He said employers breathed no hint of any sense of responsibility to share the burden, and workers never breathed a syllable suggesting a sense of duty in giving an honest day's labour for an honest day's pay. "I am afraid there are a number of 'starchy' people in the Church," said Rev. Thomas Phillips, when speaking at Tabernacle Church, Pontypridd. The preacher added: "If I wanted a shilling to take mc back to London I would not approach any of the thrifty people who had huge fortunes. If 1 were a drunkard I would not seek .the assistance of some of the stern temperance people, because they would send mc to hell right away. We want a healing grace which a man out of the gutter." Mr. Frank Hodges, the miners' leader in England, recently paid a tribute to the strong impression which the Methodist Church, both Wesleyan and Primitive, had left on the mining community, particularly in England. He said that one time in the early forties the leaders of the miners were invariably local preachers, and those who fought hardest and best for the men ofttimes found their inspiration in the hard pews of the local Nonconformist church. Dr. R. G. Campbell, preaching at Holy Trinity Church, Brighton, said, that while the social movement bad a Divine urge, other movements towards the golden age, bad failed for lack of a spiritual backing. He was afraid that Labour leaders urged their followers to look only to tbe material side of things, but that attitude of mind was not conI fined to one class. They were in danger of allowing activity to crowd out life, to mistake speed for progress, and to mean by progress something that Christ would have repudiated. It was for the Church to arrest that tendency. , % Speaking on spiritual healing at St. Benedict's Church, Norfolk, Archbishop Julius, in the course of his address stated that in connection with the Hickson Healing Mission in New Zealand, there bad been a great spiritual awakening. "I think why the number of cases of healing were not greater," he continued, "was partly due to the British character. We are a queer lot of people. We are very reserved. We are very slow to admit any spiritual influence into our lives. We have not got that intuitive power, that subconscious power, that strange power of laying hold upon the unseen which belongs more particularly to Oriental peoples and which I think is denied to the British race. Another thing: Ido not think we are right in courting publicity in this matter of spiritual healing. Our Lord never invited crowds when He was doing acts of healing. They came, but He tried to get away from them." The Dean of Canterbury, Dr. G. K. Bell, preaching at Richmond Hill Con-« jgregational Church, England, dealt with | the story of Lot's wife as an illustraI tion of the danger of looking backwards. He said such a backward look was fatal m the Church. Among those who resembled Lot's wife the Dean classed people who manifested their loyal Church membership by insisting on a profession of belief in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, or the literal truth of the story of the creation and ™ fall » and °t Jonah and the whale. May we remind them," «aid the Dean, that a Church whicb literally follows such advice is i n the end doomed to P u *T efa «tion, crystallisation and death." The Rev. W. Robinson, in bis presidential address at the Preston district annual meeting, laid it down that "men lived by mighty affirmations." "Preachers,' he said, "must break through. their reserves. They must preach from I their experiences rather than from their [ scholarship."- ____ "■■ ~.__^"