SOVIET CAMPAIGN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 252, 24 October 1932, Page 12

SOVIET CAMPAIGN.

HOSTILITY TO RELIGION. RESOLUTION OF PROTEST. DR. RUSHBROOKE'S ADDRESS. The deliberate purpose of the Soviet party in Russia to bring about the extinction of religion in every form, and the campaign being conducted to that end, formed the subject of an address gi**n >by Dr. J. H. Rushbrooke at the Town Hall yesterday, afternoon. Dr. Rushbrooke, who is the general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, has visited Russia seven times. The bitter hostility of the Soviet to religion was explained in part 'by the character of religion—the faith and practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church — as known to the vast mass of the people in Czarist days. The political indictment against it was terrific, and owing to gross superstitions which it fostered, the religious indictment was no less severe. "Menace to the World." A complete ban on the circulation of religious literature, including the Bible, was matched by an enormous output of "anti-Cod" books and pamphlets. Similar teaching was established in the schools, which were a State monopoly. It was an offence under the law for any person to give religious instruction to more than three children, not his own. Since four-fifths of the parents in Russia were illiterate this meant the virtual prohibition of religious teaching. The first children fully educated under the Soviet regime were now coming out of the schools, and were found by foreign visitors to be convinced and zealous propagandists of atheism. Such a state of affairs was a menace to the future of the world. Dr. Rushbrooke sfiid he believed that if the conscience of the world were aroused and put up a continuous protest, even Soviet Russia would feel its pressure. The system, in his view, contained the seeds of its own destruction, and an educated Russia would ultimately put an end to it. In the meantime Christian people all over the world must continue to pray and protest. A resolution was moved by the chairman, Dr. J. J. North, and seconded by the Rev. Dr. H. Ranston, protesting "in the name of the common rights and liberties of man" against the Soviet attempt to extinguish religion in Russia, and praying for a better day. It was carried with five dissentients.