On Religion Desperate Christianity

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

On Religion Desperate Christianity

ByThe Ret). C. W. Chandler

FAR be it from me to abuse the opportunity afforded me in these columns to present items of particular interest to religious people by attempting to propagate ideas which, to say the least, are unpopular and at best debatable. At the same time, there never was a time when clear and courageous thinking was more necessary than it is to-day. Fear stalks abroad, and Confusion blows like a hurricane at every corner. When the surface is most troubled, then it is that we need to be most calm. We are toeing told on every hand that we must face realities. The idealist is thought to be hopelessly impracticable, hence the Church is only tolerated so long as she will leave the worldly-wise to direct the world's affairs. She may pray that the king and his' counsellors may be guided, but she must not seek to guide them. There still seems to be no end of good reasons why the day when we should even think of taking God at His word should bepostponed indefinitely. In a letter recently received from ai downright sort of person, the writer, referred to himself a3 being a "desperate" Christian. This same expression was used by yet another whose letter came to hand the following day. Desperate Christians, like palm trees in a desert, are few and far between. The majority of us are content to go the world's way—it's so much easier, and 'usually more immediately profitable. Oi the Binall percentage of nominal Christians who do go to Church, only a small minority are anything more than pussy." Very nice people, just so ■ w g *Bty°u8 t y° u Btr °kc them the right way, don't* ehow their talons if y° u e »t«ly i» «eed of

strokes, and who will say what they have got to say to-morrow just as definitely, even though it contradicts every word which they uttered to-day. Emerson said that consistency was the "hobgoblin of little minds."

Lots of people cannot change their opinions any more than the leopard can change his spots. Most of what they have are inherited, and the rest are picked up like measles or scarlet fever, by,contagion. Because they have always thought this way or that, they feel in duty bound to keep on doing 60. They forget that they are living in a changing world. Everything is in a state of flux. We have ever to be revising our attitude towards every problem in life in the light of added knowledge and experience. It is man's

hopeless conservatism which accounts for his continuing to make the same mistakes again and again.

Exactly the same things are being said to-day as were said in 1014, only it is Hitler instead of the Kaiser. Maybo we shall shortly be doing the same things as we were doing during those dreadful years.

Then, when the desperate issues of our national antagonisms have been decided in a most barbarous fashion, we shall find outselves sitting upon a heap of wreckage wondering how we can rebuild our broken civilisation according to- the same pattern and design as before.

All this is so because the world cannot boast of a sufficient number of desperate Christians, who are prepared to come out from amongst the 1 !!! and cry out for a new world built upon firmer foundations, with Christ Himself as the head-stoiie in the corner. Christian leadership is the world's greatest need to-day. Because of the lack of it, the Christianity of the churches has failed ignominiously. Those on top who should be leading public opinion are afraid to declare themselves. They are afraid to sound the clarion call that could lead to the mobilisation of the entire Christian world on the side of Jesus Christ.

The bishops of the Anglican Church will next year be doing the "Lambeth Walk," which, by the way, is one step every ten years. Let us hope that they will give us a good loud "Oi!" and so lead us into some sort of united action.

This is no-impossible demand; rather is it the most reasonable tiling we could expect. If 700,000 can Fall in line behind the late Canon H. R. L. (Dick) Shepherd, how many would not fall behind the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury if they were prepared to issue tKeir ultimatum to all those who are disturbing the peace of the world, in the name of all tnose who stand to be bombed, gassed or bayoneted in the event of a renewal of hostilities.

That we are living in days of peace is a delusion. In every direction guns are pointed, and the most reprehensible men in the world to-day are not those who are pointing at their neighbours, but rather those who claim to be the shepherds of the flock of Christ, for they have it in their power to cripple the whole of these destructive forces if they will but exercise their leadership. Better than all the democratic conferences as suggested by prime ministers would be a conference which might find Rome, Canterbury and Constantinople together with the leaders of every other Christian body in the world, under one

roof,- united in brotherhood, with all their minor theological differences in the background, facing up to the problem which, affects us all —namely, the salvaging of civilisation.

If courageous leadership, which is the Church's greatest need, is not forthcoming, then the sooner ehe is driven underground the sooner will she recapture some of the desperation that marked the lives of the early Apostles, who lived so adventurously and dangerously for God. Amongst those who are trying to live according to this standard, none deserves greater honour than Pastor Niemoller, who, for the past two years, has been demonstrating from a cell in a German concentration camp what one desperate Christian can do when confronted with all the ruthlessness of a warlike State. Nor is he alone in the right for religious liberty. Others of the Confessional Church are following his courageous example.