A LETTER TO GIGADIBS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 51, 1 March 1941, Page 2 (Supplement)

A LETTER TO GIGADIBS

pADZOOKS! My dear GigaVj dibs, your pulse will race and your spirits will revive (that is if atheists have spirits) when you learn how pleasantly I went one day nearer the grave yesterday. It was Monday, the Parson's holiday, so, stripped to the waist, I pushed a lawnmower, basked in the sun and read Rabelais. Hβ wae a vulgar old rascal to be sure, but I fancy his vulgarisms were all part

of the stuff of ordinary conversation in loth century France. Even Shakespeare has to be expurgated before he is fit to be read by "respectable" people of to-day. Anyway, look up "gargantuan" in your Webster and you'll find that Kubelais lias to be reckoned with. I would prescribe tlie reading of this book as an antidote for clerical sanctimoniousness and nitra-shockability. It should, like theology, be road in small doses. An overdose of either oan have disastrous effects. At War With Theology It in with theology rather than with religion that you are at war, although you may not realise this. We have been liddling with theology while Kome lias licm-m burning. Of that I am convinced. A great part of the drift from religion tlmt-i* so painfully in evidence to-day is the result of tins misplaced emphasis on the part of lOtli century clericalism. What boots it so often to rejK-at that "He suffered under Pontine Pilitte' , when we are in the process of spending £3,000,000,000 a year in the business of -J

Gigadibs is the atheist who discusses religion with a bishop in Browning's "Blougram's Apology." I have adopted it as a nickname for someone of my acquaintance who reminds me oi him. He typifies intelligent unbelief in general.

By Rev. C. W. Chandler

wholesale destruction, and our pons in their thousands are being sacrificed to Moloch? Of course. I know it cannot bo helped. There's nothing else for it. The horse is out of the stahle. l»ut it could have been helped if the world had Ik-cm a little more Christian, and we clorjry had ltoon ii little loss tlip.iloffical and a little more insistent upon the practical application of the Christian ethic to modern problems. My first contention, therefore, is that we clor-iy do not read around our subject, half enough. We become mentally recluse and then expect to influence those who are hard up against the problem of making a living during 21 hours of the day in a world that flotite Christian standards. The majority of us are positive nincompoops when it conic- to bread and butter pmblem*. We want our own bread and butter, and cat it. too. but we know next to nothing about Uncomplicated process by which men throughout the world dot their daily bread, or without it, whichever the case may be.

Although I consider that we are on the side of the angels, I yet believe that the leaders of Christendom are the most reprehensible people in the world to-day because, knowing the truth which can set men free, they yet stand impotently by, feebly re-echoing the sentiments o*f Caesar when they should be calling the world to its souses in the name of the Redeemer.

I acknowledge your right to ask me, as you did in your last letter, whether, according to 20th century standards, there is anything that a* lusty pagan can do that a Christian cannot do. I suppose when you read of my reading Kalielairi you will take that "as being your iinswer in the negative.

I really think that my present Mabelaisian mood is the outcome of-having read !lie la>t \ersc in (ienesis ii. a't Kvencong last evening: "And they wore both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.*' I am near f> that condition at the moment as rural conventionality will allow me t<> go. In i lie light of present day happening;! I cannot see what any of u*. have to 1-e pmdi>h about. Our corporate sin lies heavy upon us, either can we ejoapc condem nation.

If mv h..1«l on Christianity were solely dependent upon what 1 know of organised ChriMian opinion 1 should have iM-en a (;ii;:i<lil>s li-lig a:u. It", only lte.anse 1 believe that the re;d -iil>^<anee of the Kaiili i~ buried l<eiie:r.h a mass of theological dead twigs that 1 can so cxuHantlv on.

A<; justice i< iiiiirh harder t<> dine by because of the lawyers, so I think the essence of ( hristiaii truth is harder to come by been Use of ;he theologians.

Whereas, «* a student, I spent a fete! time reading about Gnosticism, Sdallianism, Pelagianism and other kiwkt, to-day I feel like saying, "To hell «i& them all; let's get busy diceofcritj what God requires of us in this safi generation." When Jeremiah Taught 9 I don't think that Jeremiah botkati very much about "original sin" or tk "substance of the Father," or abaft anything '"consubstanliar , or "!•■ eternal," but I do know that lie wm concerned about wickedness in aifi places, and that he did challenge ldtp a n<l s-uffer lor righteousness' sdß. There was nothing of the "good eje lined*' about hiiu. 1 am. too, fully convinced that Hfone who can dodjre persecution th» days ici anything but a Christian-..Boe-der these word*, my dear Gigadibsjei you will discover that, in the tennsei a simple equation, your dissatisfacHe wi;h tlie present world order. plllfßF impatience with blind guides (of wboe ini!nix*r 1 may be one) does not cofr stitute an attack upon which lie.* buried beneath the afoitsui dead twig* of theology, but upon tit hollow structure of what pisses fe Christianity. Don't waste your breath in melee denunciation of the Church, but !«• your \<'H-c in protest against those *i* |. r ..fc-- Jc. Iμ- Jlii follower!:, but «i» will not pay Jlio j>rioc. l">o this, my isß an<l 1 am with you. 1 think that G»d invented atheato imperially to spur Christians into eoea;T.i«s activity. Bui enough! half tt* lawn lias yet "o bo mown, and HHB* than half "of KaWlais has yet te fc reaii. When ]'\ <• tini-hed this boet I -lart on Ivwoacio. if I can «■» by a copy. Perhaps you can help ■*•