The Church’s Message

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14930, 18 March 1949, Page 4

The Church’s Message

No Permanent Victory

(by the Rev. Lawrence Rogers M.A.) Most people like their stories- to end on a note of happy finality, as if, the struggles being successfully ended, permanent peace and contentment are now achieved. We are not quite so naive as to end with “They lived happily ever after,” but the plots of tne talkies and our modern books come to the same conclusion in more sophisiticated terms But there is no need to be cynical about marriage to know that when the hero marries the heroine they have neither solved their problems nor come to an end of their troubles. Marriage is the start of a long and difficult adventure. Utopia means no place: it is a direction, not a desination. The religious people who sing: . “I’ve anchored my soul in the haven of rest, I’ll sail the wide seas no more,” should not only ask if such a state is possible, but if it is desirable.

Where Idealism Breaks Down

It is a tough day for the idealists when they finally learn that there are no permanent victories. At that point tney either become useful men or turn into resentful neurotics. That is a hard saying, but its truth cannot be escaped when we look at human experience. Win a reform? Then sit back? If you do, the whole job has to be done over again. The difficulty is that the bad people get tired of being bad. it the economic determinists of one hundred years ago could have believed that it was possible to have machinery for the mass production of goods they would have been certain that the chief problems of men were solved. But ! At one stage men assumed that the “battle for democracy 1 ' ended in 1918; but the battle had to be fought all over ngain in 1939. Democracy will die if it assumes at any place or time that it has won a permanent victory. Education has been popularly conceived as an assembly-line process which guarantees to swell the head of the individual with enough knowledge in a specific length of time so that he may be said to have received an “education”, with the label of approval “a degree”. But if that is the end of the experience, then the man is not educated at all.

A Devastating Picture

At first sight this appears a devastating picture of human existence. Weary souls climbing up hill and never reaching the height. Dispossessed fighting for their rights hoping to create a society of equality and fraternity, but never winning the battle. Men tempted almost beyond their power to resist. The sacrifices of war made so that peace might come, but peace never comes. But it is not so. The universe is built on the principle of growth. It is more necessary for us to grow than is it for us- to be comfortable. Heaven has too often been falsely pictured as a haven of rest. No wonder Dante found purgatory more interesting. . ■ ' . , Gladstone, holidaying in Scotland, once walked along a country road when a storm came up. Snow fell as the wind howled, and the sheep came up from the hollows and from underneath the trees to stand on the bare hillside facing the storm. Said Gladstone; “Are not sheep the most foolish of animals. If I were a sheep I would remain in the hollows.” Said the shepherd: “Sair, if ye were a sheep, ye’d have mair sense.” In the hollows are drafts and death. Men are like that. Our safety is not to be found in permanent shelters where spirits deteriorate and grow soft.

A Faith For Living

One of the greatest, necessities of our time is to find a faith for living in a world when there are no permanent victories. Without such a faith men lose hope. Hence m a depression many commit suicioe. The sentimental optomistic creeds which function in times of pros : perity have no value in a time ot crisis. Only Christian faith provides the answer.

First because Christianity is a realistic faith which maintains a balance between defeat and victory, always keeping its head and never too much influenced by success or failure. This is not always true of individual Christians who lose their perspection. But Christian faith is not a weathervane. In days of prosperity Christianity is aware of social injustice, and cries “Let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Sometimes when a generation is wallowing in material success, the prophet must cry “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” In days of despair the voice of Jesus sounds “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” The world shouts either “All is well” or “All is lost.” But Christian faith is overawed by neither prosperity nor depression. Second, because Christian faith 'knows that each man’s soul can be invisible and that the defeats and victories which really matter are within. Environment can never conquer a man who believes that. Finally, Christianity is aware of one great permanent reality—God. Life is not at the mercy of the acids of time. God is always there.