WORLD PEACE

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23745, 17 September 1942, Page 4

WORLD PEACE

—* — WORK OF CHRISTIAN CHURCH ARCHBISHOP’S ADDRESS The part to be played by the Christian Church in the establishment of international peace was discussed by Archbishop West-Watson when he gave the Ensom Bequest Lecture under the auspices of the Workers’ Educational Association on Tuesday evening. Mr G. Manning presided. The title of the lecture was “The Christian International,” and the Archbishop described the extent and growth of the Christian Church, and the way m which the churches had been drawing together in recent years while the nations had been falling more and more apart even in their ways of thought. The Archbishop said that many people were looking back nowadays rather wistfully to the early Middle Ages when the Western Church made a unity of Europe and Popes could outface savage and greedy potentates. He doubted if a totalitarian Church would give satisfaction to-day, and he was quite sure that this kind of power would soon corrupt the Churqh. "One of the most sinister features of this age is that mankind has no common spiritual meeting ground, said the Archbishop. “Even when, we talk-of such apparently obvious things as peace and liberty and truth, different nations are apt to mean something quite different. Is it not something that when the war clouds lift there will be an active body of people in practically every country who have a common meeting ground of thought and ideals? With our common Lord, our common worship and our common Bible, Christians have a common understanding of what they mean by truth and peace and freedom. “If we are to get together we need some independent centre of reference, some body of men who will not be intimidated by big battalions or corruptible by intrigue. Now, I am not pretending that we can hope to find such a body, so incorruptible and so disinterested. among human beings. But I do suggest that if the Church can realise its opportunity and rise to its responsibility it should be a nearer approximation to it than any other body of men. Professor Einstein is witness that the only body in Germany that dared to withstand the new Caesar was not the university nor the press, but the Church. In France to-day the Church is boldly protesting against the horrid persecution of the Jews. The Church in Holland has refused to exclude non-Aryans, "Again, if the Church can be the Church and stand aside from the scramble for material and economic prizes then it ought to be able to speak impartially to the powers,” continued Archbishop West-Watson. "I venture to think that the recent pronouncements of the Churches, Roman and non-Roman, do show both courage and impartiality. It can never be easy for a Church to see the material means by which it is enabled to carry on its work of service to mankind taken away from it, but the loss may only drive it back on to its spiritual resources. “The Church has at times been too apt to seek security rather than to stake all on its faith in God. It is learning to-day that the principle of its being is that of Christ, to lose ils life if it hopes to save it. So it is my hope that when reconstruction comes the Church may have both the courage and the detachment to speak a message of salvation in its widest sense."