Call For Action In Religion

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31941, 19 March 1969, Page 2

Call For Action In Religion

Christianity was a religion of action and involvement, the Rev. A. W. Georgantis told women attending an inter-church school in Christchurch yesterday.

“Religion is ultimately what people do, as well as what they believe and say,” he said. It was terribly easy for misinformed people to be critical and destructive about everything, but terribly hard to do something constructive, themselves. Mr Georgantis, an Anglican minister, said it was especially easy for New Zealanders, because of their isolation, to “just let the rest of the world go by.”

NEGROES’ PLIGHT “We do not know what it is like to be constantly hungry, or part of the persecuted minority. It is all very well for us to get steamed up about a couple of Negro athletes indulging in a mild demonstration at the Olympic Games, but we do not know what it is like to be black.

“We are ready to criticise any hoolaganism during student demonstrations, but do we usually know what the students are demonstrating about? We tend to dismiss the whole thing and ask them why they don't go home and swot”

The way in which people looked at themselves and their destiny automatically affected the way they treated others, Mr Georgantis said. JUSTICE STRESSED Christians should be concerned with injustice wherever it existed, and they must do justice, not talk about about it Monetary support was not enough. It

was essential to become involved because justice was more than an abstract thing. Remaining aloof from injustice neither achieved anything nor satisfied anyone.

The theme for the interchurch school is a quotation by the prophet, Micah: “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

The programme, being held in the Knox Presbyterian Church, will continue today.