Churchman Favours “Student Revolt”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 1

Churchman Favours “Student Revolt”

The “student revolt” should have the support of all Christians so long as violence was not used, the Rev. J. R. W. Stott, rector of All Souls’ Church, London, said yesterday.

Mr Stott is one of the speakers at the conference of New Zealand Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions which began last evening. “The very things that students are questioning—violence, shams, hypocrisy and materialism—are the very things that Christians should be questioning too,” he said.

“In challenging these facets of today’s world, the students earn my support, but that support stops short of violence," he said. Many young people were also questioning the Church as an institution but they were making the distinction between the ecclesiastical hierachy and the presence of Christianity. While they often rejected the former, very few turned from Christianity, he said. “The role of the minister, who was once responsible for welfare work, education and marriage counselling—things which are increasingly being tawen over b ythe State—is also coming under review,” he said. “The laity is becoming more important as being in the forefront of the church, and is no longer regarded as pew-fodder,” he said. Although the. churches were not doing enough to educate students to Christianity, there was a lot of work being done by students themselves in this field, he said. “At the Otago University, where I was at a mission last week, I found a very high standard of Christian student. They were working among their fellow students and leading them in study of the Christian faith. They were very keen, but balanced and most'mature and responsible,” he said.