The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1911. THE CHURCH AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1174, 8 July 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1911. THE CHURCH AND POLITICS.

"Democracy has come to the conclusion that clericalism is the onemy,", said Mr. Lloyd-George in tho Houso of, Commons in 1906, adopting a phrase made famous by Gambia, the Italian statesman. Mk. Lloyd-George was directing his aitack against a form of clericalism that happened; at the time to be in opposition to certain phases of his policy, but he conveniently overlooked the fact that this evil takes other forms and was quite as active among his supporters as his opponents. It has many disguises, and unless held in check it will assert itself in New Zealand, as in other parts of the world. Such being the case, the Anglican Bishop of Wellington (Dr. Sprott) deserves the thanks of the community for the timely note of warning against _ clericalism which he uttered in his address to his Synod on Tuesday last. He pointed out that "ministers of religion arc yielding to clericalism when they imagine that, just because they arc ministers of religion, and apart from any qualifications of serious study and competent knowledge, they are entitled magisterially to decide what is the right and what is the wrong solution of complicated social and political problems." The Bishop docs not, however, put forward the view that'"the State is a purely secular] thing," nor docs he contend that religion has nothing, to do with political matters. On the _ contrary, ho asserts that the religion of Christ claims to influence the whole of human life, and it is the duty of the clergy to go to the very foundations of conduct by appealing to those great fundamental principles of religion upon which moral character is based, and which provide the right motives for human activity in all its phases—political, social, and individual. It is not the business of the clergy to endeavour to dragoon a free people into supporting this or that social change, or this or that political party; but they do a work for the State of inestimable value in so far as they insist upon a high standard of public morality and point out to each individual elector the duty of approaching great national problems with a deep sense of responsibility, with a determination to place the public welfare before private interest, and to eliminate low and unworthy motives from political life. In this way they would | do far more to bring about a just | solution of those great social questions with which the civilised world is at present faced, than by turning their pulpits into political platforms and their prayer meetings into party demonstrations. There arc, of course, some clergymen who by longhand patient study have secured the right to speak with authority on social _ problems, but unless tho more spiritual side of their calling is to suffer, such men must of course be comparatively few; and these arc almost invariably the very men who speak with the greatest caution and reserve simply because they understand the difficulty and many-sidedness of the questions involved.* The new Dean of St. Paul's (Dr. Inge), a brilliant and courageous scholar of the modern school, recently raised his voice against the attempts that some of the clergy are making to adulterate their message to suit tho popular taste. He declares that this faithless and impatient policy takes two forms, which of course may be, ami often are, combined. Many of our clergy rush in where wiser men would fear to tread, into the labyrinth of tho social question, a task for which they are unprepared by any serious study of economics and political philosophy. Their ignorant tirades do almost unmixed harm by confusing the issues and exciting passion; nor should wo forget tho injustice done to employers of labour by denouncing them as a class for cupidity and callousness. All honour to those who are willing in person to share tho lifo of the poor; that is a social service which our Master approved by example and precept, But agitation 1; not the business oj the

Church. Our duty is to hold up steadily tho Christian standard of values, ami to sjiow that we ourselves accept it. It is the prevalence of u false standard of values, among rich and poor alike, that has created the problem, and that makes it at present insoluble. There lies our task, aiut not in persuading the working man that wo are on his side in every industrial dispute. ... It seems plain, from tho whole tenor of Christ's teaching, that the Church is to save the world by being unlike it. The metaphors of the salt, tho leaven, tho candlestick, the city set on n hill all point this way. It is the slowest of all methods, but then God is not pressed for lime. As the German proverb says, He does not make up his accounts every Saturday. If \vc believe in our personal immortality, wo can acquiesce in tho very uushowy work which is given us to do, and wo shall save those who come after us the trouble of clearing away the ambitious buildings which perhaps wo should like to erect from our own designs.

The attempt which has so often been made in recent years by the advocates of certain social and political changes to capture the Founder of Christianity and make Him the patron of their party has received a rude set-back by the latest turn in Biblical criticism. Wc have heard a great deal about Christ as a social reformer—a kind of modem philanthropist, whose first thought was the material betterment of humanity and whose Kingdom of Heaven was in reality little more than a glorified kingdom of this world. Efforts have been made to keep in the background the great mysterious Personality, -with His tremendous spiritual claims, Who imperiously brushed aside conventional and popular ideas with His "Amen, Amen, I say unto you." Up till quits recently this _ point of view has been advocated in the name of scientific historical investigation; but a change has come, and it makes its appearance in tho most advanced wing of modern scholars. We are now told that the Christ of Whom we hear so much from some political pulpits cannot bo extracted from the Gospels by any legitimate process of criticism. Me. 'Burkitt, the Norrisian Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, states that St. Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, "which makes so much of transcendental hopes and claims, and bases'sO much upon the personal ascendancy of Jesus, is more likely to reflect the historical truth than any view which regards the mission of Jesus as purely rcligio-cthical and humanitarian"; and even if wc are not prepared to adopt the extreme view put forward by Schweitzer and others when they declare that Jesus cared little about reforming the world as it is, proclaiming rather its almost immediate disappearance, the'fact remains that tho best Biblical scholarship does not give the support it formerly did to those who profess to regard the historic Jesus as little more than a high-minded leader of a reform movement on certain modern lines. Yet the common people heard Him gladly, and, in tho long run, Ho has proved a truer friend of the poor, aDd the outcast, and: the oppressed in every age and country than He would have been if He had been responsible for some- temporary programme of material betterment, or placed Himself at the head of some Palestinian political party. And so it is to-day. Party politics and municipal and social reform arc with us continually for six days-in tho weck"in"a hutt'drcd shapes and forms; we road of them in newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and nooks; , and tho average healthyminded man certainly does not want to have these things thrust upon him once more'when ho goes to church on Sunday by men who very often know less about them than he does himself. Moreover, the church should surely be regarded as neutral ground where people may for the moment discard their party badges and meet simply as men.and brethren, forgetting the strifo of tongues and tho bitterness of partisanship, and contemplating those things unseen and eternal to which religion in all ages and under, many forms has been the continual witness.