SEVERE CRITICISM

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 66, 11 December 1929, Page 10

SEVERE CRITICISM

YOUTH AND THE CHURCH “SERMONS TEDIOUS, PRAYERS RAMBLING” Dominion Special Service. Auckland, December 10. “Modern girls are critical of Hie church and find the sermons tedious, the prayers rambling, and the church architecture dismal,” said Miss Jean Begg, secretary of the Auckland Young Women's Christian Association, when the attitude of the youth of to-day toward the church was discussed at a meeting of the Council of Christian Congregations. Bored with Monotony. Miss Begg said modern girls were bored with the monotony of the church, and if the more interested ones considered the importance of prayer, its value to them was only the peace of mind which it might give. The minister of to-day secured loyalty not because of his profession, but in spite of it, and his ministerial status was not an asset but a liability. It was an important duty of the church to give young people a sense of belonging to it, but this was not to be confused with possessing them body and soul. The trouble with sermons was that ministers told them what to do when they really wanted to know what the minister himself would do. Miss Begg made a strong appeal to the church .authorities to make more use of the young people in the church services and to show the young people that they were receiving some interest and doing something worth while. Youth was a period of energy and it was not reasonable to expect young folk to retain their interest if they had to sit back and watch their elders. Mr. Vernon T. Drew, secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association, asked his audience to imagine that modern youth was being tried by them as a jury on a charge of lack of interest in the church. What the Young People Need. The majority of young people, Mr. Drew said, pleaded not guilty to the charge, and others pleaded guilty under extenuating circumstances. What the young man of to-day wanted was something that would conform to the changed conditions of the present time. He was interested in religion, but he wanted ■ his gospel simple and not encumbered with doctrinal controversies. He did not like compromise and felt that the church, by stooping to all man,ner of means to gain his interest, was lowering its dignity.

The secretary of the Council of Religious Education (the Rev. E. P. Blamires) said that whatever ailed the youth of to-day was undoubtedly the fault of the older generation, which had permitted such a state of affairs. The spiritual welfare of the country should be assured as the physical condition had been by attention from infancy. The church needed a Phinket movement in its religious education to spread its influence upon the young people from their most impressionable age.