SOCIAL UPHEAVAL

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 241, 8 July 1931, Page 8

SOCIAL UPHEAVAL

Tottering Foundations PROBLEM FOR CHURCH Bishop Sprott’s Opinion “Wo ore witnessing an unprecedented upheaval—social, political, moral, and religious—in human society, and it is a great question which the Christian Church will have to face in the coming years," said the Bishop of Wellington, Rt. Rev. T. H. Sprott, D.D., in his presidential address at the opening of the Synod of the Diocese of Wellington yesterday. “As an old Psalmist said of his own day, the foundations—the fundamental principles upon which human society rests —are- being shaken," he proceeded. “For the moment, the unemployment problem is that which immediately and most urgently presses upon us. But the unemployment problem is no isolated phenomenon; it is part and parcel of the Whole upheaval, social, political, moral, and religious, as well as economic. Human life is not lived in water-tight compartments. Human society, throughout its entire range, is calling for reformation—for reconstruction. The Church’s Function. “Now the question confronting the Christian Church is just this: To this reformation, this reconstruction, has the Christian Church, has Christianity, any direct and positive contribution to make; or is its sole function that of the ambulance, following in the rear of the human race as it marches through history, and picking up the exhausted and wounded, I imagine that the world generally thinks that ambulance work, and ambulance work of a very restricted kind, is the only function of the Christian Church in the world so far as it performs any useful function 'at all. But the world’s opinion is not necessarily conclusive. "What is more to the point is that there have been, and still are, earnest groups within the Christian Church Itself that take the same view of the Church’s function; only they would include within this ambulance work, as by far its. most important part, moral and spiritual rescue as welt Of human society, as such, these groups take a pessimistic view. They do not believe it can be regenerated by any forces at present working in the world. Their one and only Interest has been the salvation and moral purity ot individuals, . M I desire to speak with the utmost respect of these groups of Christians. They have witnessed, and still do witness, to certain truths which are fundamental to Christianity—the supreme value of the individual soul, the paramount importance of personal conviction, the reality of sin and the need of deliverance therefrom the preparatory character of our earthly life, the reality of the life of the world to come. These principles are by no means out of date. Without them Christianity would become a vapid, lifeless, ana not very practicable, moral code. Nevertheless, I greatly doubt whether the ambulance theory adequately expresses the function of Christianity in the world. Social Reconstruction. “Never was the need for knowledge and discernment on the part of Christian men more imperative than it is to-day. The idea of social reconstruction is not new. It has been working in the minds of men for the past century and a hall, and many reconstructive schemes have been put forth by able men. . . But within the last ten years we have been witnessing the practical application of one of the most materialistic and antireligious of these schemes to a radical reconstruction of the social order in one of the greatest nations of the world. 1 do not know how far the present regime in Russia has been intelligently and whole-heartedly accepted by the great mass of the people, or has been passu ely acquiesced in by a people mured by their past history to uncomplaining submission. Certainly the Russian people have hitherto had the reputation of being a religious people, and it is difficult to believe in the sudden conversion of a whole nation to atheism. The Great Question. “The question confronting the Church and the world to-day is: Shall tottering human society be reconstructed upon a Christian or upon an antr-Chnatian and atheistic basis, There is a StownjS “““ Christian propaganda going on in the world, largely along sociological lines, though we in New Zealand may not be acutely conscious of it. "It seems to me that the time has come for the Christian Church earnestly to consider whether the Christian Gospel really has a veritable social message—, whether its doctrine of the nature .°JGod, of the nature of man and his.relations to God and his fellow men, and its ethical principles, do form . a . 8 basis for human society: and to do th ms not in a vague and abstract way, but to develop the study into a detailed l aPP lj . ca ' tion to every department of human life. I think also that it is of the utmost importance that this study should be prosecuted in entire independence of all those social theories and programmes, to which I have referred, even of those theorl ® B whirh in their origin have been more or toss influenced by Christian conceptions. I think that all such theories should be put on one side. What we need to be furnished with is a clear and comprehensive conception of a specifically Christian social order, wholly based upon Christian principles.” _