MODERN RELIGION

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 266, 6 August 1937, Page 12

MODERN RELIGION

Effect of Materialism on Public Worship MINISTER’S ADDRESS People Will Come Back to Spiritual Values Tendencies in the organised religious life of England were discussed by the Rev. Lawrence Redfern, M.A., 8.D., of Liverpool, in an address to the Unitarian Free Church, Wellington, last night. He mentioned the adverse effect of materialism on public worship, but expressed the confident belief that when the playthings of science had ceased to amuse, the people would come back to spiritual values and to the things that were the real wealth, whether in the life of the individual or in the life of the nation. One sometimes heard the statement that large numbers of people were passing through life without any sort of religious experience whatever, said Mr. Redfern. When trying to compare the religious life of to-day with the religious life of a past generation, it was tremendously important to bear in mind that while religion remained eternally the same, the ingredients which composed religion were not always mixed in the same proportion. “If we bear that in mind, I believe it is possible to come to a very much more optimistic conclusion about the religion of to-day than we often do,” said Mr. Redfern. The feeling for Christ and His Cross in the days of the evangelical revival was superb; the people were persistent, loyal, and devoted and possessed that kind of faith that produced strong, powerful, amazing personalities. Their point of view, however, had its i limitations. Their spirituality was not nearly so well developed as their emotionalism or their loyalty or their sense of the overwhelming awfulness of God. Their conscience also was a very crude thing compared with the conscience of to-day. Their sense of responsibility for other men’s sufferings and sorrows was not nearly so well developed as that of the men and women of to-day. Church Attendances. “There is reverence in the modern mind, and our conscience and sense of responsibility for the evils that exist iu our common life is much greater than it was iu those days that are gone,” said Mr. Redfern. “The conscience of the modern mind is like a giant compared with an infant. I am prepared to maintain that there is in the life of our time—and I speak almost exclusively of England, which I know best—far more religion than we are sometimes prepared to recognise. It might be a good deal stronger and better than it is, but I believe there is more of it in the hearts of men and women, and even in the hearts of our youth, than we are sometimes prepared to recognise. However, that feeling of religion which I believe is there is not at the moment, at any rate, expressing itself in attendances at church or in public worship. That to my mind is a lamentable and regrettable thing. “It is estimated that something like 90 per cent, of the total population in England have no active affiliation with any sort of religious organisation. No doubt many reasons can be given for that. To my mind one of the reasons which is operating most strongly is the preoccupation of man with earning the means of living. At a time when there is so much economic insecurity, when there are thousands upon thousands of men willing to work and unable to find it, it is not surprising that the problems of why, whence and whither with which religion is concerned should seem to be vague and unreal and out of touch with the requirements of modern life, and that the ordinary day-to-day earning a living should obscure those wider spiritual issues. A “Punch” Cartoon. “The problems of time are apt to overwhelm the problems of eternity. Weariness and disillusionment do not lend themselves to the observance of public worship. There is an additional reason—the great change which lias been brought about in our life by the invention of the internal combustion engine, which enables people to rush from place to place and keep for ev6r on the move. When that state of things exists people who are always on the move are not usually thinkers. These playthings of science turn men’s minds away from the eternal.” Mr. Redfern said that “Punch” recently published a cartoon showing a family preparing for an outing on a Sunday. Father, looking up from his Sunday newspaper, remarked: “An aeroplane has crashed at Ploughborough. there has been tt murder at Meadows, and a girl has mysteriously disappeared from a cottage at Tattle Hampton. Which would you like to see?” The heading over the cartoon was “Sabbath Observance in the Suburbs.”

“That is a very real problem in our life in England,” continued Mr. Redfern. “Not the vulgarity of the slums—there is vulgarity in the slums everyone knows—but the vulgarity of the suburbs is the awful thing, the vulgarity of those who, in the exigencies of these changeful days, have suddenly become rich. The vulgarity of the materialism of the suburbs is the awful thing which religion has got to fight. “That sounds a very pessimistic picture.” added Mr. Redfern, “but my view is unshaken, that man is incurably religious, and that when these things of science have ceased to amuse, as undoubtedly they will, there will be a coming back to spiritual values and to the things that are the real wealth, whether in the life of the individual or in the life of the nation.”