RELIGIOUS LIFE IN BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 120, 14 February 1940, Page 8

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN BRITAIN

Disquieting Features Seen

DR. J. M. LAIRD RETURNS

TO WELLINGTON

Side by side with encouraging features in tlie religious life ol Great Britain, Dr. J. M. Laird, Wellington, who has returned after a year abroad, found much which he considered disquieting and challenging. Dr. Laird, who has been away a year, is general secretary iu New Zealand to the Children’s Special Service Mission, the Crusader Movement, and the Scripture Union, and an oilicer of the InterVarsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions. The Crusader Movement consists of some 60 interdenominational Christian unions in tlie secondary schools of the Dominion.

Dwindling Congregations.

In recent years in England, he said, there had been a considerable fallingoff in Church and Sunday school attendance with a corresponding increase in paganism. This was specially noticeable in new building areas, where adequate provision had not been made for the erection of new churches. Older cities and towns, too, had many poorly-attended or even abandoned churches, and he had been credibly informed that in London, with its huge population, not more than eight per cent, of the people were churchgoers.

This situation was being met in some measure by a change of method. There was a growing number of conventions for the deepening of spiritual life. Both churches and interdenominational societies were making increasing use of caravans, special missions and campaigns ; and there had seldom been a time when books and other publications dealing with religion subjects had been so widely read.

Many Meetings Addressed,

In Britain Dr. Laird has had a busy time. He addressed between 40 and 50 meetings. He represented New Zealand at the diamond jubilee meetings of the Scripture Union in the Albert Hall and at meetings throughout England and Scotland, at which lie spoke. Among the addresses he gave were 16 to Children’s Special Service Missions in seaside places along the east and south coasts of England. At most of the meetings he addressed he showed a colour film of Crusader Movement and Children’s Special Service Mission work in New Zealand. This film has not yet been shown in New Zealand, but Dr. Laird hopes to show it in March and April. Another of his missions in England was to attend as New Zealand representative the international conference in Cambridge of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship. Present, there were about. 700 students from more than 20 countries, including Finland.