MORALITY ON TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 21

MORALITY ON TRIAL

DEAN INGE'S FRANK TALK Dean Inge's title of "Gloomy'' will surely soon be changed to tliat ol! "Controversial." In liis recent "Christian Ethics and Modern Problems," extracts from which have already been cabled to New Zealand, and probably the world over, lie advances views on birth control, divorce, and suicide which cannot fail to shock the orthodox, and even soine of the unorthodox. In "the last considerable work" that he will have "time to write," Dr. Inge deals with a somewhat audacious question. Ho asks whether the Christian ethic itself is "to be accepted or rejected on its merits as a guide for men and women of to-day." It is a fair and pertinent issue. But his attitude of impartial inquiry is really no more than the hovering | of an eagle in mid-air before the bird swoops. Indeed, as an eagle, the Dean enjoys certain ornithological advantages. Whatever use he makes of his practiced beak and talons, his is the soul of a dove, and over the wounds inflicted on his victim he softly coos: In reading through the manuscript of my book, I have become painfully conscious that it may be taken, in some quarters, as a sustained polemic against the most august • and powerful of the Christian Churches. Nothing can be further from my intention than to show discourtesy to any Christian body. ... It would be an entire misrepresentation. Many will agree with Dr. Inge that "the idea of a politically ordered Church was totally foreign to the rnind of Christ Himself." That is why dissenters have always objected to deans who owe their promotion to Prime Ministers. But Dr. Inge goes further and declares that when Christ was on earth He never contemplated a new Church or a new religion. His earthly missions was that of a prophet and reformer within the Jewish State, and much of the book is taken up with arguments on this point—"the monstrous growth of -a .theocratic Empire in Europe." For some years Dean Ingo has made no secret of Ms interest in the sex question. In this book we have these views set out in orderly sequence, and can judge of them, as a whole. Statistically, he is convinced that the population must be limited. Morally, he is not prepared to anathematise birth control. On divorce, he draws a line between tho law of the, Church and the law of the State. Broadly, an ecclesiastical marriage should be binding for life. But ho would allow the citizen as citizen "to enter into a much more limited contract, tho terms of which are clearly understood on both sides." One opinion of the Dean has aroused a mild uproar. "I cannot resist," he says, "the arguments for a modification of tho traditional Christian law which absolutely prohibits suicide in all circumstances," nor does he agree "that God willed the prolongation of torture for the benefit of the soul of the sufferer." Hence, he offers this conclusion:— Nor do I judge other suicides so severely as is the custom of Christian moralists. At the same time, I hope, inconsistently perhaps, that if I were attacked, by a painful illness I should have patience to wait for the end, and I do not think I should wish any one near and dear to me to act otherwise.