MODERN YOUTH

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 11, 14 January 1932, Page 10

MODERN YOUTH

A BISHOP'S ADDRESS

ALOOFNESS FROM CHURCH

(From "The Post's" Representative:) LONDON, 26th November. In the course of his presidential address to the Liverpool Diocesan Conference, the Bishop (Dr. *A. A. David) defended modern young' people. People must face the fact, he said, that large numbers of young people of all classes stood aside from: the Church and were not attracted by its message. They questioned its standard of 'conduct and neglected its worship. ' '•■• , i "To some of them," he said, "it seems that the Ch,urch cares nothing for the interests, of life which, seem to them real and engrossing—science of art, recreation, sport, and fellowship—but is preoccupied with questions narrowly ecclesiastical, often in a bitter partisan spirit which they declare to be wholly un-Christian.

"Therefore they hold aloof from organised religion. This estrangement is part of what is called the 'Kevolt of Youth.' Undoubtedly it is a fact. But it is not peculiar to this particular time. , "The young in every generation have rebelled, not against discipline, but against what they regard as "arbitrary rules, the principle of which they do not understand. Not against sacrifice, if sacrifice is asked, for great and worthy ends; not against ideals,, but against' methods of approach to the ideal whicn seem to them to spoil it; not against Christ, but against a view of life and of religious life which they feel sure He does not share. In all this there is nothing new. But there are two features which are new in their attitude to-day. MOVE WITH THE TIMES. "Young people nowadays- express themselves both in speech and conduct in their relations to one another and in their attitude to us with a frankness and a freedom which is altogether new. I 'do not regret it.' Let us beware of being personally offended '• by what seems to us a lack of reverence or even of reticence. We can use it if we will (and here humour will help us) for their good and for ours.

"Before, we criticise their outlook or condemn their conduct, let us study them. We cannot do that by recalling our own young days. We must let our imagination carry us into their actual conditions now. That; is always the way of them that seek in love.

"I trust that we shall waste no tinie in deploring and lamenting the weakness,,;the selfishness, the. waywardness of pur young people. ?JS;qr,; on the other hand, am r inclined to joikiirtliat rather fulsome glorification-;of ;tteirj virtues which from some quarters is lavished oa them to-day. The truth is that in themselves they are. no better 'and no" worse than we were. They have the same temptations to drag them down, the same possibilities: of sound and hopeful growth. If we have found the secret of deliverance and development it is because our eyes were opened "to it by people who understood us.s Let us seek a like share in opening theirs." :' ■■; After-referring to the agencies inside the Church and to such bodies as Scouts and Girl Guides, -the Boys' Brigade, the Y.M.CAv'the; Y.W.C.A., the Student Christian Movement, and Toe H, the Bishop said: "Somehow they have touched and held the imagination and the aspiration of young people as sometimes wo havo failed to do. They have found an appeal.to which youth answers naturally and generously. We must learn from ■ that experience. We shall do so tho more easily/ because from some of these movements there comes to us a definite. request, for help from our side. Their leaders recognise that' if their work for the young is to be lasting, it must rest on the only permanent basis of human life—namely, the religious basis. I count,that request to bo jone of the most hopeful sighs of our 'times." ... '/