ATTITUDE TO CHURCH

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 121, 18 November 1943, Page 6

ATTITUDE TO CHURCH

MEN AT THE FRONT •

That in matters of religious faith the men in the fighting lines would rather receive what came from Russia than what came originally from Palestine, was the assertion of the Rev. V. R. Jamieson, Methodist chapplain to the forces on-furlough from the Middle East, -when speaking at St. Paul's Church, Hamilton, at a welcome to members t>f the South Auckland District Synod, reports the "Auckland Star." Speaking of the attitude of men at the front to the Church, the speaker said the men were not, in the main, antagonistic to belief in God, but did not have much opinion of the Church, which they considered to be complacent regarding wrongs, social injustices, and inequalities, and particularly what they regarded as the inequitable and indefensible economic system of present-day society. They considered that in the present crisis Russia was destined to save the world from its troubles and miseries and that . organised Christianity had lamentably failed in its mission in this respect. It was urged by Mr. Jamieson that the whole situation was a challenge to the Church to cease from troubling about the trivialities that too largely occupied its attention today, to get down to realities and confront the world with a message that would make the Christian epic and spirit really operative in' world affairs.