CORRESPONDENCE POLITICS AND RELIGION.

Evening Star, Issue 19549, 6 May 1927, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE

POLITICS AND RELIGION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —A word or two in answer to “ Liberty’s ’ last message. Your readers will have noticed his altered tone and how considerably bo has calmed down since his first outburst. 1 suspected, in reading his first letter, that be had an erroneous idea of tho purpose of the church, its work and mission in the world, and his last one confirms mo in ray belief. Christian men and women the world over have become so accustomed to seeing preachers closely identifying themselves with reformatory work, both social and political, that they have come to think that it is all a part of tho work of the Gospel. There is no suph thought in the New Testament, and what I refer to furnishes us with an evidence of how far the church has drifted from primitive Christianity. Christ has taught us that God’s house is the “House of Prayer,” and to-day the pulpit is largely turned into a social and political rostrum. The writer went to a service on Sunday morning, and about half of the address was taken up with a discourse on the Singapore Base. I came away with the thought in my mind, “dry bones.” Wo go to church to be fed upon tho “Bread of Life” and very often get a “stone.”

It is very refreshing to be told by “ Liberty ” that I cannot distinguish between' social reform and politics. I have heard so often that Prohibition is a moral, and not_ a political question. It is a subject in itself, so 1 pass on. “ Liberty ” refers to the writer’s “deplorable ignorance.” I will leave your readers to judge about that. The expression by “ Liberty ”, makes a very servicablo dart, especially when be is snugly ensconced behind a hedge. Now the position is this: In my first letter I. stated that the preacher-politician was, in the light or the New Testament, an impossible character. That statement has never been challenged by “ Liberty or anybody else, and I am

quite confident that it cannot bo. Mv incidental reference to ministers and Prohibition made “ Liberty ’ very angry; but probably he has cooled down by now, and is beginning to see that others may comprehend the fitness of things and realise, if h© does not, that social reform and politics have nothing in common with the Gospel of onr Lord Jesus Christ, or vice versa. If “Liberty” believes he can dislodge me from the position I take up let him do so, and if not let him freely acknowledge it.—l am, etc., M. May 5.

P.S.—“ Liberty’s ” scriptural references have no bearing on the subject at all.—M. .