FACING THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 23093, 20 October 1938, Page 17

FACING THE WORLD

DISENCHANTED SECULARISM - / The ‘ Princeton Seminary Bulletin* l contained a searching address by Dr Harris Kirk, of Baltimore, who, for the fifteenth summer in succession, occupied the jlulpit of Westminster Chapel, London. No other preacher from across the Atlantic has received such a cordial welcome year by year from one church, and this record is a tribute to both the man and the church. “An English writer recently remarked that ‘ it takes courage to return the stare of the stars.’ I think it takes more courage to face the world to-day. Do we understand its trends? Do we know the shaping forces that are determining its conception of values? ” asks Dr Harris Kirk. “ At least we must try to see things in right relation. History shows us God-centred periods, and man-centred periods; times when _ life was _ set upon its eternal relations, and times when it was terribly involved in its earthly interests. Signs are not wanting to show that the cultural movement beginning with the Renaissance, has come to an end. “ The stream of life has passed into a whirlpool, on the surface of which are floating fragments of religions, philosophies and moralities of the past, and no one can predict the direction it will finally take. “ With the passing of a cultural ideal in which a definite place was given to the individual man, we are confronted by a collective notion of society, in the dual form of economic mechanism and State regimentation. Few leaders are desired, and most men are constrained to follow blindly and obediently theories of government and life which they take little trouble to understand.

“ The_ effect of this on personal morale is tremendous. A conspicuous feature is a profound disillusion as to the guiding principles of the past; a loss of background, while facing the powerful currents of a sea that sweep men towards unknown goals, in an atmosphere of mental and moral confusion, the like of which has rarely appeared in past times. “ Two conspicuous factors are in conflict in the mind of the modern man: on the one hand a keen distaste for all that is familiar in Church or State, and on the other an intense curiosity towards what is new and strange. FAILURE OF SCIENCE. “ The feeling of disillusion may be described as a kind of disenchanted secularism, or perhaps better called naturalism, which is a doctrine that tells us that all the worthwhile values are to ho sought for in this world alone. Two phases may be noted: “1. The _ scientific phase. The belief that science had power to relieve humanity of all its ills was almost universal before the Great War._ But we now know that this hope is not going to he realised. No class knows this better than the men of science, and they are confessing it with telling effect. * “ Science can put the finest tools into man’s hands, but it cannot furnish a moral sanction for their proper use. It is idle to talk, as some do, of a moratorium on invention, or to look to treaties made in time of peace to safeguard the civil populations. “ The world marches on; and unless a moral sanction for right control of the tremendous • potentials of energy at present in a man’s possession can be found outside the domain of science the ruin of civilisation by ruthless war is not far away. “2. The humanistic phase'. Humanism derived whatever attraction it had from a naive belief in a certain dogma of human progress, wherein it was assumed that Nature herself was interested in the continuous improvement of her children. A cosmic law would eventually produce the perfect social order and the perfect man. That dogma is now universally discredited. In many quarters the status of the individual was. never lower than now. How then can sane people follow the delusion of humanism, when men are proving their incapacity to govern themselves?

“ This deep sense of futility and satiety with things ns they are has, however, developed an intense longing for rejuvenation. The world is longing for something in which it can confide, for some authority to which it may attach its inner life.”