BRITAIN’S RELIGIOUS LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 23500, 14 February 1940, Page 6

BRITAIN’S RELIGIOUS LIFE

SOME DISQUIETING AND CHALLENGING FEATURES RETURN OF DR LAIRD (Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, February 13, Side by side with encouraging features in the religious life of Great Britain, Dr J. M. Laird, of Wellington, who returned to-day after a year abroad, found much which he considered disquieting and challenging. Dr Laird, who has been away a year, is general secretary in New Zealand to the Children’s Special Service Alission, the Crusader movement, and the Scripture Union, and an officer of the Interuniversity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions. The Crusader movement consists of some 60 interdenominational Christian unions in the secondary schools of the Dominion.

In recent years in England, Dr Laird said, there had been a considerable falling off in Church and Sunday school attendance, with a corresponding increase in. paganism. This was specially noticeable in new building areas, where adequate provision had not been made for the erection of new churches. Older cities and towns, too, had many poorly-attended or even abandoned churches, and he had been credibly informed that in London, with its huge population, not more than 8 per cent, of the people were church-going. This situation was being met in’ some measure by a change of method. There was an increasing number of conventions for a deepening of the spiritual life. Both churches and interdenominational societies were making an increasing use of caravans, special missions, and campaigns, and there had seldom been a time when books and other publications dealing with religious subjects had been so widely read in Britain. Dr Laird has had a busy time. All told, he has addressed between 40 and 50 meetings. He represented New Zealand at the diamond jubilee meetings of the Scripture Union in Albert Hall and at meetings throughout England and Scotland, at which ho spoke. Among the addresses he gave were 16 to children’s special service missions in seaside places along the east and south coast of England. At most of the meetings he showed a colour film of the Crusader movement and the Children’s Special Service Alission work in New Zealand. This film has not yet been shown in New Zealand, but Dr Laird hopes to show it in March and April. Another of his missions in England was to attend as the New Zealand representative the international conference in Cambridge of the Interunivorsity Fellowship. At present there were about 700 students from more than 20 countries, including Finland. i