“MILITANT ATHEISM”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21064, 8 April 1943, Page 3

“MILITANT ATHEISM”

THEOLOGIAN CRITICAL SYDNEY, April 2. “When Professor Anderson invites teachers to regard the Gospel story as something of a folk-lore character he aligns himself with a small body in Nazi Germany which treats the story of Jesus in the Gospels as a myth.” Principal T. C. Hammond, of Moore Theological College, Sydney, said this in criticising Professor Anderson, who is professor of philosophy at Sydney University, for views on religion’s part in education expressed in an address to the New Educational Fellowship. In his address Professor Anderson said teachers would be well advised to keep the clergy out of schools. The proper approach would be to teach religion as literature and put forward the Gospels as a series of stories of a folk-lore character. “The professor takes up the attitude of militant atheism and seems scarcely conscious of the lengths to which his prejudice has carried him,” Principal Hammond stated. “Professor Anderson is reported to have said that religion was concerned with the limitation of inquiry. This amazing statement ignores the patent fact that research, which he correctly extols, found its fullest expression and achieved its greatest victories in the centres of Christian culture. “In his definition of education as being concerned /with development, inquiry and investigation, Professor Anderson ignores, or at any rate under-values, the function of character training in education. It is a matter of regret that Professor Anderson invites a body of State servants wjiich derrrves and has won the respect of the community, to express resentment at the requirements of the law which it should be their first duty to uphold.”