CHRISTIAN ORDER

Grey River Argus, 3 June 1942, Page 1

CHRISTIAN ORDER

N.Z. Council of Churches CAMPAIGN FOR CHRISTIAN ORDER, 1942. OFFICIALLY IGNORED IN PROPAGANDA. THE CHRISTIAN ISSUE AND OPPOSITION IN GERMANY. Although there is evidence of a vigorous religious revival in Great Britain, as shown by the Malvern Conference last year, the enthusiasm in many charters over the appointment of Dr. Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Churches' United Witness Campaign (which has a counterpart in New Zealand in the Campaign for Christian Order now being conducted by the National Council of Churches), yet according to Dr George Glasgow, writing in the “Contemporary Review’’, one of the oddities ol the war is “the fact that British official propaganda has steadily fought shy of the Christian argument.” Pleading for more official support for the Christian issue in propaganda Dr Glasgow says that “the prevailing blindness ol British official quarters about, what is happening .in the world is all the more remarkable when that argument so clearly militates against the Nazi cause. Why are the British people left in ignorance of the wave of Christian feeling that is surging against the Nazi leaders from one end of Europe io the other, even in Germany? The failure to exploit it is one of the most striking examples of British lack of imagination. The whole course of history during the past 2000 - years proves that Christianity is the only impregnable thing on earth; and Hitler has invited, and is getting, the organised opposition of Christians throughout the world. Bishop von Galen, the Roman Catholic Bishop ol Munster, has preached a series of sermons against the Gestapo which ought to have been blazoned abroad for the encouragement of the British people.’’ Dr Glasgow recalls that it was Mussolini himself who said, in the newspaper “Figaro” in 1934, before he had committed Italy to the antiChristian cause, “A fight against religion is a fight against the impalpable.. .It is by this time most fully proved that the weapons at the disposal of the State, no matter how sharp they may be, are powerless to inflict any mortal blow on the Church . . . Passive resistance on the part of the priests and of the faithful is sufficient to frustrate the most violent attacks by a State.” Those words by Mussolini may well be prophetic. The call to passive, resistance against the Gestapo by the Bishop of Munster, mentioned above, was echoed in equally impressive language by the Protestant Bishop of Wurtemburg, who spoke of the need for Christians vigorously to withstand the enemy within the Third Reich. In the “Daily Herald” of January 8, Hannan S waff er told the story of Frau Staritz, a Lutheran woman minster in Breslau, who was denounced by “Schwarze Korps”, Himmler’s savage weekly, because she urged her parishioners in a circular letter to take care of the unhappy “Non-Aryan Christians” wno are now compelled to wear the yellow “David Star” even-in church. In a recent issue of “The New Statesman and Nation”, Elizabeth Castonier described the rising tide of religious opposition to the Nazis, led by the clergy and “strongly supported by the German population.” Despite the fact that he is officially an enemy, the heroic stand of Pastor Niemoller against the Nazis has won the admiration of democratic peoples, and he was even made the hero of a British film. But he is not the only one. “Public Opinion” for January 16, 1942, reviews a book entitled “The Iron Ration of a Christian,” by Heinrich Vogel, a well-known member of the Confessional Church of Germany, who -s now supposed to be in a concentration camp—which is not surprising when one reads such a passage as this in his book: “There is no earthly power to which we owe unreserved and unconditional obedience, .or there is always a primary reservation and a primary condition —namely the law of God. ... A civil power which wrests for itself the attributes of divine authority degenerates into tyranny ...” . Even 'ess well-known perhaps to, the public than the courage and determination of pastors like Niemollei I and Vogel is the fact that, in face i of all difficulties, fifteen small but active groups of German Quakers are still at work within the Reich, ; and still publish a monthly journal ; “Der Quaker.” ~ I According to Dr Glasgow, there. are signs that Hitler is now trying; io live down his past as pagan pro- , tagonist. against the Christian re-, ligion —but “it .is too late, for Chr.-- . tian people have been roused in self- • H>°fence.” But why, asks Dr Glasgow does British official propaganda not ’take advantage of this fact?