THE CHURCH

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 29 October 1921, Page 7

THE CHURCH

IS IT LOSING ITS POWER

3he venerable Dr. Lyman Abbott, with amazing vitality of mind and body, discusses in his own journal, the New lork Outlook, tho question: "Are the People losing Religion?" . "Identifying religion with its institutions has been a common blunder When Jesus foretold the destruction of the Icmplo he was thought to prophesy the Uf s, t!' uct, lon df reliSio» and to be guilty of blasphemy. But the effect of breaking the, alabaster box was to diffuse ■ throughout the then known world the fragrance of its contents. /'When the Lutheran Reformation denied the authority of the Church, the Ketormers were persecuted as spiritual anarchists. They were thought to deny the authority of religion. ''The Quakers were persecuted in England by tli© Church because ecclesiastics could not understand how anyone could believe in God who disbelieved in the Creed and refused the sacraments.

: "Meanwhile the religion of doing IUS1 US 7i Iovi"« mercy, and walking humbly with God has gone on increasing in power and in variety and richness of expression, sometimes by the aid of churches, sometimes in spite of their opposition. "Those who believe that the Church is the foundation on which religion is built may well ask with anxiety the question, 'Is the Church losing its power?' I believe that man is incurably religious, and that the churches are.instruments which he has organised to express and promote his religious life. If he finds that they do not relieve him of the burden of his sins and his failures, but only give him theories of atonement; do not endow him with ! power to live nobly,-,but only prove to him.'that such power was given to the saints and martyrs of past times; do not make him acquainted with God, but i only give him definitions of God, he will leave the churches and form some new organisations to take their place. But this is not a result which I anticipate. I believe that the churches possess such a, measure of spiritual life that they will be able to create new measures for the needs of the new day, and I regard such institutions as the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, and the summer conferences as evidence that the churches possess this power."