CHURCH LIFE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 18 February 1939, Page 9

CHURCH LIFE

METHODIST VIEWPOINT. PLACE IN SOCIETY. This year’s President of the New Zealand Methodist Conference (Rev. Angiis Mcßean) believes that the Church still has her special sphere, and that she should concentrate on work within that sphere. In his inaugural address to the annual Dominion conierence of the Methodist Church, which opened at Christchurch on Thursday, Mr Mcßean took as his theme, “The ,Uncontested Province of the Church.” He quoted with approval the words of Canon Barry, “The task of the Church is not to put forward an alternative to the schemes of statesmen as they try to find their way to a better order, hut to inspire them to produce their own, and to supply that spiritual dynamic which can bring those schemes to victorious fulfilment.” “It has become fashionable to talk about the lost provinces of the Church,” said the president, and he agreed there were spheres in which she had once supreme influence, where now her voice was almost silent. Politics, commerce, art, education, science were quoted, as well as the relief of poverty. In view of this some were asking, Is the .Church then no longer a necessity? Has she become an irrelevancy in the modern world of culture and comfort ?

“What I want to say to-night is that the real province of the Church remains, untouched by any of these changes. Many of the activities in which the Church was oneo engaged were in fact outside the Church’s real province, and there are few who would wish to reclaim them. For example, the_ functions of the government of a nation can be discharged in better ways than by the Church. It is better that the State should look after the poor; better for the poor, for charity was always uncertain, and usually meagro, and better, too, for the charitable, for the load is more evenly distributed.

“When the Church enters upon any of these activities she has in all of them competitors, or helpers, or successors. But in the work which is peculiarly her own the position is entirely different. If she leaves her real work undone no one else will attempt it. In her own sphere she stands alone. And the Church’s task is so unique that it stands mountains high above every other project to which men can set their hands. It is nothing less than to bring God to men, and to bring men to God. Other organisations can do all those other things. They can even provide a religion; they can turn a political theory into a religion ; or they can make a religion out of the better qualities of men and call it by the fine-sounding name of humanism. But if the Church fails to bring God to men no one else will do it. This, as you very well know, was Christ’s chief work. There are tributary streams which flow from the main rurernt of the Church’s life, but always this one great purpose must be kept before us. RELIGION AND POLITICS. “I am not advocating any narrow and exclusively individualistic or other worldly conception of the Christian faith,” continued Mr Mcßean, “for I believe that religion is as wide as life. I believe there is no realm of life in which Christ should not be enthroned. But this is to be accomplished by the work and influence of Christian men and women within these realms* rather than by the direct participation or control of the Church. Wo must draw our inspiration from religion and carry it with us into every sphere we enter. Take the sphere of politics. I believe in religion in polities; only we can’t push it in from outside; Christian men and women must serve their Lord in politics, and their politics must bo part of their religion. It is not tlio business of the Church to make the politics of the country; but it is her business to make the politicians. “The Church must help to instil into the mind of youth the truth that life brings with it the obligation of service; that the self-centred life, grasping always to get, and always grudging to give, is a poor travesty of life. We must serve our age and our country. We want our youth to love their Church, and to work for her and for her Lord with all their lovely enthusiasm and all their best powers. But they must be taught that it is an essential part of their religion to cultivate their talents and devote their gifts to some service for the community. “There are people in our churches who are trving to live on the memory of something that happened years ago. It can’t be done. At the risk of bein< r thought platitudinous I again empfuvsise the necessity of cultivating the life of God in the soul "through prayer and the Scriptures. If I know anything about the spiritual life of the churches to-day, I would say that failure to pray and neglect of Bible reading account for more weakness and want of splendid success than any other dozen things that be named,” added Mr Mcßean.