Call for United Front In Christian Order

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 49, 27 February 1943, Page 2

Call for United Front In Christian Order

What had Democracy to tell us of its end and ambition? asked His Grace, the Archbishop of New Zealand in the course of a thoughtful sermon on the ‘ 1 Campaign for Christian Order ’ ’ in all Saints’ Church on Thursday evening. Had our society arrived at its goal? The only keystone which would bind together the arch we had been building was faith—faith in God. “Our forbears came to this country and started on their pilgrimage with the Bible in their hands,” said His Grace. “They laboured for justice and order and liberty, and thought these fundamental and unassailable. Now they see their opposites, injustice, tyranny and slavery contemptuously challenging them. Which is to survive? Liberty ordered by justice or slavery ordered by injustice? If we are honest we must have asked ourselves if it is just one sort of materialism lighting another, one sort of selfishness fighting another. But we have a message of hope. Democracy has lost its way, but if democratic order becomes Christian order, there is hope for all.’’ Christian Order in the personal life meant that we must surrender to the Will of God in Christ. The spirit was victorious over the weaknesses in our nature. The one great and increasing purpose dominant in life was the unification of life so that we might bo free to serve others. We could have no liberty while there was “civil war” raging in ourselves. There was always the conflict of the flesh and spirit, but all the difference wa3 between holding the line or “regrouping” and a victorious advance —a winning and a losing fight. We could lay foundations, wo could use Lent as a training time for the campaign—not just doing without sugar, but doing without self. . “We must go for the big thing/’ said His Grace. . .

There were other forms of. Christian Order. One form was that in church life. Here was a divided world. If only the Church could have shown a united front. The churches were not out for their own advantage. ‘‘ In our own Church we need some victory over individualism of ‘parties’, of parishes, of dioceses. Our differences occupy our attention to the exclusion so often of the imperative duties of our task. We must thank God for the signs that wo are getting together, but shall we get together in time?” . “Also vitally important is the Christian Order in society. In this a new spirit is needed. If Christians could preach and practise this spirit things might be better. God has 30 made man that he is never going to know what liberty means till he learns that it is more blessed to give than to receive. “Lastly, but still vitally important, is Christian order in the State. By this we do not wish anything like clericalism or the domination of the State by the Church. What we do want is to see a new spirit in politics. We are promised a General Election soon, but the great weakness of Democracy is that the economic issue seems to blind us to the other issues. It becomes a struggle between the right to keep and the right to* get. Materialism is far too often the dominant motive. In itself, politics is a noble thing if it is directed to setting all the. citizens of the State at liberty to live lives fully developed,* physically, mentally and spiritually, and it is a noble thing if it is directed to enabling the country to play a worthy part on the world stage. While a sense of injustice is allowed to poison the fabric, the State is not free to play that part. We want to remove injustice, not that a good time may be held all round, but that our country may be set free to play its part in the reconstruction of a Christian world. We want Christian Order so that we may have this liberty. “As we work for Christian Order we believe that we are working in line With the will of God, Who is a God not of disorder, but of harmony*. God Who gave to men the gift of the Holy Spirit I that a new order might dawn on the frustrated humanity that the darkness might pass away and that the true light might shine,” concluded His Grace.