CHRISTIAN FAITH

Northern Advocate, 13 June 1931, Page 6

CHRISTIAN FAITH

RENEWAL OF VITAL POWER

AN URGENT NEED. MODERATOR »S CONVICTIONS. “Such a time of economic distress and national sorrow as has lately been our portion is a searching test ot what our faith is, ’’ said the new Moderator, Rev. J. Collie, at the opening of the Presbyterian General Assembly in St. John’s Church, Wellington. “It is time when no religions platitudes will suffice to meet the tragic needs of men’s lives, but oul\ such a faith as made those who held it of old more than conquerors in the face of trials as dark as any that meet us today.’’

“One subject much in our thoughts today, the union of the churches, is an ideal that appeals to all Christians,’’ the moderator continued. “But a union deliberately compassed in the hope that it will rehabilitate faith and vitalise effort is almost certain to lead to disappointment. Union is more a result than a cause of Christian life; and, however it may be longed for as. a. fruitage, it should not be engineered as an expedient The true witness of the Christian Church, and the witness that will bring its various branches nearest together, is that which is borne by a deeper understanding of the revelation that centres in Christ, and a more complete and intelligent application of Christian truth to all the problems spiritual, intellectual, and social, of our day.

V The task is not an easy one. It demands the entire devotion of mind and heart. We must enter anew into the meaning of Christ for human life. We must think ourselves afresh into the Christian revelation until the truth of it becomes divinely great and satisfying for ' ns. It is largely the poverty of our thought about Christ that makes our witness so unconvincing. There is surely something to cause reproach iu the eager interest enlisted by scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions as compared ing stirs in the average mind. And with that the Christian teachwe must confess that too often the fault is not mainly in those who hear, but in those who teach. Rediscovery of Truth. “The Christian message fails in its appeal when it becomes a tradition and ceases to be a discovery. There is ‘apt to bo a faijit odour of chloroform about all Christian traditions and institutions. Truth, to bo vltal 4 , inus be ever discovered anew. We believe hat there is inexhaustible fullness in the truth given us in Christ, that all progress in the knowledge of God and His will for the world will come from the fuller understanding and unfolding of that truth, Onv faith is not fully Christian faith if it is anything short -of that. We believe that in Him dwelletb the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and that in Him ar ehid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Believing this, we know 1 that the future is sure if only the Church rises to the height of its duty and its privilege, and bears an adequate Avitncss to the truth with which it is pu in trust. Plaec of the Ministry. “Let me say a Avord here about the place of the Christian ministry this witness of the church, ’’ proceeded the Moderator. “We need a forw T ard moA 7 ement in intensiveness by which to reach that high certainty Avhich is the soul’s right and its only safety. In this we arc trustees for others, rencAving the insight into the truth of Christ Avhich is the church’s only saving faith. The Ohrisitian ministry, Avhile speaking in the language of the time, has to make the groat timeless reA'elation a liA'iug interest for men. This cannot be done if the true place of the ministry is not recognised- both by congregations and by the ministers themseh’es. -Congregations should afford the opportunity for the exercise of this vicarious function of the ministry AA'hich means so much for the life of the church. Still more should the ministers themseU’es recognise it, and refuse to be coerced by the nnAvorthy expectations about their office AA'hich meet them on every hand. o

“A minister of tlio Word should bo more than the factotum of a, busy organisation. in tlie multiplicity of his duties ho may only to easily lose his soul and Jiis power to bring the truth of God to men. His work is to be a pioner in the rediscovery and the fuller understanding of the revelation given onee for all. The reality that the truth of God, thus known, has for him will coininnnieate itself to hir: fellow-men, for this is both a witness and a contagion is vital faith. I his digression on the duty ol those who still bear the burden and heat of the dav may come with an ungracious sound from one whose public nnnistrv has closed. Hut if 1 seem to point my brethren to a task that I have done little to accomplish, and f-'r which inv opportunity has now passed bv, let my excuse be that it is tac evening light that oftenest m.nkc.s Ideal' to ns the error ot our "iiv w ! Loosed from Old Moorings. i I ‘‘ Let me express my conviction th.ii the conflict and the victory o! < hii.-> tianity in our day must be in all essentials the same as in the first Christian ago. I aspiteof bittward dif-

tvrences and tin* wide range of discovery in modern times, there is a. wonderful similarity in the general situation. There is the same breakdown of inherited faith, though not so utter as in our case. In the vivid words of Psiehari, Renan’s grandson, we are ‘the victims of a civilisation that lias lost its bearings,’ “Life is loosed from its old moorings of faith. In many quarters wo see the same conflict of competing cults as marked the first century and that is dilettante or bizarre, to find the same wistful longing, amid much 'some foothold and some comfort for the heart. Christianity won the victory in that early day by the sheer power of the truth with which it was charged. Tt had no antecedent claims to the recognition of men, no reputation to which to appeal. It prevailed simply ,by its power to save and to satisfy the soul, and by the witness in men’s hearts to its eternal truth.

“In this fact lies a great reassurance for ns as we face our task of a witnessing Church today. Our deepest conviction is that the revelation of Cod given in Christ is adequate for every need of human life in every age. But the meaning of that revelation must be brought out in living relation to all that most deeply concerns the life of the world today. Wo have yielded too much at times to [the temptation of trusting to thepresr tigo of Christianity for holding the loyalty of its adherents; and we are awakening’ np to find ourselves in a world in which that prestige has lost, much of its old-time appeal. We must renew the vital power of Christa in faith if our witness is to be akin to that of the early Church and such as our Lord requires of us. But if wo do this, our reward and our welcome will be sure.”