Problems Of Religion

Northern Advocate, 25 May 1938, Page 2

Problems Of Religion

This year recalls several men and movements that have’ won a claim to anniversary remembrance notably John Wesley, whose apostolic faith, evangelical zeal and tireless energy changed the face of England. If one may judge by the books issued and announced for publication in 1938, there is abroad some sort of a new awakening to the significance of religion. and the place it might occupy in the genuine regard of a traditionally Christian people. Wesley addressed a people who. for the most part, felt themselves estranged from the highest spiritual life by sin. His message was the evangel of reconciliation, and it came with welcome healing in its wings. The teachers,' writers and preachers of religion who address people today are confronting a people estranged by science. They cannot make the immediate contact that Wesley made. Before they can win the listening ear they have to satisfy a questing mind. Hodder and Stoughton announce a valuable scries of books, to which later reference will be made.

Heinemann have begun a 5/- series of books under the title “I Believe.” No. 1 is J. D. Beresford's “What I Believe.” No. 2 is Gerald Bullett’s “Problems of Religion.” Freedom Versus Fate. The editor of the scries introduces the early volumes with an. announcement that the great conflict today is “between those who believe in the world of freedom, and those who believe in the world of fate." This is a position that can be challenged. It can be held that the old question of free will is one of the problems of religion, but by no means the only one, or even the outstanding one, Mr Kennedy has written, a book entitled. “The God We All Ignore,” a slight alteration* of a line in a hymn which originally read “The God We All Adore.” It is just the habitual indifference, detachment, ignoring of God, that constitutes the big problem of religion in modern life. It is a wholesome sign that writers like Beresford and Bul-Ic-tt are discussing the problem . They may get the car of the people where a mere declared and official Christian would fail. At all events, wherever they are read by the people, they must make an impression in favour of the recognition “that this world’s no blot nor blank; it means intensely and means good.”

Dick Sheppard

Hodcler and Stoughton's spring publishing announcements cover a wide range of religious books, beginning with “Dick Sheppard,” by his Friends. London has taken to its heart a few outstanding clergymen, but never a one more warmly than “Dick” Sheppard. as he came to bo called. His death was a felt loss. A light of steady comfort and cheer to thousands of people over a generation of years failed and finally went out. But this memoir rekindles the glow, like an after sunset sky. Those who knew him in his self-denying labours for the "underdog” and for his broad, manly Christian life and teaching, will prize this book, arid none can read it without profit. “This is Our Faith” (by the Bishop of Ely) is a , restatement of the answers to enquiring and disturbed minds anxious to know what they should rightly think and mean by the different phrases of the Apostles’ Creed. All to the good that men and women—especially young men. and women of the rising generation, who attend church and repeat the Creedshould know what they mean. It is the first step to the essential sincerity that means what they say. The God Whom We Ignore. Another book in this spring list lias already boon named. It is “The God Whom We Ignore,” by John Kennedy (5/- net). The publishers say: “The subject of this wonderful book is mere in the minds of thinking Christ inn;: than, any other. It faces boih sides ol the question of church worship---both what the church ought to offer to men and the reasons that men give for neglecting the- church, and if comes right down to the question of whether men want God nr not. While the theme is familiar enough, tin’s book is so brilliant that it expresses the true significance of the present situation in a way that cannot be gainsaid. 1 1 is impossible to speak too highly of a work that will be welcomed and avidly read by every Christian of all denominations both on account of its sincerity, its spirituality, its good sense, and its topical interest’