The Religious Outlook

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 28 April 1945, Page 8

The Religious Outlook

CRAZY OPTIMISM (By Principal E. S. Kick, M.A., 8.D.) “When ‘All’s well’ and ‘All is safe’ is on the lips of men, then all of a sudden destruction is upon them.” —1 Thessalonians 5:3. Modern psychology has much to say about ‘‘wishful thinking”: we have all become familiar with the phrase Our text is a rebuke to “wishful thinking.” The capacity of people for believing what they want to believe appears to be illimitable. All the Hebrew prophets, but especially Jeremiah, had to contend with the spirit of crazy optimism. Jeremiah complains that even the preachers were all too fond of crying “Peace” where there was no peace. Our L,ord remarked on the extraordinary inability of otherwise intelligent people to comprehend “the signs of the times.” St. Paul, as our text indicates, felt in the samfi way. Now that the vast majority of people seem to have lost the' consciousness of living in a normal universe, the tendency to crazy optimism is all the more marked. “Pack up your troubles in the old kitbag and smile, smile, smile” has become one of the most popular anthems: its superficial cheerfulness furnishes indeed an avenue of escape from a world in which there is precious little to make anybody, except Satan, “smile, smile, smile.”

Australians are especially liable to crazy optimism. Our geographical remoteness delivers us from an intimate knowledge of the tragic problems of Europe and even Asia. Our bright sunshine promotes “sunshine in the heart.” All the war-time strikes could hardly occur unless people were pretty fixed in the assurance that “It cant happen here.” Now that the Japanese menace has receded and the European war is manifestly moving towards Berlin, we feel more confident than ever. Most people take it for granted that now that the external peril has vanished there is nothing more to worry about. Business men look forward to a carnival of profitmaking once peace is declared, while workers are encouraged by their leaders to anticipate a gorgeous .era of “more pay and less work.” Groups of enthusiasts work for “new orders” of various, degrees of “pinkness” and “redness,” while preachers and others who call for repentance and conversion are generally regarded as hopeess “wowsers” and altogether “old‘ashioned.” Frankly, I am not one of those who view the future with optimism. I re- : use to be pptimistic about any people forgetful o i God and His laws. No wave of material prosperity and no carnival of “pleasure” can be more than eddies on the stream that flows downwards towards “Niagara.” Colonel Frank Bell has spoken more eloquently than I can possibly do about the ominous weakness in our Australian “set up.” I have spent much time in studying the population proleip. The birth-rate must rise. Debate about whether Australia can carry twenty, fifty or a hundred miilion people is nopelessly unrealistic, for, unless present trends radically alter, we shall never reach ten million or anything like it. No nation in history has ever thriven which has failed to maintain the good old institution of the family. Yet, in this country, the desertion of the sanctuary is significantly paralleled by tens of thousands of empty school-places. How we can hold Australia without more and better Australians is a problem to which I can offer no solution. The causes of the decline are, not primarily economic, for the best-off people are the very people with least children. No, the trouble goes deeper: its root is in the weakening of the sense of religious and public duty, which is naturally accompanied by the growth of short-sighted, self-indulgence. I have nothing against a more equitable distribution of wealth, but the supreme need of this people is a new attitude to life. If the Christian tradition perishes, “humanism” will not long survive, as is all too evident in Europe to-day. It is still as true as ever it was that “there is but one name under heaven whereby men can be saved.” The only optimism which is not crazy is that which sees in Christ the Hope of the World. The society which rejects Him has passed on itself the sentence of destruction. This is the plain teaching of the New Testament, and I believe it to be absolutely true.