MEETING THE TIMES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21727, 16 February 1934, Page 13

MEETING THE TIMES

41 AGGRESSIVE EVANGELISM"

SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION FIRST

[by telegraph—own correspondent] "WELLINGTON, Thursday

"Whatever civilisation has done for us it has not eased the burden of living," said the l?ev. C. Faton in his presidential address this evening at tlu> opening in Wellington of the annual Dominion conference of the New Zealand Methodist Church.

"The events of the past year," Mr. Eaton declared, ''do not indicate any swiftly-approaching milleninm. It has been a vear of abortive hopes and repeated disappointments" 'lhe conditions seemed to offer an unpromising* soil for religion, which nowadays tended to become lost in sociology, and to be overshadowed by economic problems Much of the absorbing themes of unemployment, disarmament, communism and international relationships seemed to invite their attention. On this occasion, he felt it was more necessary still to call the Church's attention to its more immediate tasks. Ihe time was not one for indulging in self-pity and unduly magnifying their tasks, but rather for considering how the Church s life and ministry could be more adequately furnished to meet the needs of the hour. The greatest need of the Church today was the recapture and recovery of the spirit of aggressive evangelism. No doubt there was to-day a new need and demand for the application of the social principles of the gosjiel to all economic, industrial, and political life. Let the churches by all means be increasingly active in every form of social service. But if their great founder's example had any weight with them and the Evangelical Revival of the 18th century any lesson to teach them, it was that. social transformation followed spiritual redemption.