SCIENCE AND RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21876, 11 August 1934, Page 15

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

AN UNUSUAL MISSION The widely held belief that scientific research has shaken the basis of religion is to be attacked at a mission of an unusual nature to be held at All Saints' Anglican Church, Ponsonby, during the coming week. Described as a teaching mission, its appeal will be directly to those who have doubts concerning religion, and it will show that the movement of modern science is far more favourable to a spiritual interpretation of life than it was 50 years ago. "There lurks in the minds of many men to-day a half-formed and unexpressed fear that the scientific basis of religion is insecure—that science has proved religion to be a myth, the vestigal remains of our primitive ancestors' fear of the unknown," said the vicar, the Rev. W. W. Averill, yesterday. "The misstoner, the Rev. D. J Davies, of Palmerston North, is a bachelor of science, and ho will deal with all the investigations and discoveries of modern science and show how the doctrines, of religion, far from being undermined, have actually been strengthened and explained by modern scientific research." The missioner will be commissioned by Archbishop Averill this evening, and will inaugurate the mission tomorrow with addresses on "Revelation and Discovery" and the "Vision of God." Each evening during the week he will taKe a separate phase of science, beginning on Monday with "God and the Astronomer" and following with evolution, psychology, humanism and fundamentalism. A feature of the mission will be the answering of written questions.