BAPTISTS AND CONSCIENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22260, 7 November 1935, Page 17

BAPTISTS AND CONSCIENCE

Sir,-—You published three letters under tho heading, "The Baptists and Conscience." They might just as well have been headed "The Catholics and Conscience,", or "The Anglicans and Conscience," or "The Presbyterians and Conscience," for all the Churches say the same thing on this issue. The three letters are a bundle of misunderstandings. The dust-up was occasioned by an anonymous logician who abuses the discipline he professes. He is unable to perceive that loyalty to the King,' whose kingship, since 1688, embraces liberty of conscience, and, therefore, is so successful—can co-exist with sympathy for all those who are distressed in conscience, whether through social or commercial or national complications. The man who has no sympathy for a distressed conscience is a medieval monster. The man who regards the two resolutions adopted by the Baptist Assembly as mutually exclusive is mentally dull. One fact is beyond dispute. It is affirmed by every section of tho Church. It is this. When a man is confronted by the rare alternative, "Christ or .Caesar," he cannot choose Caesar without denying Christ. Those who sing about "the glorious army of martyrs" must bo prepared for martyrdom if (which God forbid) a parallel case should occur. A Christian cannot make the State his conscience. No man can serve his King so truly as he who has sanctions in heaven for conduct on earth. The cavalier song expresses the situation: "I could not love thee dead so well, loved I not honour more." This is not said as an excuse for a pettifogging conscience, or becausa of any idea that conscience is infallible. It is said in vindication of the sense of obligation as rooted in tho ultimate realities, and as binding on a man. Of course, when a man's conscience leads him to a difficult conclusion he must be prepared to pay the price. He cannot claim immunity from suffering on the ground of his private conscience any more than he can impose his private conscience on others. But a man must be true to himself, only then will it follow "as the night the day" that he cannot be false to any man. The lover may be discarded, the employee fired, the citizen incarcerated. These fates are better than a soiled conscience. A good conscience is cheap at any price. For many of us in conceivable (though not probable) cases that price may be war. For others it may be the stone walls of a prison. Let me add for the sake of clarity that the Baptist Church has never declared itself pacifist. Tho only Church that has ever done so is the much-respected "Society of Friends," otherwise known as Quakers. Tho Baptist Church has denounced defensive war. I certainly never have. But it is true that individuals in all the Churches, and plenty of individuals outside the Churches, regard ware of all sorts as mistakes. These people may be born out of due time, but they are reaching forward toward internationalism as the true expression of the brotherhood of man. The best guarantee of honesty in trade is the possession of a good conscience by master and man alike. The best guarantee of strength in the nation is self-respect in the citizen, and self-respect is based on respect for conscience. J. J. North.