JUSTICE IN RELIGION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8784, 14 July 1914, Page 10

JUSTICE IN RELIGION

To the Editor’ “ N.Z. Times.”

Sir,—lf there is one -thins the Bible-in-schools agitation is proving it is the fact that; as Mr'Caughley has W6U put.it. no sect of peopie can be. trusted Vitn the -religious liberties .of any other. A writer on this subject aptiv pointed out that; “religious; equality has too often been interpreted to, mean equality of privilege fox Christian sects/ and that only modern sentiment prevents us from persecution by those “who would bore with hot iron the tongue of a man who should outrage their fundamental beliefs." Debarred from using the* hot iron in the here and now, Canon Garland falls back upon threats'of it in the hereafter. The fact, sir, is ; patent that whilst men can be safely .trusted to oppose .injustice to their owxt sects, and that whilst the very name under which the combined Bible-in-schools party sail, “Protestant" is derived from their protests in weakness against injustice,, they cannot be trusted in strength to see justice to other people when the temporary interests—as they suppose, of their own church —clash with justice. ■ It was no douot the recognition of- this very patent fact that led a critical writer to designate church membership by saying, “A man gave up his religion and joined a church." Verily, if a man's religion embraces the acceptation of. the golden rule, arid he values his principles, he cannot join any of tho cburcbos comprised in the Bioie-in-sohoois League and at the same time retain his. religion. ITme was when a man’s, religion stood for something. To-day it is being reduced to a mere meaningless name if not worse, and the churches arc dragging Christianity in the mud of politics. Ihe ultimate result of this must bo the degradation of religion. i'here are not wanting many who realise this. Preaching in Glasgow Cathedral no longer ago than May 21th, the Very Kev. Dean of Durham (Dr Hensley .Henson) was very emphatic in. condemning this clerical craze for political and State action. Canon Garland has informed us that if we do not vote for political action which makesthe children’s religion an afiair of Caesar’s our future will be spent in a locality of uncomfortable warmth. -Not so Dr Hensley Heaton, who spoke thus: freshness and yams of their writings ‘‘Nothing was more truly, astonishing than the abstinence of the apostles from any attempt to play the part of social or political reformers. The perpetual freshness and value of their writings were connected with that fact. . . _. The student of Christianity knew- well that the sacred name ■of the Redeemer has been abused again and again by the association (with the best of intentions on the part of those who associated it) with systems and methods of government which the Christian conscience now universally condemned. .. . despotism had been championed in the name of the alljust God. . . . Accordingly the disposition to bend the Gospel to the service of immediate interests had too often shown itself among, the clergy as a temper of time-serving sycopancy." When we find a professing follower of the meek and lowly Nazarene. who made .the childre ntho special charge of His church, and who distinctly drew a plain line of demarcation between temporal and spiritual functions, not only asked to .depart from Christ’s teaching, but actually threatened with the wrath of God if wo follow the dictates of our own conscience rather than the will of Garland, a self-constituted > Protestant Pope, who issues a'bull as if he had authority to speak for Providence himself, surely it is time to wake up and protect our religious liberties from such an outrage as legislative authority given to such agitators and persecutors would imply. It has been well said of men of this type, "A zealot, whose principle is the equality of all sects and the preference of our one stands on slippery places," and slippery places mean slippery methods; we cannot be too watchful. "Eternal vigilance is the'price of liberty.” and no syndicalist that ever lived is a more dangerous enemy to onr common welfare than the clerical autocrats who would sap away the religious liberties for which Kew Zealand is famed the world over, under the hypocritical cloak of religion. • In this guise come the worst form of persecutors, and once they get State recognition • woe betide anv land.—l am, etc., J J..RAMSAY. ,