THE BIBLE

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11659, 25 October 1923, Page 4

THE BIBLE

“NOT DROPPED FROM HEAVEN.”

BUT STILL INSPIRED

Some interesting views on the Church and the Bible were expressed to a “Star” representative recently by the Rev. Walter Friend, who is at present in Auckland, and, with Mra Friend, is making a two year®’ world tour as special delegate of the Color ial Missionary Society. “My opinion,” said Mr Friend, “is that the Church must strip itself of ail that is extraneous in doctrine, and apply itself to matters of every day life. The Church ought to know the piesent position of the Bible. “Nearly all our difficulties arise from erioneous notions of what the Bible is In every accredited college of the Old Country the divinity students are taught the present accepted results of biblical criticism. The trouble is that the people of the congregation have no idea of these things. “In Australia and New Zealand one feels there is much less concern given to the present po6ittf>n of the Bible than in the Old Country. There is an uncertainty in the air. People think something has happened and that the Bible has lo6t ite authority. But on the contrary, an intelligent knowledge of tho Bible to-day shows it to be in every way, in my judgment, a much more impressive and .nspired book than when it was thought to have been, as it were, printed in heaven and dropped down here.” AN APPEAL TO THE MIND.

Referring to India, Mr Friend said he was interested to see that there the Church of England bad an imposing array of men under the Bishop of Peterborough, which was called a Mission of Self-Help. These men had come to the decision that die only chance which Christianity had with the Indian mind was to piesent a gospel that appealed to the mind. The various members of the mission dealt with different aspects of religion, one with biblical criticism another with the problem of providence, another with the problem of pain, and so on. Each dealt with his subject in tho frankest manner possible. “That,” commented Mr Friend, “is what we ought to do, and it is what this coun try .wants in all the chiyches.” In dealing with the wave of emotionalism which he had observed in Australia recently, Mr Friend said that there was an unfortunate feeling in many churches that there would be no improvement in this world’s affairs until the second coming of Christ. Such an attitude simply paralysed the work. People who held such views apparently bad seized upon a few cryptic sayings f'om the Book of Daniel, which they considered revealed what would take place 2000 years after they had been uttered.