BETTER SERMONS

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12264, 9 October 1925, Page 6

BETTER SERMONS

NEED OF THE CHURCH TO-DAY “THIN WORDS” RESENTED BY THE EDUCATED LISTENER ARCHBISHOP’S VIEWS By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, October 7. The Archbishop of Canterbury made a momentous utterance at the Church Congress at Eastbourne, in the nature of a warning that the present-day sermon is out of date. The churches, he said, were empty, while the golf courses were crowded and the countryside was filled with picnickers. Complaints about the inadequacy of the sermons of to-day were rife. The fact that they were inadequate was without dispute. Every clerical meeting harped upon sparser congregations. There were many reasons for this sparseness. Bicycles, motors, and char-a-bancs contribute, as well as golf and Sunday newspapers. The prime cause was the fact that the average sermon did not keep pace with the educational advance. The wider interest of men and women in all sorts of human knowledge and the world’s affairs called peremptorily for something better. It was intolerable that the clergy should leave the responsibility to newspapers and novelists to give guidance and suggest lines of study and thought. . Once a preacher, because of his higher education, stood on a higher level than his hearers. That was no longer the case, and the preachers’ use of merely thin words in presenting the Gospel message wan often resented by the educated listener. They faced the paramount necessity, resting alike upon English homes, schools, nnd colleges, of seeing that the ministry was rightly manned.