NEEDS OF THE AGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21265, 20 February 1931, Page 3

NEEDS OF THE AGE.

THE CHURCH’S OPPORTUNITY.

A CALL TO UNITY. The Ecv. E. D. Patehell, of Wellington, was last night elected as president oT the Methodist Conference, which commenced its sittings in Dunedin Last night. In hig address the president said: — We live in a world which, confessedly, has little love for the Church. This does not mean that the world is to be roundly condemned, nor the Church unduly pitied. Men to-day have fallen eagerly in love with the wonderful new life and liberty which are theirs. Hence their neglect of the Church. But the Church knows that her day is coming. Man’s nature is such that it is bound to come. What a preoccupied world it is! Captivated by the glamour of its own achievements and ambitions. It hurries past the Church’s doors not with execration —it forgets her in the feast of life. It turns a deaf ear to her message, not because it believes there is no God to worship, and no divine law to keep, but because it is carried forward on the flood tide of a new and captivating experience. Within the lifetime qF the present generation the world has accelerated to such

a degree that it seems to have projected •itself centuries into the future. What wonder that many have been swept off their feet. But while the outward conditions of life have; greatly changed, the heart of man is still the same, and because the Church of God thinks long, long thoughts it can afford to look upon the present tendency with a certain calmness and courage. “The world passeth awa} and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” This is not only a quotation of Scripture; it is also a transcription of history. There is, however, a subtle danger to the Church in an indifferent age. It is the danger of accepting herself at the world’s valuation, of being intimidated by the indifference of men. Seeing the world flowing past her doors in 'ever-increasing flood, she is apt to trail her faith as a broken wing. The props - of popularity are very real supports. When they fall they are sadly missed. Depression settles upon her like a cloud. Yet the chief peril of the Church has never been the presence or absence, of the multitude; her chief peril has been that her own light should grow dim and her spiritual fervour abate. Let her hold on her high way of unselfish service to God and man and great will be her reward. It is always a mistake for the Church to direct her hope outward to an illusive world instead of inward to her own spiritual resources and upward to her conquering Lord. , The more her message is scorned the more necessary it becomes. The more difficult her day the greater the call for her devotion. Let us believe in the future of the Church as earnestly and hopefully as we believe in God. The temple we build can be destroyed only if, Samson-like, we pull it about our own ears. These thoughts lead us to my main theme—the living Church. My message has been prepared in the hope that it will encourage you to put far from you any thought of the Church in terms of failure. That it will also challenge you in the coming days to serve Christ and the Church with a more selfforgetting love and devotion. To this end we will look at the significance of the Church in her Divine Origin, in her Indestructible Life, and in her Modern Witness.

THE LIVING CHURCH: HER DIVINE ORIGIN. In the thought of the New Testament the Church is constantly regarded as a living organism. Jesus foretold her growth from a tiny seed to a great tree in whose branches the birds should shelter. He made much of the oneness of life between Himself and His Church. As was the vine to its branches, so was He to those who love Him. St. Paul seizes upon this great thought of the unity of life between Christ and the Church in his great simile, of the Head and the Body. Christ is the Living Head, the Church is the Living Body. It is through that , Body, which is the community of believers, thot Christ expresses His life and carries on His work. It is impossible to read the New Testament without seeing how irrevocably the Gospel and the Kingdom of God are committed into the hands of the Church. She is the divinely ordained instrument for bringing in the reign of God upon earth. With all my strength then I would ask you to lift up your hearts with regard to the Church. Clothe her in your thought with dignity and honour. It is said on many sides that the Church has-had its day; that institutional .religion is dying. It is a fdlse prophecy. The only possible ground for a paralysing pessimism concerning the future of the Church is the unthinkable fear that Christ has changed His purpose concerning her or withdrawn His presence from her. Our thought of the Church should not be governed by the uncharitable prophecies of the world, but by the word of Jesus. It should be in the very bones and marrow of our faith that He has promised that He would build His Church and the gates of Hell should not prevail against it. &urely the* Church of God lias no more reason to fear the indifference and hostility of the modern world than she had of the ancient one. The Great War taught us many things. It taught us that man is capable of untold sacrifices and heroisms. It taught us in the bulk what life is always teaching us in driblets, that it is the dangerous hour that breeds heroes. Man has always been “As iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, An.d dipt in baths of hissing tears. And battered with the shocks of doom. To shape and use.” So it has been in the life story of the Saints. In Sacred History the Best has always leaped into the life to resist the onslaught of the Worst. Mans extremity lias been God’s opportunity, and God ; s manner of, using the opportunity of an irreligious ago has been to lire afresh the hearts of those who love Him. To match the occasion with the man. To place now and nnguessed resources of power and initiative at the disposal of the faithful, If the Church were merely a human institution she might make nil end of herself. But she is not. Her life is from God; her hope is in God. Let her continue to be even an imperfect medium for the inflow and outflow of the divine life and neither men nor devils can overthrow her. My brethren, I am sure that if we would catch the apostolic vision of the future of God’s Kingdom on earth we must idealise the Church. We must realise the mystical oneness between her and her Logd. Cannot we all bear testimony that she has' been the medium through which the grace of God has flowed into our own lives? It is to the Church as the House of Prayer and as the medium of the preaching of the Gospel and as the dispenser of the Sacraments that we owe the divine way in life. So that even to the first far-off touch of a mother’s hand upon our hearts and the first sowing of a seed of good in our minds we owe everything to the Church. That is her surpassing glory in our eyes. That is what makes 119 speak with reverence of the Methodist Church —the mother of ns all. Nor in idealising the Church do we need to lose touch with the realities of the present situation. It were folly to bury our heads in the sand. But what faith tells us is that because

this work is of God it must go on. I have all my life (says Macaulay) heard of nothing but decay and seen nothing by progress. Which means that men are not expert judges of their own life and times, llcmember that under its modern veneer the heart of man is as deep and needy as ever it was. And we know that man simply cannot go on without God. Let the Church point unerringly the ! way back to God . and men in the long run will seek her guidance. We have then no real fear of her future, for her life is bound up with the life of her Lord. THE LIVING CHURCH; HER INDESTRUCTIBLE LIFE.

Let us further fortify our faith in the church by an appeal to history. By the very token of her survival she can claim to have within herself an abiding life. Science and history declare that only organisms and institutions which function continue to live. Living things do not die. The undying life of the church in spite of her sins, her heresies, and her divisions and in spite of the unceasing pressure of the world is evidence not only of her divine origin but also of the indispensable character of her life and work. The long past assures us that her life may ebb but it will surely flow again. It may enter upon the sleep of winter, but only to emerge into the abounding life of spring. The barque in which Christ rides may sometimes sink into the trough of the waves, but presently it will rise to the triumphant crest again. When we are prone to despair let us mix a little history with the diet of our three score years and ten. Oh, the infinite patience of God! It has taken Him millions of years to make this, world. It has taken him unknown millenniums to make man what he is. It will probably take Him longer to make him what he should be. And we are workers together with Him. Poor workers! Slow workers at the best! But let us not grow weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Have you ever sat'down quietly to consider the miracle of Methodism? Npxt year is to see the consummation of Methodist Union in England. J. H. B. Masterman, Bishop of Plymouth, said recently that the United Methodist Church would be practically equal to the Church of England, and that in the very home of that venerable institution. And it will not be until 1939 that the second century of Methodism will be commemorated. So that it is less than 200 years since John Wesley, a fragile figure of a man, rode through England lighting the flames of the evangelical revival. Surely the jnere weight of numbers is an incontrovertible argument for the free flowing of the grace of God through a church, which, while it cannot claim apostolic age, can claim apostolic precedent. Surely, too, if were tragic if the sous of such a tradition should in any age be daunted by difficulties. But even more convincing than quantity is the quality of the Methodist witness. If other churches have produced saints so has ours. If other churches have made their contribution to the social, moral, and spiritual beauty of life, so has ours. And the Methodist witness is of great value in an age of spirit trial declension. It supports the view that the heart of man is incurably religious. It declares plainly, not only as Goethe says, that “human history is the judgment of the world it also declares that it is the justification of the world. It shows the marvellous redeemability_ of human life. Have we, when assessing the church’s problems to-day, made due allowance for the historical verdict that the harvest of a great war is always a bitter harvest? As the church shared in the crime of the war, so she must surely sbarq in its curse. It is no exaggeration to say that we live in an age when nearly every moral and spiritual ideal has been tainted by the foul breath of war. This is part of the price w,e are called upon to. pay for the world’s madness. But do not doubt that the price will be paid and an unencumbered future emerge. Nature dies and lives ,again. That is a parable of life, of the world, and of the chTirch. If there is anywhere 1 a wrongness about despair, that wrongness is when it is-found in the House of God. Jesus told the disciples to look out upon the world as a field whitening to the harvest. An incomparably hopeful picture. Humanity in a spiritual sense is always ripening to the harvest. Aot for long can man live without God. Life grows incredibly bleak and sordid when faith grows dim. Let the sea of faith recede from the souls of men and they can only hear:

Its melancholy long with-drawing roar. Retreating to the breath of the night wind, Down the vast edges drear, And naked shingles of the world. But God hath some better thing reserved for us. The battle of faith is far from lost. It need not be lost. It must not be lost. THE LIVING CHURCH: HER MODERN WITNESS. Finally, we think of the Church in her witness to-day. It is a mistake to look upon the Ghurci) as a static institution. The dead hand of the past must not be allowed to fetter her freedom. She has an unchanging foundation, but she also has an expanding life. As a living organism she adapts herself to new conditions. “In any age,” says Professor W. T. Niven, “ Christianity is to a large extent what it is, because the world at that time is what it is.” How could it be otherwise when we recall that it is the expression not only of the mind 01 God but also of the mind of man. Already we get glimpses of a new day when the spirit of Christ will find more adequate expression in the life of the Church. Some day we belteve Christ and the Church will not seem so often to be two entities, but one. Then will come the fulfilment of the whole law of social brotherhood and love. Then will come the final outlawry of such evils as war and the licensed . drink traffic. Then will come the high enthronement of justice and righteousness for all. What we have to do is to take the everlasting Gospel and apply it in the light of this new age to the needs of our own time. Jesus spoke in the language of His day, and we must learn to speak in the language of our day. How can the Church best meet the needs of this modern world and most effectively fulfil her high calling? Well, for one thing, the whole trend of lue suggests that she must carry out her evangelism more and more by a process of education. And the chief subjects 01 that evangelism and that education must be the rising generation. She must take the Gospel and make it a real way and life to the children. She must give to them a faith that is full of eyes and radiant with intelligence. This does not mean that she must Jet the great unchurched multitude drift by unheeded. The word of Jesus is imperative that sue must go after those who will/ not come to her. She must set the central themes of.her faith openly and persuasively before men. She owes the Gospel to all men. She must so possess the secret of the God-given life that she can take it in her hands and mediate it to the world. What she holds she gives. To Jesus the field was the world, and nothing less than the world for Christ can satisfy the Church that is true to her Lord. Let us remember that her opportunity does not wait upon the readiness, of the world; it waits upon her conquering faith anatne power of the Holy Spirit., Nothing is so likely to impress a critical age ns tne lifting of the level of Christian life and devotion within the Church herself. It the Church in the new age is to win the world for Christ, she must first of all be Christ-like. Yet our debt to the whole world must not blind our eyes to the fact that the golden opportunity ot the Church is found in the golden hearts of the young. I agree with the contention of those who urge that our first duty is to our children. We have wonderful material for the Church of the future in the boys and girls in our Sunday schools and the young men and young women of our in me ‘classes. The life into which they will be presently plunged will not be an easy life, but we can build a hedge about them that will not easily be broken down if we give them a thorough grounding in Christian principles. Because we believe the nrst duty of the Church is to train the chi dren for Christ we greatly honour the work of our Sunday schools. But we also insist that that work must be lifted to a much higher level. And because we consider it is the inalienable right of every child in our land to grow up with a knowledge of God and His word we ardently support the work of the Bible in Schools League. We rejoice in this connection in the concordat with the Roman Catholic Church and believe that tins amicable understanding has brought the promised land in sight. Before closing I must make brief reference to a matter near to my own heart; That of Church Union. If there is one thing that condemns the Church of the past it has been her failure to keep Christ’s central law of Love. Never can the Gospel of love make, its full appeal to the world without until it is convincingly and conclusively manifested in the household of faith within. All barI riers—and they are flimsy barriers today—are ready to break down before, the

touch of the finger of love. Surely as never before the world needs the witness of a United Church. My belief is that if the churches of this land would take thenown cherished traditions and Church loyalties and lay them at the feet of Christ in a spirit of sacrificial love, in order that they might rise up as one, then the effect of their witness would be immeasurably increased. Do we want the world to believe in Christ? Well He Himself has pointed the way That they all may be one; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Do we want the Church to shine with renewed splendour as a glorious Church? Well, again He has pointed the way: Tbe Glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” The prayer, that we pray in this day. is that the ferment of a great love may so work in the heart of Christendom that Christ’s own prayer may come true. _________________