THE APOSTLES’ CREED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26906, 19 October 1948, Page 6

THE APOSTLES’ CREED

Sir, —Mr Lawrence Cook makes the sweeping statement that “ all sincere believers approve of the Apostles' Creek as it stands.” Time was when earnesl and esteemed people like' Mr Cook held it to be imperative that “ sincere ” Christians interpret literally the words of the creed, “ the resurrection ol the body,” notwithstanding that Scripture says " it is raised a spiritual body.” So also “sincerity ” was once denied to those who refused to acquiesce in the terrible dogma that all non-Christians, good and bad alike, were to be consigned to everlasting torment in a lake of literal fire. Probbaby Mr Cook has himself discarded these once orthodox beliefs. At any rate, there can be little doubt that they are no longer held by the vast majority of “sincere” enlightened Christians to-day.—l am, etc., A. H. Reed.

Sir,—lt is very gratifying to find that Mr Lawrence Cook has spoken on behali of countless fellow laymen In the matter of the Apostles' Creek. As a lapsed deacon in Anglican orders, I can only say that I have resumed the recitation of this creed after a long silence induced not by intellectual difficulties, but by a sense of my own unworthiness. G. K. Chesterton has written somewhere that the Church lias not failed—or it may be that he wrote Christianity has not failed—but we have failed Christianity, a truth patent enough when we look about the world to-day if we can bear to look. The doctrinaire young men at the Kremlin who are showing signs of restiveness under their ageing leader, Mr Stalin, are offering us a substitute for Christianity that does not attract me personally—l am, etc., C. R. Allen.