PROBLEM AHEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27043, 30 March 1949, Page 6

PROBLEM AHEAD

THE CHURCH IN EUROPE SERIOUS DETERIORATION OF HUMAN VIRTUES The effect of the outward physical destruction wrought by the war in Europe was a comparatively simple problem by comparison with the inner destruction in the minds of the people, especially the youth, who had been led astray and taught to worship false gods. This statement was made by the Very Rev. Dr J. Hutchison Cockburn. until recently director of the Reconstruction Department of the World Council of Churches, in a public address in Knox Church last evening. Defeat had taken some of the peoples of Europe into an abyss of despair, while the people of the formerly occupied countries shared in the loosening of moral fibre and deterioration of human virtues. The Christian churches had to face this problem, and to do that work they had to be built up to strength. There were certain immediate necessities in any such work, stated Dr Cockburn. He outlined the activity of his department in supplying foodstuffs and in reconstructing places of worship, all such work having been done to plans evolved by the individual churches and groups of churches and then co-related in Geneva. On the physical ' side, in towns where no churches remained standing, wooden buildings made in Switzerland had been erected. If some suitable place of worship remained, it had to be shared by the various denominations. It was obvious that such things had to be attended to first, but the greater work of the World Council lay ahead There was nothing which would revive the Church more quickly than the revival of the spirit and vision of church leaders who were to guide the people, he said. Students had been helped and teachers found or trained, ana their necessity became more apparent with a realisation that in no country of Europe was there a majority of convinced Christians. Assistance for the pitiful host of displaced persons had been another of the activities of the department, stated Dr Cockburn. Some 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 displaced persons had been left after the war, but the exertions of UNRRA and the occupying authorities had disposed of all but about 1,000,000 who did not wish to return to their former lands because, in the majority of instances, fear of Communism.

The return of those people had, however, been only a start to the refugee problem, stated Dr Cockburn. The Allied agreement at Potsdam fixing the new boundaries of Germany and Poland had created more displaced persons than had Hitler. Some 10,000,000 people had fled from their homes, and they were now the lost people of Europe—without a State and with virtually no one to care for them. Only two organisations were doing something to aid them —the German Christian churches and the Department of Reconstruction of the World Council of Churches.

In the realisation of the great moral and physical 'problems which existed ;in Europe, said Dr Cockburn, lay tffe future of our civilisation. It was announced that the offertory would be handed over to the World Council and, in addition, Principal A. L. Haddon advised that a “clothes drive ” for Europe was to be held throughout the churches of Otago and Southland. A central collecting depot would be set up in each district and in Dunedin it would be at St. Paul’s Sunday School Hall. It was intended that the consignment of clothing should be ready for despatch by May 31.