RIVAL IDEOLOGIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27572, 14 December 1950, Page 6

RIVAL IDEOLOGIES

World At Crossroads

THREAT TO ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES

PA WELLINGTON, Dec. 13. The necessity to awaken convictions of the importance of the old basic principles—the sacredness of human personality, freedom, justice and brotherhood—was affirmed by the Right Rev. J. A. Thomson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand addressing the prize-giving ceremony at Queen Margaret College tonight. “We have reached a stage in the history of our country when we as a people must decide what way of life we intend to pursue,” said Mr Thomson. “ There was a time when the urgency of such a decision was not felt certain fundamental principles wefe so generally accepted that any way of life based upon them might be expected to lead to peace and prosperity.

“That time has passed, and a new situation has arisen which demands decision. Two factors in particular are responsible for the change that has taken place. The first is that traditional spiritual values are not regarded as fundamental by the mass of the people and the second that our whole way of life is being challenged by rival ideologies. “ In view of these two factors it is necessary to ' take fresh stock of our educational methods and the aims toward which they are being directed. We have to ask ourselves whether the old basic principles—the sacredness_ of human personality, freedom, justice, brotherhood —are essential, to an experience of full life and, if they are, how our educational system can be used to instil them into the minds and hearts of the people. “ This will require more than the mere formulation of propositions which can be taught to children in their class rooms. It will require the awakening of convictions about these principles as belonging to our very nature as men pnd women, something without which no full, free life can be experienced. “The Christian point of view,” said Mr Thomson, “is that they are essential to an experience of full Tife, that they belong to the foundations upon which our western civilisation has been built and that they are rooted in our Scriptures. For that reason, we are convinced that a Christian approach to education is necessary if a generation is to be raised which will stand firmly by the things that are worth keeping in our Western way of life. . • “ Two dangers threaten our civilisation, the one from within and the other from without. On the one hand, the mass of the people have lost confidence in the traditional values. On the other, the way of life we have followed in the past is being challenged by a rival system While we cannot disregard the challenge that is coming from without, we need not fear it because if it forces us to re-examine our civilisation so that we discover again the Christian foundations on which it was built, it will deliver us from the far greater dqnger of destruction, the danger that threatens from within.”