WHY GO TO CHURCH?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19885, 11 March 1939, Page 11

WHY GO TO CHURCH?

Wrong View Dispelled TT has been my lot within the last month or so to have read two different articles on the question why men clo not go to church. Such essays are usually rather depressing, for they somehow give one the idea that men generally do not attend, and so they give the notion that the church is out-of-date and a failure, the publicity seeming to establish its currency as truth. As an antidote to the falsehood that is implied, let us still remember that men do go to church, that in almost all cases the churches are still run by men. and let. us consider why men do go to church, and let us take these considerations from a book by Dr. John Kennedy, "The God Whom We Ignore."

» «■ * # A Surprising Phenomenon TT is an astonishing thing when you think about it that people should gather week by week in a building to sing hymns, read out of an ancient book, utter thanksgivings, make confession of sins and petitions to an unseen Being and listen to one of their number preach on the Eternal theme of God. Such activity must mean something to these people, or else they are mad. Yet they do not seem to be mad. Indeed, this activity .seems to keep many of them sane. They will tell you themselves that if it had not been for this worship, they might have been driven mad many a time by the pressure of their circumstances, but worship has helped them through. Indeed, there are others who never enter a church door when things are going well with them, yet who turn to the church to be healed when they are hurt by life. Worship then at least has some therapeutic value. « * * » Religion and Health TN this connection it may he worth while noticing the words of Professor Jung, of Zurich, one of the greatest European phychoiogists. In "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" he says:

experience of life. If they worship a "worthless" God, it is because they have not sought a "worth" in their daily living which lias increased their sense of life's spiritual values. Yet we may pay tribute mentally to the idea of God and miss experimentally the reality of God. God is not an idea in the mind, a mental abstraction isolated from our experience of life. He is the sustaining Spirit of creation and of our souls, so that if we do not find Him in our own experience we do not find Him at all. He can only be found fully by those who live in a certain way--' .Testis' way. ' * » * *■ | A Prayer For The Church j f\ GOD of unchangeable power sad eternal light look favourably on Thy whole church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; and by the tran- ' quil operation of Thy perpetual providence, carry out the work of man's salvation. Let the whole world feel and see that things which were cast down are being raised up, that those j which had grown old are being made new. and that all things are returning to perfection; through Him from Whom they took their origin, ever Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord j Amen. |

"During the past 30 years people from all civilised countries of the earth have consulted me. . . Among my patients in this second half of life—that is to say, over 35—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that everyone of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook." It may be remembered that Jung in his earlier books seems to think that faith is a chimera, but in the book above mentioned, he suggests that in later life it is only some kind of faith that will save men from breakdown. ** * t Religion and Life THERE can be no doubt that the habit of church-going helps men and women to deal with life with a surer touch and with a heightened inward competence; but that sureness of touch is not given them by the preacher. It is given them by Christ; and the reception of that increased power is dependent upon their attitude to Christ and not to the minister. All Christian worship moves past the preacher to the fountain of healing of which he is only the channel. The preacher is the ambassador of Christ, and it is only as speaking in the Name of Christ that he has any message to proclaim. It is Jesus who in reality speaks the reconciling words, who heals, who encourages, who dissipates fears, who sheds light upon life's problems, who renews ideals and adjusts a man to himself and his circumstances.

Many seek to be adjusted to their circumstances without bringing in the notion of God. They try to accept

their circumstances in optimism, (Things might be worse), or in fatalism (It can't be helped): but Jesus does not offer us those kinds of adjustment. He offers the adjustment of faith, (God is love). If we are to be healed by Christ we must be healed by Him in His own way, and not in ours. To be healed by Jesus means having faith in God—to believe that God is Love, and that God is right. To come to Jesus to be healed and to leave God out must of necessity be vain. He can do nothing fen- us if we are devoid of « faith in Him. To centre our lives in God through faith is the first requirement of Jesus. If His teaching has any significance it has that signific-

ancc, and this centering of our lives in God is the primary activity of Christian worship. * * * * What is Worship? pHRISTIAN worship cannot be separated from the person of its Founder. It is not merely a trafficking of' man with man, where one man can influence another for his good. It is an activity based on faith, and that not in ourselves, but in Some Other than ourselves, ft is a trafficking of man with God, and it takes its direction from the life and example of its Founder. The word “worship” was originally "worthship,” and it really means to treat with the reverence due to merit or worth. Christian worship means nothing at all if it is not the ascription of worth to God and what God stands for. We understand what God stands lor by tile lite and example of Jesus Christ. We say that that is worth while, that that sort of life is the only thing worth while. 9 9 0 # Life Responds to Faith WHEN our eyes open to beauty and we find it there to be admired; when our souls respond to His goodness and we enter into peace; when we seek for truth and find that the universe is rational —we become aware of God. Life responds to faith. Our ideas about God rnay be subChristian, but a developing experience of life will not allow us to re- I main with sub-Christian ideas of God. I

Contributed by the Ministers' Association

It is the living God with whom we enter into relations in our experience of life as we trust more and more in its sustaining spirit of goodness, rationality and beauty. It follows that though God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. man's experience and knowledge of Him, must be ever growing. When 1 was a child I spake as a child, 1 understood as a child, I thought as a child. If men are content with subChristian ideas of God, it is because they are content with a sub-Christian