The Southland Times SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1943. The Decay of Faith

Southland Times, Issue 25690, 26 June 1943, Page 4

The Southland Times SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1943. The Decay of Faith

IT IS REPORTED from London ' that the Church Assembly carried a resolution asking the Archbishops “to appoint a commission to survey. the whole problem of modern evangelism, with special reference to the spiritual needs and prevailing intellectual outlook of the non-worshipping community . . .” This is one more symptom of the uneasiness, almost the bewilderment, which has gripped the churchmen while they survey the spiritual problems of the age. The Bishop of Chelmsford pointed out to the assembly that “the decay of faith is a world-wide phenomenon. “It is a condition,” he said, “which has been slowly and steadily taking shape over a long period.” And he found a connection between “the collapse of public worship” and the alarming growth of social disorder. An ethical code is obviously inseparable from a creed which teaches that life on this earth is essentially a discipline and a purification. Yet there has never been a time, even during the centuries of ecclesiastical supremacy, when religion and morals received a perfect observance. It could be said, perhaps, that moral decay would not be so obvious if youth were under the old disciplines that spread out from . church to family in other generations. But if statistics were available for the middle ages it would probably be found that religion and goodness were by no means inseparable. That morals were far looser than they are today can be discovered by anyone who reads the old plays and romances of English literature. Even before the Renaissance brought its impulse towards freedom, European society was full of violence and passion. There may not be much to choose between the lightest of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and some of the novels published in recent years —except that where Chaucer- was frankly coarse, the modern novelist prefers to be suggestive. But even in suggestiveness there. are few present-day “realists” who can hold their own with Boccaccio. History shows that the supremacy of Church discipline does not necessarily mean a universal moral rectitude, Human nature is not ’ equal to perfection. Goodness is at best a relative term, to be measured against the social code of the times. But if men find it hard to be wise and virtuous they can at least fix their goal among the stars. It is theii- capacity for aspiration which saves them from spiritual destruction. The growth of religious movements provides evidence of a continuity of faith which had its beginnings in the earliest periods of human consciousness. There are pagan myths which seem to anticipate the fundamental biblical situations. The sacraments of the Christian churches had their prototypes, crude and impure, among Asiatic cults practised thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Anthropologists collect these evidences, but as a rule they hesitate ‘to generalize from them too boldly. Shallower thinkers seize upon them as superstitious practices from which man is slowly emancipating himself. The Endless Search

Philosophers have long since pointed out that the argument from origins is an easy escape from hard thinking. It is as if the.claim were advanced that the music of Bach and the poetry of Shakespeare are valueless because there was a time when the primeval ancestors of those great artists chanted uncouthly at one another in the caverns of their forest. There is more truth in the view that cultural vestiges reveal in' mankind an ascending purpose, a necessity of faith which runs through history like a dominant theme. The churches fail because they are human institutions. Yet in their long development they have been the central instruments of a faith that cannot be destroyed. Who knows what changes are impending? There may be large and bold reforms in theology and method, as there have been in the past. Ecclesiastical history shares with secular experience the rhythm of development. There are. millions today who do not go near the churches. Some of them believe that science, using the unaided reason of man, is the key to happiness and security. It can do much, although it is essentially neutral: a gift that may be used for destruction as well as for creation. Beyond its activities there remains the need for moral responsibility, the choice of aims and purposes. And these are things which must be shaped, not in the chemist’s crucible, but in the minds of ordinary men. Social reformers can work and plan for living conditions which promise happy days on earth. But they can do nothing to weaken or remove the central mystery, the ultimate fact of death. Indeed, as life becomes safer and more desirable, the spreading shadow takes the depth of a hateful contrast. The life of the spirit demands wider horizons. Although it may be satisfied for a time with the artificial brightness of a material civilization it returns always to the hope and vision of eternity. Less than a hundred years ago the churches were reeling under .the impact of the evolutionary doctrine. Because their spokesmen attempted to fight the disciples of Darwin with their own weapons they suffered discomfiture in debates that resounded across the years. In recent times, however, the physicists have exploded the illusion of matter; and the philosophers, quick to read the old lessons in new forms, have re-discovered the meanings of infinity. Science and religion are no longer the perfect antithesis: they have their meeting place at the margin of life. These truths are slow to reach the common mind. But war brings a tremendous awakening. Men are thinking and searching today for what they expect to be new truths. They are bewildered, and unstable because they think the old faiths have failed, and because the new prophets have not yet arisen. But faith is neither old nor new: it is an eternal pulse, and men will feel it again when the spiritual malaise of these years is ended.