Church Circles are Often “Nasty People”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 1

Church Circles are Often “Nasty People”

BISHOP SPEAKS PLAINLY “QUARRELSOME FOLK” (Special*' to THE SUN) HAMILTON, Today. “We have not yet begun to grasp the social side of our religion,” declared Bishop Cherrington, speaking at the dedication j of Forest Lake Church Hall last evening. “We have not started to make our church such a place of worth and affection that people outside will long to come into it,” the bishop said. The term “church circles” usually meant the nastiest set of people possible to imagine. Of course, it had to he admitted that an awful lot of backchat was encountered in the course of so-called church social work. Some of the nastiest and funniest things were said about persons, and not infrequently thought about them, in these circles. If these nasty people despised Jesus Christ, could they, as church people, expect anything better from them? asked the bishop. They should strive to make their community bright and happy. “What a lot of quarrelsome folk we Anglicans are,” exclaimed the bishop. “When you see petty differences in the Church of England all over the world it makes you despair of progress. One person wants one thing, another wants another, and somewhere else someone wants something different from both.”

Bishop Cherrington urged all to refrain from unpleasantness and dedicate their lives to God.