APATHY TO CHURCH

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3843, 7 December 1936, Page 5

APATHY TO CHURCH

“HEART-BREAKING ATTENDANCES.” “The apathy permeating church life in this district is appalling and presents a serious prooiem,” state two Ngaruawahia laymen in a contribution ot parochial notes to the December issue of the Waikato Diocesan Magazine. “Church attendances must be heartbreaking to the vicar and vestry, but this does not appear to weigh with the majority of church people whose lack of loyalty and whose nominal Christianity is to be deplored,” the writers continue. “Smug complacency and lack of spiritual virility is the dominant failure. Yet these same parishioners expect the vicar to be on the doorsteps when sickness or death occur. The vicar is rarely consulted when a funeral is arranged but merely told the time at which he is to be present, and, of course, when a wedding is to occur the unfortunate parson must fit the function with his other engagements. “We would earnestly request local churchpeople to bestir themselves and cast off their indifferences, which are akin to atheism,” they add.