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Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5525, 16 September 1942, Page 5

CHRISTIAN ORDER AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Sir, —The Ven. Archdeacon Bullock asks: “What then is the Church’s view about justice?” and he gives the reply: “It is to be found in a modern interpretation* of the Golden Rule, to love they neighbour as thyself.” Now the saying is not modern, but is very ..old and existed long before the time .fcvenewflien we find it in Leviticus. J.esus. .cancelled it right out of existence in : .Matthew, chapter 5, verse 43. “Yiftuha.yft heard it said, thou chalt love thy neighbour.” Verse 44, “I say unto you, love ydur enemies.” So if the .church wants the view of its founder ,thqn it must'base its view of justice 6n the new order: “Love your enemies,” and thus adopt the Golden Rule of Jesus. The Bible has advised us to “Be content with such things as you have” and “Take no thought for to-morrow and not to worry if the wicked flourish like a green bay tree.” The fundamental idea was that Christians were “In this world but not of it,” but simply passing through to a better land, and that it did not matter

about the conditions of this world. Now they have decided that they must try their hands at Social Reform, and make the best of the world we have, and I wish them luck. As soon as they get their heads out of the clouds they will be able to see more clearly and the Ven. Archdeacon sounded to me over the air just like a first-class Labour politician, dog-collar gone, and seemingly clothed and in his right mind. But to begin with, they are starting out on a wrong principle. The idea is to base social justice on a so-called natural order, when there is no perfect order in the universe or any order and beauty in nature. This they call “the duty of conformity to the natural order in which is to be found the will of God.” It is a fallacy to claim that laws of nature imply a celestial legislator. In science “a law” is not a rule which things must observe, but an assertion that they consistently act along certain lines. The universe does not proclaim the glory of God, but a “natural” explanation of the order of the universe can be given. It is now accepted that Nebula naturally and inevitably crystalises into a cluster of stars or a universe, and the collision or close approach of two suns will raise a tidal mass, which will quite naturally break away and be moulded into planetsThere is no perfect order in the universe as new stars are constantly appearing and this is the very opposite of order as their birth is due to collision. Science gives no evidence of design and any. order we now observe is simply a survival of the fittest, or the conquest of a lesser force by a greater force, when under different conditions the lesser force would have survived. Even Sir J. Jeans admits that the universe is integrating and disintegrating and will in the end “leave not a wrack behind,” but there is some doubt about the assertion.—l am, etc., OLIVER.