RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 August 1930, Page 3

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

NEGLECT IN NEW ZEALAND. VISITING PROFESSOR’S VIEWS. ’■ - / “Religion is' banned in New Zealand and Australian universities, but in America there is no university that does not have from one to a dozen chairs in religion arid the student studies the subject in much the same manner as he studies chemistry or physics,” said Professor S. Angus, pf Sydney, on his arrival at Auckland from Sydney by the Aorangi on Monday. He is Professor of the New Testament at St. Andrew’s College, Sydney University, and is proceeding to New York to take over temporarily the chair of religious history at Columbia University. •

“There has never been more interest in religion than at the present Clay,” said Professor Angus. “It is not so much an interest in organised religion as a general interest that seeks to find out the nature and functions" of religion in the scheme of life. Religion lias no place in the university colleges of New Zealand and Australia, .but in America it is different. At Columbia University, for example, the subject is studied by persons of all denominations, Jews, Roman Catholics and Protestants, some of whom take it for their masters* and doctors’ degrees. * ' ’ • < “Personally, I think , the absence of religion in the .New: Zealand and Australian universities ia a great loss,” ho said. . “For the full life you need to cultivate religion just as you cultivate art arid: the intellect, and if you .leave religion out of it,- it isi just as, much a loss as omitting art from education. Everybody should be interested in religion,, although, because no two .men are alike, in everything, there is no need ' to expect perfect agreement. It would be just? as sensible to expect everybody to agree bn politics!.” • - ' ■ '■ Professor Angus attributed the absence of religion in education in' New Zealand. and Australia to a : reaction against narrow 'derioinin’atioiiallsm in the older • countries. had proved no friend to religion ,in those parts, he said, but the truth was that it was only the phenomenon of religion. Religion did not exist for derioiriinations but tho denominations for religion. However, he w r as of the opin-, ion that .the reaction against dendminationalism was carried to excess in this country; ' : / Among many books Professor Angus has written are “The Religious , Questions of tho Graeco-Ronian World,” “Mystery-Religions and. Christiariity” and “The Environment of Early Christianity.” He has. been associated with the Queen’s University, Belfast," Princeton University, U.S.A., Marburg and Berlin Universities, Germany, and , the Universities .of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He holds four honorary degrees at those universities. Professor Angus has been in Australia for the past 16 years and in recent years lias been a visiting professor to Columbia University. He will remain in tho United States until the end of January. ,