CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN OUR POLITICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18946, 17 December 1929, Page 9

CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN OUR POLITICS.

DR GIBB SAYS WHERE THE CHURCH SHIRKS ITS TASK. “The world will not be won for Christ till its laws and institutions, its industry and commerce, its politics and international affairs are all brought into captivity to His hand,” said Dr Gibb in the course of a sermon at St Andrew’s Church on Sunday evening. The testimony of the Church of Christ was robbed W much of its value and rendered largely nugatory by the conditions under which human society now exists, he added. We were coming to see that the Church was not giving effective witness to Christ, unless it claimed for Him the kingdom of all human interest, and strove for their penetration by His Spirit. Another War. “ Take the question of peace and war. You are a Christian. You are eager to live your life in obedience to the Lord’s commands and by the influence of your character and testimony to lead your fellow-men to Christ. That is enough for you. You know that war is an evil thing, but you think it vain to hope and a waste of time to work for its abolition.” War was the way of the wicked world and what had been would again be Because fellow-Christians and the churches did not make a stand against war, and in the name of humanity and the God of men demand its banishment from the world, anticipation was fulfilled and war flamed out again to blast and destroy the earth. One year of war would do more to nullify Christian testimony than would be accomplished for Him in ten years or a hundred. Did you think this an exaggeration? It came short of the truth. The great war struck the Church and the cause of Christ a blow from which they were still reeling. Another world conflict and there would be an end of both, chaos and might would resume their sway in Europe. The Church And Labour. The League of Nations, the Locarno Pact, the Optional Clause of the Statue of the International Court of Justice constituted a splendid piece of machinery for the prevention and outlawry of war, but it was only a piece of machinery. It would function only if the Church and all men of good-will supplied the operating power. But beyond passing now and again a pious and highly circumspect resolution, the Church does nothing. It does not lead in a crusade for a warless world—it certainly does not in New Zealand. If the Church, and, say, Labour, would only enter into a confederacy to put an end to the monstrosity of modern war there might be a hope. “ The Church,” he repeated, “ if she is to bear effective testimony to Christ, cannot stand back from the critical, social and international confusions of our time. She cannot be content with a message to the individual alone. It is in the individual soul that reformations are bom. The new man makes the new world. But the new man is made in part by the vision of the new world, calling to the depths of his nature and by the challenge by which it is brought in.” Social Morality. Dealing with the social morality of the time, Dr Gibb asked: Did they realise that at that hour that it was not the person of Christ, the divinity of Christ, that was called in question by the world. What was taking place was that the ethics of the morality taught by Christ was in the meltingpot. The Christian virtues were being weighed. in the scales of anti-Christian and pagan thought, and were found wanting. Especially was this so in regard to what is in the narrower sense of the word termed morality, the lack of which has had so much to do with the downfall of nations and civilisations in the past. Dean Inge, in his volume of essays' entitled, “•The Lay Thoughts of a Dean,” attributes no small share of the mischief to the novelists. He says: “ The source of the mischief is the perverse and immoral morality which is now preached as well as practiced, especially by our very modern novelists who have much to answer for in corrupting the moral sense of the nation.” It was no longer a question of outraging the dreamers. Their right to exist was challenged. The sanctity of the marriage bond was scorned. The libidinous careers of the pitiful heroes and besmirched heroines were regarded by their creators with unqualified approbation. An obsession of sex seems to have taken hold of the community.