Has Christianity Failed?

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 740, 19 April 1933, Page 6

Has Christianity Failed?

Dear Sir, —The letters of “G.P.8.” evince from beginning to end a deplorable narrowness and bigotry. , They mean that he, and his ilk, would co-operate with no movement, however laudable its social aims, however effective its efforts to remove the glaring social wrongs, which, as Henry George says, are at the bottom of every social evil, if it did not subscribe to the religious dogmas which he holds sacred. This is the very essence of Philistinism. In the mental make-up of “ G.P.8.” there is apparently a complete inability to appreciate the fact that a sense of intellectual honesty may force a man to repudiate Christian dogma. The only thing he could see in such repudiation would be “ satanic influence,” a source to which •Christians, as “ upholders of the will of God,” have traced even lightning conductors and anaesthetics. “ G.P.B.’s ” remarks regarding the anti-religionism of Russia invite the drawing of comparisons whollv unfavourable to Christianity, which has been the most persecuting and intolerant of all religions. As for the ‘‘student movement,’* its position is like that of “ a man looking in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there.” Christianity is too much the religion of capitalism for it to furnish a basis for a moral revolution. One very obvious proof of this is that those who have the temerity openly to criticise it are, in nine cases out of ten, tossed out of their jobs. “ In the fifty years which laid the foundations of modern England,” reads an Anglican report, entitled “ Christianity and Industrial Problems,” “ the influence of the Church as a witness to social righteousness was, it is hardly an exaggeration to say, almost negligible.” “ The failure of Christianity,” says Dean Inge, “has become a commonplace.” The reason of this failure is not far to seek; it is by the preservation of the existing body and soul-destroying social order that Christian dogmas retain their grip on the minds of men, and to this the astute heads of official Christianity are fully alive. Economic liberation has as an inevitable sequel mental lil eration, which, in its turn, would be fatal to the spiritual dominion yhich Christianity exercises. Where Charles Kingsley and his confreres failed the “ student movement ” is not likely to succeed. —I am. etc., MORALITY MINUS RELIGION.