TASK FOR CHURCHES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20232, 16 February 1934, Page 4

TASK FOR CHURCHES.

Study of Christian Ethics Needed. DECLINE OF MORALS. (Special to the “ St&x.”) WELLINGTON, February 15. The view that the present age is in danger from its declining moral standards was expressed by the Rev C. Eaton in the course of his presidential address to-night at the opening of the annual Dominion conference of the New Zealand Methodist Church. The speaker declared that in the sphere of Christian ethics the Church had a responsible task to perform. There existed a group of intellectuals who combined contemptuous scepticism towards the Christian faith, with a determined attack upon the Christian moral standard. The result had been that the ethical convictions of many had been shaken to their very foundations. Essentially, this destructive psychology taught that man was governed not by reason, but by his instinctive tendencies. So far from being a rational animal, man was a creature of his impulses, at one time crude and animal, at another beautyloving and refined. These impulses must be indulged as they came; one’s chief duty was self-expression, unhampered by any other sense of duty. “ Thou shalt not repress thyself ” took the place of all the Commandments. Where It Must Lead. It was obvious, the speaker continued, in what direction such theories of conduct must lead. People who had not much else to express but primitive lusts were encouraged to clamour for expression. The answer to such reasoning was that while there might be a self-expression that mutilated character, there was also a selfdenial without which there was no character at all. “ There is a clamorous challenge along the whole front of Christian ethics to-day,” the president affirmed. “The whole question of sex relationships, including promiscuity, marriage and divorce, demands attention. Is there any uniformity, for example, in our practice in regard to the remarriage of divorced persons? Has our Church ever spoken authoritatively here? Concerning the question of sex relationships it is difficult to speak, and impossible to keep silent. Our moral standards suffered a grievous decline during the Great War, and recovery has been slow. To-day a whole mass of new facts remains unassimilated by Christian doctrine, and the attempts to acquaint youth with these facts have not been conspicuously successful. If it be true that men to-dav are uncertain what the rules of moral conduct are, and do not so much require exhortation to be good as help to see what is good, it is time we commenced seriously the study of Chritian ethics.”