A PARSON’S JOB

Waipa Post, Volume 31, Issue 1775, 26 June 1926, Page 8

A PARSON’S JOB

POLITICS FROM THE PULPIT. ’‘Must a person always he on the lookout in case he says anything which one party or the other in <rar frequent disputes might not like? Must he coniine himself to the utterances of harmless platitudes which everyone will agree with and nobody will act upon? If so, a parson’s job, so far as the pulpit is concerned, is a washout. If the parson must preach with his hands tied, behind him, so to speak, so that he can never hit out, then I am going to give up preaching. But that is all bunkum. The point is that the parson has got to speak out whether people like it or not,” writes the Rev. G. A. ’Studdert Kennedy in the Forum. “Where does ‘Politics’ begin and where does it end? I ligve been a slum parson, and have known what it is to go -around trying to pick up men and women. boys and girls, out of the filthy ■conditions that make life well-nigh

.impossible for a decent lad or girl. Well, supposing the greed of builders’ ‘rings,’ or the selfishness of unions, or the dirty work of municipal contracts, holds up the building of decent houses, as they are holding it up to-day in England, is the parson to keep mum because he might be talking politics in the pulpit and might offend the head of the Bricklayers’ Union or some contractor who was a ni’ember of his congregation? Is he to say to himself. ‘I must be careful what I say",-because Mr Jerry Builder might cufpd&wn his subscription to the curate’s stipend, or the people might give less to the free-will offering scheme’? I know parsons who do think like that. I have known them tell me to be careful waht T said because there was so-and-so in the congregation, and they could not afford to offend him, or that, he would empty their church if they preached about certain subjects. But against that, parsons, bishops, d.eans, vicars, curates, all the job lot of us have got to stand firm, or we might as well shut up shop and take to minding babies. The parson must think and pray that he may be able to discern the signs of his time and understand that the will of God is for man. and he must blaze it out as he sees it. Once he has done that, the responsibility rests with those who listen; they must choose whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. But you cannot have it both ways.” '