CHRISTIAN BELIEF IS THAT COMMUNISM WILL NOT SUCCEED

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1949, Page 5

CHRISTIAN BELIEF IS THAT COMMUNISM WILL NOT SUCCEED

NAPIER, Last Night (PA).—No Christian believed that Communism could succeed, no matter what success it had achieved through its aggressiveness, declared the Rev. J. H. Odell, Christchurch, in his inaugural address following his induction as president of the Methodist Church of New Zealand at the opening session of the annual conference of the church tonight.

Communism was an ideology that appeared to be threatening every civilised country of the world at a time when reports of apathy and decadence were being received from every Christian body, said Mr. Odell. The most characteristic feature of Communism was that it brought into the open the causes of failure of all other civilisations.

Dealing with the general world situation, Mr. Odell said that there I’.ad been much movement and unrest, accompanied, at times, by tension and determination.

“We are compelled to admit that little progress seems to have been made in regard to better international relationships, or the discovery of the basis of stable peace," he declared. “No programme of economic recovery for broken nations of the world, nor any solution of national or domestic problems seems to have been attempted. What the future holds for us none would dare speculate, and to attempt to read ‘the signs of the times' as we see and understand them, is beyond the ability of the wisest man todr .y.”