CHURCH CAN LOOK TO FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR, SAYS LEADER

Wanganui Chronicle, 2 November 1950, Page 6

CHURCH CAN LOOK TO FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR, SAYS LEADER

AUCKLAND, Last Night (Special). —"This is no time for escapism or defeatism, The Christian Church can go forward to the future without any fear, not because she thinks she has the solution to all the world’s problems, or that the immediate future is going to be an experience of peace and prosperity, or that it will be a time in which her authority will bo recognised and ner message received; but because she knows that the grace of God is operating in every historical situation. The present longing for new life is an indication that God is waiting to fulfil His promise in the experience of the Church in our age. to endow her with power and lead her out into a great evangelistic effort for ir.e salvation of the world.” This was said by the Rt. Rev. J. A. Thomson, Moderator of th? Presbyterian Churc’> of New Zealand, in his inaugural address at the opening meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly in St. David’s Church this afternoon.

He quoted Professor Arnold J. Toynbee, who after an inlense study of the twenty civilisations that hav?. risen, flourished and decayed, hold

reached the conviction that many of the symptoms of decay were unmistakably present in our own. But Professor Toynbee staled also that ‘We are not doomed to make history repeat itself; it is open Io us, through our own efforts, to give history, in our case, some new and unprecedented turn.’ DIVINE JUDGMENT AND GRAUS The present signs of collapse, Mr. Thomson said, were the indication of Divine judgment. There were three stages in the development of the process that led to judgment- the presentation of a challenge, the refusal of the challenge, and the moral deterioration which caused men to perI petrate the deeds by which they were themselves condemned. A mastery of the principles of economics and science was essential to recovery and progress, said Mr. Thomson. But they were not the only factors in the situation. It was ,the task of the ChurckJo make the [world aware of the (tetter realities 'that lay behind. Therefwas a longpng for new life throughout, the world I today. That, longing was itself the indication of the call of God to ner/ effort, and new hope As mon set [themselves to thp work before them, I they would find that God was providling the equipment for thn tasks. "There is urgent need to turn men from the backward to thn forward look,” Mr. Thomson concluded. “The day of opportunity has arrived and the Church is oeginning to feel conscious of it. She is standing at a [great moment m her history and in [the history of thn race. Will she, by [complete surrender, allow God to iwork in and through her His purpose iof redemption? Truly ihe place whereon we stand is holy ground."