“CURES AND MIRACLES”

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18803, 26 November 1932, Page 12 (Supplement)

“CURES AND MIRACLES”

Dr. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, In a sermon at Westminister Abbey, London, attacked what he described as "superstitious ” religious teaching, "to which science could 'give no quarter.”

Preachers complained that fundamental Christian dogmas wore denied and that Christian moral principles were repudiated.

“ Have the Churches," he asked, "consistently maintained the highest moral standards? Can any Christian investigate the records of the Roman Church with regard to marriage and divorce alike, in medieval and in modern times without a feeling of shame?” I have no doubt that such hostility to Christian sex-morality as exists derives much of its strength from the evasions of accredited Christian teachers and efirom their refusal fairly to examine the hardships and injustice prevalent in our Social system. II Pretended Miracles of Hoallng.” The division of God’s realm into the natural and the spiritual does not satisfy our theological decadents. They crave for magic and pretended miracles of healing and the conferring of a spiritual character on inanimate objects. So a division is- made into natural and supernatural. The word “supernatural” does not occur in the Bible, and the theory of a supernatural realm existing in opposition to a realm of nature is indefensible. It dishonours God. The whole realm of nature is Ills. His writ runs everywhere.

I Clergy Accused of Charlatanism. 1

His grace Is given through every kind of natural channel. There is no mechanism, no magical process, by which men can acquire supernatural gifts. We can rightly pray that God will relieve us in sickness or pain. Sometimes, as we think, a favourable answer is given. But then we have no reason to assume that God has acted otherwise than by natural channels. Divine answers to prayer do not belong lo a fabulous religion or the supernatural. It is the duty of Christian teachers who wish to retain the respect of hoys and girls trained in scientific method to assert that no well or shrine can convey a supernatural grace of heal, ing. Tliere are no places or things, sacred shrines or saints’ bones, that have supernatural curative properties. Similarly, If oil be blessed by a priest or bishop, it does not thereby acquire any healing virtue. When one was told that by some supernatural process, as the result of the prayer of consecration, the Spirit of Christ became attached to, or, Inherent In, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, then from the heights of spiritual religion we had descended to magic. If the superstitions which he had described became established among us, men of science would develop independently a more truly spiritual religion free from such absurdities.