The Drift from Christianity.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 25, 18 December 1912, Page 59

The Drift from Christianity.

The vicar of Carrington, Rev. A. W. Blunt, in a ‘’Hibbert Journal” article, traces the present drift of modern life away from organised Christianity to two main causes. First, the tendency to substitute morality for spirituality, an ethical idea and a social inspiration for the idea of holiness and communion with God. Second, the modern love of personal freedom and dislike for discipline. While Mr Blunt admits that there is a good deal of philanthropic and social effort apart from organised Christianity, he does not think the result satisfactory, simply because it has no spiritual basis in prayer and communion with God. “It is all fuss and little power.” If organised Christianity is to survive effectively in England, in his opinion it on the one hand must be prepared for a conflict with the spirit of the age. On the other hand, the Chureh—he is thinking of his own Church—must reform. “Every' tinge of the old false sacerdotalism must go.” We know now that, according to primitive Christian doctrine, “the priestly body is the whole Church first, and that the clergy are but representatives of the Church. Any notion of a special and exclusive grace belonging to the clergy as such and only mediated to the 'Church by their agency is neither Scriptural nor Catholic.”