Church Leadership.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume VII, Issue 9, 1 June 1917, Page 96

Church Leadership.

Br Mr. B. Cbompton-Smith.

This paper is intended to deal only with the question of leadership on the secular side of the Church — if the Church can be said to have any side which is distinctively secular as opposed to spiritual. The reference is, however, to leadership of the Church, not leadership by the Church, m matters which concern its members banded together as the Church of the Body of Christ, when it turns- its face to the State. No one, it may be supposed, will be found to deny that the Church needs such leadership. What is the difference between the State and the Church m this connection? This, namely, that the State produces its leaders by its own activities and needs ; the Church does not. "But," it has been well said, '"it is not the Church's function to reform the conditions of the world ; it is her function to create the atmosphere m which those conditions shall be reformed." How shall a catholic Church create that atmosphere? What steps can such a Church take as a great corporate institution of brotherhood, informing and spiritualising relations within the State ? Let us turn to Britain as a State at the moment when war was declared m 1914. What do we find? We find what might be called a " casual " Government m power. That is to say, it was a Government which contained, no doubt, many able men, who at any rate may be supposed to have reflected the minds and wishes of the majority of the nation at that time, but who were not men specially trained for leadership m times of imminent peril. The war instantly created a new atmosphere m Britain ; an atmosphere of unpreparedness, one highly charged with various loose dangerous elements such as classbitterness, industrial strife, intemperance, lethargy, which directly struck at the efficiency of the nation. Did the Government m power necessarily contain the elements enabling it to act m such an atmosphere ? It did not contain men specially trained or fitted to cope with such conditions. What to do? Let us have a Coalition Government which will reconcile the warring political elements. * Alas, the new Government proved to be no more specially fitted to meet conditions in-

creasingly charged with difficulty and danger. Again what happened ? The Prime Minister, the approved Leader, was* dropped overboard. The man who had proved himself most fitted to lead, tbok his place. What did he do? He threw overboard all prece-* dent and called to power men of varied capacities, who were not all even Members of Parliament, or m the "casual" sense qualified by popular election to take positions of such high trust. The point here to be noted was that it was just because they were not " casual "men, but men specially trained, that they were called to leadership. Why was it necessary to throw overboard all precedent m their appointment? Because their life-work had trained them m special directions, and had resulted m the production of experts. Men trained to the last convolution of their brains for the special work they were called on to do, and men imbued with the spirit of patriotism, i.e., of love m the secular sphere. This illustrates the meaning which this paper is intended to attach to the word " Leadership." To apply this to the Church. Is it guided on its secular side, that side which is turned to the State, by experts m social questions ? Can we point to any single Church member, clerical or lay, who could get up to-morrow on a public platform and hold the attention of a meettng gathered together to consider any such question as Industrialism, Capital and Labour, Impurity, Intemperance or any of the other matters which have become of such , importance to-day, and to whom all would listen as to an expert trained to the last convolution of his brain to speak and act ? Moreover, and here is the crux and marrow of this matter of Church Leadership, such men as. we need as leaders m the sense I have indicated, must be men deeply imbued with the Christ spirit of love and selfdedication. So, if the Church is to create the atmosphere m which the conditions of the State shall be reformed, shall we not, as a Brotherhood dedicated to the cult of the Ohristly Spirit recognise the analogy- 1 have tried to point out between the condition of Britain when the war broke out, m the matter ofthe lack of Leadership, and the Church as it is at present situated; between the line o| action which the State has: , found imperatively necessary "to pre-

serve itself from disintegration, and the line which the Church must take to render its members fit for the Master's work which He commenced within the State ? Namely, the bringing m of "the Kingdom." The necessity for Leadership m the Church is clamant. How shall we produce expert Leadership within the Church, whose function it shall be to educate Church members, strengthen and Help the Bishops and Clergy, and guide and direct definite effort amongst Church members who are responsible for the creation of that atmosphere, m which our social conditions may be reformed ? . . (To be Continued)