Criticism.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XV, Issue 2, 1 August 1924, Page 430

Criticism.

We are painfully familiar with such criticisms as these: "Religion does not influence men," "The Church is not a force that appeals to the ordinary man"; "the Church does not advance and progress"; "the clergy are not real leaders"; "the members of the Church are indifferent or inconsistent"; "I don't go to Church because the congregation is small or because the choir is weak." The authors of such criticisms usually overlook the fact that they are themselves as a rule an integral part of what they criticise and have no right to speak as though they were outsiders. Indeed it is not from outsiders that such criticisms usually come. These are apt to dwell with irritation on the strength and underlying influence of the Church, and to wonder how it is that generation after generation it manages to retain and to renew its grip 'on the lives and consciences of men. They attack it with a violence and a bitterness which is incomprehensible if it is such a feeble thng as some of its members would make out. Baptised members of the Church should remember that m criticising and condemning the Church they are criticising and condemning themselves. It is not from the workers and really earnest communicants of the Church that these criticisms come. They know that amid many failures there is also much that succeeds m the highest sense and that the influence of Christian life and example extend far beyond the limits of the visible success or the statistical returns of the Church. These criticisms exasperate, not because they are untrue but because they are so obvious and because the critics seem to have no idea that it is they themselves who are to bl^me for the faults concerning which they are so bitter. It is useless to take. up an aloof and non-committal attitude. It is their own indifference, their own unreality, that cause the evils that they point out with such lofty scorn. It is they who are standing with one foot m the Church and the other m the world. They are trying to serve two masters, to enjoy the pleasures . of the world and the hopes and consolations of Christianity at one and the same time. The real blame lies not, as a rule, with the clergy, nor with the officers and Avorkers of the Church, but with the great mass of nominal Christians, who have not the honesty to admit "to themselves that they are practically heathen^ and that they bring forth no fruit of Christian resolve. There are some things that no man can do, and one of them is to drag a people against their will into

earnestness and righteousness. The most: devoted parish priest cannot do Avhat even Moses could not do, lead a people who will not follow, and the most devoted church worker cannot shame into activity those who feel no shame m their indolence. People often entirely misunderstand the function of the Christian Church/ They seem to think that it is a society to iniake people righteous and that if it fails to do this it has failed of its function. This is not so. Christ did not bid his disciples convert the world. That is a task beyond any man's poAver. Our God has so .limited Himself by His ovm laws that He cannot or will not convert . a man against his will. Even Christ preached to thousands of deaf ears -and after three years numbered his converts only by hundreds. The disciples were not bidden to convert tke world, but to. teach the world, to give every man an opportunity of hearing the Gospel whether he would hear or whether he would forbear.* The end Avas to be when all had heard the Gospel, not when all had obeyed it. That criticism of the Church which shows that the clergy or communicant members of the Church are not trying to extend the Kingdom of Christ by making it known to those who do not know it, whether at home or abroad, is a fair, good and useful criticism. It may for instance be most justly applied to churchwardens who grudge all offerings for purposes outside the parish, or to parish priests . Avho take no interest m missions. But it is useless to criticise the Church and its message because there are thousands who have heard and pay no heed. It is they, not the Church, Avho are deserving of critieisin, and it borders on the absurd for them to turn the criticism which their own slackness deserves against the Church and its message. The real test of criticism is whether it is directed against the functioning of the Church or the results of its functioning. There is no truer friend of the Church than the man who, whether m righteous indignation, or m sympathetic anxiety condemns lack of effort or misdirected effort on the part of the Church, and strives with all his might to amend what he condemns, but criticism which merely concerns itself with results, and complains that the efforts of the Church do not accomplish what 'he thinks they ought to accomplish its futile anft misleading. The Church is concerned with and must be tested' by effort, not results. The latter often do not appear at the time and m any case it is difficult to estimate their value. True criticism is too valuable to bo directed into false channels. "— . "Church Standard."- - 7 - ; ? •'"