THE AGE'S SUPERSTITIONS.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 30, Issue 2, 1 April 1939, Page 7

THE AGE'S SUPERSTITIONS.

The headmaster of Winchester, as reported m the Church Times, has said: — The first task of religious education is to liberate and emancipate the intellect of the age from certain superstitions which are the cause of the prevailing .confusion of the present time. The first superstition is that it is possible to have a religion which is not based on dogmatic faith; whereas there can be no sound system of ethics which; does not rest on a religious sanction. The Christian Faith stands or falls by the historical fact that God broke into the time series m the Incarnation of His Son. Without that there can be no Gospel. A second superstition is that for every apparent act of divine power or intervention there must be an "explanation" which is discoverable by human reason. But of all the superstitions which went deepest into the mind of the nineteenth century, the superstition of Progress was the most dangerousmeaning by Progress the error that it is possible for man to achieve his own progress without the help of divine grace. A fourth superstition is that freedom is an end m itself. The task of the Church m education is to turn the thought of the nation, and this will result m the reinstatement m its ancient dignity of the study of theology, the queen of the sciences — a constitutional queen who does not seek to invade the provinces of others, but draws them up

and lays them m a majestic unity at the feet of God. •