Secularised Living

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 35, Issue 9, 1 November 1944, Page 1

Secularised Living

Church 'Elbowed' otit by

(Presidential address given to the second session of the 29th Synod of the Diocese of Waiapu by Archdeacon J. B. Brocklehurst, Vicar-General.) • -

One of the most vital subjects for our consideration is that emphasised by the Oxford Conference on "Church, Community and State." Stated briefly, it is this— the Church to-day is out of touch with , great areas of the common life of the people. At the outset I would like to say that the Church is not ■ wholly responsible for this condition, and for that reason it is not so easy for us to set tilings right. The drift, as it has been called, from Church going can, I think, be largely accounted for by two facts which .often escape our notice — and these demand to-day some consideration if the Church is to apply the Eternal Message to this complex problem. ■ I think we are simply beating, the air by hurling our thunderbolts of speech, picking out this and that, to prove we have slipped back into a form of Paganism. We want to try and understand the position. The first fact to nqtice is that life has become secularised, almost completely divorced from religion; certain spheres of our common life., which were pioneered by the Church, such as schools, universities and hospitals, have now been taken over by the community. Here a little and there a little, the > Church has been elbowed out of the

way. To-day education, science, business and culture m general work out their own designs without any reference to religion. This goes to show that the Church is regarded by

many as ah outsider, and that religion has nothing to do with these various spheres of life. Where the Sting Lies. Government departments arid municipal authorities when planning

big housing estates often make no provision for a church; yet they are keen to provide community centres where recreation and other social activities can be followed. The sting of this secularisation lies, here: that many m the churches think that religion should not inform all activities, but is a private affair of the individual, and that God Himself is only concerned with the human soul. Many Church folk are at one with the enemies of religion m thinking that religion is a kind of hobby, like folk dancing or stamp collecting. It stands apart and alone and has no practical meaning for all the things that fill men's lives. Many who were keen about i the Campaign for Christian Order discovered this. Local committees of. the campaign were mostly made up of the older and pious sections, who, brought up on the individual basis of religion, found themselves floundering when a neglected aspects of the Gospel was brought out for their consideration. They would have no-, thing to do with the social implications of the Gospel message. Whilst this secularisation of life is one difficulty to be faced, there are two others which affect the life of every man and woman. First of all there are the unchanging needs of human nature. One cannot be human

without feeling them, and because he feels them he looks for something to satisfy them. Every man or .woman has to face sooner or later the facts of death and bereavement, pain and'v disease, disappointment of desire or:^ ambition, frustration, the insecurity) of living, apart altogether from the stresses and strains of v family life and social relationships— the perplexities of knowing the right thing to do, when all the time he is feeling the pull of evil m his own soul. ' The second, influence playing upon > every individual "is the external setting of life. By the external I mean the political, social, economic and industrial arrangement, m which he finds himself bound hand and foot. Encircling all these is that vague, but real, influence which we call the spirit of the times, which, like the atmosphere he cannot escape from except by death. 1 With Us Always. - i • This" first influence— the unchang- • ing needs of human nature— is with us always. Evil consciences,' illness, bereavement, death are abiding factors," but the second influence — the external setting — differs from time to time and age to age. Men have ,not always lived. , under industrial capitalism, nor have their lives and property been controlled by the State through a world war. , . j Now, as we look at, the secularisation of life, the unchanging needs of human nature and the externa}, setting to it , all, and ask one simple question — "What has the Church to say about it?" — one finds that the Church has applied the 'Gospel mainly to the personal • needs and troubles of the individual. It has had little to say about the political and economic influences which are pressing so hard on their lives today. Here, I think, is one reason why many think the Church's message is unreal. It doesn't seem to touch the problems they feel are real — it's" got no bark or bite. . Think— am I not right when I say men are not asking to-day, "What must I* do to be saved?" but "What must WE do to be saved?" It's no use shutting our eyes to this fact. If we believe m Providence— the God of history — it would seem that God Himself has ordained we must face this problem and discover how best we can meet . it. If we don't, then Christianity will be regarded as just one activity of life suited for some queer people who have a taste for it. To emphasise the main point that the Church is out of touch with many departments of life, one sure sign of it is that few evangelistic missibnsare ever attempted to-day. The modern man cannot be got at by

that means. We put it down to wickedness and indifference. That is too easy. -We've got to understand it. . It is said that neither m Qxford' or Cambridge could you gejt undergraduates m any tqHhis! ; /old type of 'mission; yet whilst they will hot come to satisfy the cry, "What must I do to he saved?" they ' will respond to any presentation of the Gospel which gives them some interpretation of the confusion, perplexity' and; heartbreaks of human society as a whole and which does'not exclude the personal and private perplexities, and problems. What is true of the universities is also true of every large centre of population. Thinking m Terms of the World. There is no doubt m my mind, though I find it hard to explain, there is something m the "spirit of the times » that cafe. only be summed up m the word . totalitarian or oecumenical — the' first men understand, the, second they don't,. because it's mainly a word heard m Church circles.. "There's no doubt the modern man is thinking" to-day as he never thought before m terms of the world.. When he. opens his paper he .reads the world news. When he goes to the pictures he sees the' world. When he listens-in he hears the world talking. I should not mention this if it did not go far to prove that the Church to-day is confronted with a problem similar to that which nearly. rent the Apostolic Church when St. Paul carried the Gospel to the Gentiles. To claim that the Gospel must be preached' m all the world must also mean it is relevant not only to personal problems, but all the complex questions of the social and economic and political framework of every nation under heaven. In order to try and^understand the modern man's"need I propose to mention certain things m .the situation which make the problem so baffling. You yourselves may be able to add to the list, which I know is not complete. Firstly, there is first and foremost a loss of heart. The spiritual climate of our time has left a depressed and hollow sense of the meaning of life. Futility sums it up. The universe seems to them just a pilptless aeroplane set free to work destruction. What lies behind all this? It has become a commonplace to put everything down to a loss of the sense of God. That, I think, is true. When the Eternal is no longer m the picture, then life becomes flat, unreal, futile. During the last war some French doctors coined a phrase for a disease which made its appearance m prison camps. They called it / barbed-wire i

sickness!" No matter what activities were organised, men were always conscious of the barbed wire enclosure. They were shut m and shut out from any worth-while activity. This ( sickness is with us to-day. The Eternal, the sense of God, has to a great extent banished from men's minds. Men must know what to live for and what to live by if they are to find any real meaning and get. any satisfaction put of life. Men need a vision of what to work. and live' and die for m order to pull out every stbp m their nature. Note of the Eternal. ; Hitler; did this and captured Germany by speaking of a Reich that shall last a thousand years. The one song that has captured us all during this war has its note of the Eternal when we sing "There Always be an England." The Church, then, is on firm ground and can only appeal to -the "best m men when it points to God' as the Eternal and unchange- . able, Who . is working His purpose N out as year succeeds year. Secondly, people are oppressed by the, feeling of their insignificance. Listen to the question so often asked: "What can we do about it?" To use the current jargon of the day, ordinary folk are suffering from an inferiority/ complex. Have you noticed m yourself or m others an- assertion of their own importance, the amount of touchiness, quickness to take offence, "the kind but searching glance" that leads continually to criticism of this and that, are just the offspring of the. present situation? It means they are fighting against their own insignificance, Some will say it is m part the result of the mass organisation of society, feeling they are only cogs m the mechanised industry of the day. If it is, then it is surely a part of the human hunger for love and justice m the midst of a loveless and unjust system m which they live. This hi its turn arises from ; the whole system of social values and honours, class distinctions and monetary rewards, which excite the desire of all and can only m the nature of things satisfy a few. " Surrounded by these barbed-wire entanglements, they get the feeling of incapacity, frustration, insignificance and inferiority. r ■-..•: '.*■■'. Thirdly, there is a yearning for security. This seems to be the very -opposite of what we are told man craves for— that is adventure. ' There may be a sense of adventure m being m a storm at sea, m a seaworthy boat, but there would be no sense of adventure if .you were m a

sieve. The war ' has brought out what was present iri many minds before—that the whole framework of life is rocking, that the old securities are no longer there. Field-Marshal Smuts described it when he said, "Mankind has struck its tents and is on the march again." The man m the street describes it by saying, "Everything is m the melting pot" ; "Civilisation is is collapsing," say some, and others, "God alone knows what /may happen." Feeling of Security, This is reflected m. the concern people have for their children and is one reason why some refuse to have children at all. I have listened T m to the Brains Trust of the 8.8.C., and many of the questions flung at them for an answer arise directly from the feeling for security. Fourthly, men have become acutely aware of what we call the forces of evil. • Professor Joad, m speaking of his own awareness of this, was actually voicing the feeling of millions. There was a time when men believed m the essential goodness and reasonableness of human nature. There was a time when men believed m that blessed word "progress." . The last war shattered that nonsense, and everything that has happened m this has revealed an abyss of evil that has opened at their feet. The flames of it are to-day scorching their faces — they . can feel the evil and the unspeakable hell of suffering that arises from the human heart. Despite all their talk- about being reasonable beings, they now. know what Jesus told us and psychologists have been driving . home, that out of the heart proceeds every abomination. These things I have mentioned are only a part, of the unsettling things that make up the modern man's world, so briefly let me close on this note. This is the Church's opportunity; Christianity has its answer for all of them and there are signs that many are becoming aware of this. They sense, perhaps dimly, that we must have a religious basis of life, so there is a disposition m many quarters to turn to the Christian basis; if they can only understand its implications. Facing, then, this changing world, let us go back to our parishes as } interpreters of God.