CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 122, 26 May 1942, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

ODDITY OF WAR

(To The Editor)

It would seem from the passage under the above heading in your issue of May 23 that our National Council of Churches, in its campaign for Christian order, supports Dr. G. Glasgow's protest against the neglect by British official propaganda of "the Christian argument" (whatever that may mean), and its failure to exploit "the wave of Christian feeli*g surging against the Nazi leaders, even in Germany." To my mind our propagandists are wise in this. The assertion so often made that we are fighting for Christianity is incorrect m fact, and objectionable tactically. Real Christianity is not a thing to be established by fighting for it; and though our victory might save it from attempts at forcible suppression, that is not why we went to war. Dr. Glasgow asserts that the whole course of historv proves that Christianity is the only impregnable thing. In what sense has it shown itself any more impregnable than a number of other religions* Bernard Shaw is reported to have said that Christianity would be worth trying. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Council of Churches will clear their minds of the mechanical conception of Christianity as a religion »f creeds and organisations and religious observances and, regarding it rather as a divinely inspired mode of life, will concentrate on the effort to get our legislators, our people generally, and the members and c.dherents of oui churches in particular, to try it.