CHRISTIAN ORDER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 76, 10 July 1942, Page 6

CHRISTIAN ORDER

A NEW KIND OF MAP-MAKING A new conception of Avhat the Campaign for Christian Order of the i\cw Zealand National Council of Churches, and similar movements in Groat Britain and America,, are trying to do, is contained in a recent statement by the well-known writer, John Middleton Murry. Interpreted in the light of Hurry's statement, their efforts may be likened to the preliminary work that has to be carried cut by map-mak-ers. Murry says, "We cannot emphasise too strongly* that Christianity is an experimental religion. To my sense, it is because Christianity refuses to become an experimental religion that, by and large, it has no dynamic. It is, or should be, experimental in the world of conr duct. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom ol God . . Tlie Christian is required to plunge into the wilderness of life, as it were with a mere compassbearing, without a map. There have been Christian maps. When we speak ol a Christian civilisation, we mean a period when there was an accepted Christian map of human experience . "To-day, the Christian maps are out of dale. Nobody, travels J>y them. Christians' pretend to: and thai makes thein 'despised. Possibly a new Christian m;ip will bo drawn up: then Ihe re will be a new Christian -civilisation. But in tin- meanwhile, it must ])._• reeogni>rd thai, j Christianity has to become expe'ri- J mental agni a.s it was m its early ! cenVurles. We have to admit thai j we now have a compass-bearing but no niaii, and take the plunge snt' the wilderness, in the spirit ol' Blake's words, 'What is the price ol' experience? Do men buy it for a .song, or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price »-f all that a man hall!.*'"'