Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 72, 14 May 1943, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Whakatane Ministers' Association)

RELIGION AND NATIONAL LIFE

This article, which we reprint, from 'lie London "Times," has opposite inference, our own problems in Xew Zealand. Among the incidental results of the evacuation scheme has been the discovery that large numbers of town children are being brought, up With 110 religious knowledge at all. Last Christmas, to take one example typical of many, a country parson asked a class of evacuated children, with an average age of twelve,, Avhy We keep Christmas, and who was born on the. first Christmas Day. Of those thirty-one children, nineteen did not know the answer. 'Further questions showed that they knew absolutely nothing of the Bible, and had never been taught to pray. Unquestionably, the. religious instruction given in many schools,, both elementary and secondary, both provided and noil-pro-vided, is quite excellent. Yet this does not alter the grim fact that in '» country professedly Christian, and a country which, at the moment is its all in defence of Christian principles, there is a system <>f national education which allows the citizens of the future, to have a purely heathen upbringing. The common argument that while -lie provision and supervision of "education" must be the business <)f the State, "religious instruction" must be considered as altgether the affair of the Churches, is not. only worthless but mischievous. It is mischievous because it encourages the fallacy that essential education can be completed by secular instruction alone, and. that the teaching of religion is merely a kind, of optional "supplement. The truth, of course, is that religion must form the very basis of any education worth the name, and that education with religion omitted is not really education at all. Yet, in some of' the schools provided by the State, there is no religious teaching. In some of the secondary schools it is supplied for the junior pupils only,, and dropped as a subject" comparatively unimportant, when they reach the upper forms. Under the system governing the elementary schools it is treated, as a subsidiary subject, to be disposed of in a preliminary halfhour before, the real work of the day begins. In every other subject the educational authority rightly demands a high standard, of competence from its teachers. But if those who give religious instruction have had no training for the work, or if a head teacher is openly antagonistic to Christianity, the State regards such matters as outside its purview, and does not interfere. While it maintains that the teaching of religion should be 2eft mainly to the Churches, it Avill only admit representatives of the Churches exceptionally and under severe re-

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

strictions to teach religion in its Again and again, tlic odious fallacy recurs lliat education is one tiling and religious instruction quite, another. It is a right purpose of national education to produce men and women with healthy bodies and intelligent minds, and the immen.se sums devoted to this purpose are well soent. Yet the highest educational aim is to produce good. citizens. The basis of good citizenship is character, and a man's character depends upon his beliefs. How, then, can tlic State afford to ignore these simple truths, and to view the teaching of religion as a task with which it lias no direct concern ? Meanwhile, the Churches have done, and are doing their utmost to check the decay of relvgious 1 knowledge, which leads necessarily to the decline of religion itself. War-time conditions have: provided them Avith some new opportunities, which they have been swift to use. Yet if the war has emphasised the deficiencies of. cfur present educational system, something more than war-time expedients will be needed to remedy them. More, than before it has become ciear that the healthy life of a nation must be based, on spiritual principles. For many years we have been living on spiritual capital, on traditions inherited from the past, instead of providing for the future. Christianity cannot be imbibed from the air. It is. not a philosophy but a historic religion, which must dwindle unless the facts upon which it is founded are taught, and .such teaching made the centre, of our educational system. It is upon -such lines, with a bold disregard of obsolete controversies, that our State scheme of education needs to be recast. The highest of all knowledge must be given frankly the highest of ail places in the training of young citizens. It. will be of little j use to fight, as we are fighting today,. for the preservation of. Christian principles if Christianity itself is to have no future, or at immense cost to safeguard religion against attack from without if we allow it to be starved by neglect from within.

"THE LORD BLESS THEE'' With the gladness that knoweth no decay Witli. the riches that cannot pass away Witli the, sunshine that raakes- an endless clay Thus may He 1)1 ess thee And keep Thee With the all covering shadow of His "\vings With the strong love that guards from evil things With the sure power that safe to glory brings "Thus may He keep thee."