Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 32, 10 December 1943, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Whakatmifc Ministers' Association).

BEGINNING WITH BELIEFS

By Fr nest JJ. .Jelfs

A lew days ago l, ; was talking to an 11. A. F. sergeant, the son of a Free. Church minister, lie said: "1 know many of our fellows seem pagans and atheists; but they're not. Ln the dormitory the other night we got talking al.ouc religion and prayer. One man sneered at the whole business; but another fellow —a man whom nobody would, call religious and who is certainly not a churchgoer challenged him with the question: 'Have you been on "ops" yet?. (''Ops means active service in the air against the enemy). 'No h I 1 haven't,' said the other. 'I thought not.' said the challenger. 'If you'd ever been on "'ops" 1 bet you'd have said your prayers.' And every man in the room who had been on 'ops' heartily supported him. Every one admitted that lie had prayed to God when he flew out to a possible sudden death." A woman friend has told me of a talk with a young woman whom she knew well—a girl brought up in a frivolous,, pleasure-loving, non-reli-gious circle. She has recently been | a little sobered by becoming the mother of an adored baby. "What do you do when there's an air raid?" asked my friend. "Oh, nothing. - ' was the answer. ''I just pray to God try to go to sleep.'' A distinguished ecclesiastic from overseas addressed a Press conference at which 1 was present last week. I took note of the eager interest. with which the London newspaper men —many of whom,, like Falstaff, have "forgotten what the inside of a church is like"—listened to his report of purely religious matters in his own country, and of how keen they were to know how his fellow-Churchmen viewed such things as Christian unity and the modern Christian conecrn for a better social ord.er. I have taiiied recently to young Service men about the easy view which many of them seem to take of sex matters in these, abnormal Lines. For the most part they freely admit their own laxity: but 1 June never found them ready to defend it seriously, or to speak otherwise than respectfully of comrades Who are loyal to the older standards— the Christian standards. They are not. guilty of "the lie in the soil."

NOT THE "WOOING NOTE"

On Ij' straws in the wind: but these small experiences have tended to confirm me. in my belief that the task of the Church, in the held' oi* evangelism, is not that of dealing

I'M Mill BELIEF

with men and women who do not Believe in God; it is the task of persuading men and women Avho do believe in God to make, the great cision of facing up to the consc-

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

quen.ce of their belief. In the last 'Anvil" broadcast a good deal was said about I Ik* urgent need to get back to a belief in the. .fundamental iiiws of Cod- the eternal difference between plain right and wrong. 1 believe the millions do already believe. in Hie fundamental laws of God-in man's bounden duty to be truthful., honest, honourable and decent. Ln their hearts they acknowledge God, and believe implicitly in tjie absolute, objective character of the. laws of God—when they think of the matter at all ; They do not think right-doing and wrong- £ doing are matters of taste —mere optional matters: though they 100 often act as it they did. What the Church has to do„ 1 suggest, is not to deal with these young people as if they had no religion. It is, rather,, to challenge them on the basis of. the religion vviiieh tin}' have, vague and ineffectual as it is; and,, beginning with their beliefs, not with their doubts, to show them a sufficient reason, insp.re them with a sufficient motive, for becoming real, serious;, practising Christians. How is that to be done? I am going to ofl'er two suggestions.

THEY BELIEVE: LET US HELP

First ("beginning with their beliefs"), 1 suggest that avc should nail these, young people down to their own professed belief that religion is fundamentally a matter of life and conduct. We are told over and over again that the more thoughtful of the younger x )eo P' e are well-disposed towards Christian it}' hut have "no use for the Churches." Why? There are several superficial reasons and one fundamental one. The fundamental one is tliis: consciously or unconsciously the younger people are hurt, jpuzzlcd., shaken in their incipient faith, by not seeing in the Churches that outstanding quality of life and conr duct which they truly revere, and which they themselves persist .in associating with the name of Christ. U is quite a mistake to think that young people will be attracted: to the Church by a lowering of the Church's standards. The Church is not too Christian for the young people; it is not Christian enough. Xo —I) withdraw that: I will not join in the vague and general criticism of tlie Church which is so common to-day. What I mean is that the Church gives young people the impression that it does not give life land conduct the. first place in religion. it seems to put religious observances lirst; or intellectual affirmations about God and Christ; or ihe interests of the Church as an institution. The lirst step in evangelism, in the case of the jyounjg men and women 1 have in mind, is to tell them that if they believe in goodness they already believe in God. The formulation of their creed Jiiay come afterwards..