JUST THOUGHTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 28, 23 September 1946, Page 6

JUST THOUGHTS

A STATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF We have pleasui’e in printing the following Statement which has been issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Rev. Dr. J. S. Whale, Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council. The signatories say in a preface:—

The following statement has been drawn up with a definite and limited purpose. It does not aim at providing a modern statement of the Christian faith expressive of all that Christians are united in holding; but there are now many fields in which the Christians of different denominations are co-operating, and the question is frequently asked whether there is any statement to which inquirers can be referred of the basis on which this co-operation takes place. Similar questons are raised in connection with education, as for example when the desire that all education should be Christian in quality is expressed, and is met by an inquiry wherein that Christian quality consists.

It is with this situation in view that the following statement has been drawn up and it is offered as, so to speak, an interim statement which has not been considered or endorsed by the authorities of either the Anglican or Free Church Communions, . but which is put forward to meet what is believed to be a real need. The following is the text of the Statement:— I. It is generally acknowledged that there is among our people—e.g., as gathered in military camps or elsewhere—widespread ignorance of what the Christian Faith is and failure to see it as an intelligible and coherent view of life. As a result of this, multitudes of people regard religion as irrelevant to the matters which must concern them. There is also without doubt a weakening of the specifically religious sense, with consequent neglect of worship and prayer. Besides this there are grave indications of decay with regard to some elementary moral standards, such as those of honesty. Christianity is not only a form of teaching about life but a source of power to live by that teaching. It points to a standard for the governing of all human relationships—- “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”—by conforming to which we could end the self-centredness that embitters life. We can all see that the Christian way is the right way. But we do not follow it. And when we try we find that we cannot.

But Christians believe—and thousands have verified the belief in experience—that in the fellowship of Christ’s disciples a Spirit is actively at work which enables them to live that way more and more perfectly. They find that this Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and that it works fully in that fellowship of His disciples in proportion as they seek fellowship not chiefly with one another but with Him. So they are led to study His life and death as recorded in the Gospels, where this is set before us not only as an event of history but as a final disclosure of % what God is and of the eternal purpose of righteousness which He is working out in history. In the Gospel the Biblical record of his redeeming activity of God reaches its consummation.

Thus they find in the whole Bible an interpretation of the world and its history which they try to work out both in thought (Chi'istian theology and philosophy) and in conduct (Christian living). The inspiration for both is found in worship, and in obedience to the other great commandment —“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.’” 11. With that background we proceed to offer in summary from an indication of what we are agreed in believing may be put forward as the basis of Christian co-operation in a variety of fields. WE BELIEVE—

That the world exists by the righteous will of the living God; that He is the one creator and ruler of all things; that this present world is the sphere in which His eternal purpose of life is being wrought out; that men have to do with Him, their only true life being a right relation to Him in obedience and trust, and to one another in love; that He makes men free personal beings able to choose good or evil; that man tends from birth to be self-centred and prone to choose evil, and that his selfcentredness becomes a curse from which he cannot by his own effort set himself free; that in this historical process which has gone wrong God Himself is nevertheless personally at work; the creator is

also the redeemer. WE BELIEVE— That God took hold of human history and individual human lives in a new way in the great act of the Incarnation; that the birth and life, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing less than God’s own redeeming presence and purpose actively manifested in historic time; that in Him God the Son became man; perfectly human yet without sin or self-centredness; that He lived among men disclosing in a human life that holy love which is

God’s nature, and that perfect filial relationship to the Father which is man’s true nature; that His death on the Cross makes plain for ever the meaning and measure of man’s sin as rebellion against God; that sin there wrote its own condemnation indelibly on the pages of history and was judged with absolute finality; that by bearing the full burden of its evil consequences the divine Redeemer showed not only the cost of our sin to God, but also, and in the same act, the eternal love of God which is willing to bear that cost; thereby He declared God’s forgiveness to those who repent and believe; that is, to those who give up their selfish outlook and receive the foregiveness which God freely offers. We believe that God set his seal upon this life and death of perfect obedience arid "perfect love by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, establishing within the corporate life of sinful humanity a creative centre of righteousness, and making altogether new spiritual possibilities for men living in this world. WE BELIEVE—

That God by His holy spirit makes the redeeming work of Christ available to all men; that by thus living and dying and rising from the dead Christ has become the means by which the Spirit of the living God exercises a new power over their hearts and wills; that God who as Spirit is ever active among men—speaking to them in all ages through their consciences and most specially through the prophets of Israel—is now known in all His fullness only in the experience of those whose hearts are open to His love in Christ; that is, those who are brought into the movement of God’s new creative work in history which is the fellowship of Christ’s disciples and is called the Church. Further, we believe that though God’s redeeming action embraces all humanity and will not disclose its full meaning until its victory is universal, the high ends of His Kingdom are nevertheless realised sacramentally here and now, and made visible in the life of the Church. Thus this present world, in spite of all its evil, is nevertheless a redeemed order, and man’s highest life both here and hereafter lies in the redeemed society whose life is even now “hid with Christ in God.” WE BELIEVE—

That the Kingdom of Heaven which Christ proclaimed and embodied will be known in its perfection only in the eternal life of which our life here is a preparatory portion, but that it is our duty to live here and now as citizens of that Kingdom; that God is at work in the world to ends which must of necessity transcend this world and all human experience here, but that we are called to work with Him in obedience, trust and love for the realisation of His purpose on earth. This means that we must seek God’s Kingdom and His justice, not our own interest or comfort, and try to make love of our neighbour the rule of all our actions. This we can do effectively only as we live within the redeemed order-, realising that this world of sin and death is still God’s world and that our fellowman is always the “brother for whom Christ died.” In short the creative centre of our effective moral action is the redeeming act of God who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.