“Christianity Must Penetrate Politics” —Bishop Of London

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 57, 25 February 1949, Page 6

“Christianity Must Penetrate Politics” —Bishop Of London

(Contributed by the Ministers’ Association) A diagnosis of the modem situation was given recently in an address at Wolverhampton to a mass meeting of men held under the auspices of the Church of England Men’s Society by the Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. J. W. C. Wand, who said that Christianity had to penetrate politics everywhere. First, he said, reports the Church Times, men were in danger of suffering from a failure of nerve. Exhausted and anxious people were confronted with extraordinary difficulties in their everyday lives. The effects of the nervous exhaustion were seen in the breakdown of ordinary morality. A very large proportion of the population was not happy at home and the figure of fifty thousand divorces to be heard in the courts in one year, was a dreadful number.

Secondly, people had lost their sense of direction. Today, many people were asking: “Is life worth living at all?” An Admiral recently expressed his concern about many recruits. “But my dear chap, don’t you realise,” he was told, “that you are dealing with agnostics of the second generation?” If parents had no sense of direction in life, continued the Bishop, was it surprising that the children had no definite goal? In England there was a terrible lack of certainty about the great issues of life. No Sense Of Power

Thirdly, there was no sense of power. Even when people were beginning to get some sense of direction in life, they often gave up the struggle because they were without the power to achieve the end. Dr. Wand said the distinctive feature of primitive Christianity was power. People belonged to God; they became conscious of His power in their life, and learned to lean upon it.

If his diagnosis were right, said the Bishop, what steps could be taken to meet the situation? The C|E.M.S., he said, must get back to the original Gospel. People were influenced in every phase of life by slogans, and their slogan must be the “Kingdom of God.” The \Kingdom of God, said the Bishop, was the goal of history. It involved a definite judgment on everything they did. The Kingdom of God was absolute good, and it gave the answer to the question, ‘What is life' for? Its meaning was to usher in the final reign of good, and their lives were to be consecrated to bring the good to pass. The Kingdom of God was concerned with the perfect society in the world. Here the Bishop repudiated the view that Christianity should stand apart from politics. He could not agree with Christians who said, “Politics is a dirty business. You cannot touch pitch and, be undefiled.” In Germany, people had asked him why there was no Christian political party in England. He had replied that the whole of English history was wrapped up with the work done by Christians in almost every political party. Christianity had to penetrate politics everywhere.