CIVIL ÜBERTIES AND CHURCH

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28262, 27 April 1957, Page 12

CIVIL ÜBERTIES AND CHURCH

Minister’s Advice To Christians

“Too often Christians declare that the Western democracy Should be armed to defend Christianity against the menace of godless Communism,” the Rev. M. W. Wilson, retiring president of the Canterbury Council for Civil Liberties, told the annual meeting of the council last night. “Too often they demand that the State should suppress the expression of atheistic opinions; and when Christians speak this way they are contradicting the teaching of Christ,” he said. Men and women could only become Christians and stay Christians if they claimed and used freedom of thought and speech, he continued. “In other words, men and women can become true human persons only when they claim and use liberty of thought and speech. Too often the State’s assistance was sought by Christians, because of weakness of faith, to repress what they feared would threaten the institution of the Church and the truth for which the Church existed to tell all men. But neither the Church as an institution, nor the truth, of which the Church was custodian, could be preserved by the sword he said. There were inconsistencies in Christian champions of liberty, but Christians in Germany had resisted the tyranny of Hitler declaring that they must obey God tt h . er , an man ’ he said- In the United States, Christians were among the first to oppose “the monstrous power held by Me-

Officers elected by the meeting were.—president. Professor A. N Pnor; vice-president, the Rev. M. wr. : honorary secretary, M. W t^?w e “^ erg .i cominittee ' Mrs Messrs P. H. T. G ’ and H - G - Kilpatrick. and Dr. W. Metcalf.