Bishop’s Tribute To Bishop

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 14

Bishop’s Tribute To Bishop

A tribute to the retiring Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren) was paid by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch (the Most Rev. B. P. Ashby) at the monthly tattoo of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association Tin Hat Club last evening. Bishop Warren was chairman , of the tattoo at which Bishop Ashby was the guest speaker. Bishop Ashby said the occasion marked another point in the ecumenical activity. It was significant news that both he and Bishop Warren could be intimately associated on such an occasion. “The fact that Bishop Warren has found time on the eve of his retirement to be present tonight is a mark of his personal graciousness and friendship to me,” he said. He said that Bishop Warren was the answer to the question posed in the title: ■ of his address, “Has the ! Church a Message for thei Modern World?” He had led<

the Anglican Church with dignity and generosity of spirit and had made a tremendous contribution to the civic and community life of Christchurch.

“He has nuide every effort to preserve the Christian values which are his heritage as a churchman,” he said. “Bishop Warren has been, and always will be, thorough evidence of the worth of Christian virtues.” Bishop Ashby said the present struggle of the Christian church was to dress up its perennial teaching in modem dress in keeping with the present world. There was saddening evidence that the church was not making an impact on tiie world. “Many New Zealanders have become carriage Christians. They are carried to church in a cot for their christening, carried in a taxi for their wedding, and carried in a hearse when they die. They see no need for a church-going Christianity,” he said. In the Afro-Asian countries Christianity was making little progress in the face of the old-established religions.

Bishop Ashby spoke of the “de-Christianising influences” which had been at work. Be-

[ginning with the Renaissance, he said human values began to be upheld at the expense of the eternal. “The architects of the French Revolution gave a philosophy of life that man should not accept the mystery of God or the mystery of revealed truth. In the so-called Christian countries this was disastrous to churchrgoing." He said the church leaders were not prepared to find out what was going on by looking at the temporal needs of the people. “The Industrial Revolution produced a non-church society which has reached full flowering in our time with a “technological culture.’ “Man has made something of a goddess of science. Two world wars have shown that science is a very fickle goddess, developing means of war and destruction, on the one hand, and creature comfort, on the other. “This type of culture would seem to need no help from Christianity, and, indeed, to leave it on the flanks of the mainstream of human progress. We see today reflected everywhere an uneasy scepticism of everything beyond our experience.” I Bishop Ashby said that even modern education was geared

to the needs of science and had had to down-grade the liberal arts. “In the great issues of our {time the voice of the church, if heard at all, has been weak, tardy or irrelevant. It has been left to others to blaze the trail where the church should have been.” He said that on the brighter side there was the fact that the creation of the world was God's doing and that he had charge of it God became man to redeem the world and everything in it, and He guairanteed the mission of the church in every age. ! “In every age of history the church is Christ serving man. We can stand firm on the relevance of the church ,in our age.

“Here in the community of Christchurch and beyond, the church has traditionally spearheaded so many worthwhile efforts. Many have since been taken over by the State. “Our common pastoral experience has been that when a crisis hits people they turn to God and their church. There are needs of the human [spirit which can only be filled by faith in God. “The opportunity of being able to satisfy this need and minister to the needs of their faith is the job of the church,” 1 Bishop Ashby said.