The Dominion SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1908. RELIGION AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 259, 25 July 1908, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1908. RELIGION AND POLITICS.

The growing indifference of the public towards religion during the last ton or twenty years has led to much searching of heart among the more earnest of tho clergy, and to the trial of one device after another in a not ovor-successful effort to bring tho. people into tho churches. The social sido of church iifo was first taken in hand, and developed by means of bazaars, conversaziones, and social clubs until in somo cases development no longer seemed possible or desirable, and the main result little more than association of religion with weak, tea, sentimentality, and chatter. Later camo a reaction in the form of tho " muscular Christianity," of which so much has been heard; athlotic clubs of one sort or another wero formed in connection with tho churcheß, and sermons were iillod with metaphors—not always accurately, om-l

ployed—taken from tho cricket and tho football field. Tho result has not been wholly satisfactory, for the impalpablo drift of current opinion, of which we ail Bomehow become vaguely sensible, does not flow towards the church. Using tho word in the broadest sense, one would not say that men were becoming less religious, but rather that present-day religion and dogma somehow fail to satisfy men's religious needs. The clergy themselves, it is true, are everywhere striving to bring Christianity into closer and more intimate touch with the actualities of the hour. This week in Wellington, for instance, wo have had the Council of Churches asking for a Labour representative to address it on " the attitude of Labour towards tho church, or on tho expectations of Labour from the church." The invitation shows a laudable desire to get at an understanding of the moral aspect of a current political movement, but there is nevertheless something curious in the spectaclo of ministers of the Gospel asking a secular organisation what course it expects the church to pursue.

Tho incident derives its significance from what is taking place elsewhero. In Great Britain tho Labour and Socialist gibes at the church as a " capitalistic institution " and so forth have had sufficient truth in them to stir many consciences. As a consequence there has arisen a.remarkable movement among the younger and more impetuous of the clergy for the church to throw in its lot with Socialism, or at any rate to attempt to capture the Socialist movement and make it an instrument for the regeneration of Christianity. This growing dissatisfaction with small aims, however mistaken its proposals, is one of the most interesting features of current religious thought. It shows that men are awakening to the fact, as someone has cleverly said, that in the last nineteen hundred years the world has done everything possible with Christianity except practise it. It has built cathedrals; ithas formulated creeds; it has sung hymns and said prayers; and then it has put away its Sunday clothes and gone down town to do its business and live its lite on almost as pagan principles asiever it did. Looking back over the history of Christianity we seo its Founder, a humble Syrian peasant, preaching a message of hope and comfort to the weak and the heavy-laden, and asking not for mental assent and veneration for the principles of Christianity, but for their practical application to tho varying circumstances of life. ' His followers went forth into the highways and byways, steadily gaining converts to the new system of living and organising Christian institutions. Almost as steadily tho tendency to confuse the institution with the thing for which it stands has grown up among men. To most people the religious man is not the man who is most unselfish in his conduct, most regardful of the rights and interests of others, and most unflinching in the demands ho makes upoii himself, but the man who sings so many psalms, attends so many church services, and puts so much money in the collection plato. Tho church has in many cases been so ready to set tho seal of its approval on the mere outward observer that a "good " man and a " religious" man have come to convey two quite distinct ideas to the man in the street. The working man, for instance, may have seen a man whom he knows to be ruthless and ■ unmorciful in his business dealings hold up to- the world as a model of piety by some religious institution. This, more than anything else, accounts for. the antagonism to religion shown by many Socialists. Socialism, erroneous as its methods arc, and self-seeking as some of its advocates may bo, is at bottom, as everybody recognises, inspired by a desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor and remedy some of the diseases from which civilisation .is suffering.

This is a noble object, and one with winch no right-thinking man will quarrel. The Socialist remedy we believe to be several times worso than the disease, but, even supposing it were all its advocates claimed, as the Socialist clergy in Great Britain appear to Relieve it to be, the interesting question arises, Can a church ally itself with any political party or platform whatsoever without spiritual loss? The church Btands for the fundamental principles of right and wrong, and the political party stands, or is supposed to stand, for some practical application of thoso principles to the needs of the hour. Our religious principles, or, to stato the samo thing in other words, our ideas of duty, will determine—let a penetrating enough analysis be made— whether, if wo are city councillors, it 1 is a fair thing to asphalt or merely gravel a particular footpath. And so with every other action in our lives. .Nevertheless, we should not call the asphalting a religious act, and tho laying of gravel an irreligious one, or vice versa. Nor will men of the samo religious principles be necessarily led to take the same view of tho application of them to any special set of facts. The work of the church is to determine tho attitude of tho individual towards life, and so indirectly influence the wholo course of history. Even our most enduring political institutions are but mere transitory applications of our ideas of right-living to the fleeting needs of an hour or a generation. Thero is as often as not no absolute Tightness or wrongness about them, and a church that identifies herself with some particular scheme of political ■ action is more likely to. narrow than extend the limits of her influenco.