IN DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1929, Page 13

IN DEFENCE

THE EXTRA SERVICE

CANON JAMES KEPLIES

I "It was reported in yesterday's 'Evening Post'," .remarked Canon James this morning, "that on Sunday last the Key. D. C. Herron, of St. David's Presbyterian Church, Auckland, made- a gratuitous attack upon me, because of my intention to introduce at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, in addition to all the regular Sunday services, an extra early service, not the earliest of the day, but at a time convenient to a large number of people who do not come to church at present. Many of these, I am convinced, are utterly unable to come at 11 a.m.

. "It is deplorable that a minister of another denomination, in his haste to interfere, should display such a spirit, tho very spirit that is thwarting the efforts of men of goodwill towards reunion.

"It is even more deplorable that Mr. Herron should deliberately choose, for his avowed purpose of attack, a text of Scripture, and wrest it violently from its context. Reference to the 44th chapter of Isaiah will show immediately that the meaning of tho passage is that -idolatry is irrational. But Mr. Herron chose to misinterpret it as a denunciation of those who 'insult God by offering only that which was left over after their own selfish interests had been satisfied'—in this case those who will attend the extra service. There is no such meaning or implication in this passage. For the minister of one of the chief Presbyterian Churches in the Dominion, in a sermon addressed particularly to young people, to descend to such a grotesque distortion of Holy Scripture, seems a desperate expedient, not likely to commend to the more thoughtful young people iho church-going which we both <ilikc desire to foster.

"Lot us try to understand Mr. Her-j ron. Ho said, 'To ]ivo the Christian life was just the very antithesis of the spirit suggested by dropping into church in. sporting attire on the way to the tennis courts or the golf links.' Noto tho question-begging phrase, 'dropping into church.' Moreover, it might be thought that a more violent antithesis was to spend the whole day on the tennis courts or golf links, without coming to church at all. But what Mr. Horron means is this: You display the Christian spirit and niako a' worthy offering to God, if you come to church at 11 a.m., in conventional Sunday attire, for a longer service, mainly occupied in listening to a discourse which,'if Mr. Herron's is typical, consists partly of a quaint exegesis of Holy Scripture, and partly of a denunciation of some person or persona absent. But if you come to church at 9.30 a.m., in comfortable summer attire, for a shorter service, which will mainly consist in the offering of your own worship, with a .brief sermon to direct that common worship, then you insult God by an unworthy offering, and display the very antithesis of the Christian spirit. "My contention is this: I am not attempting to discuss bow, much less to decide, the difficult question of Sunday recreation. But I definitely refuse to assume that none of those who are accustomed to spend a large part of Sunday in open-air recreation wish to come to church as well. On the contrary, I believe that many of these people havo a real religion, and that they are not unwilling to become church-goers, if we give them- a reasonable opportunity. I believe that they would bo glad to begin their Sunday aright with its primary duty and privilege; and "would be much happier and perhaps better for it. I .find amongst '.hese people, some of the very best, and most serviceable of our fel-low-citizens. I maintain that w« are bound to do all that in us lie 3to win them into the fellowship of the church for the fuller service of the Kingdom of God. '

"How are we to understand Mr. Her■ron? In a certain recent controversy he appeared as a champion of the rights f of the individual conscience, he shows little or no respect for tho, consciences of a great body of docent men and women, many of whom are doing as much as he does for the •Kingdom of Christ, and certainly appear to display' more of the Christian spirit of goodwill and tolerance. Their conscienco approves the spending of part of Sunday in open-air recreation but Mr. Herron scourges them with wholesale denunciation as pursuing ; purely worldly and selfish or utilitarian aims.'

Recently Dr. Gore has described the worse side of the Pharisees in our Lord's day as 'their formalism and legalism, their self-importance, their unnatural straining of the meaning of the Scriptures. If the common people in their hurried and toilsome lives could not, or would not, observe their cordinT > law'"'th°Jr. despised them ae"The modern Pharisee, like hia prototype, with the best intentions, is the worst enemy of true religion."