FAITH AND OBSERVANCE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 172, 7 August 1937, Page 14

FAITH AND OBSERVANCE

a Ministor).

(By

There was a day, m rny earliest ministry, when 1 was not in fullest ac- ! cord with the beliefs oi: my Ghurch. ' In a mild way I was a bit of a heretic;

and within the great charities and forbearances our Church extends to young men in our ministrj', I was criticised. I was iu the position of not believing as much as the Church I belonged to. There is a sense in which that is as- it should be. The Church in its fuller experience ought to stand for more than any one partieular member finds or shares. , The years have brought me some wisdom. I have seen through those early heresies, tested them in the severe way of life, and I am to-day ne irer the massive beliefs of the Church of the ages, nearer those things eredaliy expfesesd at Nicea. But as I draw closer to the characteristic beliefs of Christianity, to those beliefs that distinguish it from other forms of thought, as I acknowledge, and to a degree, experience, the sheer supernaturalism of the Christian faith, I find myself believing more than my Church, anyway, more than my Ohureh authoritatively announces and bodly proclaims. As a minister, I may be aecused of 1 lieving too little and preaching too litle. But no living Church, that is able to minister in fullest measure to ihe varied needs of varied members, can accuse its mipister of believing too much of the truly at tested Christian faith. Many of our people, many of our officebearers, not having given any great thought to the matter, not perhaps having been taught much through the pulpit of the definite Christian faith, having been affected maybe by the popular writing of non-Christian .iournalists, novelists, and the like, or by the things that are in the air of doubt and uncertainty, do not know where they are. That I can understand, and with that I do sympathise. What I do obje'ct to is the assumption that others, who have been more fortunate in being able to retain or attain confidence in fullest Christianity, don't know where they are, or, Tather, that they are in the wrong place as leaders of vthe Church. As I xeview the criticisms of these days from within the Church there are lines common to them all, whether it be criticism of precise evangelism, or of the emphasis upon the nat. re of the Church, the ministry, the Sacranients, or private devotions. I think I can detect in them all a certain timidity touching the supernatural in Christanity, a stammer on thc tongue regarding the miraculous nature of Christianity, and its other worldly emphasis. Christianity is not merely the Sermon on the Mount, with its rather eccentrie ' commands — impossible comniands, most people feel* who look# at them from without. It is, not an appeal for ispacious goodwdll toucLed with idealism.| It is not just one of a buuch of spiritual religions, from old Eastern beljefs to latest New Thought Movements. It is not belief that somewhore there reign serenity and peace, a world of light and love to which we rnust cldmb with slow and painful step, and when we arrive the Kingdom of Heaven has come. It is not best deseribed as cmergent good — a word that at its best may be descriptive but is certainly not oxplanatory, and certainly does not dcseribe Christianity — but as condescemling grace; not a magnet of attraction, but an arm of deliverance. It is a belief that. in Jesus Christ, God broke in upon this time process with a new creation, broke in with >1 power focussed in the personality ot •fesus Christ, a power that expressed a purpose of God to begin a new order of life on a different and infiniteiy higher level than the world had evor known, predestined fronx the ages, and in the fulness of time deelared. And it is all given. Man could neither have craeted it nor discovered it for himself; and the power of it, the life of it is to be media'ted through the fellowship created by Him, the fellowship that exists for Him, and only for Him — in other words, through His Church. Surely, iu a word, that is the centrul truth of Christianity. • m 9 Now, if you can accept that asfonishing event — to put it vulgarly, if you can swallow that — the subsidiary beliefs , touching the meaning, and office of the Church. of Saeraments and the rest, though not inevitable, are congruous expressions of this supernatural thing. Therefore, I say that it ought not to be possiblo for me to believe too much in tliese things. The Divine character of the Church, the supernatural grace of the Sa/crament, the oifico of the ministry — these are not hard for me to believe, are no strain upon my faith. The strain came earlier when I had to bring myself to believe in the real Incarnation of God. The rest, for me, is just the extension in time and spaco of the stupendous act of the Incarnation.