Synods and Results

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 52, 24 November 1937, Page 7

Synods and Results

AGDR.

■ i. Sir, — In the various reports published in the papers of the proceedings of the numerous Synods, Assemblies and Conferenceg lately held by the different Churclies, one is struck by the absence of any real note of conviction "on the subjects discussed, and thero is certainly no leadership. This is especially noticable in the questions of, birthcontrol, divorce, and abortion. On the matter, of birth-control, one reverend gentleman said it was as old as Adam, and seemed to be conibent to leave ijb at that. He miglit have been reminded that stealing fruit was also as old as Adam, but that scarcely justifi?s a man robbing his neighbour's orcliard. About ali that appears to have been done was to pass resolutions urgmg the Government to take action to improve things, looking to them to do what they themselves have not sufficient vision to do; foi'getting that spiritual maladies cannot be cured by secular remedies. Their call on politicians for help is like -yoking bullocks to the Ark of God, which was meant to be borne on the shoulders of the priests. Until the Churches xediscover the truth that only divine methods can be of any avail in these decadent and critical times, and wholeheartedly return to those methods, leaving politics to the politicians, political economy to. economists, psychology to the psychoiogists, and theatricals to the theatres, and realise that only the Gospel faithfully preached "is the power of God untb salvation to everyone that believeth," and being fully persuaded of that, in their own conscience, declare" it unashamedly in their pulpits, and b© content in their preacliing at least, to copy St. Baul and "know nothing but Christ Jesus and Him orucified," things will continue to go from bad to worse. Not until the Churches themselves in the persons of their ministers- return to the Christianity of Canon Liddon, of Spurgeon, and of Moody, and in their sermons exalt Christ, giving Him His rightful place in their theolog-y as these great preachers did, can they hopo_ to do any real good, or have any influence on the trend' of events. "We are told that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and anyone listening to the vapid talk oh some question of the hour that does. duty for a sermon now-a-days, as absent of insight as it is of Christ and Christianity, can be excused for feeling that the heart of such a preacher is full to abundance of everything but what one has a right to expect to find there. When Exasmus aud Dean Colet of St. Paul's took theix walks together iji London, their main subject of conversation was Christ. To them He was truly "chiefest among ten thousand." Is it any exaggeration to say, tWo of their modern counterparts under similar circumstances would be much more likely to discuss psychology or some other fashionable pseudo-science ? ,If one can judge by the subjects they choose for "sermons" the iatter is the more likely topic, Where in one of chese discourses could one find, for instance, such a sentence glowing with spiritual fervour as the following from Canon Liddon: "Detach Christianity from Christ and it vanishes before your eyes into intellectual vapour. For it. is • the essence- of Christianity that, day by day hour by "hour, the Christian should live in conscious, felt, sustained relationship to the ever-living Author of his creed and of his life. Christianity is non-existent apart froni Christ; ft centr.es in Christ ; it radiates now as at first from Christ . . . it perishes outriglit when men. attempt to abstract it from the Living Version of its Founder. He is felb by His people to be their Living God really present with them now . . . Christ is the quickenmg Spirit of Christian hUmanity. He lives in Christians; He thinks in Chnstians ; He is indissolubly assdciated with every movement of tha Christian' s life . . . This felt presence of Christ it is which gives both its form and its force to the sincere Cliristian life. That life is a loyal homage of the intellect, of the heart, and of .the will- to a Divine King." Not until we See m our pulpits more evidence than we do see of that "loyal homage of the intellect, of. the heart, and of the will" to that Divine King, Whose Authority is openly flouted in the world to-day, can there be any hope of persuading the world that "His message is to'be received upon pain of eternal loss, and that in receiving it men are to give themselves up to Him simply and unreservedly," and that "the work o£ Jesus Christ is not merely a fact of history ; it is a faet, blessed be God,, of individual experience and "if tlie world is one sceue of His conquests, the soul of each true Christian is another" (Canon Liddon). — Yours, efco.,

Waipawa, Nov. 22, 1937.