CHURCH CONGRESS

Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1928, Page 5

CHURCH CONGRESS

A BISHOP’S SERMON. — r (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (Received this day at 11.25. a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 2. The'Bishop of Durham, preaching at the opening of the Church Congress, said the most optimistic must admit that England to-day had reproduced the conditions preceding the revolt against Christianity in the 18th. century in France and Russia. Peasants were indifferent and town dwellers were disaffected. The middle class people sentimentally were agnostic, while the intelligentsia were largely antiChristian. The wealthy self indulgent materialistic in Britain were apparently living on the inherited capital of Christian morality, which was steadily waning, and resulting in many being content with a ohurchless, creedless , Christianity. English politics were pursuing facilitation for divorce and the de-Christianisation of schools, while the pillars of sex morality on which Christendom hitherto rested, namely, the permanence of marriage under divine law and the production of children, was being removed, owing to the licentious theories which were largely accepted in Europe. The Anglican Church must vindicate its character as the Church of'Christ. - .