EXTRAORDINARY IDEAS OF GOD

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1931, Page 6

EXTRAORDINARY IDEAS OF GOD

MISREPRESENTING CHRISTIANITY. LONDON. January 20. Presiding over the l pper Douse ot Convocation ol Canterbury last wees, the Bishop of London moved—“ That this lion so commends the Lam belli report on the Christian Doctrine ol Cod to the caret ill attention of the province.” lie was almost perpetually working as a missioner, he said, and lie was perfectly convinced that wliat lay at the bottom ot the indifference ami sometimes even hostility to religion was the extraordinary idea of Cod in the world to-day, especially among those who had never studied the subject at all. A common idea, about God was the result of old views about the Atonement. He believed that, the idea about Christ dying to appease an angry Father, which was extraordinarily current, and was a misrepresentation of the whole doctrine of Christ’s Atonement, was at the bottom of a great deal of Hie disbelief in and dislike of Christianity lull aw

There was among youth no great revolt. against religion, lint there was a sort of idea in the minds of young people that science had taken the place of religion, that the discoveries rega'prfing the great place of the universe had turned out religion and had made it rather out of date. They had to try to remove the misunderstandings about God which existed ill the world to-day. and he thought the report of the Lambeth Conference Committee on the Christian Doctrine o. (tod was most useful because it. did a great deal to meet the objections and difficulties in people’s minds. The report put before them a view of the Atonement, that could he held by every thinking man, and did away with half of the difficulties which the Atonement aroused in the old days

when a very crude doctrine was taught in tin.! Church. Instead of science taking the place of religion, Tie believed it was becoming a help to religion. and to his mind hooks like those written by Kir -James deans on “The Cuiverse Around I s” and “The .Mysterious Cuiverse,” made I h<> Incarnation more credible than il was before.