REAL RELIGION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5186, 3 October 1927, Page 4

REAL RELIGION.

WHAT IS IT.

CANON ADDERLEY’S ANSWER. “But what will happen when we do really awake ? Shall we, find ourselves more religious' or less ? Will our religiousness be of the old type or of a nqw one ?" Canon Adderley was asked by the Yorkshire Observer, Canon Adderley paused for a moment and went on: “My answer to these questions would be that I believe we shall be more religious, though less inclined to orthodoxy. We shall be less institutional and more ethical. The 'numbers of religious people attached to a definite denomination will ba less. Just as in the East there is a new kind of Christianity growing up of a vague character, so there will be here and alreadv is.

“This vague Christianity consists in professed admiration for the person of Christ without definng His relationhip to G)d. It is content to think He was very good and loving and merciful. It believes that. Christianity consists in carrying out His directions, whch can be gathered apparently more easily from the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables than among orthodox people. “If people are religious they are inclined to be practical about it and to do work of some kind as a result. The popular doctrines, so far as th&re are any, .are the doctrines of Christian Socialism—the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, the Kingdom of God on earth, and so on. “Religious hypocrisy has z been laughed out of court. Now, these popular doctrines of the Kingdom of God, etc., will, to my mind, be the ultimate saving of religion. Once get them into the orthodox and institutional church mind and they* will give it life. “I do not think it. is a question of numbers. If any onej sect got a large predominance in numbers it would not mean that England was more religious. ■ Real religion is independent of sects. It is a spirit that pervades society, all sects and none. “You cannot tell whencq it bpmeth and whither it gdeth. God is Spirit and God is Love. The' real question you ask me is: “Is there more love in England, than there was ?” and, unsatisfactory as it may seem, I cannot say.”