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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 240, 10 April 1912, Page 4

CHURCHES AND PEOPLE. It is noted with a good deal of sadness that some of the churches continue to wrangle a lot about unessentials. There are so many noble things to be done, so many vital reforms to be secured, so much physieal wrong to be righted, that squabbles about dogma, about church law, about church convention seem specially futile and a waste of time. In Australia a bitter controversy has taken place about a material hell. No living man can get near the solution of the point at issue and humanity is concerned at the present more with the things it knows by everyday contact. In Christchurch the religion is obviously of the old pattern. People there are quarrelling about a ritualistic cleric. It is not a question of a man's heart, a man's mind, a man's deeds, but a question of his professions. It may be justly held that many churches are more concerned with unessentials than human everyday needs, and it is because of this that so many religionists lose grip. . Bishop Julius rebuked the people of St. Alban's for stirring up strife. It is only by rebuke and by example inside the churches themselves that they may be reformed into organisations for the true benefit of humanity. It is, therefore, gratifying that eminent churchmen recognise the weaknesses of the churches. Dr. Gore, Bishop of Oxford, lately made this remark: "If you- want to get social reform you have to go to every kind of atheist and nonconformist and every other kind of person. If you go to churchmen, you are confronted with many difficulties." Christianity has many social obligations which are quite distinct from mere obi servance of set rules and the periodical habit of meeting for words, not deeds. As the Bishop of Oxford said, it is astonishing to note the refusal of the great mass of church people to recognise their social duties. The churchman may argue that the Leader of Christianity was not a social reformer and that it is therefore no business .of the churches to work for social reform, but the whole basis of Christianity is brotherhood—not the brotherhood of a few members of a certain sect conforming to a dogmatic programme, but the brotherhood that means fraternity between all sects and all kinds for the general good. It is no business of the churches to hold aloof from the great problem of labor, because the great mass of workers are not churchmen, nor is it the business of a churchman to assume a Superiority over a human being because he does not conform to a cut-and-dried dogma. The miseries of humanity are not minimised by a wild dissertation on hell, nor is the situation relieved by a quarrel about ritualism, or a correct attitude on the Sabbath. Unfortunately, much of the influence of the churches is wholly disciplinary and not curative. The study of humanity leads to better results than the study of theology; the statesman who relieves the pressure from a burdened class of people does more good than the learned writer who introduces a new theology. Practice and not precepts, deeds not words, work not assertion, are what the old earth wants. The earth is filled with people. The people ask for bread. Too often the churches give them the theological stone to masticate when a material loaf is wanted.