CHURCH AND STATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1920, Page 6

CHURCH AND STATE.

WHAT IS THE RELATION? VIEWS OF THE REV. T. W. OURRIE. "What is the relation between the State and the Church?" asked the Rev. S. W. Currie, M.A., the newly-eleeted Moderator of the Presbyterian Assembly iu the course of his address. "The field opens out most invitingly to anyone who is at all fairly conversant with Church history," he said. "Is the State supreme? Is the Church 1 supreme? Have they practically nothing to do with each other? We know the answer of the Roman Catholic Church, or, over against that, of the Anglican Church. We would like to see our kings and queens devout followers of Christ. We would like to see our legislators, and magistrates, and all in authority, men of the same type; for then, beyond question, the Kingdom of God on earth would become a greater power in the land. But to demand this is not a practical demand. We see things so differently; while to impose religious tests, as our forefathers would have done, is a very sure way of making hypocrites. We must, as I see it—and as I saw it forty years ago and over, when I broke from the Covenanting Church, the church of my fathers—take no facts as they are, and enter heartily into the polities of our country, and if voluntaryism is the price to be paid for the surrender of Covenanting principles, well, let it be. As individuals we can do much to guide the destinies of the nation, and to create and faster worthy ideals for our national life. And that we have to do. We have no faith in the policy that would make politics merely secular, and designate those interested in politics as mere worldlings. THE CRIME OF INDIFFERENCE. "To look askance at the polling booth, to be indifferent and do nothing, is a great wrong; and for Christian men and women to act in that way is to stay the progress of the rule of God. I would put it strongly, and say, with a certain newspaper editor, 'Political indifference is public crime.' We may, indeed, expect too much from legislation, but we may easily expect too little. It is often a buttress to right living, making it easy, as Gladstone used to put it, to do right and difficult to do wrong. And here unwelcome conclusions follow —at least for me; for, as I see it, it is to our shame that, as a great Church, and especially with allios in sister churches, we are so bereft of power when we tackle, as we are always, in our somewhat nerveless way, tackling, the great problems of drink and gambling, of Bible-reading in schools, and just now of the law of marriage and divorce. 'Political indifference is public crime.' As Christian men and women we have to awaken the conscience of the public on these vital matters, to carry our convictions to the ballot-box, and, not least, to send to Parliament men of good character, of clear vision of loyalty to principle. So woYild politics be made sacred, and, I might also add, safe. Here is the Church's work—not to formulate a political programme, but to fit men for these high tasks, and to create such a moral and religious atmosphere in the nation that log-rolling, and jobbery, and the sinking of convictions, and an unworthy expediency will come, and speedily, to an end.