CALL TO CHURCHES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1938, Page 7

CALL TO CHURCHES

GUARDIAN OF TRADITION. In the discipline of drastic experience men are discovering, as never before, what are the results of the neopagan world-view of demoralisation, misery and chaos; in the ruthlessness of pride, power and cruelty; in the insanity of competing armaments, in unemployment and in the divorce courts and the widespread sense of frustration and futility, writes Canon F. R. Barry in an article on the relation of the Church to everyday life. In this too familiar situation, the Church is called to resume its rightful leadership, in a radical criticism of Society, its ruling assumptions and its accepted values, and a reconstruction of men’s common life on enduring spiritual foundations. The opportunity of + he Church today is greater, and the demand more exacting, than it has been since the days of Diocletian. But in an age of violent transition Christian leadership can think no longer in terms of the old familiar securities. The Church is the guardian of the great tradition to which Europe must return or perish; and to witness to it before a generation which is cut adrift from all tradition is in itself a high and splendid service. But mere traditionalism is not enough. We cannot meet the needs of the world today without courageous and radical experiment; it is futile to go on quoting precedents for unprecedented situations.