IDEALS OF LIBERTY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1939, Page 6

IDEALS OF LIBERTY

ADDRESS TO NEW METHODIST MINISTERS. PULPIT AS BATTLEGROUND. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. “The pulpit is one of the few places today where we have freedom of speech,” said the Rev. P. R. Paris, of Wellington, past president of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, in an address to newly ordained ministers of the church at the annual conference. Mr Paris said that the radio, Press and cinema were ail censored. “The pulpit may be the last battleground on which will be fought out the coming struggle for liberty of speech, liberty of worship and liberty of life in the struggle between totalitarian man and the totalitarian State, between Christ and Caesar,” continued Mr Paris. He urged ministers to speak out on the great issues and evils of the day. "Do not be a smoke screen,” he said. "In speaking the truth in Christ you must do it with simplicity, clarity and urgency. You may thus become very unpopular in seeking to apply the teaching of Jesus to every department of life. You may offend some people and they may leave the church because you bring the standards and spirit of Jesus to bear upon the worlds of business and politics. You may be told that you are exceeding the terms of your commission. Do not worry. The prophets have always been stoned. # You are not chosen and ordained to please people, or to fill churches, or to raise money, but to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”