Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1942. RELIGION AND POLITICS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1942. RELIGION AND POLITICS.

JN an address last evening—the third of a series in the Campaign for Christian Order —the Master of Knox College, Dunedin (the Rev 11. J. Ryburn, M.A., 8.D.), dealt in an openminded but perhaps somewhat inconclusive fashion with the subject of the relationship of the Christian Church to politics. In spite of the fact, amongst others, that Christian unity is an ideal yet to be realised, Mr Ryburn expressed an opinion likely to be supported widely when he said that unless the Christian faith

has a direct relevance to the problems of practical life, and by that I mean not merely our private and personal problems, but also tne problems of our social existence, that faith will not long suivive as a living religion. If the Christian faith has nothing to say about politics it will have nothing worth while to say about anything.

This is a declaration at once explicit and challenging, but the note of challenge was watered down considerably in. Air Ryburn’s further statement that, since it was on moral aspects Hie church was bound to speak, what it had to say about political, questions would usually be of a general character. It will, 01. course, be agreed that the church must stand above party or sectional interests and that this sets limits to its pronouncement of moral, verdicts as a central and organised authority. On the other hand, in its inculcation of the Christian faith and of the principles based on that faith, the church is or should be capable of exercising an indefinitely extending influence in politics.

Stating that if the church believes that government is a. God-given task she must believe that political life is an honourable calling, demanding the very highest mental and moral qualities. Air Ryburn maintained that the church can have no part in “that popular, tolerant contempt for the politicians.” ’With this there should he agreement to the extent at least of its being recognised that blame for any shortcomings in our political representation must be ascribed rather to the electors than to those whom they elect.

It is obvious, indeed, to any dispassionate observer that the action, of the Government and Parliament in this country, and in similar democracies, and the standards set in policy and administration, are determined largely by the effective pressure of public opinion, not only at election time, but at any time. It is true also, however, that public apathy and indifference too often give unimpeded play to the assertion of sectional interests and allow them to acquire a false value and. an. importance to which they are not entitled on their merits, with results highly detrimental to the national interest.

In these elementary facts of our political life the part that might be played by the Christian church, or by the Christian fellowship on. the broadest basis on. which it can be developed, is defined plainly. Fundamentally, the moral strength or weakness of a democracy is in the quality and outlook of its rank and file citizens—the people who go to the polls. In the extent to which the people who make and unmake Parliaments and governments can be awakened to a more enlightened and alert championship of sound moral, principles, political standards- will be raised and the treatment of all national and international problems will, be simplified. Here, at the roots of political life, it is open to the Christian church to exercise an influence to which there can be no question of setting limits.