CHURCH & POLITICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1942, Page 4

CHURCH & POLITICS

THE CHRISTIAN ORDER CAMPAIGN ADDRESS BY THE REV H. J. RYBURN. EDUCATIONAL & OTHER ISSUES. The question as to whether the Church has any authority to speak about politics, and if so, what it has to say. was discussed by the Rev H .J. Ryburn, M.A., 8.D., Master of Knox College, in the Dunedin Town Hall last evening, at the third in the series of broadcast public meetings in the Campaign for Christian Order. ■ “What About Politics?” was the title of Mr Ryburn’s address. There was. he said, a strong feeling that the church should mind her own business and not meddle in politics. But what was the Church’s business? “I doubt very much if we shall readily accept the statement that the Christian faith has to do merely with a life after death,” he continued, “unless it has a direct relevance to the problems of practical life, and by that I mean not merely out private and personal problems, but also the nroblems of our social existence. that faith will not long survive as a living religion. If the Christian faith has nothing to say about politics it will have nothing worth while to say about anything.” At the same time, it had to be made clear that the church, as distinct from individual Christian citizens, was not concerned with the technical side of political questions: it was on the moral aspects that she was bound to speak if she took her duty seriously. So what the church had to say about politics would usually be of a general nature. Having postulated general principles she must leave their working out largely to those entrusted with the task. Therefore she must stand above party or sectional interests, because she belonged to them all.

LOYALTY TO THE STATE.

It also had to be made clear that lhe church believed in government, for there could be no stable society without law and order, and whatever criticism the church might feel bound Lo make about particular policies, she must remain fundamentally loyal to the State. “Furthermore if the church believe that government is a Godgiven task, she must believe the political life is an honourable calling, demanding the very highest mental and moral qualities,” said Mr Ryburn. “The church can have no part in that popular, tolerant contempt for the politicians. . . . Let there be no mistake about this. Where government is held in contempt, the seeds of decay are already germinating in the body politic.” , , Yet all these statements needed a fundamental modification, continued Mr Ryburn. While the church believed in government and owed loyalty to the State, she also believed that above the authority of every State, no matter how powerful, stood the authority of Almighty God. Most emphatically the church did not believe in an absolute State. “For this reason, if for no other,” he added, “I believe that the church is bound to endorse and to support the implacable opposition of our own nation and her allies to lhe Axis Powers. . . . But the tendency to exalt the State into m end in itself and to a position t v, at .is above the moral law is not something to be found merely among the Axis Powers. It is a tendency which menaces all government, and a danger against which the Christian must always be on guard. With the dogma My country .right or wrong’ the Christian can have nothing to do. The truest patriotism is that which, while it honours the King, fears God first. For this reason, the church will always claim the right to criticise the State in the light of her understanding of the law of God. . . Where the right of criticism is lost the way is paved for totalitarian tyranny. The church can thus never view with equanimity any attempt, by the State to monopolise the means of education and propaganda.”

PEACE & SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

Dealing briefly with specific spheres in which in his opinion the church has, or should have, something to say, Mr Ryburn said that she must stand for international law and the abolition of war. The sovereignty of the State must be curbed and restricted in order to promote international order and world peace. How this was to be done was not for the church as such to decide, but it was an ideal the church must always support. In the second place, the church had something to say about unemployment and work. Any social system which permitted idleness in one section of the community, which imposed it on another, while it overworked a third, was a wrong system and should be amended. How this was to be done was largely a matter of practical- or technical politics and again outside the sphere of the church as such. But there was one thing to be said by the church, especially at this time: “A stable society can never be built upon the basis of party faction . . . Whoever uses the present crisis to push the interests of his party against the interests of the nation is a traitor and should be branded as such.” Finally, there was the issue of education. The church could not remain content with a system of education which was at once compulsory and secular. “Unless this country is prepared to forego the right to use the adjective Christian, and I doubt if we arc, we must continue to demand full opportunity for bringing the influences of the Christian faith to bear upon education. We stand in danger today of becoming a godless people largely because we have banished God from the classroom. . . I for one will never be content with a state of affairs which limits to the children of the well-to-do the privilege of an education which is open to the influences of religious faith, while denying that privilege to the children of the poor.” The fourth and final meeting in the series will be held in Wellington next Monday, when the Rev Dr J. J. North will sneak on “Chaos or Christian Order.”