CHURCH AND POLITICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1943, Page 3

CHURCH AND POLITICS

CHRISTIAN ORDER CAMPAIGN. MANIFESTO TO BE ISSUED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A manifesto is to be published by the committee of the Campaign for Christian Order, laying before electors an “analysis of the biggest issues of the day as seen from the standpoint of those who know that God cares for man in all the varied activities and relationships of life,” it was stated by the Bishop of Wellington, the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland, in his address to the diocesan synod yesterday. The manifesto would not put forth a political programme or tell the voter for which party he should vote. Bishop Holland said he could not understand the man who said the Church must keep clear of politics. Its primary concern was to proclaim the fundamental facts about God, man, sin and redemption, but in doing that it was committed to a concern for man in all his relationships and for the sins that blasted civilisation to fragments. Politics was the only avenue through which social betterment and the true ordering of national and international life could be achieved. How, then, could the Church fail to be interested in politics? All the prophets of the Old Testament had been, though they never attempted to gain power for themselves, nor did it seem that they had allied themselves with any party or faction in the State. It was the Archbishop of Canterbury who had headed the barons in forcing King John to sign Magna Charta, the root of the freedom for which the nation was fighting. Unfortunately the Church had not always steered clear of party politics and had strayed into its wrongful place. New Zealand was approaching a general election and he could see many things it had a right and a duty to say in regard to politics, though it must express itself through a medium outside party alignments. “How can we talk of democracy when the issue is largely going to be settled not by political principles but by pressure of economic groups on this party or that?” the bishop asked. "It is time that we suggested to the nation that the welfare of the community as a whole must come first and/ that the political issues involved cannot find their true solution till God’s programme for human life takcs precedence of the self-interest and greed, whether of the capitalist or the worker.” It was because the committee felt that so strongly that it had decided to publish a manifesto.