Godlessness Is Heading The World To Utter Chaos

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21195, 19 August 1940, Page 12

Godlessness Is Heading The World To Utter Chaos

Materialism and Atheism are Breeding Grounds for Anarchy Corruption and Revolution

■ Today’s Great Need is Moral And Spiritual Awakening _ The Cali of Moral Rearmament

'pODAY we are gathered to mark the second anniversary of this world force of Moral Re-Armament. In the light of world events all of us must re-orientate our thinking. It is imperative that we make certain now that the things we hold dear today will stand the test of tomorrow. Crisis draws us closer together. Every patriot wants to see his country strong and her defences adequate for national safety and security. The Americas need a new kind of defence. The call of the hour is a call of strength. Mr Edison, Secretary of the American Navy, has said recently:—“There is one ingredient in national defence that transcends all others. It is bom of the hearts of our people, and it may be called National Character. Without character and a deep-seated moral armament bred into the fibre of our citizens, no matter in what walk of life they may perform their civil tasks, there will be little worth defending. The navy is responsible,” the secretary continues, “for the training, welfare and discipline of its personnel. But these are few. A hundred and thirty-seven million others must know why their country lives and is worthy of living. To build a citizenry whose roots are deep in the finer traditions of our land—to form a national character that may some day lead the world back from chaos —to make our country impregnable both from within and from without —is not the job of the navy, it is yours.” Conquest of Materialism The Secretary has voiced the real task that faces all of us today. It is the conquest of materialism within our borders, and within ourselves. Materialism is the chief ‘ism’ we have to combat and conquer. Mens minds are swinging away from the old, selfish, short-sighted materialism that is everywhere proving inadequate in time of stress. Moral Re-Armament—MßA for short —is giving them the answer. With lightning speed within the past two years it has girdled the world and brought a new pattern and a new

hope to a disillusioned age. Moral Re-Armament has shown once again that spiritual power is the greatest force in the world. Materialism is the great enemy of this power. There is the battle-ground. There the warfare must be waged so that we can firmly establish those homely truths of honesty, un-selfishness and obedience to God that are the hallmarks of personal and national sanity.

A leading daily church paper, after describing the response to Moral Re-Armament on the Pacific Coast, uses these words. I quote: “The problem is now to redirect the thinking of all people, to inspire them again with the conviction that God is a living and active force in the midst of us, to persuade them that machinery, technical knowledge, organisation, excellent in themselves, are incapable of solving our problems.” This is the battle of Moral ReArmament. Without the conquest of this materialism, our nations will decay from within while we prepare to defend ourselves against attack from without. Look to Moral Defences Materialism and atheism are breeding grounds for corruption, anarchy and revolution. These have their allies in the selfishness that rules our homes, the bitterness that separates class from class, and the spirit of faction that divides a nation. Here lies our constant danger. If we are going to understand where our true security lies, we must look to our moral and spiritual defences. Then we must act, resolutely and intelligently, to establish those defences. It is not enough to understand our danger. It is not enough to say that we need a spiritual offensive against the forces of materialism. The average businessman freely admits that what we need today is a moral and spiritual awakening. But he quickly adds, that is the business of our religious leaders. True, but it must also be the religion of our business leaders. An im-

portant business magazine says that unless we listen to the Voice of God, materialism will engulf us. Our leaders say that we need a moral and spiritual awakening. Yes, we agree. And we also need a moral and spiritual awakening in our leaders. There are many who have begun to pay lip-service to these truths. But the world has been slow to realise that its security lies upon the instant application of them in daily life. We need a great gearing-up of the nations into this new thinking and action. A vast spiritual revolution is necessary. We have lost the reality of these great life-giving, nation-forming truths. We have become the deluded victims of a false security both personally and nationally. Consequences of Selfishness Selfishness in men and nations has brought the world where it is today. For years the programme has been to get and not to give. We have forgotten that when everybody is out to get, nobody has enough. When everybody is out to give, everybody has enough. Even the selfish man might have learnt by now that unselfishness is the only selfishness that works. “He that loseth his life shall find it.” If everybody were unselfish, everybody would benefit. It takes a determined minority to begin. But any minority under God’s direction can give that superdirection to the majority that makes the impossible possible.

This means a revolution in all our thinking and living—the spiritual revolution that is necessary to unite a nation, to bridge class and class, faction and faction. But a revolution needs revolutionaries. Is there a force strong enough to redirect the passion of a revolutionary and to enlist him in the rebuilding of the nation? Revolutionary Changed

Here with me in San Francisco is a militant revolutionary from the workers’ section of London. A leader who organised riots and demonstrations, fought the police behind barricades, whose gangs thought

nothing of smashing as much as thirty thousand dollars’ worth of

plate glass in a single night, who opposed the government at every turn. To his home guided by a supernatural force, came the student son of an English lord with an honest apology for the wrongs done to the worker by his class. He asked if he might come and share the revolutionary’s home. He accepted him, but fired by age-old hates, was glad to put his guest to all possible inconveniences. Gradually the revolutionary found himself impressed with the spirit of his guest. fie decided to experiment with this new life. He started to listen to God, and the new revolution began for him. The change came, the change in human nature. The worker now began to make honest apology, in

his home, in his city council, where he had been a forceful but divisive member, and to the government. A new spirit spread through the community, influencing the nation and the nations. This is the revolution to which this worker has committed his life. He says: New Life For Nations “Many people today say that the need in the world is for a change of system. But we will never change any situation until we change men. Change the lives of men and you change their thinking. In this way every revolutionary can become the inspiration of a new world order, forging a constructive programme born out of a revolutionary determination to begin with himself.” Such a change illustrates what is necessary to bring a right spirit into our living. The answer to revolution is more revolution—spiritual revolution. A Swedish steel worker says:—“Only a spiritual revolution goes far enough to meet the needs of men and industry.”

And what would be the effect of such a spirit working within nations today? It would bring a new kind of relationship—hate-free, fear-free and greed-free between individuals and between nations. It would deve-

(By DR. FRANK N. D. BUCHMAN)

lop that new patriotism that can sweep all selfish interests before it. But some nation must give this pattern. Now men, men who are different, fired by a great unselfish love of the nation must give a lead. Then the spirit of mutual trust will be born, so that the respect and gratitude of our neighbour nations become the dominant factors in our foreign policy. Good neighbours will then be lasting friends. Giving a Lead You must often have thought that we in America are selfish. And I regret to say it is true. We have been selfish. We have not all of us lived the principles of Moral ReArmament. But it is also true that there is a new spirit beginning to move across our land. Here is what a United States Senator said about it: “During the last months we have seen our people from the farms, in the cities, from the workshop, and in the homes answering this call for Moral Re-Armament. The hope of a new world—united, strong, and free as never before—has come to the hearts of Americans from Coast to Coast as they have watched this new spirit unite husband and wife, parents and children, employer and employee, statesman and citizen.” Those are the words of Senator Truman as printed in the Congressional Record.

Our task is to set our own house in order. We waste energy and time trying to persuade the other person and the other nation to change first. We generate so much steam in the process that we become apoplectic in our righteous indignation. But events do not change, other nations do not change, because we do not change. So much of our steam never gets to traction If Not 4 Guidance, Then Guns The task is enormous. We need a super-force adequate to change men and nations. If we have learnt one thing from 1940 it is this, that if wc do not listen to guidance, we must listen to guns. The tragic truth becomes more urgent than ever. We must bring the super-

natural God to the man in the street. The man in the street must recapsupernatural power. Radio gives us a pattern. Once it was unknown. Now everyone knows radio and accepts it as a commonplace. In the same way everyone can tune-in to the almost forgotten reality of divine guidance. It can become as natural and as normal as listening to the radio. Guidance of God What does it mean to listen to guidance? The prophets of old knew. They listened and they gave their rulers specific direction in natural and foreign affairs. They warned against treaties, they warned against invasions; they gave the rulers insight to anticipate disaster. The fathers of our country knew what it meant to listen to guidance and obey. Said William Penn: “If we are not governed by God, we will be ruled by tyrants.” Divine Providence was a reality of their daily lives. That early Cabinet made it the keystone of the American Declaration of Independence when they wrote: “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence we mutually pledge to

each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.” They founded a nation. Today we need a rebirth of this spirit. Abraham Lincoln knew the secret of God-control. He wrote: “If it were not for my firm belief in an over-ruling Providence it would be difficult for me in the midst of such complications of affairs to keep my reason in its seat. I have so many evidences of God’s direction that I cannot doubt this power comes from above. I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to do or not« to do any particular thing, He finds a way of letting me know it.” Experience of Past The greatest men of our past knew that God-control was the only adequate programme for a nation. Their experience can be our experience. Definite direction, accurate Information can still come from the mind of God to the mind of man. It can come to our nation as men and women everywhere listen to God and obey, as they learn to plot their own course and their nation’s course by the four compass points of MRA—honesty, purity, unselfishness and ture and relive the experience of a

love. But everyone must listen, every last man, in every last place, in every last situation—not the religious leaders alone, but the business leaders, the cultural leaders, thenational leaders. A listening nation is a secure nation. The only truesecurity is God’s power working through the people who obey Him. If all of us today begin with ourselves to live under God’s direction we can build a hate-free, fear-free, greed-free hemisphere. Then the Americas will create that new world ;o£ which our fathers dreamed. Any man can begin today to listen to God. Any man can begin today to bring a new spirit to his home, his city, and his nation. The greatest revolution of all time is enlisting men today. The condition of the world makes it imperative that we enlist now to this revolution.