ON THE SPIRITUAL FRONT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 112, 15 August 1941, Page 13

ON THE SPIRITUAL FRONT

English and American Churchmen Affirm Principles For New Society

E have already published reports of two church conferences called to discuss the basis of post-war reconstruction — the Malvern conference of Church of. England clergymen, convened by the Archbishop of York, and the Toronto conference, summoned by the World Council of Churches. The former was held in January last, the latter in June. Between them, two other important religious conferences were held, one in England, the other in America. Here is the report from Time of the English gathering, held about the middle of May: For the first time since the Reformation, Britain’s Catholics, Anglicans, and dissenters got together in London for two church-sponsored, inter-faith mass meetings. The Catholic primate of England presided at the first session, the Anglican Primate of all England at the second. The purpose was to dramatise the Church’s determination to play a leading part in the post-war settlement. The Justification was set out as follows: To-day, Christianity is implicated in history just as much as Israel was in the age of the prophets .. . In the old days war could be regarded as Caesar’s proper business, but to-day it is everybody’s business and it touches the things of God as well as those of men ... Modern war is a... test of moral strength for the whole population; and hence in the last resort it is a conflict which calls for the intervention of spiritual powers and demands a spifitual decision. Prime mover for this gesture was the movement known as the Sword of the Spirit (S.0.S.). Heretofore this has been an entirely Catholic movement, but a significant development of the rallies was the suggestion that Sword of the Spirit groups be formed in Protestant parishes as well, S.O.S. is a loose-knit series of groups for waging anti-Nazi spiritual war, draws its name from Ephesians 6:17: "And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)." "Fireworks" From Chichester Arthur Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, and Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, each spoke briefly at the meetings over which they presided-in the Stoll Theatre, a garish London movie house,

before and after a night of blitz. But the principal fireworks were supplied by the Bishop of Chichester in a strong attack on the British Government for not giving the anti-Nazi world a postwar programme to fight for. "The Nazis have a weapon which they wield with tremendous effect," said the Bishop. "It is the weapon of the idea, They proclaim the New Order... We proclaim no order at all . . . Our official spokesmen have never yet uttered any statement of British aims which envisages a situation after victory ... We stand for a Christian order-a better order than any of us have yet known. It is not the order which existed when the war began or . . . the order which was imposed when the World War ended . . . But the winning of that order is the only thing which offers any hope or comfort or inspiration to the common man." The churchmen approved a ten-point peace programme based on the proposals of Pope Pius XII. and the umnprecedented joint letter which the Archbishops of Westminster, Canterbury and York, and Dr. Walter H. Armstrong, moderator of Britain’s Free Church Federal Council, sent last December to the London Times. This programme quite clearly presupposes a new society. But Britain’s Christians now realise what they did not at the start of the World War II. that Hitler is fighting the war with an idea, and that unless Christianity can counter with a better idea it is done for. Action in America Toward the end of April, the Church League for Industrial Democracy (social action group of the Episcopal Church in America) held its annual meeting. This meeting, states the British newsmagazine Cavalcade, was devoted in its entirety to discussing the Malvern conference in the light of U.S. needs. Cavalcade reports the meeting as follows: In a general endorsement of Malvern resolutions in spirit-" also in letter except in so far’ as local circumstances require modification" — 450 delegates agreed to the following points: Production for use instead of profit and abolition of the " profit motive ";

Common ownership of the means of production, especially of natural resources, "as a storehouse of Divine bounty on which we all utterly depend "; A co-operative commonwealth — of Europe, with which the U.S., by implication, would be an active partner; Universal education of children and adolescents "to take their full share as Christian citizens in the life of the community — economic, cultural, and spiritual "; Rights of labour "recognised as in principle equal to those of capital in the control of industry, whatever the means by which this transformation is effected "; Active participation by churchmen "in public and political life, both local and national, in labour unions and all other bodies affecting the public welfare . . . to seek ways of expressing Christian principles through these channels "; Corporate and national reform. "We note the tendency to delegate our responsibility to large corporate bodies,

which of their very nature must be at least partly irresponsible-corporations in which we hold stock, the nation to which we belong, groups in which we hold membership, and even the Church itself. To the sin of pride we hold the sin of evasion" Social justice for groups and individuals to end the blight of the "mass man," who is -conscious of no status, spiritual or social, who is a mere item in the machinery of production, and who easily develops the herd pyschology.