THE CHURCHES SPEAK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 171, 2 October 1942, Page 8

THE CHURCHES SPEAK

Points From Christian Order Broadcasts

E publish here brief excerpts from the main addresses at the four broadcast public meetings during the past month in the Campaign for Christian Order. The titles of the addresses were: "Let Justice Be Done", "Who Wants Freedom?", "What About Politics?", "Chaos or Christian Order’.

JUSTICE (Archdeacon W. Bullock) E are divided not into two sections but into three-the haves-the have nots — and those who are being had. Neither capital nor labour would produce without the consumer, yet how often they both conspire to take what they want out of the consumer. Ask the housewife! * * = Until we remember that the only purpose of production is to benefit the consumer we shall never make any economic system work. Production for service must be our primary consideration and the new slogan for our day. * « * POVERTY I say is not now an act of God, it is the act of man, * x * NYONE who speaks of banks and bankers without showing gratitude for their stability and integrity is a public enemy. But that does not mean that credits created through and based upon the stability and integrity of the public belongs to any particular body, even bankers. * * * LASS prejudice blinds us. We know only too well how when a man is drunk in a first-class carriage we are tempted to say he has a seizure-but when a man has a seizure in a secondclass carriage we say he is drunk. * bg % FREEDOM (Prof. F. Sinclaire) HE true and secure foundations of freedom are not laid in our personal predilections, nor in any considerations of personal pleasure, nor of political expediency, nor of economics. Nor can we defend our claim to freedom by an appeal to common sense, nor even to reason. The foundations of freedom are mystical, religious, or they are nothing. % * * You may denounce Hitler as an archcriminal, a pervert, a lunatic. But the tens and hundreds of thousands of men and women who are following Hitler’s lead are not all of them criminals or perverts; they are, I suppose, people very much like ourselves, some better, some worse. Hitler’s success in winning their allegiance cannot be explained in any terms which ignore the appeal he has made to certain idealist or religious or mystical motives. * * * In Germany, it would appear, .the enemies of freedom have carried all before them-all but one fortress (the Church) . . . You may talk in fine phrases about the rights of man or the dignity of thought; the exponents of the philosophy of Might will make short work of such phrases; they are mere wind unless they have behind and be-

neath them the intuitions, the faith and reason, of religion. * * i The freest man on earth-the only free man-is the man who has found his freedom in a satisfying allegiance. * * * The price of liberty, we have been told, is eternal vigilance. But some of us are inclined to pay more attention to the vigilance than to the freedom. Rather, therefore, I should say that the price of freedom is the constant exercise of freedom-that the best way of asserting your claim to freedom is not merely to be vigilant, not merely to talk about it, but to act like free men and women. * * * POLITICS (Rev. W. J. Ryburn) HE Church has a duty to declare the mind of God with respect to all the social and political problems that confront mankind to-day. This duty she neglects at her peril. * * * HE Church can have no part in the popular, tolerant contempt for the politician. If our representatives are unworthy of their office the fault is ours for we chose them. %* * bg HE tendency to exalt the State into an end in itself and to a position that is above the moral law, is not something that is to be found merely among the Axis powers....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. * * * HOEVER 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. * * * HE divorce between Christian faith and education has been a sad mistake. We stand in danger to-day of becoming* a godless people largely because we have banished God from the classroom. * * * CHRISTIAN ORDER (Rey. Dr. J. J. North) IKE the mouse in the parable the world has " fallen in" and the wellmeaning paddle round, mouse-like, trying to create a foundation on which a shivering civilisation may continue its uneasy life for a time. But something more than temporary expedients is needed. The churches are in action because they believe they can offer the sorely shaken nation a foundation of rock. * = % HE issye in any given case is not clear cut. Pure right does not face pure wrong. The two are tangled. A thick (Continued on next page)

THE CHURCHES SPEAK (Continued from previous page) fog lies upon the battlefield. No doubt the principles of the Atlantic Charter are right. No doubt the practises and principles of the Axis are as false as hell. If we practised our principles, "a little one would chase a thousand." It is because we give lip service to the better, while we yield yeoman service to the worse, that the pass is sold. * * * Victor Hugo’s explanation of Napoleon’s fall was this, "He quarreled with conscience." The same explanation will be the epitaph on the dishonoured tomb of the Fuhrer. % ae * E cannot claim Christ for the Allies. : He claims the Allies and the Axis for Himself. Doubts about the issue of this war are based on our divided allegiance. There are rotters in the community, human vultures battening on the blood of the brave, there are go-getters, decent and selfish, who shed no blood of sacrifice, and there are those who live by the law of love. To multiply these last is the object of this campaign.