APPEAL TO WOMEN
Sir.-There has been much said recently on the subject of Christian Order both in connection with Social Justice and the Church’s Appeal to Women. To generalise would be imprudent, but from correspondence on the subject one widely held and pernicious attitude appears evident. I refer to the growing habit of making human _ behaviour the criterion of our code of ethics.
To condone a lowering of our moral standards because their retention is difficult; to condemn Christian faith by imperfections of Christian practice-these are growing and alarming indications of weakness. An ideal may be difficult to attain: fidelity is not an accident, but is the fruit of courage and self-discipline. In the same way, faith is not manifested by perfection but by a difficult and imperfect struggle towards that end. Many, if not all, of our present social problems are due, I think, not to human evil or greed, nor to economic necessity, | but entirely to our reduced mental horizon. We have no philosophy of lifewe do not know what we want of life; we are too pre-occupied in wasting it. In short, the future of our race depends not upon social works, not on protestation of faith, but solely upon an awakening of a sense of race, a realisation that we are a fesponsible unity-not a collection of apes, and that our individual happiness is dependent upon the development of that unity.
CASTOR
(Christchurch).
Sir,-When the Churches realise that they are intended to be schools of spiritual guidance instead of cages wherein all the creeds contrive to imprison God, they may be able to regain the confidence of the people. God cannot be shut up in any cage (or church) tonstructed by man, for the simple reason that He is the Great Spiritual Life Force which permeates the whole universe. Human beings are free to contact this Force which strengthens them, or to stumble along in the darkness of their own limitations, which can only lead to their ultimate extinction.
C.M.
L.
(Christchurch).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 214, 30 July 1943, Page 3
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336APPEAL TO WOMEN New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 214, 30 July 1943, Page 3
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