SUNDAY LEISURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 311, 8 June 1945, Page 5

SUNDAY LEISURE

Sir,-May I be permitted to endorse the sentiments of "Returned Soldier." At the same time I think he hardly tealises the peculiar and sometimes medieval outlook of the clergy towards -a free Sunday and the wishes of unbelievers of adherents of alleged pagan religions. Even in these comparatively enlightened days the alleged Christians yet have the whip-hand over "those of little faith’ and such Sunday liberties as we now have have been obtained for us only by the strenuous efforts of those. people who refused to spend their wellearned holiday in martyrdom and morbidity to satisfy those who through church-going call themselves Christians, I am sure that these church-goers and the cleric? who guide their thought will be "dog-in-the mangerish" about further Sunday concessions, and my words are supported‘by the fact that in Auckland quite recently the representatives of one of our larger Denominational persuasions, in a letter to the City Council, requested the cessation as soon as possible of the Sunday screenings for servicemen and women; furthermore, their letter was accepted while another, from the Sunday Freedom League requesting the opposite, was rejected.

As the Rev. Liggett says, "the Church is a spoilt child." Its unreason has almost always been supported by the Governments in power. Not content with the gloom already cast over Sunday, the Church frequently clamours for more broadcasting time during the week. It is the long possession of official sanction, and the ease with which it is abused (in the interests of religious persuasions) that has so weakened religion. To mention but one example of failure, take the ignominious collapse of the much vaunted Christian Order Campaign. Yet still we have religion dictating Sunday activities mot only for its own adherents, but also for those who do not want to attend church anyway. The Church is ind a spoilt child, and if its doctrines were at all applicable to modern life, and provided something dynamic, there would be no need to force them upon the "indifferent and cold of heart" as occurs to-day, The remedy is to ask the candidates at the next election what .they are going to do about it. "We're the majority, aren’t we?"

MAG

(Epsom);