CHURCHES IN RUSSIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 545, 2 December 1949, Page 5

CHURCHES IN RUSSIA

Sir,-It would ‘take too long to deal with all the sophisms, that "C.V.B." has managed to cram into his recent létter, but one or two samples will suffice to illustrate his dialectical methods. He dismisses "F.K.T." as gullible for accepting Kravchenko’s testimony that there is religious persecution in Russia, and then bases his own belief that there is no persecution on nothing better than the testimony of the Webbs and the Dean of Canterbury. To destroy Kravchenko’s authority, "C:V.B." states that he was "called on to defend his abuse of his native country." The facts are that in the case in question Kravchenko was plaintiff, not defendant; he was suing a French newspaper for libel; and he won his case. "C.V.B.’s" appeal to our patriotic instincts is amusing. In his book .Kravchenko had not abused his native country, but simply told the truth about its system of government. Since MCW Be has apparently been relying on. the French newspapers ‘his friend supplied. him with (Humanité?), it is no wonder he has formed so distorted a view of the case which he claims to have "followed sd closely." — $ The value of the Webbs’s testimony may be gauged from this, that after stating that there is nothing that can properly be called persecution, they continue: "The Soviet Government refuses to print or to import religious books. Practically all seminaries for pfiests are suppressed. The churches are forbidden to carry on charitable or recreational work. The children of priests are denied access to higher education. ‘There is frequent arbitrary closing of particular churches. Priests and others active in religious work are sometimes summarily arrested and deported on grounds they do not understand." The Webbs were probably not consciously ‘dishonest, just too woolly-minded to recognise persecution when they saw it. pligion, according to "C.V.B.," "opposes to scientific advance its homemade myths." The home-made myth is no doubt much inferior to the factorymade article. _ Belief in a supernatural," we are told, "hinders scientific progress." If this is

so, it is curious that so many of the great scientists, e.g., Newton, Faraday, Pasteur, have been deeply religious men. But "C.V.B." probably conceives of scientific progress as a steady advance to something like Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World," and I quite agree that belief in a supernatural is a hindrance to that sort of scientific progress. Finally, will he please explain how Communism, which explicitly denies the existence of any non-material reality, can find a place .in its system for "spiritual values’’? ;

G.H.

D.

(Greenmeadows).