3 MAY 1946, Page 9

CHURCH PARADES

By THE REV. J. N. DUCKWORTH • That the parade has now been abolished as such has, however, caused universal relief, if not joy, amongst the troops, and even the ranks of the clergy can scarce forbear to cheer. It was always a sore point, even with the most earnest of Churchmen, that the perfunctory act of militarised worship should be interlarded with so much " spit and polish " and so little real -religion. The prepara- tions of the day before, the long waiting on the day and the almost complete subordination of the religious motive to military precision and smartness caused irritation to the soldier, and a certain amount of genuine misgiving to any Padre who really gave a moment of deep thought to his position as a father in God to those to whom he was sent as a minister to proclaim the truth that should make them free. There was, of course, a genuine hostility on the part of some, who, despite the fact that they had declared their religious denomination on attestation, preferred not to be reminded of it any more, either in the fullness of life or in the throes of death. For

* The writer of this artiele,whocoached the Cambridge boat in 1924-5-6, was a Prisoner of War with the and Cambridgeshires in the Far East from 1942 to 1945.

them the triumph is complete. The charter of liberty for which they fought has come nearer to realisation than they had ever dared to hope. They have won freedom of religion—freedom not to practise it in the Army, as in civilian life.

There are, however, certain aspects of the new situation which will cause grave misgivings in the minds of many calmest Church- men. Any Government could, and should, have taken steps long ago to abolish the obnoxious parade. It can only be regarded as one up to the present Government that it has once more proclaimed itself as a healer of old sores and a redresser of old abuses in the body politic. But that it should be the lot of the present God- fearing Secretary of State for War, despite the fact that he has said that no harm is intended to religion, to cut the already-frayed tow- line between the tug of Government and the battered shipwreck of the Church is by no means a happy augury for the status of the Church in the councils of the nation: there are some who hope that she will flounder and sink, but she will not. Yet the principle of the new emancipation of the soldier's Sunday is good, as long as those who still wish to follow the precepts of their religion—as far as Sunday worship is concerned—are given the time, the incentive and the opportunity to do so. The Padre's Hour is still to be main- tained ; but an average appraisal of such an institution seems to indi- cate that it is the rallying-ground of the religious malcontents rather than the constituent assembly of the faithful and true. It is, of course, incumbent upon the Padre to see that those who come to scoff remain to pray. This almost-sacred hour should at any rate ensure that some of the troops, who will not now take any steps to avail themselves of his formal ministrations on Sundays, will be able to hear him " off the record " at least once a week.

Be that as it may, the abolition of compulsory religious observance is a good thing, and for some very valid reasons. Past history—if only men would learn from it—has shown that where religion of any form has been thrust down the throats of human beings it has failed to find a place in their hearts. The process of making people religious has been as damaging to religion's vital call to the souls of men as it has been to the reputation of those who have tried to stamp it out. After all, religion, the Christian religion—and that is what the Briton is most interested in—proclaims first and foremost the importance of the individual personality of man in the sight of God. It also proclaims that man has a free will—free to choose the clemency and mercy and love of the God of his salvation, or to refuse it to his own soul's great peril. It is arguable that, once he has made this choice, he surrenders his will and his actions to the chosen oracle of Divine Omnipotence. It is arguable further that, if the Church were so identified with the State, then she would have every right to compel her soldiers, and her civilians for that matter, to join in the cultus of her professed religion. Every schoolboy knows that such a state of ecclesiastical bliss ceased to exist in those far-off Elizabethan days. It follows, then, that it is bad for the State to say to the soldiers, " You must go to church because you say you are C. of E. Come on, stick to your religion! " It is not very good for the Church to have to insist, " Because you've said you're C. of E., the State says you've got to go to church." No Christian, no religionist of any kind, will become a good one by coercion, and it would be well to mark in passing that in this present age of concentrated soul-snatching conversion by coercion usually ends in reversion through revulsion.

What, then, must the Church do now in the Army? The answer is not so easy as it seems at first sight. We shall have to wait to see what happens when " voluntary services " begin. A few men, in sympathy with the Padre—if he is a good fellow, and he usually is—will continue to fulfil their religious obligations, but their motive will be only on a human plane, and because they have no depth of spiritual earth they will silently fade away. There always will be the submerged tenth who are the earthly rock upon which the outward and visible body of the Church must be built. There will always be the curious who will look in at services now and then. The fully devout will, as ever, be mindful of their sacramental obligations, and many more will embrace this discipline of life. Religious denomina- tions outside the Church of England (which forms much the greatest part of professed Army religion) will not be faced with the same uncertainties amongst their adherents, because the keenness of a minority tends to make it more faithful to its ideals, and more anxious to express itself in personal witness, than an over-weighty majority not at all conscious of its potential strength.

As for immediate reaction, experience has shown in the case of the universities that the graduation of the schoolboy from the school chapel to the glorious liberty of the college chapel has not pro- duced a great influx into the latter. Such a lapse is generally ascribed by the undergraduate to the fact that he had too much religion at school, and has therefore developed spiritual indigestion. The ex-soldier also explains his lack of preference for the services of his parish church by the same argument, but from different premises. But, by and large, when the corporate dignity of the college has to be established ecclesiastically, the undergraduate will usually be there in chapel to maintain it. It seems that, when compulsory worship ceases, the emancipated do not flock into the college chapels at the universities. At best, it can be said that school religion forms part of the integrated loyalty to the school, and as such is not resented. It breaks down, however, when that loyalty is transferred. But we are treading on dangerous ground. Who can say that com- pulsory religion if good for one body is good for all? In affairs which concern the soul we cannot be our own judges, nor can the Church, however infallible her claims to Divine Authority, do any- thing but plead, appeal, invite obedience, as did the One who was lifted up to draw all men unto Him.

The services will go on in the Forces, and the attendances at them, now that the unexpired portion of .resentment has been cleared away, will be on about the same level as those in ordinary civil life. A new problem, however, faces the chaplains of all religious denomi- _ nations. They will have to exercise missionary zeal, and seek ever- increasing contact with their flock in barrack-room, sports-field and canteen. They will henceforth be known by the fruits of their good works. The Church in the Army will be like the Africa of Living- stone ; she will long for pious missionaries to come amongst crowds of men, fretting under necessary conscription, or contriving to kill time in armies of occupation by means which no humanist would ever disguise as religious or moral.

It now remains to be seen whether those who protested that church parade was the chief cause of their lack of zeal for religion will practise with manifest devotion the faith for which their fathers died, and which in effect claims to make them free. What a field white to harvest for the Padres ! The night of dark compulsion for the Churchman is far spent ; the day of enlightened freedom is at hand. For their encouragement, the experience of P.O.W. camps in the Far East has shown that there is no lack of zeal and devotion when the need of religion is real and apparent. Many men who would have been the first to object to a parade flocked willingly to the uncompelled—but sometimes enemy-hindered—ministrations of the Church. Many men, now firmly indoctrinated with the spiritual and social obligations of a practised Christianity, gladly tell of their conversion in prisoner-of-war camps.