Church, change and decay
Sir: How timely is Angus Maude's re- minder to the church that it is not how but what we communicate that matters (30 May), and that religion is primarily a matter of faith, not of rational speculation. Faith can only prove its worth when it is put to the test. How uncannily appro- priate, then, is the modern New English Bible translation of 'lead us not into tempt- ation' as do not bring us to the test'.
Trying to find a rational answer to intellectual speculations about the nature or existence of God is bound to be an eternally fruitless quest. Faith is known only by its willingness to stand the supreme test of death. That is the one test which most Christians apparently wish to avoid when they fail to put their whole faith in the power of life, and instead say that life or 'all that makes life worth living' must in the ultimate be protected by the weapons and the strategies of death and its powers.
What is the unique quality which religion, especially the religion of Jesus Christ, has to offer if it is not the power of love? 'We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren,' said St John, who also said: 'This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.'
Where are the signs of that invincible faith today in the emaciated, frustrated, self-doubting social ethic that Christianity seems to have become? If all Christians were able to regain the simple quality of that faith expressed by St John, surely typical of the first century church, and trust the power of love right to the death and beyond, then no doubt the power of the .gospel would be restored.
This would, of course, mean the com- plete renunciation by Christians of all war and armed violence. Above all else true Christianity stands for the eternal quality of life and the value of each individual life. Failing, this it can only be, as it now too often seems to be, a discredited hypothesis which shrivels up to a dried husk in the glaring light of scientific rationality.
Gordon Wilson St. John's Vicarage, 14 Dane Bank Avenue, Crewe
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