CHURCH OF ENGLAND PROBLEMS

 Trend Towards Secularism. 

Motor Cars and Sabbath Observance.

In an address delivered at St. Peter's Cathedral on Tuesday, the Bishop of Adelaide roundly condemned motor cars as one of the principal factors in the secularisation of the Sabbath. He considered it probable that a Teaching Order would soon be established in connection with the Church Primary Schools. The hope of the Anglican Church was in the youth of the country.

A stirring pastoral address was delivered by the Bishop of Adelaide (Right Rev Dr. Thomas) at the opening session of the Synod on Tuesday afternoon, at St. Peter's Cathedral Dr. Thomas, in presenting his address and report of the diocese for a year, said the attitude towards religion had changed during the past century, and was changing now. At the end of the eighteen century the French Revolution caused a horrified recoil in England from considerable freedom of thought in religious matters to a hard and narrow timidity. Family prayers spread from the middle to the upper class, and Sunday observance was revived and rigidly enforced, but no one wanted to see any enforcement of religion to-day. It had only been harmful at the time. The evangelical revival and the Oxford movement in the first half of the nineteenth century had stirred the country to its foundations, yet in spite of these, and of subsequent religious efforts Trevelyan, the historian, recorded that "the part played by religion in the life of the upper and middle classes, and of the better-to-do working class, was less remarkable at the end of the century than it had been when Queen Victoria came to the throne. Every-day thought was decidedly more secular in tone. This was partly due to intellectual movements, to the Darwinian theory, and Biblical criticism at work in an age when everyone was being taught to read. But it was also due to the number of other interests in life which now competed with religion. Where the Bible had been almost the only book for many households, there were now the daily paper, the cheap magazine and novelette, and, for the minority who cared for such things, the best literature and science in the world in cheap editions. Formerly entertainments and organised excitements had been rare; but now there were the football match with its democratic gate, the music halls, and a thousand appeals of every kind to the popular attention." 

 Motor Cars and Church-going.

 To-day the pace had increased. The Darwinian theory no longer presented difficulties to the Christian, but Modernism was an attack upon the Christian faith from within the citadel. The number of outside interests had enormously multiplied— literature of the more solid kind had little chance against the flood of novels; games were within the reach of all, and although all had more leisure than formerly, the day which used to be looked upon as the Lord's Day was now invaded, and its sacredness challenged. Not only was the Day itself invaded, but the hours especially reserved by custom for the worship of God were encroached upon, and many of their own Church of England people might be found playing golf on Sunday morning and bridge on Sunday evening. But there was probably no one agency that had done more to diminish attendance at Sunday services, or indeed to break up the Sunday than the motor car. Undoubtedly, it brought some people to church, but it took more away, took families away for the week-end, and broke in upon all continuity of teachings in church or Sunday-school. Not infrequently it prevented the family which had no motor car from going to church also. Farther, the Sunday afternoon tennis party made it very difficult for girl or boy to take up, or stick to, Sunday school work; they had ridicule from their fellows to meet, and a real sacrifice to make. The fact was religion was not fashionable to-day, and there were few houses in which family prayers or grace at meals were said. And so the attitude of the world to the Christian religion to-day might be described as one on the whole of indifferent and good-natured tolerance. The war made for a time a difference: but victory had brought reaction. Religion was up against real and great difficulties, and it was of no use to minimise the reasons for anxiety. The numbers of the church might appear large on paper, but membership of the Church of England was largely a nominal membership, and obligations of membership were ignored.
 

Signs of Decadence.

Let it be recognised, however, that indifference was not confined to religion. It was often as hard for politicians to obtain an audience as for a preacher to obtain a congregation. There not the same avidity as of yore either, for sermons or for speeches; college dinners and public lectures (unless well advertised) told the same story. The causes of the decline and fall of the great Roman Empire assigned by Gibbon, had been held up before them as a warning to the British Empire. The main causes were the prevalence of town over country life, and its disastrous effect upon health and faith; the growth of refinement and luxury; the decline of literary and dramatic taste; the decline of intellectual and religious life: excessive taxation and municipal extravagance. Undoubtedly the same tendencies, the same menaces, the same agencies were at work to-day.

Plea for Youth.

  When the call to effort and sacrifice for the Empire was made, however, they had found that the nation, thank God, was not effete. There was splendid material in their youth to-day, physique, heart and spirit. It was always difficult for age to keep pace with youth—difficult to move with the times. Older folk were by nature conservative, and fearful of change; would keep the young in their place; and with their superior knowledge and experience, would make all the decisions that had to be made. So they lost touch with the young, and they lost interest in the church. They needed the enthusiasm and the idealism and the experiences and the ideas of the young: they needed far more young people on their committees and in their inner counsels. In the material of their youth they had one great reason for hope. There was another hopeful sign in the ready and glad response made by all kinds of people, wherever they saw hard work and sincerity of purpose. There was less cant and less humbug in the present day, and the world was the better for it. People asked for sincerity and singleness of purpose in their parish priest, and when they saw that he was in earnest they would back him up.

Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Wednesday 3 September 1924, page 11