IN this article, published in the "Sunday Times," London, the Rev. Sidney M. Berry, D.D., tells of the war-time problems which face the churches in England, the measures taken to meet the crisis, and, most important of all, the part they must play in the reconstruction of a war-torn world when peace reigns once more.
There is a distinct note of optimism in Dr. Berry's outlook, and he is convinced that, destructive as the war has been materially to the churches, it has created new links between the Christian peoples of the world which will count for much when the day for reconstruction arrives.
THIS is a very big subject, of which one can only touch the fringes in the course of a single article. The ordinary activities of the churches, like all ordinary activities in war-time, are relegated to the private sphere. Paper shortage and the general absorption in war new accounts fully for that fact. But the misconception may easily arise that absence of publicity means that there is nothing being done that is worth the telling. There are queer folk who make that deduction and who think that unless the churches are passing resolutions and holding demonstrations they are sinking into lethargy.
THE complex of sensationalism, which some religious people are so ready to condemn in others, has not been without its distorting effects upon themselves. The main work of the churches in time of war is, of course, a quiet and constant one, to keep the spirit of faith alive, to turn men's eyes to God, and to remind the world in this vast opposition of material forces that the only victory which can bring any lasting good is the triumph of God's Will over the contrary desires and designs of man.
So, in face of all the difficulties and problems of the time, the churches hold their services and gather their congregations together in the atmosphere of that quietness which is strength. Prayers and intercessions are continually offered. The ministry of strength and comfort goes on ceaselessly, and what the sum total of such service means cannot be measured in words.
But there is far more to tell than that. The churches have had their full and bitter taste of the destruction of war. Their buildings have been destroyed. This is no place for statistics, but the figures which tell of tragic, and in some cases of irreparable, loss are most impressive.
In other cases war-time has exacted a toll of another kind. The subsidiary buildings of the churches, in which a large part of their activities is carried on, have been widely and in some cases thoughtlessly requisitioned by Government departments. Then there have been sweeping changes in personnel. Congregations have moved from the danger areas to the safer ones. The churches have given some of the finest of their ministers to chaplaincy work among the men in the Forces, and magnificent work many of them are doing,
SO the setting and scene of the churches' work has altered completely, but their ministries have been adapted to the changes. One feared at first that the rigidity of their methods might prevent them from playing their full part in the drama of wartime.
That fear has vanished. The clergy and ministers go continually among the people in the shelters, and when invited hold services there. The churches have been rest centres for bombed-out folk until new homes could be found for them, and I even know of one case where the gallery of a church was used to store the bits of furniture saved from the wreck of little homes.
A bridge is being built across that gulf which separates the work of the churches from the lives of the people.
No praise could be too high for the initiative and courage of the churches in the bombed areas. Only this last week I stood with a minister in Portsmouth looking at the heap of ruins which marked where his church had stood, and he said, "I think we shall pay £50 off the debt this year." Such a commonplace comment marks a spirit which cannot be defeated.
But the devastation has broken down not only buildings but barriers. It is helping to break down the barriers between the different sections of the church. They are offering the hospitality of their buildings to their less fortunate neighbours. Ecclesiastical rigidity is suffering some healthy shocks. People who worshipped in separate sanctuaries are now together. The pressure of war-time has a logic of its own. Some of the best and most effective conferences on Christian Unity have taken place among the ruins.
Of course, the churches have felt to the full the tragedy which war means. There is a fundamental incompatibility between war and all its methods and the Christian message. The churches have prayed and toiled for peace in the years preceding the war. They looked for another and a better way of settling disputes between nations. If there is any criticism to be offered it would be that they were not sufficiently realistic in their interpretation of human affairs, that their hopes became caricatured into illusions, and that they imagined that it only needed a strong lead for peace to bring about the desired result. They know better now. Those scales have fallen from their eyes.
The old hopes remain and behind them a grimmer determination. The great majority of Christian people know that there is no chance of a new order until the earth is cleansed of the evil thing which has brought this world-wide tragedy.
But they see, too, that it needs more than the material arm to break the power of that evil. The religion of the pleasant ways and the soft persuasions has gone. Religion now faces the hard reality of sin, and its message is the glorious reality of redemption. How is the world to be cleansed unless lt be cleansed by the grace and power of God?
IN the assault of war upon everything which the Church values and believes in, the vision grows of the world-wide fellowship of the Christian commonwealth. It has been weakened and even paralysed by its separations. Those divisions have not been wholly caused by divergences of creed and ceremony and organisation. Human things have sundered the Christian commonwealth - such things as geography and language. But against the background of a divided world the vision grows and deepens of a worldwide fellowship among the churches, which already has taken form and shape, and of which much more will be heard when war is ended.
Some practical experiments are already giving body to that ideal. The traditional hospitality of these freedom-loving islands has brought many different nations and governments to our shores. This opportunity has been seized by the churches. Fellowships have been formed between Christians in England and the Christians of Holland, Czechoslovakia, Scandinavia, and other peoples, while efforts are made to hold and keep fellowship with the Christians of Germany represented among us by many refugee pastors of the persecuted churches.
In these ways and others, new links are being formed which will count for much when the churches make their contribution to the reconstruction of the world.
Needless to say, the principles on which that reconstructed world must be based, set forth clearly in the Atlantic Charter, have been eagerly welcomed by the churches. Some of those principles accord with the eight points emphasised by the leaders of the Anglican, the Roman Catholic, and the Free Churches some time ago. Signs are evident everywhere that the churches' eyes are fixed on the future.
There are no illusions now about these hopes. They depend first of all upon victory over the forces of evil which threaten the world with tyranny, and then upon unceasing vigilance that the world shall be organised effectively for the peace and welfare of all peoples. Everything depends upon the spirit in which reconstruction is faced, and perhaps the greatest battle of all lies beyond the fury of the war of material weapons. In that longer warfare, the churches of the world must play a leading part.