The recently completed “Basilica of Our Lady of Peace” is said to be the biggest in the world. It cost £300 million to build and it is located, not in plush surroundings within the boundaries of one of the more prosperous Roman Catholic nations of Europe or America, but in the heart of an area of scrubland near Yamoussoukro, capital of the Ivory Coast.
That is one reason why the wisdom of building it has been called in question. Attention has been focussed on “the contrasts between the cost of the church and the economic plight of the Ivorian economy and the poverty of many of its people” and this, we are told by Stewart Lamont in a Glasgow Herald article, has occasioned much criticism. He quotes one of Rome’s own “saints”, Bernard of Clairvaux, and we believe the quotation sums up what all right-thinking people think of the matter: “O vanity of vanities, yet no more vain than insane! The Church clothes her stones in gold and leaves her sons naked.”
— J. McL.
Instrumental Music Obsolete
In a recent issue of Life and Work an organist complains that the advent of public address systems has raised a difficulty when a minister uses a lapel microphone and “sings directly into (it) at full volume.” He explains, “The sensitiveness of amplification systems can mean that the minister, albeit unconsciously, makes it nigh on impossible for the organist and choir-master to regulate the nature and the tempo of the singing.”
This appears to herald the demise of the last argument in favour of instrumental music. Organs and choirs were supposed to be necessary to regulate the singing. But now it appears that a trained precentor, with appropriate amplification, is sufficient to direct the congregational praise. It is to be hoped that churches will return to the purity of worship practised by the Apostles. They followed the pattern of worship in the synagogue, not the temple, in which the Psalms only were sung without instrumental music.
— D. M. B.
Christianity Survives in China
The savage shootings in a Peking square last year illustrated vividly the repressive nature of the Chinese regime. Yet even in such conditions the Church of God does not easily die out. A newspaper report published a few months ago in this country quoted an official Chinese newspaper reporting the effect of religion on Protestant children in a primary school in southern China.
The Chinese newspaper claimed that lessons were constantly being interrupted by children singing hymns and that children fall asleep in class because of prayer sessions the previous night. The report also asserted that the main reason these children are Christians is that their parents will not allow them to watch television or even to eat unless they become believers. Of the 128 pupils in the school, 42 were said to be Christians, ranging in age from eight to 14. One is quoted as saying, “I believe in Jesus. If I didn’t how would my soul go to heaven? I believe God created the world.”
Clearly the original report was not produced to encourage Christians; most of the claims are obviously hostile propaganda. Equally clearly there is some evidence of religion, which the authorities wish to discourage in other places. We can only hope that this is evidence of true religion coming to the surface in a way which must be almost, if not completely, unknown in this country. The principle still holds true, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.”
Some observers of the Chinese scene claim that thousands of young people have turned to Christianity following on the authorities’ crackdown on the movement for democracy. If Christianity is only being seen as the one possible vehicle of opposition to the Communist rulers of the country Christianity cannot be truly strengthened by these additions. One hopes that some at least will come to know the Saviour. Of one thing we can be sure, that a time will come when China will join all the other nations of the world to “become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.”
— K. D. M.
Roman Catholicism and Freedom
Roman Catholicism is always keen to maximise its opportunities in countries where there is freedom of worship. Indeed the position is often such that those who oppose that system are labelled bigots.
There are still a number of countries where Roman Catholicism has such power that freedom for other religious bodies is strictly limited. In Venezuela recently a bid by a Protestant denomination to conduct evangelistic activities was quashed. The case reached the country’s Supreme Court, which ruled that the Roman Catholic Church is the only “recognised organism” entitled to carry out religious activities in Venezuela.
— K. D. M.