Christian Column

"My wife says I'm a fool--and she may be right. She often is. I don't even know what is wrong myself, only that something keeps gnawing away inside me, and life isn't as good as it looks. . . . My job at the factory is going nicely. We've got a nice little house and the kids are doing well. My wife is the best friend a man ever had. But all the time I've got the feeling that there is something missing. Like meat without salt. . . . Books don't seem to help. Science is more practical but it doesn't offer much hope. Politics are worse. Mr. Marx makes me sick. . . .

"You might say, 'Try religion.' Why should I? I don't feel a sinner, and, anyway, you haven't seen our parson. He isn't even a man. So far as I can see, the churches seem to have plenty of troubles of their own without bothering them with mine. Squabbling and preaching are all they're good for, and I can get along without either, thank you.

"Also, if you can tell me what the Virgin Birth has to do with 1946, I would like to know."

This letter, headed in big, boldface type and signed "J.W.," appeared on the editorial page of London's sensation-loving tabloid Daily Mirror one day last November. Mirror editors had heard a lot of talk about Britain's paganism, and thought it must be provoked by a genuine interest in religion. They proved to be right. So many readers wrote about "J.W." that the Mirror looked around for the right man to answer him and start a religious column. The choice: tall, gaunt, humorless Sir Richard Acland, 40.

Layman and Lay Reader. Britons knew Sir Richard as a Liberal M.P. who had founded, with J. B. Priestley, the shortlived, socialist Common Wealth Party, later resigned to join the Labor Party. Sir Richard, who describes himself as "a recent convert" to Anglicanism, now serves as lay reader* in his village church near Exeter. He believes that his Mirror column may enable him to cover the field of applied Christianity in "20 or 30 articles," happily anticipates some hot controversy over such questions as whether Jonah ever really lived in the whale. Says he: "I hope we shall be interrupted there for some time."

Last week, Sir Richard devoted his third column to an analysis of the mai he had received. Highlights:

"Nine out of ten writers either feel like J.W., or else they used to in former days. Only about one in 20 tells him to go chase himself up a tree. . . .

"Of those who write letters, nearly one-half say, in many different ways, 'I have been given the answer to life in and through Jesus Christ.' . . .

"Just about one-third of those who have found the answer in Jesus use some phrase which means, 'Don't look at the Church; that's not Christianity; look for Jesus.' . . .

"It is all wrong that today . . . no one writes of any thrill or satisfaction which he is getting from any form of common work undertaken in cooperation with his fellow Christians for the good of his fellow men."

* Lay readers conduct services (which Lay Reader Acland does thrice monthly), but may not administer the sacraments.

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