Bishop on the Future

How long will it be before mankind realizes that large families are a form of selfishness?" demanded the Rt. Rev. Ernest Williams Barnes, bishop of Birmingham, in a lecture at Cambridge University last week. His audience waited for more. Bishop Barnes was at his favorite sport-- setting off firecrackers under his Anglican brethren.

The bishop went on. The chief obstacles before mankind at the present time, he cried, are "overpopulation and starvation," rather than "racialism and war." He blamed this sorry state of affairs on "the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the need for cannon fodder affirmed by the new Western religions of nationalism [which] are producing overpopulation in Western civilization."

Peering into the future, Dr. Barnes said he had no doubt that the religion of tomorrow would be "a form of Christianity." But there would be significant differences. At present "in most European countries the Christian church finds itself allied with the landlords, capitalists and the prosperous bourgeoisie. The alliance is unlikely to be permanent, and when it ceases, a much-modified communism, supported by Christian sympathy, might easily emerge."

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