The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-10-07
WORLD FACING GREAT CRISIS
Christian Democracy to Save World From Radi-
 cal PhiIOsOphies

we are living in one of the great transition periods, one of the great crises of history" said Rev. Dr. John c. Walker, pastor of the Sec- ond Congregational church, in his sermon, "The New Christendom,' yesterday morning.
 Dr. Walker said in part:
 The events of these last twenty five years which have eliminated in this Second World War mean, as has been suggested by one of the great thinkers of our day, "the end of our time" What the future holds in store no man can say but 1t is certain that. we shall never go back, we can never go back to the condi- tions and attitudes of the days be- fore the First World War. We have turned a corner in history, we have reached the end of an age. There can be no such thing as "a return to normalcy," if you mean by that a return to condition and relations as they were thirty years ago.
 End Of An Era
 But Christian people, even in the midst of such world shaking, world shattering events as we see trans piring today need not be utterly dis mayed. This may be, am certain this is, '"the end of an era", but it is not the end of the Christian era.'' In this trial of our faith we are summoned once again to lay hold on the eternal verities, we are called upon to build "a new Christendom. If our civilization is being tried as by fire, we may hope that the dress may be ere long, burned away. We can begin to think in terms of new brotherhood, new Christen- dom. We are reminded that God has not ceased to reveal Himself, to work creatively in human history.
 As a minister of the Second Con- gregational church and as servant of the Holy Catholic Church, the Church Universal, should be dis charging less than my full obliga- tion if did not leave with you this day a sobering sense of responsible ity. We cannot afford in these days to be apathetic and half hearted about our faith. These are times when we take little or nothing for granted, Communism, Nazism, Fas- cism, totalitarianism, all these false faiths have loosed their full fury on a suffering world. Democracy and Christianity have been in retreat for more than two decades. The forces of propaganda behind these aliens "isms are tremendously powerful and vocal. I may point out in pass ing that all these "isms" are mission ary faiths and have spent vast sums of money on the furtherance of their doctrines.
 Christian Defense
 I happen to be one of those who believe that the final defense of democracy must be made from with in, that we must put our own house in order, that we must show that democracy works, that it provides higher standard of living, more evenhanded justice, less bureaucracy higher efficiency, Sounder business practice than alternative form of government. should hate to think that the only way to fend of totali- tarianism is to ape its militarism, it's regimentation, its concentration of power in few hands or in a single hand. Correspondingly, be- lieve that the only adequate and fundamental defense of Christianity is to bound through the further ance of the Christian gospel. If | Christianity could not save itself it | would not be worthy saving. A church must be saved from within. It must prove itself we vital, so | so fruitful in a commun- | ity, so serviceable to the kingdom of | God that men will not allow it to suffer for lack of substance and service to continue its efforts.