CANDID CLERICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 196, 20 August 1930, Page 7

CANDID CLERICS.

Outspokenness at Moderns' Conference. CHURCH LACKS INITIATIVE. (Received 12 noon.) LONDON, August 19. Outspokenness is the keynote of the Modern Churchmen's Conference at Oxford. Dr. C. F. Russell, headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School, said that the Church to-day admits that the playing of games on Sunday is not necessarily displeasing to God. It should have said that 25 years ago. In 30 vears' time the Church will be quite ready to demonstrate birth control as a desirable Christian practice, but who will listen to them? "The tragic thing," he went on to say, "about the Church of England is that it does not give a blessing to any change in outlook until it is too late to be of any .value."

Kev. C. J. Hardwick asked: "What part will the Church play in the creative epoch ahead? The bishops have been talking but what have they said? Indeed, "they had said more than many expected, but alas, leadership and initiative had passed from them. They were fighting a rearguard action." USE AND ABUSE. BIRTH-CONTROL SANCTION. LONDON, August 19. Dean Inge, in his presidential address at the Modern Churchmen's Conference at Oxford, said: "We cannot prevent the new knowledge of birth-control being used by unmarried people or selfish married couples. The post-war generation has revolted against the rule of Mrs. Grundy."