BAPTIST CHURCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 247, 19 October 1933, Page 18

BAPTIST CHURCH.

ASSEMBLY DEBATES. CLOSING RESOLUTIONS. ATTITUDE TO WAR. The seriousness with which the Baptist Church regards conditions, social, economic and ethical, now existing in the world was revealed in resolutions passed at the closing session of the 51st annual assembly of the Baptist Union yesterday. The resolutions concerned subjects from unemployment to disarmament. Opposition to the church having anything to do with war was expressed battle Rev. L. B. Busfield, speaking to a strong motion by the Rev. W. S. Rollings against disarmament. The motion was 'carried. Mr. Busfield said he was opposed to the church having any connection with war at all. The Church should not support it in any form. He was opposed to any Baptist minister being a paid officer in the Defence Department. Let them go to military camps, not as officers, but as the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another view was taken by the Rev. J. C. Macky, who said that the nation ought to weigh well the words of such eminent men as Earl Jellicoe, and preparations ought to be made. A motion asking the Government to do more for unemployment was moved by the Rev. J. Hiddlestone. It urged on the Government the necessity of providing adequate allowances for the unemployed, and demanded, as a bare measure of justice and as an urgent moral necessity, provisions from relief funds for unemployed women and children. Scrutiny of Pictures. On the motion of the Rev. A. W. Stuart, the union appointed a committee to go into the matter of national reconstruction. The auxiliaries of the union are to be asked to appoint subcommittees. The personnel of the committee is: The Rev. A. .T. Grigg (convener), Dr. J. J. North, W. S. Rollings, R. F. Fursdon and Mr. A. Mead. Closer scrutiny of the type of picture shown was urged by Mr. W. H. Newton, who wished the assembly to endorse the resolutions on the subject by the headmasters of the secondary schools in Auckland. The headmasters had asked for the more effective censorship of films and posters, and for the exclusion of those films which pandered to the lower tastes of only a section of the community.

A motion by Dr. J. J. North concerned the Baptist attitude towards gambling. Dr. North declared that the lotteries were a pest, and that the transmission of money for foreign lotteries was illegal. If the Gaming Bill now before the House was carried, it would make the post office a totalisator. He moved a resolution stating that the Baptist Union record its deep cense of the peril threatening the nation through the spread of the gambling habit. Final Business. Messrs. ,T. H. Clifford, F. G. Reddell, F. W. Wyness and Rex Goldsmith were accepted as students for training for the ministry. It was reported that 2003 copies of the "New Zealand Baptist" had been issued monthly. Dr. North was reappointed editor, and the Rev. M. A. P. Lascellcs manager. It was resolved to establish a disciple campaign with the aim of doubling the membership of the churches within the year. The churches of the union were recommended to make a worthy celebration of the centenary of the birth of Rev. C. 11. Spurgeon, which falls due on June 10, 1034. It was resolved to accord a hearty welcome to Rev. W. Seroggie, D.D., who is coming to serve the Tabernacle Church for six months. Rev. F. A. Crawshaw was congratulated on his appointment as Australian secretary of the Leper Mission. Congratulations were tendered to the Greendale Church on the attainment of its jubilee.