CHURCH UNION URGED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21993, 18 January 1937, Page 8

CHURCH UNION URGED

A UNIFIED PROGRAMME ADVOCATED “INADEQUACY OF TRADITIONAL LOYALTIES” “The churches, having no co-ordinated policy or programme and ignorant of each other’s plans, stand discounted before the world because their leaders have not yet learned the wisdom of corporate planning and working. So long as they resist the call to pool their wisdom, unite their resources, co-ordinate their organisations, and consolidate their forces, they cannot hope to achieve conquest for the Kingdom of God.” In these terms the Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt made a plea for a Dominion-wide federal council of churches, when preaching at the Durham Street Methodist Church last evening on church union. Mr Pratt said a unified programme and common plan of campaign were necessary if the churches were going to face the tasks of the day. A federal council could set up local and regional committees to unify Christian forces in strategy and resources. It could aim at eliminating competition, advise upon local adjustments of competitive situations, adopt complete programmes of work, promote mergers, negotiate for the exchange of fields, arrange voluntary withdrawals from over-churched areas, apportion responsibility for needed extension work, institute community churches in unoccupied territory, and conserve funds by eliminating competition. “Catholicity of Outlook” The changes taking place in the modern world had profoundly affected the work and life of the churches, Mr Pratt stated. Problems which pierced to the very core of the world’s life were throwing out a challenge to the church, whose task it was to reshape the whole process of living. Apart from the influence of religion, there was no real remedy for the ills let loose upon the world, yet the very purpose of religion was being defeated in large measure by the sorry basis on which the churches did their work. “To-day the world has grasped a concept of unity and men, realising the inadequacy of traditional loyalties, have developed catholicity of outlook,” Mr Pratt continued. “That spirit gives the churches an impulse towards union. To meet the issues of the hour successfully, the churches must relate themselves constructively to existing problems and use their concerted influence to carry through a unified programme of religious effort. Too often the churches seem to imagine that the entire tasks of God’s kingdom rest with one denomination, yet, if the church would but think straight and act on a common programme it would become a power that no evil -thing could withstand.” The things dividing the churches were really non-essentials, the speaker added. The line of cleavage was in accidents of historical background, forms of government, preferences In worship, conceptions of the Sacraments, and temperamental differences. The mass of th 6 people, had ceased to take real interest in such things because they were thinking in terms of life and were concerned with a message that would help to right living. - Difficulties of Union The difficulty of consummating organic union v of the churches lay partly in the tyranny of organisation, in which the maintenance of the machine became more important than the purpose for which the machine was fashioned, and partly in the nature of the trusts upon which funds were held and administered, and in commitments for missionary enterprise and philanthropic service. The real difficulty, however, struck its Boots into less worthy soil. It was grounded. m’Menominational pride, in fear for the loss WTaenominational prestige, and in-a dread of restricted denominational opportunity. -The time had not come for organic union; but the hour had struck for all the churches to reconsider and restate their plans, their purposes,? and their programmes. . ■, A The goal of corporate union might well be* reached along the pathway of fellowship in service. Many communities were over-churched and there was wasteful distribution of forces, duplicated efforts in travel, and waste of money for needless buildings and ministers. Rural areas were too often divided into impoverished rival groups, without moral or spiritual potency. The conditions of central city churches and of suburban areas called for scientific survey and analysis. The changing of population created new problems for city churches. Suburban dwellers were largely people who were paying for their homes, and they could not afford to erect numerous denominational churches of worthy architectural standard. What was needed for the growing suburbs was a policy of wise church building to prevent overlapping and to avoid neglect. Many city churches were becoming stranded through the outflow of their people, and often churches of the same communion were in sorry competition. They were grappling with problems affecting single congregations, and did not get to grips with the whole group of churches in their community.