WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26261, 4 November 1950, Page 2

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

BAPTISTS CONTINUE AFFILIATION COMMITTEE’S FINDINGS DISCUSSED The annual assembly of the Baptist on the council had been P res ?J* ed , a committee set up by the last assembly, a motion to continue the union's representation was put for ward, but was withdrawn when “ president (Mr E. H. Clark) ruled that such a motion was not The committee’s report, which made no recommendation as to affiliation, was signed by the six members at the committee, although one member gave a minority report. The assamblv hear Mr Ernest Brown, a leading Baptist, who is a member of the cen tral committee of the council. "We feel the force of the argument for unity, provided it does not imply uniformity or coercion, said the committee’s report. “At the same time the principle of conscientious separation must be maintained, provided the grounds are sufficiently Be , r J oUS „,!'’ warrant a separation from other professedly Christian bodies or a refusal to co-operate with them. "Both in the constitution and In official pronouncements it is stated that the council is not a super-church, a church union or a centralised church authority. ... It is impossible to >*y whether the council will ultimately develop into a world church. ’ The adequacy of the doctrinal basis of the organisation was questioned within the council as well as by its opponents, said the report, which quoted council resolutions providing for changes in this basil. The doctrinal basis was not to be regarded as necessarily Anal, and it lay within the rights of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, ae a member, to express its desire for any change in the basia should It so wish. Modoratan “We cannot say that Pile evidence submitted to the committee is sufficient to prove that the council is largely under the control of those holding modernist views, but we admit that we cannot approve some of the statements on doctrinal matters made by certain men prominent in the council. ... It i, true that some of the churches in membership with the council have modernist elements within them, but evidence submitted to us is not sufficient to show that the official doctrines of such churches are modernistic." . _ The Rev. L. P. Bryan and Mr R. Jackman dissented from this part of the report ‘on the ground of its in adequacy." Mr Jackman, quoting a council resolution that it did not concern itself with the manner in which churches interpreted the doctrinal basis, claimed that this "left the door wide open to the entry of modernism.” Mr Jackman also disagreed with the committee's opinion on the right of the New Zealand Baptist assembly to take the decision of membership of the council. The committee considered this right to be “clearly established." Mr Brown spoke of the work of the council. Baptists should remember that their representatives on the council were trusted leaders, he said with a smile.

“We Baptists on the central committee know what Baptists think and why we are there. What Is said there is listened to over the world radio and read in the world preas . . . “The persecutions of the last 10 years have made a vast difference to the outlook of many men whose outlook was previously obtuse. “I came back from Amsterdam a stronger Baptist than I ever was. When you have to meet men who are competent representatives ot their churches in discussion and argument your mind must not be muzzy." “If anything call, for a watering down of Baptist principles I think I know what the Baptist ’answer will be (applause): and there. I think, the matter can lie,” said the Rev. N. R. Wood.

The general secretary (the Rev. P. F. Lanyon) quoted the Baptista* protest in the World Council against persecution of religious minorities as an example of the worth to Baptists of their membership of the council. The committee’, report will be circulated to all Baptist churches in New Zealand and the executive of the union was instructed to “watch the posiion and. should there be any development which appears inimical to Baptist convictions, to take action.”