FAITH AND ORDER MOVEMENT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27132, 31 August 1953, Page 13

FAITH AND ORDER MOVEMENT

FUTURE IN N.Z. DISCUSSED AT CONFERENCE

“The Future of the Faith and Order t Movement in New Zealand” was the final address of the theological stu- ■ dents’ conference which ended at ; Tyndale House, Cashmere, on Friday. > It was given by the Rev. David M. i Taylor, of College House, who began by tracing the history of faith and order discussions in New Zealand and . elsewhere from 1937, when there was held at Edinburgh the second world : cbnference on this subject. As far as New Zealand was con- , corned, “Marsden 1947” Was the first big gathering, from which emerged new vision, new charity, and new hopefulness regarding these matters, said Mr Taylor. “Then in November, 1950, the National Council of Churches held its faith and order consultation at Wallis House, Wellington, where the 35 delegates went through despair and arrived at new heights of hope. As a result, of that 1950 gathering, there will probably be held next year another New Zealand faith and order conference, called by the national council, at which will be considered the official replies provided by the council’s member churches to questions which were sent to the churches after the 1950 meeting,” he said. Mr Taylor examined three “interim plans” which had been suggested as possible steps that might assist union, but he doubted whether these had been or could be really fruitful. The plans were: (a) The scheme for intercommunion, suggested in Australia in 1943. Church membership would be interchangeable, (b) The Canadian 1946 plan for the mutual recognition of the ministry by several churches, (c) The proposal made in 1946 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the non-episcopal churches might “take episcopacy into their systems.” Because of the very limited value of these proposals, Mr Taylor offered it as his personal opinion (“though I know there will be strong criticisms”) that the churches should set as their next goal—and not in the infinitely far-off future—real church union. He said that if organic union was to be the next main goal, the churches would need to ask “with whom?” Who would do the inviting? Perhaps the national council could become a go-between, a friendly neutral, in such matters. Mr Taylor believed there were two important lessons for New Zealand to ‘learn from the successful efforts made in other countries to achieve church union—notably the United Church of Canada and the Church of South India. They were the need for long-suffering patience—perhaps for as long as 25 years—before the union was achieved and the need to face at the beginning of the discussions the theological difficulties regarding different views of the ministry. In the discussion which followed, the following points were made by different speakers: . there would be far more hope- of progress towards unity among the New Zealand churches if —like the younger churches in what used to be called missionary lands—the denominations became interested in taking the gospel to the largely pagan country. There was need for grading the pamphlets, etc., issued by the churches on ecumenical subjects—one level for clergy, another for informed laity, and a third level for the laity who knew nothing about such things. Far more could and should be done in spreading knowledge of ecumenical matters at the parish level. This should precede plans for organic union.