N.C.C. Celebrates 25 Years

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31125, 30 July 1966, Page 16

N.C.C. Celebrates 25 Years

“I wonder if it is time for us—like the Friendship and Viscount in mid-flight—to reduce power?” the Rev. H. S. Scott, asked when seconding the adoption of the annual report at the 25th annual meeting of the National Council of Churches, in Christchurch yesterday. Although 90 per cent of the members of the National Council were involved in church union negotiations, he believed there would be a need for the council in the • next 25 years. The meeting was attended by about 120 clergy and laymen from all over New Zealand. Among guests was Miss R. Wickramaratne, of Ceylon, who is at present studying at the Auckland Baptist College. Also present were two Roman Catholic observers, the Rev. J. Cunneen, and the Rev. B. Meeking, who has recently returned from three months’ study at a World Council of Churches ecumenical centre at Bossey. At an anniversary dinner guests included the Minister of Lands (Mr Gerard), representing the Prime Minister, and the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. A. K. Warren) and Mrs Warren. Bishop Warren is a former president of the council. Bishop Warren said the claim that the Church was doing nothing was absolute , bunkum. He was astonished by I the number of otherwise well- | educated people who did not | know what the church was doing. They had no idea of the

influence that it had on people who were dealing with knotty problems at the United Nations.

Congratulating the council on its 25 years’ work, Mr Gerard said that although governments could aid each other it was organisations like the council “which led us to peace.” Speaking later at a business session, the representative of the Australian Council of Churches, the Rev. C. R. Sprackett, said New Zealand was “further ahead ecumenically than Australia.” Mr Sprackett was once minister of the St. Martins Presbyterian Church.

The possibility of the New Zealand Government giving financial support to interchurch aid projects at the request of the National Council of Churches, was suggested by Mr F. G. Heard, inter-church aid secretary to the council. The Government had money to give to overseas aid projects, and the council should consider “selling” one or two projects to it, Mr Heard said. New Zealand at the moment supported 25 per cent of all the World Council of Churches projects in Asia and the Pacific.

Mr Heard, who recently returned from inspecting church-aid projects, also suggested that the council should work more closely with C.0.R.5.0. and perhaps encourage it also to take on the burden of particular church projects.