Church Union Plan Favoured

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 18

Church Union Plan Favoured

A proposal on church union was last night approved by the Synod of the Diocese of Christchurch. It favoured the entrance of the Church of the Province of New Zealand into the act of commitment as set out in the first report of the Joint Commission on Church Union.

The approval came after a long debate which was attended by the Bishop of Dunedin (the Rt. Rev. A. H. Johnston), who is chairman of the provincial commission on church union. There was considerable discussion of the theories presented by Professor L. G. Geering, principal of Knox Theological College, on the Resurrection.

By agreeing to the motion approving entranace into the act of commitment the synod would be forwarding the Church’s quest for union, the Rev. G. Fitzgerald said, when he moved the motion.

Many Anglicans gave lip service to the idea of union but did not know anything about it. By entering the act of commitment the Anglican Church would definitely resolve to seek union. Others among the negotiating churches had already approved the act or were moving towards it. “Little Things”

It had been said that there were not sufficient lay people sufficiently informed to take this irrevocable step, but he believed that the real hurdles on the road to union were the little things such as personal prejudices, said Mr D. S. Studholme seconding the motion. The commission on church union had so far found no insurmountable barriers to union. Bishop Johnston told the synod. There were still many important areas of study yet to be undertaken, and the inter-church commission was revealing a sensitivity to the thinking of the churches and their reaction to its work, he said. The act of commitment was not a decision to unite, nor a basis for union, as there was none, nor would it take away any of the constitutional rights of the Anglican Church, the Bishop said. The act was a commitment to Christ. “It is with a very heavy heart indeed I arise to oppose

this motion.” said Canon R. A. Carson.

Although in March, the synod had agreed to support church union he had been greatly alarmed by developments in New Zealand over the last two or three months with widespread support for the views of Professor Geering.

If such views were condoned officially in the united church then for himself personally admittance to such a church would be “unthinkable under any circumstances.” No-one was denying the Resurrection, what was being questioned was just the mode of it, Archdeacon H. M. Cocks told-the synod. The ideas supported by the professor had been put forward by an Anglican clerygman, Dr. H. E. Major, in England in 1921, and an inquiry had cleared him of heresay. I The Ven. R. F. Plaistowe said that he had been taught the things that Professor Geering had been saying when he was at theological college in the 1930’5. He had not been taught it as a truth but as a theory held.