Presbyterians Back Church Union

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31209, 5 November 1966, Page 16

Presbyterians Back Church Union

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 4. About 75 per cent of Presbyterian ministers and elders were in favour of union with four other Protestant Churches, the Presbyterian General Assembly was told today.

The assembly was debating a 40-page report on union. After a day-long debate four of the 14 clauses in the report had been approved.

The report had been prepared by the Joint Commission on Church Union, which comprises 29 ministers and five laymen from the Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, the Associated Churches of Christ and the Congregational Union.

Matters covered in the report included statements on faith, Holy Communion, confirmation, worship, marriage and divorce, the ministry and Church government—statements which the joint commission had prepared in the hope that they would be acceptable to all five Churches. The assembly considered the report section by section throughout most of today and adjourned the debate in the evening after approving four clauses out of 14 in a deliverance which covered this report and a report from the Presbyterian Church Union Committee. The Rev. D. J. Brown, as convener, produced a report from the Presbyterian Committee on Church Union and moved the adoption section by section of the report from the joint commission Mr Brown said that the progress toward church union was not before time.

The Presbyterian Church had held conversations and negotiations with the Methodists and ' Congregationalists for 36 years and with the Anglicans and the Churches of Christ for 10 years. Declaration Sought

“If at this point the assembly is not prepared emphatically to declare it is serious in the quest for Church union we ought not to be negotiating it at all,” said Mr Brown.

The Committee on Church Union reported that it had canvassed the views on union of every Presbyterian session (a session being the minister and elders of a congregation). Of the sessions, 254 had replied that they were in favour of an act of commitment which would bind them to further efforts and investigations toward the union of the Presbyterian Church with the four other churches.

Seventy-three sessions were opposed to the act of commitment and 10 were uncertain. In percentages, 75 were in favour, 22 opposed and three uncertain. Of 24 presbyteries, all except three were in favour, these being Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Mataura. No Referendum The assembly turned down a request from the congregation of St. John’s Church, Hawera, for a referendum before an act of commitment. Supporting the Hawera petition, the Rev. C. L. Gosling, of Wellington, said he be-

lieved the Church would move away from the idea of uniting with other denominations into one organisation. He said he understood that among ministry students in the United States there was much less enthusiasm for the idea of organic union than there was 10 years ago. Mr Gosling said he already “saw the signs” in New Zealand, and he thought it would be very foolish to move into an act of commitment which, in the long run, would be stillborn.

The converging of the churches had in his view been one of the most exciting happenings in New Zealand in the last four years, the Governor-General, Sir Bernard Fergusson, told the assembly. However, he still had his private hesitations about full organic union, he said. “But if majorities in a church go along with it, I would join in that march heart and soul,” he said. “About full unity—close cooperation, joint services and, above all, inter-communion— I know precisely where I stand. This is what I long for. This is what I pray for. “But if demand for full organic union arises I shall recognise it as the will of God and will fall in with it, happily and thankfully.”