Move Towards Unity

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 14

Move Towards Unity

The unity of mankind was driven home at nearly all the sessions of the fourth assembly of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. D. M. Taylor, general-secretary of the National Council of Churches, said on his return to Christchurch yesterday.

Mr Taylor was one of 16 representatives from New Zealand at the assembly in Uppsala, Sweden, from July 4 to 20. “This unity was not concerned mainly with Christian

unity, but with the unity of the human race,” he said. “So many countries have a code of ethics which does not apply to their fellow men in other countries,” said Mr Taylor. “In New Zealand we, as a welfare state, have many moral principles which we have come to accept, but which do not apply to foreigners. “The time will have to come when there is one set of principles for the whole world.” Mr Taylor said the assas sination of Dr Martin Luther King, who was to have preached at the opening service of the assembly, helped to bring -acial issues to the fore.

“Representatives from the United States were highly conscious of the threat of riots or revolution in their own country,” he said. Although nothing had been done at the assembly to reorganise churches for ecumenism, the meeting at Uppsala would have an influence on unity in that it could make it easier for churches everywhere. Mr Taylor said the great

step forward at the assembly had been that the World Council of Churches was now more clearly and definitely defined as a world-wide body.