CHURCH CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 10, 6 October 1927, Page 9

CHURCH CONGRESS

4 OUTSPOKEN ADDRESSES SPIRIT OF COMPETITION MUST GO ADMISSION OF WOMEN TO PRIESTHOOD Hr Telegraph.—Press Association. (Copyright.) (Rec. October 5, 9.25 p.m.) London, October 5. Two outspoken addresses marked the opening of the Church Congress at Ipswich. Dr. Wittingham, in his presidential address on the work of the Church in the modern village, condemned the tendency to regard the Kingdom of God as something disconnected with daily life. It was not incompatible with the feeding of pigs and the hoeing of turnips It was fatal to judge of the success of the Church’s message by the extent of churchgoing. Moreover, we must get rid of the spirit of competition. “We need not suppose when we secure a Non-Conformist as a churchman that we have done something in itself meritorious in God’s kingdom, or that it does him injury if a churchman becomes a Non-Conform-ist," he said. “We must get rid of the notion that it is wrong to go to chapel. There are differences in administration, but the same Lord.” He concluded with an earnest appeal for Christian unitv. Canon Raven, of Liverpool Cathedral, advocated the admission of women to full priesthood with the prospect of an episcopate if and when qualified. A questioned: Whv did not our Lord ordain a woman apostle?" Canon Raven: “Who am I that I should dare to answer that?” Another' questioner asked whether it would be possible for a woman to represent God. Who was masculine. Canon Raven replied: “Do you reajly mean to maintain that God is masculine? That is so extraordinarily heretical that I can hardlv believe a priest would give utterance to it. Christ said: ‘ln Me there is neither male nor female.’ Yours may be good Mohammedanism, but it is bad Christianity.” REVOLT AGAINST CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS BOLSHEVIK TREATMENT OF SACRED THINGS (Rec. October 5, 7.45 p.m.) London, October 4. “Sex relations in modern literature* society, and conversation show a great revolt against the Christian religions. This movement has gained formidably in recent vears,” said the Bishop of Durham, preaching at the Church .Congress. “Civilisation has failed to find a substitute foi Christ’s religion as a guardian and individual controller of sexual passion, while secularisation bf the Sabbath, the declining attendance, at churches, the disregard of the Christian conception of marriage, and the disappearance of those reticences and discipline formerly regarded as necessary to protect female virtue, are sinister signs, and may be a reaction against unwarrantable clerical professions of irrational moral conversions, but it must be remembered that the Churches’ failure means that civilisation is parting company with Christianity and restoring pre-civilisation cruelty, a prevalence of suicide, squalid superstition, and unbridled sensuality. Russia at the present

time is practising Western theories with brutality and a lack of discrimination. The saddest and most menacing feature of Anglo-Russian relations was the absence of the British Labourites’ disgust, resentment, and alarm at the Bolshevik treatment of religion, marriage, and childhood. Even if Russia be left out of reckoning, the British revolt against morality has caused apprehension.” The Bishop added that real opposition to the new Prayer Book was due to the widely-distributed resentment against the breach of contract in the spiritual office, resulting in a refusal to endorse the apparent concession to lawbreaking clergy.—“ The Times.”