FREEDOM DESIRED

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 15, 12 October 1928, Page 9

FREEDOM DESIRED

REV. S. ROBERTSON ORR

SEVERS CONNECTION WITH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

To his congregation at the Women’s Building, Vancouver, on Sunday night, September 2, the Rev. S. Robertson Orr, who was well known in Wellington as the minister for some years of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, announced that he was no longer a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He declared that he would at once organise a congregation of Presbyterians in 1 ancouver not necessarily independent. The decision came, Mr. Orr said (reports the “Vancouver Daily Province ), as a result of the actions of the Presbyterian General Assembly committee in putting a ban on meetings which he had been holding weekly in the Womens Building, following his suspension from the pastorate of Central Presbyterian Church. Mr. Orr read a telegram to the congregation containing his resignation as a minister under the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The telegram was as follows: “Because your last communications to congregation and self were so opposed to the spirit, principles and history of 1 resbyterianism, and their reaction so unfortunate, I have requested my name bo removed from the roll of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. More dignified that contention should cease. Copy of announcement- to Assembly clerk already posted you.” . The General Assembly, in demanding that Mr. Orr eease holding his meetings at the Women’s Building, also issued an order that all members of the Presbyterian Church refrain from attending. Friends of Mr. Orr state that the recent ecclesiastical inquiry into the charges made against him in connection with the Fleck divorce case was not in keeping with the laws of the Presbyterian Church. The committee of inquiry, they assert, decided to -withhold decision until after the civil case. “Their duty,” to quote one of them, “was to make a finding apart from the civil action. Evidence was received from Mr. Orr’s accusers before the Church inquiry. Nothing was brought forward further than that it was charged that Mr. Orr was guilty of conduct unbecoming a minister. But such conduct would be merely a matter of opinion, and there was no suggestion of wrong-doing or of immoral conduct on his part. and. therefore, a wrong had been done Mr. Orr. His friends also assert that he has been treated by the General Assembly committee as being guilty, and then being forced to prove his innocence. “A man is not usually adjudged guilty in a British country until’he has bad a fair trial.” said Mr. Orr, in making his announcement of withdrawal from the Presbyterian Church of Canada. In a carefully-prepared statement Mr. Orr pleaded that discord should cease. ‘ For fourteen months,” he said, “we have had examples of the worst in human nature. Let there be an end to dissension.” Reviewing his work at Central Presbyterian Church. Mr. Orr told of the growth of the membership from 20(1 to <OO. lie stated that of these, such a large body demanded a continuance of his leadership that he was forced to accede to their requests. After passing in review the findings ot the Presbyterian Assembly, wherein he expresses the opinion that they are “harsh and unreasonable,” he concluded :' “I, therefore, desire my freedom. It is better that my connection with the Presbyterian Church in Canada be terminated at this point. This decision has occasioned me much sorrow, but I can not see how otherwise I can minister satisfactorily to the large following who desire my ministry. ' “I would greatly prefer to hold them for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, but the actions of the commission have embarrassed me in this effort. I have no desire to appear as a defiant minister of the Church, and so I elect to withdraw from its communion for the time being anil allow- the authority of the commission to be established and endorsed by the next Assembly, if it so ordains. ‘“lt is not dignified that any further public contention should continue.” Mr. Orr retains his standing as a minister in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, he declares.