ULTIMATE NECESSITY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 34, 3 November 1934, Page 9

ULTIMATE NECESSITY

Church’s Own Broadcasting Station PRESBYTERIAN REPORT The conclusion that the ultimate necessity is a chiirctTstatlon is reached after surveying the present position or broadcasting as It affects the Church, by the. committee on broadcasting in its report to be presented to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in Dunedin next week. Some of the possibilities hoped for. the report states, may, perhaps, be realised under a national system, but the committee records its conviction that the full realisation of some of them wifi only become possible when the Presbyterian Church has its own broadcasting station. “Last year’s committee came to the same conclusion, apd the peed for such an enterprise becomes increasingly obvious,” the committee states. “Indeed, we regard the ultimate establishment of such a station as inevitable and necessary to the Church’s witness in this modern age. Such a highly evangelical enterprise may be warmly commended to the Christian liberality of churchmen, as it would assuredly open up many and great possibilities. “Something might, of course, be done by acquiring an interest jn one of the existing B stations. It is generally understood that no further licenses for B stations arc likely to be issued, and most of the existing B stations are carrying on in the hope that parliament may see lit to sanction sponsored programmes. We are given to understand that a half interest In a B station of a relatively low power has a commercial value of about £5OO. But if we do take up this thing, we must be prepared to do so wholeheartedly.

New South Wales Church Stations.

“Such religious broadcasting stations pre operated in New South It ales by the Roman Catholic Church, which has an excellent and well-conducted station. The Theosophical Society also has a large station, said to be the bestequipped private station in Australia, and under the conditions there obtaining, it is reported to return a handsome profit. , . "It is perhaps worth pointing out that the duties of the director of such a Church station might conceivably be combined with those of the editor of ‘The Outlook’ (the official organ of the Presbyterian Church), as both tasks call for originality and for high intellectual attainments of a somewhat similar type. “A strong case might also be made out for diverting to this work the considerable annual sum formerly expended on evangelism. Whatever the future may bring forth, we can only affirm most emphatically our judgment that the Church must continue to think most seriously and practically about this matter. There is the gravest danger that we may become alive to its importance too late and find ourselves forestalled.”