AMICABLE END

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 65, 14 September 1936, Page 9

AMICABLE END

CHURCH CONTROVERSY

DR. ANGUS'S TEACHINGS

SYDNEY, September 13.. , The prolonged controversy in the Presbyterian Church of Australia caused by the theological teachings of Professor S. Angus has now been amicably ended.. j The. General Assembly adopted the report of a special committee designed to end the discussion which has been going on for years, and which was revived only recently. Dr. S. Angus, a professor of theology at St. Andrew's Theological Hall," Sydney University, and writer on theological subjects, was arraigned before a special church committee in Sydney in March, 1933, to answer a charge that his utterances were not in harmony with the doctrines of the Church. The findings of the committee were then considered by the New South Wales Assembly, which vindicated Dr. Angus by a huge majority, FJve of the minsisters who voted against him, however, lodged an appeal, and the matter has been kept alive by various moves. At the Sydney hearing Dr. Angus retracted some of his former utterances. In a speech at Lithgow on October 30, 1932, reported in the "Sydney Morning Herald," Dr. Angus was declared to have made statements which caused widespread indignation. Extracts alleged to be from his lectures over a period of two years were quoted to show that he had told students that Jesus did not know that His death was necessary for salvation, that an approach to God through the merits of Jesus would be repugnant to the mirid of God, that some religious things reminded him of a Gilbert and Sullivan character, that Jesus had a sense of personal sin, and that His baptism proved it, that Jesus was awarded a much higher position than He ever gave Himself, and that He did not Himself accept the title of Lord. Dr. Angus was also stated to . have said that the doctrine' of incarnation was foreign to the mind of Jesus, and that all men were incarnations of God. He had asked "who introduced three Gods into Christianity," "which was a shocking way to speak of the Trinity." Good Friday, Easter Day, and Christmas Day had been represented as founded on legend. There was much more evidence of this nature. In 1934 -the matter spread to other sects, which publicly criticised Dr. Angus. fly special arrangement .Renter's world service, in addition to other special sources of Information, is used In the compilation of the orerseas -intelligence published In thl* Issue, jinfl atl jlsrhtd therein In Australia »»<! New Zealand lire reserved. >