CHURCH CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 129, 2 June 1945, Page 9

CHURCH CONFERENCE

IMPORTANT GATHERING

The Rev. J. L. Robinson, chairman of the National .Council of Churches, will preside at the inter-church conference which will be held at Christchurch from August 8 to September 4. It is expected that 'in addition to representatives from 90 per cent, of the non-Roman Catholic churches in the Dominion, some prominent overseas churchmen will be present. Arising from the Oxford and Edinburgh conferences (at which New Zealand was represented), a World Council of Churches was formed, and the National Council of Churches of New Zealand was established as a branch in 1941. The first major project of the latter organisation was the Campaign for Christian Order. One result of that campaign was a decision to hold a Dominion conference of all churches.

A committee set up in 1943 to organise the conference appointed five commissions in difl'rent parts of New Zealand to study various aspects of one problem, the relation of Christianity to New Zealand life, and their reports will be in the hands of the delegates, for it is the chief purpose of the conference to consider these reports and to issue a final statement for general circulation.

The subjects of the commissions were: The problem of the . community in relation to New- Zealand and the area of the Pacific which concerns New Zealand, the relationship of races, nations, and classes; the future of the Maori people; land, industry, and commerce; education, its meaning, purpose, and scope; the Gospel and its presentation in modern conditions. Among the 200 delegates there are to be specially selected representatives of youth, women's committees, and Maoris.