NEW "KIKUYU" FEARED

Evening Star, Issue 18052, 21 August 1922, Page 6

NEW "KIKUYU" FEARED

IMPORTANT MISSION MOVE IN EAST AFRICA. UNIFORM ORDINATION. _ Another “ Kikuyu controversy is feared as the result of an important resolution passed by a conference of Protestant missionaries in Last Africa. After a. long discussion on the reunion o: the churches (says Reuter’s correspondent at Nairobi), the conference, which was hold at Kikuyu, recommended the ordination of native clergy in the future, and that “presiding presbyters” of all churches should take part in services, and thus enable native clergy to be ministers in all the churches of allied missionary bodies. . , Under this arrangement the new ministers would be ordained, not in the Anglican or Scottish ministry, but in the mb istry of “ the African Church of Christ.” It is further recommended 1 that the same procedures apply to new missionaries coming out from Home. Emphasis, the message acids, has been laid on tho essential desirability of approaching native races through one united' body of Christianity rather than through a number of various sects. DISPUTE RECALLED.

The first Kikuyu .Missionary Confcreaoo was hold in June, 1915, with the object of forming a federation of missions on the basis of the acceptance of the Niocuc Creed and a common form of church organisation. During the conference the Bishops ol Uganda* and Mombasa, celebrated the Eucharist, and admitted to communion missionaries of other denominations. J ncii action was denounced by the Bishop ot Zanzibar, who appealed for a ruling to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop, after summoning the consultative body of the Lambeth Conference, decided that the bishop of a diocese might, permit non-Anglicans to be admitted to communion, but that Anglicans might not receive communion from the ministers of oilier denominations.

Tho questions at issue aroused great controversy in England ami among missionaries abroad. One side argued that it was desirable to impress the natives with the unity of tho various Christian sects who worked among thorn; the other side stressed the importance of upholding fundamental dogmas. Kikuyu is a small, village near Nairobi, in Kenya Colony.