“VERY SISTER INFLUENCE”

Evening Star, Issue 25618, 19 October 1945, Page 8

“VERY SISTER INFLUENCE”

PROPAGANDA AND THE CHIiRCH ANGLICAN SYNOD CONCERNED “ We suffer from this propaganda, and it seems to us that in it there is a very sinister influence at work,” said the llev. A. B. Pywell when protesting at the concluding session yesterday of the Dunedin Diocesan Synod about statements which occasionally appeared in the Press with regard to the life of the Anglican Church. .Mr Pywell moved the following resolution on behalf of the Sessional Committee on Social Questions: —‘‘ That Synod requests its representatives on General Synod to bring before that body the desirability of arranging for the publication of accurate information on church life at home and abroad.”

“ There have frequently been pieces of information in the Press—the disturbances in connection with the recent confirmation of the Bishop of London was one of them—which were allowed to go unchallenged and uncorrected, and which put the church in a difficult and wrong position,” Mr Pywell said. “ That incident in particular was, the committee thinks, probably regarded as serious by the people of this country, when it seems likely that it was caused by the action of a noisy minority. Bishop Wand, who was formerly Archbishop of Brisbane, is a scholarly man, and if there had been any doubt as to his orthodoxy he would not have been confirmed in his new office. CHURCH NEEDS PROTECTION. The recent reports of dissension in the Anglican Church in Australia and its desire for a new constitution also caused unrest and confusion in the minds of church people in New Zealand. TheVe should be, he considered, some organisation of the church to watch such reports and give them the “ short shrift ” some of them deserved. Many Anglicans were considerably worried about the trend .and drift of some of the reports that appeared from time to time in the Press and there should be some method of combating the propaganda. Why should only one side be given? General Synod could tackle the problem and see if something could not he done to protect the church, which needed protection against some of the things which appeared in the newspapers. Canon C. E. P. Webb referred to the report of the controversy in Australia and said that what the people of New Zealand did not know was that the Anglican Church in Australia was trying to amend lier constitution _to one similar to that of the Dominion church.

Tho Rev. S. A. Grave said he did not think there was anything being done by the newspapers that was sinister, hut it was being done because of a love of sensationalism, and they misrepresented things in the interests of that sensationalism. Archdeacon Lush said lie did not think General Synod could do anything in the matter unless it approached the Press Association and tried to find the source of its information and why that information was biased. “ There is something against the Anglican Church,” he said, “ and if people can get a poke at it they do.We should find out where this hostility comes from, because it is there.”

Mr W. E. Earnsbaw said that in fairness to the Press it should be stated that if another side to a picture was given, the newspapers always gave it. The motion was carried.