ANGLICAN BISHOPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 October 1928, Page 5

ANGLICAN BISHOPS

CONFLICTING TEACHINGS APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION DENIED (Australian Press Association.) (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright.)

LONDON, October 1

The “Daily Chronicle” states: There is no doubt that the House of Commons has confronted the Anglican Bishops with the most difficult problem. As things stand the Bishops are not sufficiently united to suppress a multitude of illegal practices. The essence of their new policy is that they must be so united if they are to suppress practices which are inconsistent with the Old and Revised Prayer Books. The Bishops’ decision means that the Church will act as if the Revised Prayer Book has been accepted, and not rejected, by Parliament, and will rely on the loyalty of Churchmen to give moral authority to the code which the House of Commons refused to legalise: but, though these matters cannot possibly be settled in the law courts, the whole question of the Establishment of the Church of England may have to be faced. ‘ The “Daily Mail” understands that 'prominent ecclesiastics, speaking at 'the Church Congress, will urge the Bishops to exert their authority. Many 'of the Bishops maintain that the State has encroached on the Church’s functions. The Church must seek spiritual independence. The Bishop of Bradford, preaching on the eve of the Congress,, appealed <for Christian unity. He declared that the first barrier that must be broken down was the theory of Apostolic succession. Another was the clergy teaching that it was a sin to communicate otherwise than fasting, which, he said, . was directly opposed to the Scripture.

The Bishop of Norwich disassociated himself from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent statement.

HIGH CHURCH PROTEST. (Received October 2, 1 p.m.) LONDON, October 1. Lord Halifax, addressing the English Church Union, at Cheltenham, said: It is a scandal that the Bishop of Birmingham should be accepted as a member of the Anglican Episcopate, and it is hardly less a scandal that Doctor Major* should be head of the Theological College for the training of candidates for Holy Orders. HOME SECRETARY’S MESSAGE. (United Service.) (By Cable—Press Assn.-Copyright.) (Received October 2,2 p.m.) LONDON, October 1. Sir W. x Joynson Hicks, in a message to a meeting of the National Church League at Cheltenham wrote that it had been a great glorious year, which witnessed the definite uprising of the nation against tampering with the fundamental Protestant principles in the Church of England. He did not believe that their opponents would carry out the threat to get the Church disestablished because it would involve the degeneration of the national church into a party sect.