RELIGION'S CALL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23175, 22 October 1938, Page 15

RELIGION'S CALL

FAITH AND SERVICE A WORLD FELLOWSHIP. VISIT OF THE DIRECTOR On a nine weeks' visit to New Zealand in the course of an Empire tour, the Rev. Dr. Alfred G. Hall, of Toronto, director-general of the World Fellowship of Faith and Service, arrived by the Awatea from Sydney yesterday. Tlio organisation which Dr. Hall represents has over 200,000 adherents, including 35,000 young men and women, in 33 countries. It is undenominational, and works mainly through tho various Methodist Churches and the Y.M.C.A. Dr. Hall, who has been two years in his present position, and has visited 34 countries, is a minister of the United Church of Canada. He has already made tours of South Africa and Australia, and will return to Canada after his etay in New Zealand.

Describing the work of the fellow* ship, Dr. Hall said it aimed at a revival of especially among young people and non-churchgoers. It eschewed theology, and was modernist in that it endeavoured to re-state the Christian faith in terms that justified themselves to the present-day mind. In the course of his travels everywhere he had found that great numbers of people cherished Christian principles in their hearts and endeavoured to carry them out in their lives, but had little or no association with the Churches. The fellowship sought to bring them together and to link them with the worship and work of the religious bodies of their communities.

Dr. Hall's experience showed that there had been a most encouraging response to appeals of this kind, especially as they avoided tho use of cut and dried religious phrases, which, he said, had outgrown their usefulness. In Australia ho had entered communities where the fellowship was almost unknown, and the increasing attendances at his meetings proved that its message had a real appeal to people of all ages and in all walks of life. A small group had been formed in Wellington, and had made arrangements for him to conduct campaigns in tho four principal cities of New Zealand and a number of the secondary towns. Dr. Hall mentioned that the fellow, ship had some resemblance to the Ox. ford Group Movement to the extent that it was independent of the Churches and dealt with the individual as an individual. It had the distinction of having been banned by the Nazi Government in Germany early this year.