RELIGION AND SCIENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10955, 18 July 1921, Page 5

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

ANGLICAN SYNOD AND MARRIAGE LAWS. Speaking at the Unitarian Church last night the Rev. Wyndham Heathcote said it was surprising to find tho bishops and clergy at the Anglican Synod appealing to a supernatural revelation about marriage, in to the laws of the State of New Zealand. Wherf the clergy said that God instituted marriage,, that God is in favour of monogamy, and that God has ordained marriage laws, one could only ask, “How do the clergy know these things and come to he on such familiar terms with'the mind of Deity?” And if they said that God had given a revelation on the subject of marriage in the Bible, then he could only by suggesting that, inasmuch ass the revelation in the Bible about cosmic origins and human origins and the origin of death, was hopelessly and ridiculously astray. It is difficult to think that a revelation about marriage would be more reliable. And if it be said that God instituted marriage in the Bible in the form of monogamy, how were they to explain such facts as the following, namely:—(l) That monogamous marriages took place centuries before any part of the Bible was written? (2) That the heroes of the Bible were not tnqpogamists ? (3) That some societies of men who have never read the Bible are monogamists: and that even some animals and birds have one mate for life? Such assumed revelations had been proved scientifically false, and criticism had proved that no such revelation had ever been given, therefore in a democratic State the laws of the State must be supreme. “When the bishop went on to say that women were always the sufferers under the new legislation,” said the speaker, “I can only express my amazement at such an utterance from one holding the important position he does. Barely the exact opposite is the truth. Under tho old marriage laws, women were the sufferers, but the tendency of modern legislation is to secure for woman oven greater and greater protection. and to place her on an equality with man. “In a word—the alleged revelations about cosmic and human origins and the origin of death,- having been proved by science to be entirely false, it is ridiculous far the clergy to appeal to supernatural revelation on the subject of marriage.”