UNITED CHURCH CRUSADE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12509, 27 July 1926, Page 9

UNITED CHURCH CRUSADE

EFFORT FOR UNITED ACTION FOR UNIVERSAL PEACE The public questions committee of the Presbyterian Church, through its chairman, tho Rev. Dr Gibb, recently received a communication from Dr Gu« lick and Dr Macfarland, of the Federal Council of tho Church of the Unit- r ed States, containing information of tho crusade against war on which they havo embarked, and asking the New Zealand church to fall into line. A similar communication was received from the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through tlie churches. The public questions committee received these letters with marked approval, and resolved to instruct tho chairman to call a meeting of representatives of all the Wellington churches to consider tho matter and take some helpful action. In response to the invitation to at- i tend this meeting there were present representatives of tho Presbyterian, thrt Methodist churches, the Church of Christ, tho Salvation Army, and the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop O’Shea and the Rev. E. R. Weeks, who were unavoidably absent, sent messages of cordial sympathy with the aims of the meeting, and Bishop dprott and Johnson wrote apologising for absence. After full enusid'Tution of the Ritual ion, it. v.a.s unanimously resolved:— i ‘‘That this meeting of representatives

of the churches of Wellington, in response to an invitation from the Federal Council of the Churches of tile United States, and the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches, declare themselves in deepest sympathy with these organisations in their hatred of war as the world’s most tragic evil, and the greatest of all hindrances to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth; and in their conviction that the Church of j Ciirist has no more urgent duty at this hour than to aSsume tho leadership of the people in a great crusade against war and for universal peace. “Those present, however, realising that if the movement is to achieve sucoess, it must have behind it the authority of the churches as expressed by their constituted courts, resolve to bring the whole matter under the, attention of the General Synod of the Church of England, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, tho Methodist Conference, the Baptist Council, the Congregational Council, the Council of the Church of Christ, the Commissioner of the Salvation Army, and the Archbishop and Bishops of tho Roman Catholic Church, \yith a view to the formation, if possible, of a committee charged with the duty of securing united action of all these churches in the interests of peace and for the outlawry of war.” A copy of this resolution, with an accompanying statement of the circumstances which led up to it, will be duly forwarded to the officials of the cb inches concerned.