CHURCH UNION AND ECONOMICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18542, 1 May 1922, Page 6

CHURCH UNION AND ECONOMICS.

TO IBS EDITOR. Sin,—l have written more than enough on this subject. In my belief the laity as well as the clergy are responsible for church divisions, but I am far from suggesting that there are no Christians in the churches. There are Christians in all churches. It seems to mo that the divisions arise from false doctrine and the ignoring of plain ■Scripture facts If the churches were agreed upon the facts of their religion there would probably be union. Let their leaders come together to study the Acts -of the Apostles. If they con agree as to what those acts were they should be very near to complete church union. I do not know of any church like the first Christian Church. All the churches of to day lack the love, joy, and unity of that great church, and some have made a very wide departing from the Apostles’ teaching. As Mr Sivertsen says, all the churches accept the Bible moral code. Then why do they not unite to bring our law- and economic and fiscal systems into rmcord with that code '! What is the good of a moral code if it is not given practical effect .t The clergy are the professional teachers of Bible morality, bm they see their moral code trampled in the dirt every day without united protest on their part. Their moral code says: “Thou strait not steal.” Yet. th-- clergy do not unite in vigorously denouncing a State system which steals the earnings of the hardworking poor to add those earnings to the riches of the rich. From most of them there does not come so much as a squeak against this breach of the Christian moral code Many of the clergy complain of their poverty. What wonder that they are so I>oor. A private conference of the clergy and the political economists would perhaps result in a manifesto to the people the effect of which would be seen at the next general election.—l am, etc., SCRUTATOR.