THE VIRGIN BIRTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19047, 18 December 1923, Page 7

THE VIRGIN BIRTH

A BITTER CONTROVERSY. AMERICAN EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH STIRRED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyrigot NEW YORK, December 16. (Received Dec 17, at 9.15 p.m.) One of the bitterest controversies in the history of the Episcopalian Church of America has been precipitated as the result of the decision of the House of Bishops, to try the Rev. Lee Heaton, a young clergyman from Port Worth, Texas, on a charge of heresy because he declared he did not consider a literal belief in the story of the Virgin Birth as essential to the Christian religion. Dr Leighton Park£, for 20 years rector of St. Bartholomews Episcopal Church, probably the most conservative and richest in New York to-day, astounded his congregation by attacking the bishops for this step, and' declared that they were attempting to unfrock all clergymen of liberal views. The modem Churchmen’s Union in the meantime has also the controversy, taking up Air Heaton’s defence and appropriating a considerable sum therefor. Other Episcopalian clergymen who disagree with the House of Bishops are opposing the Fundamentalists in every • way. Many are lecturing in the colleges against a literal Bible and portraying Christ as a modernist.—A. and N.Z. Cable.