REUNION OF CHURCHES

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1931, Page 8

REUNION OF CHURCHES

ANGLICAN SYNOD’S ATTITUDE. CONFERENCE TO BE HELD. An invitation to the leaders the non-episcopal churches in New Zealand to confer with the Anglican Church on the possibilities of reunion was- authoiised by the General Synod, of that church at its . final session in Christchurch last week./ ■ Bishop West-Watson and Bishop Richards botlnspoke strongly in favour of a conference, which, they said, would, promote the right atmosphere of kindly feeling for the discussion of proposals for reunion. Archbishop Averill, who also in his presidential address remarked the growth of the movement at the Lambeth Conference; is to appoint representatives to attend the conference if it can be arranged. • . ±l. Bishop West-Watson said that the question of reunion was the leading note of the Lambeth Conference of 1920, and was followed- by important conferences with the other churches in England. It gave a definite trend to the thought of the church, and was expressed and emphasised at the last Lambeth Conference. Many were disappointed that no further progress, was made towards the reunion in England, but the. Southei n India scheme, if successful,, might open up great prospects and revive a movement that seemed to be reaching a stalemate. The time was opportune for the proposal to come • from the Anglican Synod. They ■ would already have noted the friendly overtures made by the Presbyterian Church in Dunedin, and lie thought that some definite proposals for a conference might now be made. “It may interest the synod to know that we have been having conference?, in Dunedin for the past seven or eight years, though we have not yet got veiy far,” said Bishop Richards (Dunedin). “They have, however, produced this result—a very happy relationship between the clergy of our own church and those of others. When we -explore the position, we find that we have a' tremendous amount in common, but we get to a cartain point and do not seem to be able to "o beyond it. Such a conference asBishop West-Watson proposes would produce the right kind of atmosphere, and unless we get such an atmosphere of kindly feeling we will never get anywhere. , “I do trust that it may be possible in other dioceses to evolve some means by which closer union may be obtained at lib distant date. The great difficulty is that I have never found among the representatives of the churches any great wish for reunion. Even if we evolved some scheme, a tremendous amount of education would have to go on before the scheme could be carried to fruition.” '