THEOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITIES

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2191, 2 July 1914, Page 9

THEOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITIES

DR. ADENEY SAYS NEW ZEALAND • IS BEHIND ENGLAND. In a letter to the "Christian World" th' 9 Rev. Dr. Aderiey, tho well-known English Congregationalist, who recently paid a visit to New Zealand, refers to a meeting at Dunediu at which he Bpoio on Christian Union and how wo should wc.rk for it by broadening our platforms so that tho essential ideas of all the churches should be retained and poured into tho common stock of thought and life of tho groat common Christendom of the future.

• "Now Zealand," ho writes, "thinks itself ahead of poor, old, slow, conservative England; and so it is in many ws.ys. Therefore, I could not but feel 60:ne satisfaction in describing our modcm University life at home with the new Theological Faculties in London and Manchester, where 110 tests are applied, and where the various denominations work quite amicably together. The University authorities in New Zealand are trying to have such a Faculty established over here. But hitherto the Government and Parliament have refused' it them; for the present educational polioy of tli 13 State is entirely secular. In this respect, it must bo admitted that New Zealand is behind England. Our newor view of theology as a science, independent of church creeds, does not seem to have reached the political mind of tho Antipodes, either in Now Zealand or in Australia. Throughout Australasia it is taken for granted that theology is nothing but a narrow dogmatics enforced by church authority—the crudest possible conception of tho subject.' - It is against this bigoted secularism that the University reformers, have to work beforo tbey can ma.ke progress.