CHURCH UNION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 44, 21 February 1930, Page 4

CHURCH UNION

CALL TO FRIENDLINESS

AIMS OF METHODISTS

ONE VOICE NEEDED

As Methodists, they still desired a league, offensive and defensive, with every soldier of Jesus Christ, declared the Key. A. N. Scotter, 8.A., president of the Methodist Church of New Zealand,, iv the course of his inaugural adiirejjs st the opening session of' the annual confecenifc in Wesley Church, Taranaki street, last night; They all realised, he added, how much more effective would be their witness if the Protestant Church throughout the world spoke with one voice on the pressing problems of the day. In the great possessions of their churches and church orders, as well as iv the differences between their written., creeds, E aid Mr. Scotter, they might have great difficulties to face in attempting,to bring about church union; but in practice there ought to be more mutual interest and sympathy manifested by the leaders of the churches which followed the one Lord and Master of them all. Mr. Scotter expressed his gratification at the consummation of Presbyterian reunion in Scotland, at the approaching union involving some 15,000 churches, oi the three outstanding branches of the aiethodist Church in the Old Country, and at the tentative efforts at present in progress for the unification of missionary enterprise among the Protestant churches, including the Episcopal Church, of Southern India. While they recognised the.ditofiulties in the way of the various schemes of church uuion, all men ot goodwill, he said, would rejoice in the fact that such union was.not only seen to be necessary for the more effective evangelisation of the world' and the more effective service of the age, but was felt to be possible. An impetus might meanwhile be given to the church union movement, he urged, if, by fraternising more freely in Ministers' Association's and kindred organisations, ministers of the different churches gave more evidence ,of their desire to get to know each other..

"BAPTISM OF FRIENDSHIP."

Appealing to Methodists to be loyal to their ■ church'and ■t° one another,, and j to pray for a baptism of friendship, the president stated..that .he did not.believe that competition 'or".-overlapping was doing so much harm, as the weakness of de■nominationaL Ibyalt}'.' He urged _ that strangers coming' into their Christian assemblies should be made to feel •_ that Christianity.'''was.'"full of that gladness, friendliness, and warm sympathy which some people professed to be able to find only in"'the dance-hall or at their clubs or> lodges. It must be'the aim of the church to convince such people that no enjoyr ment could be so pure and strong as that of the fellowship of those who lived to -promote the lofty principles that Christ Jesus both taught and lived. -Christianity, he maintained, was able to make their churches echo with a contagious gladness and friendship which, besides attracting to them the rising generation, would infuse a spirit of kindliness into all the eoc'ial contacts of- church members. By cultivating harmony and kindliness in their own congregations they should prepare the way to the larger unity.

GOD OR MAMMON?

Critics of the: Christian church to-day were rather given to speakng despairingly of modern religious effort, contending that industrialism had produced a harsh, iratidy, money-loving world which would unhesitatingly choose to serve" Mammon lather -than. God. Modern preaching revealed a decline of evangelism and of belief in the need for conversion; and they had to 'fate the question whether the Christian religion could survive the eclipse of the Christian church. Young people, they '-were told, were inclined to ignore organised religion, pending some agreement as to what the Christian church believed, and' how much of the Bible it held to be true. Though it was not the only sufferer from this mental and moral atmosphere, the Methodist Church, as had been said, "felt it first and felt it worst" by reason of the .circumstances of its origin and history. But those very circumstances, should themselves constrain the Methodist Church to confront its difficulties and challenge every enemy of social righteousness. THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY.

Optimism, observed Mr. Seotter, was to be encouraged; but not the optimism that denied the existence of moral evil, or that counted as; Christian worshippers the patrons of Government Sunday excursions, or reckoned as members. of the church those who neglected her ordinances. Among the difficulties that they of the Methodist Church in New Zealand shar-' cd with their brethren, in the Homeland were the problems arising out of the corrosive influence1 of certain presentations of the new psychology, which induced scepticism, a concentration of thought and desire rupon temporal and material things;and an insatiable craving for excitement and amusement. "We stand," declared Mr. Scotter, ''for a religion of' joy; but it is a joy based on Teverence and morality, and the service of man."