LAMBETH CONFERENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1921, Page 4

LAMBETH CONFERENCE

address:;" .?!! Lisnop julius. CHRISSXj&ORCH, March 16. Bishop Julius has recently addressed two meetings on. the happenings of last year’s Lambeth Conference, which h e attended, and especially referred to| the prospects of a reunion of churches. At a meeting of clergy and laity of ith Anglican Church, Bishop Julius stated that the conference, consisting of bishops of the Anglican Communion from all parts of the world, was by far the most important of these conferences, which have been held about every ten years since 1867. It was a conference pure and simple, and its decisions bound nobody. But at the same time those decisions were of the greatest weight. They focussed the best thought of the Anglican Communion throughout the world, and represented the high water mark, of its best public opinion. Some weighty pronouncements had been made on the subject of international relations. The resolutions begin with a grand and noble vision of the Divine purpose for th© unity of mankind, and declared that the present alienation of opinion, races and classes was not in accordance with the Divine Will. On industrial problems the conference, while stating nothing new, called on the Church and all Christian people to take part in social service and iti bringing about a better spirit in the Imdv politic. The Bishop dealt- at length with the subject of the re-union of Christendom. rl c said that many lines of thought md influence had combined to give .•hi.; subject greatly increased interest uid importance. The Lambeth Conference had come together under a ..rent sense of expectancy and re.sponubility in this matter; and never had the leading of God’s Spirit been more manifest than in the work of the c-om-nittec which sat on this subject, and •vhieh consisted of men of the most direrse opinions. A'et unanimity had been arrived at, and the appeal for mity put forth by the conference was Host arresting and marked a new

step, and a very great advance towards tlie goal of re-union. The apI eiil was based upon th c , underlying nrimiple that the One Church contemplated hv Our Lord was not now to be

mind merely in any one communion

Union was to he obtained not by any Church or Churches submitting to one or other Church; but by all gathering together, none giving up what they possessed, hut till bringing in to the 'whole what, each bad to give. Of the four points set forth at Lambeth, the first three need not cause much difficulty; mutely the accept;! nee of the common basis of (1) the Holy .Scripture?: (2) the two Creeds and (3) the two Sacra men ts. Tim difficulties ought

arse with the fourth, the ministry The Lambeth, proposal here is that no Church should deny tlie reality ol (he ministry of other communions. Fad) is a valid ministry, in the sense that it is valid lor its own purposes. AH are not necessarily valid for the purposes of other communions, and Lambeth therefore proposes that each should h,. willing to receive from the other that recognition, commission, or ordination, which would make their Afimstry valid throughout the other ■ommunions of the whole Church

Ihe Bishops of the Lambeth eonfer- ' nee offer to accept from the authorities of other communions, a form ol commission or recognition which would commend their ministry to those congregations and communions and invite others to receive the same from the Anglican Communion.

The Bishop deprecated, as th 0 Lambeth Conference deprecated, hasty and superficial attempts at re-union. Every means should he adopted for bringing sundered communions together by mutual conference and discussion, and explanation of differing points of view; and every effort should be made to combine in social work and other activities which can be pursued m communion