DISESTABLISHMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1929, Page 3

DISESTABLISHMENT

ENGLISH CHURCHMAN’S VIEW,

HAMII/TON, Feb. 21

Discussing the Prayer Book controversy and the possibility of disestablishment, tnc Rev. Dr H. I). A. Major, a leading Anglican Modernist from Oxford, informed an interviewer that although disetablishment was threatened by High Churchmen because they did not got certain concessions, when it actually came to a possibility their voices became less clamant. Disestablishment would mean enormous financial loss to the Church. He believed such a drastic step most unlikely. Endowed churches throughout England would lose millions in money.

“Since the war the English clergy have l>een carrying on with much smaller stipends than before,” he said. “It would be disastrous for them to Vaco such an issue. There is a desire on the part of a large section of the clerpv and laity at Home to see the Anglican Church with as much freedom as the Church of Scotland. The Presbyterians have secured a large measure of self-government. Instead of asking for disestablishment many churchmen, are urging more spiritual freedom in the same way as was accorded the Church of Scotland.”