CHURCH JEALOUSIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 298, 8 March 1928, Page 18

CHURCH JEALOUSIES

“NO DENOMINATIONS’’ MINISTER SPEAKS OUT PRAISES WIRELESS Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, To-day. The anual assembly of the Congregational Union of New Zealand began yesterday evening, to do away with the “disgraceful overlapping and waste of money and energy” through Church denominationalism in New Zealand. A conference of representatives of all denominations was urged by the Rev. Lionel Fletcher. In his presidential address, hje said; “Our denominational jealousies poison the atmosphere, prevent unity among the churches, and are forcing organised Christianity into a. crisis which will eventually throw the whole machinery into the melting pot. “Though motor-cars have taken the people away from the churches • to hills and beaches, they cannot take them entirely away from the radio loud-speaker, which in itself forces the upset of bigoted denominations.” he continued. “I say it seriously, that it seems to me that it is God meeting the situation by placing in our hands a means of reaching scattered people with His invitation. People fly off in their motor-cars, but 'there is no place where they can escape the voice of the preacher, for practically everywhere the loud-speaker is in use, and on Sundays, the voice of someone proclaiming the truth, as it is in Christ, is heard.

“But this is the serious test of our denominational system: Anglicans now hear Non-Anglicans telling the old. old story. Non-Anglicans now hear the dignified and well-ordered service of the Cathedral as it comes over the air. Followers of Christ now hear the Unitarian preacher, or the theosophist propounding his teaching, and here denominationalism is helpless.”