“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1937. THE CHURCH AND DIVORCE.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 341, 23 January 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1937. THE CHURCH AND DIVORCE.

At both the Canterbury and the York Convocations of the Church of England on Thursday, resolutions were moved concerning the granting of Communion to divorced persons who have remarried during the lifetime of their former nartner. Only two Bishops were found to support the resolution in one case, while at the York Convocation it was agreed that a bishop should decide whether the Sacrament would be granted to such persons. At the latter meeting, however, it was also resolved that the use of the marriage service should not be allowed to anyone whose former partner was living. In opposing the resolution concerning admissionn to the Sacrament, Bishop Barnes of Birmingham was most outspoken. “We cannot fence the altar,” he said. For “fencing the altar” does seem to be a practice many clerics follow, not only in England but also in New Zealand. At the risk of offending the susceptibilities of some of our readers, we claim that such action on the part of the Church is churlish, unsympathetic and un-Christian. There is no justification for any hidebound literal interpretation of the Bible or of any Scriptural teaching. There need be no sin in divorce. Rather is there sin in forcing the maintenance of an unsuitable marriage. A divorcee may be an evil-liver. But so may be any married partner who bluffs the world and the Church by a life of hypocrisy—a life which can be found amongst Church communicants as readily as among those whose presence at the Table is refused. These are, or should be, days of enlightenment —enlightenment of Christ’s teachings in particular. The sympathy and understanding which He showed to the publicans and sinners of His time seem sadly lacking in some of the dictates of His modern Church. In speaking to thfe Canterbury resolution, the wise Bishop of London said that its adoption wo ild mean the sending of* people to a spiritual death. “It would be a terrific thing to sentence for life people who, of good conscience, had remarried according to the laws of the country.” It is similarly “terrific” to forbid the use of the marriage service to divorced persons. A civil marriage, though legal in the eyes of the world, lacks the spiritual aspect of the marriage union. Divorces are more common from among parties to a civil marriage than from among those who epter their new life with the blessings of the Church of He who befriended sinners and followers alike. If the Church of to-day cannot, by its own man-made laws, diffuse some spirit of sympathy to those whose travail may be lessened by a little sweetness, its influence will wane while the very sin the Church is attacking will rise triumphant.