THE FALL.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1920, Page 8

THE FALL.

"UNTENABLE DOCTRINE." A STRTRIXG SERMON. London, Sept. 2. "Christian thinkers now abandon the doctrine of the fall, and the arguments deduced from it," said Canon Barnea, a noted Westminster preacher, to-day. His sermon is attracting much attention. Canon Barnes said that the Church must accept a wider scheme of evolution. From some fundamental stuff in the, universe electrons arose, and from them came matter, life, mind, and gradually spiritual consciousness. • Canon Barnes said that a faith that feared progress of knowledge anticipated its own dissolution. "THE COURAGEOUS CANON." The Times, in a leading article, says that his courageous se(mon would have led Canon Barnes to the stake a few generations ago, and may yet bring him into conflict with the average opinion of the Church, but the majority of thinking people will share his belief. "The Churches" have a grave choice," says the article. "They must re-state Ijlieir creeds and formalities, so that these shall not present gross obstacles to educated opinion, or be content to minister only to those who are reached by emotion and ritual•'The choice will arise in an immediate form when the movement for union passes to the state of definition. If they prefer the easy way of concealing disagreement under generalised phraseology, they may unite the Churches, but at the cost of isolating the united Church from the intelligence of the people."