UNION OF CHURCHES

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21370, 14 March 1941, Page 8

UNION OF CHURCHES

ASSEMBLY DISCUSSION CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS PRONOUNCEMENT OF RIGHTS u (By Telegraph.—Press Association) i DUNEDIN, Thursday The New Zealand Congregational Union discussed and adopted the statement recommended as an assembly pronouncement on conscientious objectors. The chief points were the right of a sincere objector to sympathetic hearing by an appeal board, on which should be one person competent to understand such scruples; that ministers and church leaders should assist sincere objectors by advice and testimony; that in the event of dismissal of an appeal, the objector should be in the hands of the civil, not the military authorities; that the State have a right to demand alternative services at rates of pay not higher than military pay. A discussion on the desirability of the unity of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches occupied some time, and the following resolution was carried: —“The assembly, having accepted with gratification the report of the committee on church union, endorses the declaration made at the assemble in 1940 that tripartite discussions with the Methodists and Presbyterians should continue, and suggests to the inter-church committee on church union the possibility that a meeting of the three Communions be held for the developing of mutual understanding for fellowship and for Communion.”

The foliownig office-bearers wero elected for this Centennial year of Congregationalism:—Chairman-elect, the Rev. Frank de Lisle (Auckland); union preacher, the Rev. A. V. Whiting (Christchurch); treasurer, Mr H. H. Miller (Wellington); honorary moderator, the Rev. H. Johnson.