A Bill for a Lottery Rejected
The House of Lords, in February, rejected a Bill to allow the Greater London Council to run a lottery to provide funds for recreational, cultural, welfare and other community services. An Amendment declining to give the Bill a second reading was carried by 76 votes to 60—a majority of 16. Lord Stonham, speaking against the Bill, said: “The new gambling developments in this country were enough almost to make one weep.” He stated that there were more than 15,000 betting shops and the turnover of gambling in this country is £2,230 million a year. Yet the Bishop of London, Dr Robert Stopford, stated that people liked a “flutter” and that he could not feel that, if not taken to excess, it was a very wicked thing. He also said that by this way a means which perhaps was dubious might be justified by the good aim it might achieve. Here we have a Churchman, in a prominent position, supporting what he himself thinks may be evil and dubious. No wonder people cannot depend on many religious leaders today for instruction and guidance on moral conduct. Gambling in any form is an evil and has brought about the ruin of many a person. But another Bishop, Dr J. Phillips of Portsmouth, said there was no kind of harmless gambling and that this was not the way for an adult responsible society to conduct its affairs. Bishop Phillips is right.
Religious Education to Stay
The following is from The Scottish Educational Journal, 17th January 1969. We publish this extract principally to record the Government’s intention to preserve religious education in state schools — Editor. The Government intends to preserve compulsory provision for religious education and the daily act of worship in schools under the new Education Act, said the Education Secretary for England and Wales, Mr Edward Short, when he opened a new Church of England junior school at Alnwick, Northumberland, last week.
A national survey of parents conducted in 1965, he said, had shown that a large majority were in favour of the existing provisions. It was important to ensure, however, that religious teaching had something to say about the everyday problems and experiences of children. The object should be to lead young people to an awareness of the spiritual planes of existence.
“Part of its content, of course, must be moral education — the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness,” said Mr Short, “and I hope that, increasingly, schools will embody voluntary service in their religious education. If religious education does not result in better living there is not much to be said for it. But good works alone are not enough. They are a splendid path to the goal of religious education but not the goal itself. “This is the point at which we part company with the humanist and the point at which an increasingly violent attack is being made on religious education in schools. It is the point at which all who care about the preservation of the Christian character of our community must man the barricades. If we do not do so, in my view, Britain will cease to be a Christian country within two generations.”
World Council of Churches and Violence
A Note and Comment in a recent issue of The Covenanter Witness refers to the World Council of Churches meeting in Sweden last summer. The writer states: Some indications of the way in which such an organisation may be, and is being used by Marxists to further the spread of Communism will be gathered from the intimation that one of its main enquiries was the place of violence ‘as a legitimate means by which the Church can transform society’. The note proceeds: “They will find themselves in the congenial company of the German theologians who have done so much to pioneer student violence in Europe. The Protestant chaplain of a German university said in correspondence with a British journalist: ‘We have constant attacks here from three sources — the God is Dead theology, the new morality and the take over of the Church for extreme left political action’.” So we see that the opinion sometimes expressed — that the W.C.C. is being influenced by Communistic members — is not an exaggerated opinion. Communism and Romanism may well be meeting, after a manner, in the World Council of Churches. They are both out for world domination. The godfearing are all the while looking to the Lord, who reigneth.
Methodists and the Church of England
This year thousands of Methodists in England, Scotland and Wales are to decide for or against the scheme for Anglican-Methodist unity. If this takes place the first stage in the process is said to be communion with each other, the Methodists accepting Episcopacy and the rule of episcopal ordination for the future. Here we see once again, that the unity talk means coming into the Anglican fold where no change is being made as to bishops or ordination by bishops. The second stage is envisaged as the visible, organic unity of the two Churches into one Church. The Scottish Methodist Synod has not given its views on the above scheme as a whole. It voted against the two stage scheme in 1965.
The Church of England has already decided that the scheme will only go forward if 75 per cent. of Anglican clergymen agree. We see that when 75 per cent. is mentioned, the matter of visible unity is rather uncertain. Indeed we are of the opinion that many Anglo Catholic clergymen and people in the Church of England will not be too comfortable at the thought of thousands of Methodists being part of their Church. Of course today, many Methodists are liberal in their doctrine and practice and may easily conform to episcopacy.
Another Step in Church of England Declension
At a meeting of The Church of England Church Assembly, in February 1969, Rev. Ian Ramsey, Bishop of Durham, presenting the report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Christian doctrine, said that the 39 Articles were a historic formulary from the 16th century. Many of the clergy have conscientious scruples about agreeing to them today. “Much of the treatment of the articles,” says the Report, “is controversial and negative, reflecting either the assumptions of, or a reaction against, late mediæval theology.” This is plainly a repudiation of Articles which have always been considered by lovers of the Word of God, to be soundly based on that Word. As a criticism of these Articles, the Bishop refers to their being formulated in the 16th century. But surely time does not alter truth embodied in the most ancient Creed? Time does not alter the doctrine of Christ recorded in the Bible. But of course many of the clergy in the Church of England today, are “wiser”, as theologians, than the Reformation fathers and they cannot abide the doctrine which is grounded on the Word of God. They cannot agree to Reformed doctrine, because they do not believe it, nor the Word of God from which such doctrine is derived. Now, in future, no bishop, clergymen, or laymen of the above Church will be required to read in public, and give assent to the 39 Articles of the faith. This awaits final approval, which no doubt it will get. What will the evangelicals in the Church of England now think of this latest retrograde step?
Aberdeen Education Committee and Bingo
Some time ago Aberdeen Education Committee discussed ways and means of making community centres under their care more popular. It seems that the provision of community centres for the youth is not enough to ‘keep them off the streets’, to use the oft-quoted phrase. These centres with what they ordinarily provide are not attractive enough apparently. So the Education Committee decided to allow Bingo (in other words, gambling) in these centres.
Surely an Education Committee, worthy of the name, had more honourable business to attend to, on behalf of the young, than to decide to encourage them to gamble. Although the Aberdeen Presbytery of the Church of Scotland is not one that we would readily commend; yet they are to seek a meeting with Aberdeen Education Committee regarding the matter of the Bingo. This should, of course, have been done long ago when the Bingo was at first mentioned. Surely a Church Court as large as Aberdeen Presbytery could wield enough influence to prevent such a decision, as aforesaid, ever being taken, if they had the will to do so.