With only one out of 400 delegates expressing public dissent, the twenty-second General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada approved in principle a merger with the United Church of Canada.
The action was taken at a joint session of both houses of the synod at Vancouver, British Columbia, and represents the culmination of twenty-two years of on-again, off-again negotiations. The action was in the form of resolutions approving a report from unity committees of both denominations. Anglicans in Canada now claim 1.3 million members and the United Church, itself the result of a 1925 merger of Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, counts about 2.6 million members.
The principles now go to the General Council of the United Church for consideration. Approval is expected at its next meeting, scheduled for September of 1966 in Waterloo, Ontario. The actual merger of the two denominations may take five or ten years or longer.
Anglican synod approval came after only a brief flurry of discussion. The lone dissent came from a lay delegate, Derek R. C. Bedson of Winnipeg, former private secretary to Conservative Party leader John Diefenbaker and now secretary to Manitoba Premier Duff Roblin. Bedson said he regretted that laymen across the country had not had more time to study the report. He charged that the union proposal had been handled with too much haste, inasmuch as the committee report was made public only last spring.
“This haste has left the impression, among many Anglicans in Canada, that some things are being done in haste and secrecy,” he said.
On the problem of apostolic succession, the merger statement asserts:
“We agree that orderly transmission of authority in ordination is a normal part of the means by which the church is kept from generation to generation. Some of us believe an unbroken succession of episcopal ordination from the apostles is a necessary guarantee of a valid ministry. Others of us, holding that there is no distinction in Scripture between the offices of bishop and presbyter, believe that the continuance of a succession of presbyterial ordination is sufficient.… But we are all agreed that in a united church there must be a ministry accepted and acknowledged by all.”
Another far-reaching decision made by the synod was approval of a new canon which for the first time allows exceptions to the church’s refusal to remarry divorced persons. One observer called it “a triumph of theology over law.” Legal advisers argued that the synod had no right to vote on the canon because it contained matters of church doctrine that could be decided only by bishops.
A series of constitutional changes enacted by the delegates broadened electoral procedures so that the whole synod will now elect the primate instead of the House of Bishops and an electoral college. The membership of the lower house was reduced from 314 to 222.
The executive officer of the Anglican communion, Bishop R. S. Dean, warned delegates that its two-year-old world mission manifesto is in danger of reaching “an impossible impasse.” He called for more study of the meaning of the mutuality implicit in the program, officially entitled “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ,” which was undertaken by the nineteen autonomous church bodies in the Anglican communion at Toronto in 1963. Archbishop Howard H. Clark, Anglican primate of Canada, drew laughter when he related that the Church of England, finding the document’s title cumbersome, decided to replace it with “No Small Change.” But “nobody seemed to know it was also the name of a commercial diaper service in Birmingham.”
In Des Moines, the general superintendent of the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination issued an appeal for ministerial recruits in the face of declining Bible college enrollment. The Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman told the thirty-first biennial business convention of the Assemblies of God that the number of students enrolled in Assemblies of God ministerial training colleges had dropped from 2,400 in 1956 to 2,200 last year. Zimmerman said that the General Presbytery had voted an outlay of $25,000 for a student revolving loan fund to encourage the financially needy.
A resolution bidding the 550,000 members of the Assemblies of God “to discourage unfair and discriminatory practices” was adopted by delegates. “The teachings of Christ are violated by discriminatory practices against racial minorities,” it stated. “The transformation of mankind through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ breaks down prejudice and causes justice to prevail.” The resolution affirmed “our belief in the teachings of Christ, including His emphasis upon the inherent worth and intrinsic value of every man, regardless of race, class, creed or color.”
At Alfred, New York, at the 153rd annual session of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, a unanimous vote ratified a constitution for the new Seventh Day Baptist World Federation. The federation will come into official existence when four national conferences ratify it.
Protestant Panorama
A plan was unveiled last month to coordinate the missionary work of twelve national Baptist bodies around the world. It will establish a Baptist Council on Cooperation in World Mission and will become operative when seven of the national bodies approve its constitution.
The United Church of Christ began an experimental newspaper advertising program in the Washington, D. C., area this month. Local churches will split the cost with the coordinating denominational agency.
Miscellany
The Episcopal House of Bishops refused this month to consider heresy charges against its most flamboyant member, Bishop James A. Pike of California. The house approved a committee report on Pike which observed that “individual speculations are just that.” Pike’s tactful reply declared, “If my witness has made your task more complicated, I am truly sorry.”
Ground was broken last month for a new Protestant church in the Laotian capital of Vientiane. It will replace a thirty-year-old chapel which has been outgrown. Construction costs will be borne largely by the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Ecumenical services marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the world-renowned Protestant monastic community at Taizé, France. Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic observers were on hand. Among messages of good will received was one from Pope Paul VI.
Eighteen young people made initial professions of faith in Christ at summer camps sponsored by Yugoslav Baptists on the northern Adriatic coast. Tents were set up in a wooded area, and services were held morning and evening, with afternoons free for recreation.
Orthodox Jewish zealots stepped up their campaign of harassment against Christians in Israel last month. In Ashdod, a city of 30,000, zealots broke into the home of a local Christian leader and forced him to reveal the whereabouts of two young women converts who had fled to Jerusalem after being beaten by their parents. Earlier in August, mobs staged similar attacks in Haifa.
At least four Christian civilians were killed and two Protestant churches were destroyed in the crossfire of the Vietnamese war last month. The heaviest loss came in a battle between U. S. Marines and the Viet Cong about ten miles south of a new airstrip at Chu Lai.
Pocket Testament League is reportedly seeking permission to take at least 10,000 Russian-language New Testaments behind the Iron Curtain. One source said “there has been some indication on the part of officials that this may be possible.” A PTL spokesman, however, refused to give any details.
The Ecumenical Commission of the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops of the Americas and the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Ecumenical Affairs held exploratory talks this month in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was the first such discussions between the two church bodies on a national scale in the United States.
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary fared better than much of the city when Hurricane. Betsy struck. The chapel steeple and roofs were damaged and power cut off. Classes were suspended temporarily.
Personalia
Bishop Odd Hagen of Stockholm was elected to a five-year term as president of the World Methodist Council. The term will begin August 25, 1966.
Dr. Earl D. Radmacher was elected president of Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary.
R. Orin Cornett, former executive secretary of the Southern Baptist Education Commission, was named vice-president of Gal-laudet College.
Arthur LeRoy Schultz, an ordained clergyman of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, assumed the presidency of Otter-bein College this month.
Elmer Engstrom, noted Protestant layman and a member of the board of directors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, was named chief executive officer of the Radio Corporation of America, succeeding General David Sarnoff.
Robert MacKenzie, 26, former chairman of the music department at Shelton College, is the new general manager and assistant conductor of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
The Rev. Alton L. Wheeler was elected general secretary of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference. The Rev. Marion C. Van Horn was elected president.
Vatican Radio reported last month that Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Istanbul had named two delegate-observers to the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council. They were identified as Metropolitan Emilianos, the patriarchate’s representative to the World Council of Churches, and Archimandrite Miximos, rector of the Greek Orthodox church in Rome.
