Lectures In Belfast
Anglicanism was described as “the true and natural development of primitive Christianity” by Dr. J. C. W. Wand, former Bishop of London, in a series of lectures at Queen’s University in Belfast.
Speaking of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England, Dr. Wand, a noted theologian of the “High Church” school, said the rising generation wanted clear and definite dogmatic statements in religion, and that a strain of Puritanism often combined with a High Church view of the church and ministry. He said, in his opinion, the existence of parties in the Church was the salvation of Anglicanism as Anglicanism and that tension always existed where truth was strongly held.
He referred to the massive contribution of Anglican scholars—Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort—to New Testament scholarship, but said difficulty was faced in producing adequate scholars in the Old Testament.
“Anglican piety,” he added, “did not aim very high, but neither did it sink very low. It did not exhibit emotionalism, and moved over a long level road rather than one which mounted steeply.”
A Little Help
The Congregational Union reports that a determined attempt will be made to raise the stipends of ministers in Britain’s 3,000 Congregational churches.
Out of 1,300 ministers, 353 are on basic salaries of $1,050. This will be raised to $1,200 in July of this year and, it is hoped, to $1,500 in 1958. Additional payments of $75 a year are to be made for each child.
Membership of the Congregational churches in Britain totals 220,000.
Difficult Objective
The Komsomol (Soviet Youth Communist League, with claimed membership of 18,000,000) is in a bit of a mess, according to Radio Moscow.
Youth leaders have called for nationwide efforts to stamp out “widespread alcoholism, hooliganism and idleness” among young Russians.
With this noble objective in mind, Committee Secretary A. N. Shelepin scored Komsomol leaders for having failed to give Soviet youth moral training. He said their mission is “to imbue young people with selfless devotion to the socialist motherland by educating them in the spirit of the contemporary world outlook, atheism and the struggle against religion.”
An American parallel might be the man who is trying to borrow himself out of debt!
