Monday 30 January 2017

50 years ago: Newspaper religion pages record increasing ecumenism

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
II Corinthians 6:14-17

Submitted for your approval: A few items from the religion pages of The Edmonton Journal of Saturday, January 14, 1967, to remind the reader that the ecumenical movement toward the religion of Antichrist has been going on for a long time (bold, italics in original).

Christian Unity Prayer Service

Members Of All Major Faiths Will Participate In City

Members of every major Christian faith will converge on the Jubilee Auditorium Wednesday for the most comprehensive ecumenical prayer service ever held in Edmonton.

The service sponsored jointly by the Edmonton and District Council of Churches and the weekly newspaper, Western Catholic Reporter, marks the opening of the world-wide week of prayer for Christian unity.

One way to further this unity is to pray together, according to Rev. Brian Brown, president of the Edmonton and District Council of Churches.

Mr. Brown said there must be a spirit of co-operation among Christians before church unity can be realized, but it must involve individuals as well as the hierarchies of their churches.

APPROPRIATE TIME

"The only way this can be accomplished is by getting to know each other and to Pray together."

Dr. C.F. Johnston of St. Stephen's College and chairman of the Council's inter-church committee, said the prayer service comes at a very appropriate time.

He said Canadians now are facing their second century, "a time of great challenge and promise for the future." Christians are being called on as one to serve Canada and the world, he said.

An important aspect of the service is the fact that two laymen are the only speakers, said Dr. Johnston.

They are Murray Stewart, president of Northwestern Utilities, Ltd., and an elder at Metropolitan United Church, and Ald. James Bateman, businessman and member of St. Anthony's Roman Catholic parish.

Clergy of several denominations, two bishops, and a nurse are also participating in the service, which begins at 8 p.m.

Douglas J. Roche, editor of the Western Catholic Reporter, said the paper was helping to sponsor the combined prayer service as a celebration of the admission of the Roman Catholic archdiocese to the Council of Churches as an associate member.

The Edmonton archdiocese is the only one in Canada which has joined the local council of churches.
Metropolitan United Church later amalgamated with Knox United Church to become Knox-Metropolitan United Church. Symptomatic of the decline of apostate mainline Protestant churches (and the subject of this post), Knox-Metropolitan merged with three other churches in July 2016 to become United on Whyte. Mr. Roche, a Progressive Conservative (and a lot more "Progressive" than "Conservative"), sat in the Canadian House of Commons from 1972-1994 and in the Senate from 1998-2004.
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Suggestions Sought On Vietnam Pray-In
The Edmonton and District Council of Churches would like suggestions on what form a Vietnam pray-in might take.

Rev. B.L. Brown, president of the Council, said the council found itself in some confusion about the meaning of pray-in when the idea was put before Tuesday's meeting.

"All clergy pray for peace, so we can't send out a notice saying 'Pray for peace'."

MEANINGFUL, SINCERE

The question will go to a committee, he said.

"We would like something the laity could take part in. Perhaps a service of prayer for peace. Something meaningful, sincere and quiet.

"The pray-in should be meaningful to young people, who feel, rightly, that we're all concerned in this war."

The council would not just pray that the U.S. get out of Vietnam, but that the fighting on both sides should end.
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Christian Pavilion To Stay

MONTREAL (CP)--The Christian Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal world's fair may be maintained as a permanent exhibition after the fair closes.

Rev. Louis Fosey-Foley, director of Credo, a French-language publication of the United Church, told a press conference the permanent status of the pavilion has been discussed by church officials.

Seven Canadian churches are interested in the project.

The pavilion, expected to cost about $1,300,000, is sponsored by the United Church of Canada, the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, and Greek Orthodox churches and the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada.
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Churchmen To Launch Magazine

TORONTO (CP)--Two dozen churchmen of different faiths have decided to set up a theological magazine to help crate understanding of each other's views.

The group includes Jewish, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Anglican and United Church clergy and laity.

Rev. A.C. Forrest, editor of the United Church Observer, who initiated the project, says that through such a magazine "we could talk to one another and listen to one another."

The monthly magazine will "publish expressions of opinion, sincerely held, honestly documented and forthrightly written, from as many areas of religious life as possible."

Catholic layman Paul Harris, another supporter, says "a clash of opinion is helpful, so the magazine will likely be controversial."
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Catholics Lift Ban On 'Y' Membership

NEW YORK (AP)--Roman Catholicism's long-standing ban against membership in the Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations appears headed for a quiet demise in the United States.

It already has been specifically rescinded in some dioceses.

YMCA PRAISED

Numerous Catholic appraisals lately have expressed an approving view of participation in the YMCA and YWCA.

"Indications of the change are coming from all around the country," said J.H. Pisarro, of the national YMCA office. "It's a kind of de facto thing, developing more and more extensively.

Lifting the ban last fall in New Orleans, Archbishop Philip M. Hannan praised the Ys for their community service, and said Catholics were permitted to join.

He said the step was aimed at strengthening fraternal relationships, and that the Ys seek to uphold Christianity in its "generic sense" and not as a particularly Protestant group.

In a similar action in New Mexico, a spokesman for Santa Fe's Archbishop James Peter Davis said: "The programs of the YMCA can help make of a good Baptist a better one, and a good Catholic a better one."

The ban against Catholic membership in the Ys dates back to a Vatican directive of 1920, when Ys were largely Protestant in orientation.
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New Sign Of Ecumenical Age

DALLAS, TEXAS (AP)--At the international assembly of the Christian Churches (Disciples), the list of principal speakers included as many churchmen from outside the denomination as in it, including two Roman Catholics, one Orthodox, four Baptist and three Methodists.

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