Religious Union Meetings

Religious Reunion and Harmony - 2 Kinds

REPRESENTATIVES Of the Northern Presbyterian and Methodist churches are undertaking the serious study of measures necessary to the merger of the two bodies.

Organic unity of denominations as different as they in historic doctrine and polity has been proved possible in Canada, and there seems to be no effective reason why it should not be possible in the United States. To all the six million members of these two denominations and to Protestant Church leaders generally such a merger as this would bear great significance as a promise of the end of sectarianism. So far as it would lead to the union of local churches that are now competing in overchurched communities it might well have great influence outside of the denominations themselves. It is conceivable that two churches, one Methodist and one Presbyterian, now struggling to support separate ministers and organizations in many a village or small town, might become in union more than doubly influential.

It is for that reason that perhaps even more significant than the plans for the Methodist-Presbyterian merger is such a meeting as the National Conference of Jews and Christians in New York. There Catholics, Protestants and Jews sought a common meeting ground of minds. Naturally one of the subjects to which the speakers reverted was that of religious bigotry or intolerance.

It was recognized that sometimes a religious faith or a large group holding a religious faith in common was held responsible for the words or actions of individuals or a group not representative of the whole. What those in conference sought was not only the common resemblance between the faiths represented there, but also such practical measures as would reduce if not abolish the friction in daily life that arises out of differences of belief.

Source: Outlook & Independent - March 6, 1929