p. 371 | Another League by F.

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 14, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 24.

Another League

By F.

FOLLOWING the much-discussed League of Nations there has come the long-looked-for League of Denominations. Both Leagues have the ideal of world-wide peace as their aim, the first endeavouring to promote political peace and the second striving for religious peace. One is international, designed to include finally all nations, and the other is inter-denominational, intending to embrace all Christian bodies.

The greatest move in the formation of the League of Denominations was the recent conference of the Interchurch World Movement held at Atlantic City, America, last January, at which nearly two thousand delegates represented forty-two denominations. Then there are also the following movements in active operation:—

I. “World Conference on Faith and Order,” promoted by the Protestant Episcopal Church. Of this particular scheme we read in the Australian Christian World of May 7 the following news:—

So the World Conference on Faith and Order of the Church of Christ seems now assured, and a preliminary meeting to discuss how best to proceed further, and perhaps to fix the date and place of the World Conference itself will be held, God willing, at Geneva, Switzerland, August 12, 1920. All the great family groups, save one, of the Churches which worship Jesus Christ as God Incarnate and Saviour will be represented by delegates from every quarter of the earth, and of almost every race and every tongue. Invitations have been sent to and been accepted by all Europe, Australia, and America, all Christian Asia and Africa, and the islands of the sea. The languages of the various delegates will be English, French, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Greek, Roumanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and perhaps Armenian and Arabic.

2. “Conference on Organic Union” seeking a basis for inter-denominational unity with the one name, “Church of Christ.”

3. “The United Churches of Christ in America” which recently met in Philadelphia to consider plans for the amalgamation of the 30,000,000 Protestants in the United States.

4. The effort to link up the prelatical Churches of Christendom, evidenced by the conference sought by the Protestant Episcopal Church with both the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches.

5. By no means least in importance are the mighty Church union movements in China and India.

6. In England the effort to compromise is finding hearty sympathy with the public as, for instance, when Dr. J. H. Jowett, the leading evangelical minister of the Empire was invited by the Bishop of Durham (and accepted) to preach in Durham Cathedral. The whole question, moreover, of the increased associations of the Anglican and Nonconformist ministers is shortly to be discussed at the Lambeth Conference of the bishops and archbishops of the Church of England.

7. In Australia also the plans for the union of the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians are practically completed, and before long we must expect this Church Union to be a reality.

These facts all point forward to the speedy fulfilment of the prophecy in God’s Word which foretells a religious people united on one point—that of Sunday observance. The very many creeds and sects

of Christendom are, one by one, proving themselves willing to forget those differences of doctrine which have separated them in the past, all agreeing on Sunday as the true Sabbath (which it is NOT), so that in the near future we shall see Anglicans, Catholics, Wesleyans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, “Non-sectarian Church of Bible Faith”-ists, “Duck River Baptists,” “Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Baptists,” members of the “Church of Daniel’s Band,” and a host of others with strange names and stranger doctrines all members of the one great Universal Church worshipping on Sunday and seeking to compel all others to do the same. F.