Anglicans and Union
ANGLICANS AND UNION /TSHE struggle of the English Church to arrive at -¦* some principle and practice of unity should not go unnoticed in this country. The facts of a manifold spiritual...
...Were a really great man—as great as Newman—to step from the ranks of Anglicanism, he might lead a considerable number with him towards Catholicism...
...In the House of Commons, Sir Edward Clarke declared that "a communion of Christians who can come to no agreement about the ceremonial of the holiest and most solemn form of worship, is not a church but a conglomeration of sects at war with each other...
...but he and other men could much more easily find a remedy because the principle of authority was then recognized, and because the Catholic Church was utterly out of the question...
...While the Protestant factions do not hesitate to accuse the High-church movement of "Bolshevism," they must meet the obvious retort that historically considered it is they who have been consistent Bolshevists...
...Strife between the two tendencies has waxed intensely bitter, and many have threatened to bring ritualists to time by means of parliamentary mandate...
...the days in which we live are not ordinary...
...Time presses...
...The arguments that have convinced those who met at Lambeth need stating, and explaining and reiterating in every town and village," says the Times...
...Without going into the question of what is the actual character of Lord Halifax's endeavor, one is practically compelled by the evidence to concede, with Cardinal Bourne, that the matter of Anglican corporate reunion with the Catholic Church is a "side-issue...
...the High churches have become so definitely ritualistic that Dr...
...During the seventeenth century, Bishop Hooker confronted a somewhat similar condition...
...And so the contest rages on...
...Stone even ventured to advocate, before a synod, the reestablishment of the Feast of Corpus Christi...
...Geoffrey Milton, writing in the Sunday Express, says—"I cannot arouse myself to the slightest enthusiasm for the Book of Common Prayer or for the Reformation...
...The forces of disruption and destruction are active...
...The London Times, in announcing that the joint committee of Anglicans and Free Churchmen agreed that no useful purpose can be served by continuing the meetings at Lambeth, frankly voices its disappointment...
...The Free churches cling to their interpretation of the religious revolution and the break then made with Catholic tradition...
...This same question of episcopacy was stressed by Lord Halifax upon his return from this year's conferences at Malines...
...And towards the remedying of this malady nothing is likely to contribute much excepting the earnest prayer that harassed Anglicans may be led by the "fiat voluntas tua" to accept as no less binding the mandates of the one Church Christ builded on earth...
...He tried to make the point that the primacy of the Popes was to be viewed as a kind of "emanation" from the general episcopal power— a mistake that was at once adequately pointed out by English Catholics...
...But though Parliament once brought into being the "Established Church," it is too sane to attempt any settlement of the contemporary controversy...
...the second is certainly an example of an orgy of plunder, murder and adultery without an equal in history...
...What could it do...
...others are out and out modernists, sacrificing even essential dogmas in the hope of convincing the modern mind that Christ's millennial doctrine can be improved—by them—in the twentieth century...
...But is such unity feasible at all...
...A great campaign of enlightenment is wanted...
...It believes the reason can be found in the fact that the rank and file have not been able to keep up with their ecclesiastical leaders...
...The inherent English religious weakness seems to be the want of respect for religious authority among the masses, rather than a lack of good will on the part of some...
...And so the very logical Mr...
...Some Anglican bishops are avowed traditionalists, worried a little perhaps by the question of valid orders, but eager to emphasize that revival of the authentic Christian past, which meant so much to the Tractarians...
...The facts of a manifold spiritual affiliation, as well as the duty of charity, oblige us to feel some concern with a religious situation which is steadily getting further beyond control even while heroic efforts are being made to coordinate the machinery...
...At present we can only wonder that, in the face of an almost hopeless disorganization, the will for unity should be so strong...
...The power of construction, of cooperation, of the ingemination of reason and a right view of human relationships that would spring from a united Christianity within our land is enormous...
...But The Churchman responded by calling the event a "parade," and Bishop Barnes, preaching at the same Westminster Abbey, went out of his way to declare episcopacy unessential and to describe the Mass as a corrupted form of heathen mystery-cult...
...But he would have to use Newman's method: charity, but rigorous historical logic...
...But what are its prospects of success ? In so far as the eastern schismatics are concerned, the Times was at some pains to rejoice over the participation of certain orthodox prelates, including the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, in the observance of the Nicean centenary at Westminster Abbey...
...accommodation in psychology, but definiteness in dogma...
...Very likely the High-church movement to promote unity with eastern schismatic churches and even with the Catholic Church, is actuated less by a desire to rid Anglicanism of its insularity than by the realization that no agreement can be reached with other English tendencies...
Vol. 3 • December 1925 • No. 4
