CHRISTIAN UNITY
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Snx,—Dr. Raven, in his book Good News of God, quotes some remarks addressed to him by an influential business man:
." One moment, padre. There's one thing more I must say. You're a damned fraud. You come here talking about the need for statesmen to meet in friendship at Geneva, and for masters and men to agree to collaborate in industry. When I see Anglicans and Romans and Presby- terians and Methodists and Congregationalists and Baptists and Unitarians and Quakers and the Salvation Army and the rest of you Christians meeting and collaborating here in Liverpool, I'll feel that you have some right to expect others to do so. Till then you're a hypocrite—and you know it."
Now this is exactly the opinion of the ordinary man all over the country. It• is this disunity of the churches more than anything else which hinders the work of God throughout the world, and especially in the mission field. And for this lamentable state of things we must blame a certain apathy and self-satiifaction, but most of all the sacerdotalism of those who appear to be more interested in the validity of orders and other matters of minor importance than in the extension of the Kingdom of God. There is nothing harder to kill than pharisaism and the passion for heresy-hunting, and as long as we insist on verbatim assent to creeds formulated many hundreds of years ago to meet particular needs of the time (and difficult to understand) we shall never have a united Church.
I suggest: t. Our aim should be a United Church of Christ including all those who profess and call themselves Christians, however diverse their methods.
2. No heresy-hunting. A man's beliefs are important, but should concern only himself and God.
3. For slogan let us take " Thou shalt love the Lord thy dod . . . and thy neighbour as thyself." After all, that was the command of Jesus Himself.
I suppose most of our leaders would give a general assent to these propositions. But when pressed they limit their Christian charity to a readiness to receive converts into their own churches, and further remon- strance leads to such nonsense as " Have patience " or " The time is not ripe." Now I maintain that the time is ripe. After this war there will be hundreds of thousands of young men and women who will be lost altogether to Christianity unless we can do something better than this and show them that the words " Catholic Church " have some real meaning. The problem is urgent and should be tackled at once.
Let us then form groups in every church and chapel in the land. pledged to Christian Union, behind the leaders of the Churches, if possible, but if not, without them. Let us also make the strongest representations to Parliament that if we are to have a National Church it should be truly representative and such as can eventually unite with all Christians throughout the world.—I am, Sir, yours obediently, Papplewick, College Road, S.E. 21. R. T. REPS.
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