18 MARCH 1949, Page 5

The argument arising out of the report—which is unfounded—that St.

Clement Danes was to be regarded as the official church of the Royal Air Force should be carried further. I should have been sur- prised if the report had been true, for it would have meant that the Secretary of State for Air—who, like his father (a Local Preacher), is a Methodist—had consented to confer official status on a church in which he would have had no place himself except by courtesy. St. Clement Danes happens to be close to the Air Ministry head- quarters, and the suggestion that the two should be associated is a happy one. But is it impossible, in the case of a body like the Royal Air Force, to rise to the conception of a church where men of all denominations can worship on the basis of their common Christianity, and all Air Force chaplains, whether Anglican or Methodist or Con- gregationalists, officiate ? What does the Air Force itself think of it ? Possibly nothing at all. But I hope that it does, and that it may resolve in this matter to remain united, not divided—if need be not at St. Clement Danes.

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