Reforming the Reformed
Rev. T. F. Robinson, W. N. J. Howard, Rev. V. W. S. Leatherdale, Rev. J. W. Kennedy Never So Good? Brian Bond Cheap Literature
Sir Alan Herbert, Sir Stanley Unwin
Embarrassment of Empire Nirad C. Chaudlwri Anti-Semitism A. R. Nicholson Nigeria D. F. C. Hawkins Attic Attitudes Merlin Marshall, Harold Champion The South African Foundation
Air Vice-Marshal H. V. Champion de Crespigny (RAF, Reid.)
The British Studen's' Orchestra
Sir Thomas Armstrong. Gordon Thorne
. . et Prtevalebit' George A. Riding
REFORMING THE REFORMED
SIR,—T, too, loved the question Bishop Stephen Neil is reported to have thrown at the Bishop of Salisbury at the last Lambeth Conference. It sounds completely typical, but is it in fact true? A perusal of the list of bishops attending the conference reveals that Bishop Neil was not there, an omission which sur- prised many of us at the time. More surprising still is the name of the Bishop of Salisbury. which is given as 'W. L. Anderson: There was a 'Dr. Lunt,' whom Monica Furlong may remember as a famous Bishop of Bradford, but at the time of Lambeth he was certainly in retirement, or may even have been dead then. If my memory serves me, the press were not invited to sessions of the bonference, and one is moved to ask Miss Furlong to quote her sources.
The whole episode has such an air of the gossip column about it that it casts doubts over the rest of the article. Where, for iinstance, is the evidence for, saying that nine churches out of ten have, since the war, made the Eucharist the central service of their Sunday, 'pushing to one side the intrusive Matins.' Many churches have indeed done so, but where is the evidence that 90 per cent. have?
Mervyn Stockwood, less biddable, as indeed he is, deserves no special credit for doing what it was his plain duty to do, namely to discipline a disloyal curate. Many bishops do that without attracting so much publicity. They are clearly neither less rash nor less brave than Southwark; but just as impotent as he is to do anything other than imploring or asking their clergy to remain loyal to, the Prayer Book. Short of starting a 'witch hunt' and the long- unused machinery of the Ecclesiastical Courts, there seems nothing that can be done but to ask and im- plore. Is it too much to hope that sooner or later it will be made clear that the refusal to use even any form of the Anglican Prayer Book is a piece of disloyalty that will bring the same disciplinary action upon all the clergy, not just the unbeneficed clergy who are not in a position to defy anybody?— Yours faithfully,
Previous page
