am sure I am not alone in wishing that Monica
Furlong would not make such wild and unjustified generalisations (The Christian Line,' June 10); in fact there are three matters over which I must take her to task, in just one paragraph.
(i) . . the Church of England Newspaper . . . has the disadvantage of being uncompromisingly low church.' Passing over the assumption that this is a disadvantage (a thing I am loth to do), what Miss Furlong means is 'evangelical' not 'low church.' This is a confusion of terms which the evangelical resents deeply since, with his devotion to the Bible as the
inspired and authoritative Word of God, no one could be further from the rationalistic and worldly Low Churchman of the eighteenth century.
(ii) `. . . Christians of all backgrounds seem to be yearning for sacramental religion.' To someone with the childhood background and present inclination to which Miss Furlong confesses, this may seem to be true, but 1 must tell her what any Bishop will confirm; that there is a Ifve and increasing body of Evangeli- cals in the Church of England who can no longer be ignored and who claim to be loyal to the Book of Common Prayer when they insist that the ministry of the sacraments and the ministry of the Word are dependent and indivisible.
(iii) . many Anglicans almost regard it [Pro- testant] as a dirty word.' True—but there are also many Anglicans who regard it as an honourable and precious word. Latimer and Ridley were two who thought enough of it to die for a Church in England that would bear that name; if there are some today who would wish to change that name there are also some who owe their spiritual life to the Reformation principles of which Miss Furlong makes so light. Please, we are tired of being discounted.—Yours faithfully,
H. E. ROBERTS
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