THE CASE FOR THE CHURCH ENABLING BILL.
WITH characteristic generosity and fairness, the editor allows space for a full article stating the case for a measure which he thinks mistaken and against which he has directed powerful criticism. An attempt must be made to compress into the space thus available a statement which cannot be quite simple because there are on all sides misunderstandings that need to be cleared away. Between the point of view represented by the four articles that have appeared in the Spectator over the well-known initials " J. St. L. S." and the point of view which I run now trying to express there is of course a real difference ; it is a difference of principle, and yet for practical purposes it reduces itself to a difference of emphasis. The difference of principle may be represented in this way. The writer of the four articles fears that the Church of England may cease to be " the nation on its spiritual aide," and become
a mere episcopal sect " ; my fear is lest the Church of England should cease to be the Catholic Church of Christ as it exists in this land and is accepted by this nation, and become the mere nation on its spiritual side.
The English Reformers were wiser than other reformers, not because they desired to embrace all citizens in a single Church, but because they adopted means better calculated to achieve this purpose. At the time of the Reformation it was the universal conviction that in any one country only one form of religion could be tolerate 1; and this conviction was held by statesmen even more firmly than by Churchmen. In Germany the problem was solved by wholesale subordination of, spiritual interests to the secular power—a fact which accounts for much in the subsequent spiritual history of that people. It would be grossly unfair to argue from any analogy between that and the settlement in England. But the German solution illustrates the prevailing conviction of the time, and also contains a warning that it is at least possible to carry to excess the identification of religious and political frontiers. It is possible at least to defend the view that, failing one really universal Church, it is better to have a number of denominations, all in some degree international, than a number of purely national Churches, gathering together all citizens in their respective nations, but lacking any corporate bond of unity with one another or any means of witness to a fellowship wider than national.
In the articles to which I am referring emphasis is laid upon two elements in the existing Constitutional arrangement which arc regarded as capable of continuance only under a system that is admittedly Erastian. One is the comprehensiveness of the Church of England. It is feared that a self-governing Church will certainly narrow itself. No doubt there is a real danger here. But what is the alternative P It is a Church incapable of declaring its mind on any question that was not already settled at the time (roughly speaking) of the Restoration. Men holding views which would have seemed strange to our fathers are permitted to exercise their ministry in the Church. But it cannot be said that the Church regards those views as per- missible ; this can be neither asserted nor denied, for the Church has no means of deciding or declaring what it does and what it does not regard as permissible. Certainly I desire to maintain the comprehensiveness of the Church, and especially that co- existence in one body of Catholic and Evangelical testimony which alone can lead to the synthesis in which Christendom may unite. But a comprehensiveness which consists in the inability either to tolerate or to reject is nothing but a futility. It is precisely the activity of self-government which will bring the various schools of thought in the Church together in the effort to make plans for the welfare and efficiency of the whole body, and so kad to mutual understanding.
I would insist on the point that I do not regard the proposed change as free from risk. The only state free from risk is death. The alternative to this risk is not security but known disaster. Some people seem to assume that inaction can have no conse- quences, and that therefore no responsibility attaches to it, But plainly the decision not to act is as definitely a choice as the decision to act in some particular way. To refrain from acting now is to accept a position condemned in some directions to inefficiency, and thereby to strengthen immeasurably the ten- dency within the Church to demand total disestablishment It is true that " the position of the Establishment is attacked from two sides. The assailants outside the walls are by no means her most formidable enemies." But if so the task of statesmanship on the part of those who desire to maintain the Establishment is to make such adjustments as may perhaps render it acceptable, or at any rate unobjectionable, to the large and earnest body of opinion in the Church which is in conscience bound to try to end the present subjection of the Church to the absolute control of a Parliament which cannot be expected to take much interest in the Church.
For this is the centre of the problem. In the sixteenth century Parliament was a Church Assembly in the highly prac. tical sense that all its members and all its electors were members of the Church, not merely in abstract principle but in living practice. That is as no longer. No one proposes to carry Erastianism so far as to say that an Atheist born and bred as such, never baptized, constant in his repudiation of all religious faith, is a member of the Church of England because he is an English citizen. Religious toleration has in fact had the effect of making the Church of England a society within the nation (though also stretching far beyond it) and no longer coterminous with the nation. If this is what is meant by reducing it to a " mere denomination," there is no room for anxiety lest it may happen in the future ; it has happened' aVearly.
The other point emphasized in the four articles, besides fear lest the Church may lose its comprehensiveness, is fear lest we should " unchurch the nation." I share that fear. I desire most earnestly to maintain the means whereby the nation confesses its faith in God and offers homage to Him. But the Enabling Bill will not " unchurch the nation." In the first place, Parliament will retain its full control, and there is no fear that measures distasteful to the nation will slip through sub silentio, for if they are distasteful to the nation they will certainly be distasteful also to a large part of the Church ; there will be eager debates in the Church Assembly, and Parlia- ment (to say nothing of the Ecclesiastical Committee of the Privy Council) will have very full warning that it needs to be vigilant. The independence given to the Church Assembly by the Enabling Bill as it is drafted is most assuredly not ex- cessive. Anyhow, there is simply nothing in this scheme that comes near to " unchurehing the nation." If however the scheme is defeated in such a manner as to show that it is futile to press it further, it might become necessary to insist on dis- establishment and to " unchurch the nation " for fear of the greater calamity of " unchurehing " the Church itself. If we are driven to that, it will be the Erastians who, through refusal to make room for the new spiritual currents, will have incurred the larger share of the blame.
It may be that at present the Establishment is not counting for very much as a national profession of faith ; yet even now it counts for something, as the adjournment of the House of Commons to St. Margaret's, Westminster, on Armistice Day is enough to prove. If we obtain a large measure of Christian reunion it may come to count for very much more. But that reunion is impossible while the Church of England is in bondage to the State ; self-government for the Church of England is an indispensable preliminary to reunion, for the Free Churches can never consent to put themselves back into bondage.
So far I have been replying to objections. A few words must be added on the positive side. There are two main grounds on which the demand for the Enabling Bill rests. One is the need for greater facilities in making those adjustments to altered conditions which are summed up under the general title of Church Reform. On this subject the Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken with a weight and fullness that leave no more to be said. Supporters of the Bill are sometimes blamed for sheltering them- selves behind the Archbishop's authority. But after all the question is largely one of judgment with regard to the probable effects of certain action. If the best judgment available, sup- ported by a quite unique experience, coincides with one's own, it is reasonable to allude to that fact. But the Dean of York, in a recent letter to the notes, admirably summed up this side of the question. When reform is needed Parliament wants tc know the wishes of the Church, and has no means of finding them out ; further, it cannot afford the time for tinkering with detaik. In the Assembly the Church will be able to formulate its pro- posals ; all the detailed work will be done there. Parliament will be able to intervene if it wishes, but on ordinary matters of readjustment will not wish to do so.
The other main ground for desiring this change is the oppor- tunity that it will give for developing the corporate life of the Church. After all, our standard documents are not the writings of Edinnel Burke or of Jeremy Taylor, honoured names as those are, but the New Testament Scriptures. The chief contrast
between the picture of the Church in the Book of the Acts or in St. Paul's Epistles and the Church of England as we see it to-day is to be found in the intense and vigorous corporate life of the one and the relative absence of corporate life in the other. Those who are called " members " of the Church of England have, as a rule, little actual sense of being " limbs " of a body, Religion is become almost purely individualist, except so far as a local corporate life exists in parishes or a specialized corporate life in certain societies. The Church is not effectively the Body of Christ, because it is not effectively a body at all. We can expect no realization of such corporate life except through habitual corporate activity. It is through participation in the activities of Church Reform and Church Self-Government that the ordinary Church-member will realize the meaning of membership.
But will he participate ? Will not the Assemblies of the Church be filled with "ecclesiastically minded laymen" to the exclusion of ordinary Churchpeople Incidentally, I do not know why it is worse for a Churchman to be ecclesiastically minded than for a citizen to be politically minded. But I am quite sure that those who think the average Churchman is going to sit idly by while any small clique passes legislation affecting the Church are singularly out of touch with the pre- dominant factors of the situation as it exists. to-day. There is an abundance of religious zeal and of concern for the Church. If the way of serving the Church by assisting in its reform and helping to direct its energies is once effectively open, the laity will make use of it.
The Enabling Bill is act a measure of Disestablishment, but an adjustment of the form of the Establishment. Such an adjustment is indispensable if the Establishment is to be pre- served. But greatly as I value the connexion of the State with the Church, it is not for this reason chiefly that the measure is needed. It is that the Church may have the means to reform its own blemishes, and to become a cor- porate living witness to the principles of the Kingdom of God before the world, and, if necessary, against the world. It is the giving of such witness which constitutes its life as a Church ; it is the acceptance of such witness which can alone deliver the world from its distress.
W. TEMPLE
(Chairman of the Life and Liberty Movement).
Previous page
