ANGLICAN SPRING CLEANING
SIR,—We may leave Hitler's name out of the question if Lord Altrincham prefers. The question is whether a national Church, such as he envisages, would have sufficient sense of coherence and corporate commit- ment to resist the attempt of a totalitarian or other kind of State to regiment and exploit it. If Lord Altrincham regards the Barmen Declaration, which articulated the grounds on which the Confessing Church in Germany took its stand, as 'a simple, unelaborated profession of Christianity,' well and good. But in that case he does not do himself justice, and he misleads his readers, when he speaks of a 'non- doctrinal' Church.
Lord Altrincham writes as though knowledge of an institution is a positive handicap if you propose to reform it. The path of reformers would be easier if that were so. I agree with him that reform comes more often through pressure from below than from above. But the more would-be reformers know their stuff, the better.—Yours faithfully, ALEC VIDLER
King's College. Cambridge
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