Sin,—Mr. Rees urges the Churches to abandon "heresy hunting" but
does not explain why it should be regarded as right and proper for political parties to confine their membership to those who accept their basic dogmas, and wrong for Churches to follow this political precedent. Historic Christianity was from the first a dogmatic religion, based on the belief in the deity of our Lord and on the miracle of His Resurrection. The Apostles believed themselves to be the trustees for precious truths and for spiritual laws which God had revealed through Christ and through His Church, spiritual laws the breaking of which is as disastrous for nations and individuals as the breaking of physical laws for a fighter pilot. "A man's beliefs," says Mr. Rees, " are important but should concern only himself and God." Unfortunately we are all concerned with the consequences of Hitler's beliefs. Nazism is not only a political but a theological heresy, and the United Nations are at the moment engaged in a very effective heresy hunt. Mr. Rees sweeps aside as irrelevant the claims of historic Christianity to be true, and seems only concerned with the problem of recapturing the modern man for Christianity. Now the truth of Christianity is a question of opinion, but the drawing power of the various interpretations of Christianity is a question of fact which can be settled by the scientific method of research. Let Mr. Rees do a round of churches any Sunday morning and count the congregations. He will find that churches in which historic dogmatic Christianity is preached are usually full, irrespective of the personality of the priest, whereas churches in which Christianity is watered down to a few moral commonplaces are only full where the Vicar is a man of arresting personality and outstand- ing eloquence.—Yours truly, a
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