LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suita5le length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.] THE " UNITARIAN " CONTROVERSY [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—Before the curtain is rung down on the unhappy episode of modern Church history which culminated (though, of course, it does not end) in the vote of the Bishops in York Convocation on June 7th, may I take leave, first, to thank my friend Dr. Kenneth Mozley for his very clear and admirably balanced statement of the real issue involved, and then to add some comments on the proceedings themselves, and on some deductions which are being (as I think) unfairly drawn-from them ? I am the more moved to do this by some things which seem to have been said on the subject in Liverpool Cathedral last Sunday.
First, the real issue, as Dr. Mozley makes so clear, was simply one of interpreting a document—the Convocation Resolution of 1922. I agree with Dr. Mozley that the original intention, on this point, could not reasonably be doubted. And for that reason above all I felt obliged to vote for the final form of the Bishop of Durham's Resolution, little as I liked some details in it, and in spite of a speech from which I publicly, in the House, dissociated myself.
Apart from this clear core of simple fact, the archaic acrimony of Lord Hugh Cecil's " Petition " would, in itself, have been almost enough to change the issue into a battle between the spirit and the letter, which, for many (including, perhaps, the Bishop of Liverpool), it did actually become. Had this indeed been the main issue, my vote at least would have been cast for the Bishop of Liverpool ; and this my speech in Convocation emphasized.
What I want now to suggest is that a close study of what actually happened, and especially of the two forms of the Bishop of Durham's Resolution, may relieve the anxiety of those who think that, once more, " the Letter " has triumphed, and " institutional selfishness " (a most unfair phrase of Dr. Jacks') has put Christian charity to rout. When the Bishop of Durham's first draft appeared on the Agenda of the Upper House, it was speedily made clear to His Grace the President that at least the last two paragraphs must go if the much- desired unanimity was to be achieved : not merely because of the apparent slur on the Bishop of Liverpool, but because (a) a purely external and " literal "—as against spiritual— criterion was proposed, and (b) this criterion would, in fact, operate to exclude many others besides " Unitarians." In the upshot those two paragraphs disappeared, and a single short one was substituted which, though I personally tried to get its wording modified, did in substance answer the original question put to us in the only way in which the Bishops in Convocation could at present answer it, and state an un- questionable fact as to the intended use of Christian pulpits. It also avoided raising any other questions, and by implica- tion did not similarly exclude (e.g.,) a Member of the Society of Friends, as the first form would have done. It is strange that this has hardly been noticed.
The real tragedy is that, right on the threshold of the con- troversy, the " party " spirit should have been injected into it, and that so distinguished and high-minded a Churchman as Lord Hugh Cecil should have lent himself to voice an angry outcry. For the rest, the episode has enabled many (I con7 fess, with some shame, that I am one), to learn that there is, strictly speaking, no " Unitarian " Denomination ; that this label has all along been rejected, as misleading, by many who have been classed as such ; that it is one thing to resist intellectual dogmatism about the Nature of God, and quite another to reject Our Lord Jesus Christ as His Son ; and that not a few " Unitarians " of today not only give Our Lord a place in their life and faith and worship indistinguishable from that which Christians are supposed to give Him, but even baptize regularly with the canonical Trinitarian formula. With the sparks struck by the controversy there has also come light : and it will grow.
Even Dr. Jacks, I am glad to notice, realizes more clearly than some of the public the situation, as I have tried to describe it, when he ends his Letter to Liverpool with a pointed reference to the Bishop of Durham's " amended resolution," and to the "humane desire" revealed by the speeches "to make the affair as little painful as possible to Unitarians." And one may thank him for generously adding : " I think the Convocation of York, with Archbishop Temple at its head, are entitled to sympathy for having had this question forced upon them at the present time."—I am, Sir, &c., The Palace, Ripon.
ARTHUR RIPON.
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