PUBLIC SCHOOL RELIGION [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—Mr. Upton avers that " since its creation, the Christian Church has been inseparably linked with the Gospel which it preached." That is just what a very large number of the laity, possibly in England a majority, question. We cannot read in the Gospels, not even in the fourth, which has not the historical reliability of the others, the tremendous and complex doctrines which the Early Church, from St. Paul to the Council of Nicaea, wove into the simple teaching of Jesus Christ. We are not at all convinced by the ingenious dialectic of the Fathers, still less by the imposing structure of the Schoolmen. " Since its creation " is untrue.
The recent report of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Doctrinal Commission shows that many clergy are today unwilling to subscribe to many important Christian dogmas. Such thinkers have signed the unanimous Report of the Commission without official censure. They have the backing of an increasing proportion of the laity, and of very many school-teachers.
Mr. Upton is, moreover, a little too confident that teachers of whose views he disapproves (I am one of them) are necessarily " ignorant " and not competent. —I am, Sir, &c.,
Lynwood, Clotherholme Road, E. N. MO/LEY,
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