UNION WITH ROME

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 116, 14 February 1928, Page 7

UNION WITH ROME

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Some of your Protestant correspondents m union with Protestants in England are in. a great flurry over the remote possibility of reunion of the Anglican Church with Rome. What is the position f Let us lay all fanatical prejudice aside and consider the matter calmly. Did Christ found a Church? At least He said, "On this rock I will build My Church," and a great deal more. The answer to this question must surely then be “Yes." Did He found 350 Churches*—all believing different doctrines and practising different rites, and ail equally His Churches? Surely "No!" Did He give His disciples a Bi tie and tell them to formulate their own ideas as to its meaning, and then, if any two agreed together to form as many conflicting and rival organisations as could hold their members together, i ntil they should disagree among themselveg and split up again? That is the common Protestant .a— is true? Was the ehurcu intended to be a congeries of conflicting and warring sects? Or did He found one only Church, whose very raison d’ etie was to gather all men of all nations into one body? The last of these conceptions of the church is surely tcht implied by John 17 and by St. Paul in many places in his letters, and is that held by all Christians for the frst fifteen . hundred years at least. If Christ, intended His Church to be one, is it right, is it His will, that Christenuom should consist of three or more orthodqx communions embraced in the tn n Patriarchates, the Patriarchate of Rome (commonly known as the Papal Church), and the patriarchate of Canterbury (the Anglican Church), and also of 350 Protestant sects all mutually sei esV^ 0 * " ar amon ® them7’he Anglican Bishops at their tambeth Conferences decided that it was i ?,.uutv of the Anglican Church, as holding a middle position, to make tentative proposals to all professing Christian bodies to consider how Christ’s will and prayer might be realised, and to encourage the study of denominational differences so as to see how far these might be resolved and unity attained. The Nonconformist I rdies in general have rejecter! those ench demanding the acceptance of its own shibboleths as a condition of union, and rejecting the only basis of union possible for the orthodox Catholic bodies—the historic Episcopate—some also rejecting the creed of Nicaea, which Catholics regard as the simplest exposition of fundamental Christianity. So much for re-union -with Protestants. Contemporaneously with these approaches to Protestant sects, informal conversations have tnken place with the Eastern orthodox "churches"; by these the suggestions have been received with 'all charity, ignoranf fanaticism has had no place, and calm inquiry on both S 1 • 3 a 3 produced suth a state of friendliness and mutual recognition that Eastern prelates nave taken a prominent part in Anglican worship, have committed the case of isolated Easterns to the clergy of the nearest Anglican bishops and clergy, have sent their ordinands to Anglican Colleges for training, and have brought the rrospect of formal reunion comparatively near. Has this friendship in any way impaired the independent self-government of the Church of England ? Or has it brought the British Empire under the tyranny of the Patriarch of Constantinople? The study of our differences, with Rome has also proceeded with the kindly help of Cardinal Mercier, and of eminent Roman theologians., and with the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury. , The "conversations" at Malines have not been official, but are on the lines of the suggestions of the Lambeth, Conference. They have been conducted in all Christian charity, without any of the vulgar, abuse that has been experienced from some Protestant sects. If Rome at present insists on certain things as conditions of reunion which we cannot grant, at least we know where we are, we remain friends, though we cannot “walk in the House of God" together,. What is there so heinous in discussing with lellow-Christians our differences, and how to overcome them? As regards Rome, its Patriarch was, from 597 A.D. at least, our patriarch. England was a part of the Roman or Western patriarchate, until the patriarch began to demand not filial loyalty. but slavish obedience. If our

Lord’s Prayer is ever to be realised, the various patriarchates, Eastern and Western, must be ieunited; a necessary preliminary to unity is the reunion of the parts of the Western patriarchate. Your Protestant correspondents, who are horrified by the idea of the ultimate reunion of Western Christendom, are really showing their opposition to the fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord, in St. John, Chapter 17, yet they call themselves Christians!

Rigid uniformity of belief in nonessentials is not necessary to reunion. The reunited Church must still leave room for differences of opinion on less important matters—-this fact, neither Protestants nor official Romanism can grasp. Rome secures comparative uniformity within itself by submission to a Pope, who is nominally the voice of a council, to whom differences are referred for solution. Protestantism demands uniformity in negations, for example, in denying the existence of Purgatory, the Eucharistic sacrifice, the priesthood, and the Papacy; but leaves free individual opinion as to the fundamental truths of the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Church itself, the atonement, and everything that maizes Christianity what it is; it has no uniformity in positive teaching The Protestant idea of reunion is of 350 sects, independent in doctrine and government, but “preaching in one another’s pulpits." and tolerating any and every heresy, whilst pretending to be one. An ideal as far removed as possible from the unity idealised in the New Testament. The Anglican idea of unity is ’of the several branches of the Catholic Church holding the creeds in common, and under a common system of government. This system might quite conceivably include acknowledgement of a central patriarchate, and would certainly include, as it did in Njcene times, submission to tlm decisions of a council of the bishops of the Church. To hold "conversations”, with Rome, or make tentative suggestions as to a constitutional Papacy, is not, as some hysterical people seem to think, to undermine the British Empire. Verily, stark ignorance and benighted, bigoted prejudice are hard to pierce. Why can’t people exercise a little Christianity and charity in discussing Giese tfiatters. Our fellow-Christians of Rome mav err in

their point of .view on questions of church organisation and on some matters of doctrine, hut for “envy, hatred, malice, bigotry, and all uncharitable, ness,” commend me to the Protestant fanatic. “A Presbyterian Minister,", in his letter of January 31, complains of the strife arid division in the Church of England. If he will think for a moment the reason is not far to seek. Presbyterians solved the problem of internal differences of opinion by splitting up into nearly a dozen different sects; other Protestant bodies have done the same. They fight one another from different enmps. The ideal of the Church of England is to maintain in one body men of all kinds of different opinions—so long as those opinions do not touch the essentials of Christianity: hence Anglicanism is not homovencous.. Our boast is that the one mother provides for all her children, embracin' 7 a 1! in one brotherhood. however many their little personal differences. Anglicans do not believe in splitting up on the slightest disagreement—we / try to hold together in finite of disagreements. Your correspondent boasts of the adherence of 1 rpsbyterians to the “creed or nol’ty ot the Presbyterian “Church." Will he restndy the shorter Catechism and then tell us how manv Presbyterians to-day hold the creed of' Presbyterians as there set forth? Low churchmen, evangelicals, high' churchmen, modernists and Argln-Cafholms all claim to be loval to the Prayer Book, and thev can do . so with sincerity because their various noints of view are largely provided , for in that book, No one of the various nnrties, much less n “Presbvlerian Minister." has the right tn tr 17 drive mP any one of the oHie’-s. If “Presbyterian Minister" would mind his own business we should get on just as well

without his advice and his comments on things he duesn t under- «». .t.„ AN 4IJ(3UMN . Wairoa, February 3.