THREE HOUSES OR ONE?

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1922, Page 7

THREE HOUSES OR ONE?

PROBLEM FOR THE METHODIST CHURCH DE. JOWETT'S HOPE. (WOH OUK^OWN COKItESPONDSNT.) . LONDON, ,2nd June.: Dr. J. H. Jowett is uneasy because the great movement towards union in the three branches of the' Methodist Church has received a. serious check. It .is nearly twenty years, he says, since the. wooing began, but now a manifesto has been issued, signed by.Qver 500 Wealeyan , ministers, forbidding the banns. "For many yeai's there has been a growing sense of the wastefulness of division. It has seemed to a great many members in all the churches as (if their powder was being fired loosely on a shovel, instead of being concentrated in the muzzle of a &un. The distributed service was not as powerful and effective as a. more closely organised fellowship would be, with a common inspiration and control. So the -Wesleyan' Methodists put out 'feelers' towards the Primitive Methodist and the United Free Methodists, and these two churches responded to the wooing with an early shyness, which speedily passed into "enthusiastic ferrour. The United Methodists have, perhaps, shown the warmest side of the proposal; at any rate, they have moved with the greatest unanimity, with the Primitives only a little way them."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he describes the manifesto as a cry of alarm. "It explicitly deolaxes'tbat any precipitate act of. union will split the Wesleyan Churoh in twain. The signatories to the manifesto express the judgment that they are not ready for union. They affirm their conviction that each of the great Methodkt Churches has its own idiosyncrasies, its own virtuous characteristics, and that while these are quite consistent with good neighbouiiiness, they would be troublesome in a closer union. They assert that Wesleyan Methodism has unique qualities of thonght, and tradition, and 6orvice, and that incorporation with the other Methodist Churches would involve their destruction. They claim that their viewpoint is essentially different. They say that profound differences exist in doctrinal standards, in the use and interpretation of the Sacraments, in forms of worship, in the status of the ministry, and even in the political parties to .which the three churches severally belong. The general position of the signatories is effectively summed up in a sentence or two or Mr. Battenbury, who has been a strong leader of the opposing forces: 'I respect and honour the other Methodist churches, but I think "we are different families, though closely related, and that ourp unity will be truer if. wo live in three houses than if we live overcrowded in one.' Mr. Battenbury emphasises the purposed utility of all the varied types of thongWt and service, and he would seek union through spiritual unity, and; through Christian life and practice."

"Mergence is impossible," declares Dr. Jowett, "unless yon have whiteheat enthusiasm. Union cannot be created by organisation. Unless the union be already there in vital worship, in the comradeship of ideal, in the community of mood and service, the most perfect organisation will only nourish differences and foster antagonism. It-is probably true that the ministers and laity in all tjie Methodist Churches are overwhelmingly in favour of union, but grave disagreements such as are revealed in the manifesto, seem to suggest that the way of wisdom is to postpone the culmination a little longer. And so the wedding.will probably be deferred. But I think the union is bound to co:me, and it will be all the richer and more influential if it carries' with' it the men who are now a little fearful lest their church should lose far more than it can possibly gain."

An admirable, site for a Weeleyan Methodist College has been acquired at Cambridge- within the precincts of of the University, near Jesus College, and it is believed that the. money for the erection of the building is already in hand, as well as a sum of money to form the nucleus of an endowment. Thus, as Dr. Jowett writes,-the-'Church has taken a further step 'in perfecting the educational equipment of its ministry by uniting it more closely with our great universities, and by bringing it into fellowship with the international spring of. academic life and learning.