CHURCH UNITY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 8, 11 January 1927, Page 3

CHURCH UNITY

RECONCILIATION SOtJGHT

WORLD MEETING AT LAUSANNE

CONFERENCE IN AUGUST:

There are now available the full particulars of the World Conference ofthe Churches which is to meet at Lausanne nest August to resume consideration of questions affecting the "Faith and Order" of the Christian religion (writes; P.W.W. in the "New. York Times"). The World Conference was first organised in 1910, and among its leading-promoters was the Eight Bey. Charles Henry Brent, of Buffalo, Bishop of, Western New York. Ait American committee, consisting of twenty prominent laymen, has been appointed . to arouse a greater popular interest in the conference throughout the United States ,and Canada. And of this committee the chairman is' Charles Evans Hughes, formerly Secretary of State. The World Conference is really inclusive, of the world as a "parish." No fewer than 500 representatives will be officially appointed by eighty-seven churches. The, deliberations of the World Conference will extend over three weeks. .The sevenfold programme includes a discussion of "the call to unity" and "the place of:the different churches" in Christendom, thus -united; "the Gospel"; "the nature of the church"; "the .common confession of faith"; " the ministry," and "the sacraments." The ground to be coveredincludes .the ultimate profundities of mysticism, the age-long issues involved in varying c i a i ms to ecclesiastical authority, the value and 'acceptance of creeds and ! ceremonial, and the message of faith to mankind. DISRUPTION OF THE CBTJRCH. In the year 1054 or thereabout there occurred the historic schism between the Church and the West (that is, Rome) and the Church and the East (the' Orthodox). live hundred years later the Boman Church itself was split by, the secession of the Protestant. Since the Information the Protestant, or. reformed, churches have been broken up into the Episcopal and the non-con-forming communions—to use a very broad yet descriptive term. The World Conference means that the spirit of all the churches has. changed. The trend which used to be toward severance is now toward reunion. In ecclesiastical as m physical phenomena, evolution is slow. But it is the direction, promoters o± the. movement point out, that matters. -.'...■ The World Conference has invited the Roman Church to take its share in arranging and conducting the proceedings. The position continues to be that the Boman Church has felt itself debarred by -well-established principles' and traditions from taking such a part. But the abstention of the Boman onurch at this stage is not interpreted as any indication of ill-will. Here is a_ situation, it is,urged, that must be viewed in the long perspective," both of the past and of the future. In general terms, it may be said that the infallibility of the Pope in his declarations "ex cathedra" concerning faith and morals is a dogma that distinguishes Borne from other churches Eastern and Western, that claim to be Catholic and Apostolic. The Church of Borne admits the validity of the sacraments and orders of the Eastern churches, but declares that these churches are "in schism." Borne, however,- denies the validity 'of the' sacraments and orders of the. Anglican or Protestant Episcopalian Churches, and declares that the churches themselves are (like the nonconformists) "in heresy." . In neither case—Eastern, or Western—has there been an adjustment with Borne. 1/. > ■■■■-'• „■:..,, AH the autonomous Patriarchates of the Eastern Church are represented at these successive world conferences. National churches—those, for instance, of Sweden, Norway, Denmark,' Greece, j Rumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia —are included. The Old Catholics, moreover, who were unable to.accept certain dogmas declared by- the Church of Borne at a comparatively recent date, will attend. Indeed, it may besaidthat, with few and not numerically important ex-' ceptions, every major evangelical church in the world has signified its adherence to what is regarded as an impulse toward spiritual co-operation. , . ! _ Among the eighty-seven churches, so included, there is the widest measure of autonomy and self-government..- Ydt these bodies fall into groups/ defined by their history and "beliefs. : • Such are the Eastern Orthodox* Churches of the Near East, with their growing- representation in Western lands through the emigration of 'their people. Other groups are tlie Anglican (including the Church of England throughout the British Empire, the Episcopal Church in the United Status and native branches ■in China and Japan), the Armenian, the Baptist, the Congregational, the Disciples, tho Friends, the Lutheran, the Methodist the Moravian, the Old Catholic, the Presbyterian, and Reformed. In addition to these historic groups the list includes two examples of union between members' of different groups which ■ cannot therefore .be classified properly under only one family: the South India United Church, formed in 1908 by a union of Presbyterian, Couand Reformed missions irom several countries, and the United Church of Canada, which in June, 1925, combined the former. Methodist' Presbyterian, and Congregational Churches of Canada. .'■■;. . V ' NOW-EPISCOPAL CHURCHES. The non-Episcopal churches have in common the fact, that .'they .have sprung from the Reformation-movement in the sixteenth century and that they lay emphasis on the individual .rather than on the eorpor:(te aspect of religion. This view is held to be the logical consequence of the priesthood of every believer and of the right of private judgment which the reformers • usually preached. Each group of believers—so it was maintained—had the right to form a true church and each "man had the right to study the Scriptures for himself and to form his own conclusions as to doctrine and the basic principles of church organisation. ', ■ Prom the results of this'study came the varying doctrinal systems—the Calvinistic, the Lutheran, the Armenian, the Baptist—and the varying systems of organisation, from "independency" or local autonomy, now represented by the Congregationalists, Baptists, Disciples, and Friends, to tie more closely knit systems of Presbyterianism and the Methodist Church. To approach theiriatter from another direction,.it might be said that the different questions at issue will produce different alignments. The churches that believe in the use of a creed, for example, may not be the same group that will favour the episcopate as the divinely appointed means of maintaining a valid ministry. On the doctrine of the sacraments there will be agreement among churches that, when it comes to a question of Church government, will find themselves lined up on opposite sides. ; '.'.■•■ ■ " The problem' that tho World Conference on Faith and Order will seek to study is, therefore, so complicated that no one expects to see immediate agreement result from a three weeks • session. Yet the facts that these churches, so diverse in history and temper, arc ready to come together for friendly and sympathetic discussion of questions that in times past have caused religious wars, is believed to be evidence that times have changed and that perhaps the prospect of Christian uuity is uot 'so far off after all..