LINKING UP.

Northern Advocate, 18 August 1919, Page 4

LINKING UP.

UNITED CHURCH SERVICES,

BRIDGING "APPARENT ANTA-

GONISM."

Th e Bi«hop of Bristol spoke with I refreshing plainness to Convocation on the question of united services. The controversy over the recent service in Bristol Cathedral, he said, had brought him much illuminating correspondence. Tjhree points especially emerged. First, he emphasised th e tremendous .harm done by the sight of toworship the same God, to follow and serve the same Christ, to exemplify the sam e faith and hope and love— refusing to worship one with another. This strange apparent antagonism between preachers of the same gospel puzzled and alienated many men, and weakened the influence of the Church more than anything else. Second, in the Anglican Church institutional religion seemed to usurp the place of the essentials and ideals of Christian religion; pgUty tPP k the place of faith and primary stress was laid upon tradition and the /canons. Third, there was the unreality of much' that was said about unity. When he expressed a deeire for fellowship and union, friendly Noncomformists said "What is the immediate step you are prepared to take?" The Bishop told Convocation that the proposal for united services did not seem to him to trench'upon an.yth.ing of the Christian ministry, They were singularly lagging behind some other Churches of their own communion— in the United States and in the colonies—on this question of unity. In ' hie own diocese, at any rate, the Bishop of Bristol is said to have a very large body of Anglican lay opinion with him in his desire for real fellowship with Free Churchmen,