UNDENOMINATIONALISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 4

UNDENOMINATIONALISM.

J Sir,lii your i-sue of .is ilondav, tuo Rev. Percy \\ llhituit reit*!"s to tins matter as the ''worst and most seductive heresy implying, therefore, that its converse, De- ' iiominatioiialism, is the normal, orthodox status of the Christian Church; that is ' that the two .hundred sects of Chrstianitv' each one bitterly and obstinately opposing the other, are to be regarded with perfect complacency, because somewhere among them (without defining which) is to be found "everything of vital importance to Christianity." And which of those sects are built upon the one foundaton which Christ alone laid'! And how are we to take his statement that the "Orders" of the Church of England are "unassailable?" Is he not aware that they are violently assailed and absolutely denied by the chief Bishop of Christianity? Our new bishop, too, under "Signs of the Times," speaks of the spirit of lawlessness pervading all classes of society, of the absence of the sense of reponsibility, of the sense of ! stewardship, of the sense of sacrifice and service. And he has the courage to confess that this is due to a loss of spiritual vitality. Undoubtedly it is, and the Church alone is responsible for it; after two thousand years of church practice, this is the confession the bishop has to make, that these symptoms to-day are like those which existed at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire! The Church lm.s had to let everything drop; having 1:0 spiritual vision it has no help to give to the world in all its troubles. The Church. . especially the Roman form of it, has entirely fallen away from the primitive purity and simplicity of the Divine Master's teaching; has it not covered up the whole spiritual life in cloaks and robes and trappings of the priestly office, and narrowed and restricted to an exclusive priestly clan the efficacy of the,,," Divine Founder's teachings and promises. * So decisively 'is this the case, that thqjj. said Chief Bishop of the Church now declare? (see Edin. Rev. N422) : that God is not any longer incarnate in Christ, hut \ onlv in the priesthood ; the Spirit of Good is manifested not in mankind at all generally,', % but only in the priest! Is not the Christian ; f: Church only a theological way of thought, rf • not a Religion Rule of Life? The world is 110 worse to-day than in the past, but the Church is very much worse than ever H before; the world is growing steadily ■ (without the Church) hi the approach to r j> T . the pathways of the Spirit, while the position of the Church is accurately expressed -J bv the fact that serious and thoughtful -£ men are too spiritually minded to go to 4| church. The Church contents itself with the commonplace motives which guide ;l ordinary worldv life; it has scarcely enough spiritual vitality to satisfy the high spirit and courage which are the natural temper of every free man in a free j. State. Is not the time again ripe for the gracious figure of the Supreme Divine j; Teacher to descend once again into the J/ highways and byways of men, to enlighten the world witTi the wisdom of the Spirit, once again to strike the keynotes of a new synthetic religion and of a new type' % of civilisation, and gather together ( the | essentials of all the religions and of all the ideals of the world under that One Supreme Teaching of His Own? ,W. Melville Newton. ';£•