CHRISTIAN REUNION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20893, 8 June 1931, Page 6

CHRISTIAN REUNION.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

VISION OF THE BISHOPS.

POSITION NOT UNDERSTOOD

'Archdeacon G. Gordon Bell, Vicar-Gen-fsral of Waikato, writes: — The evidence of suspicion, and doubt of the good faith of the bishops of the [Anglican communion, in some of the ntterances on Christian reunion which have appeared recently in your columns, makes one wonder whether tho vision which fills the hearts and minds of the bishops has yet begun to bo seen by Christians generally. When once -we can * envisage tho possibilities in tho direction of enthroning our Blessed Lord as King in every human heart and life, which lie in tho vision of the one, world-wide, visibly united Church of tho Living God, the longing for reunion must become a consuming passion, and wo shall find ourselves, ,with tho bishops, praying God in ' mercy to tako away "whatsoever may hinder us from godly union and concord," and to reVeal tho way in which He would have us to compose our differences, without compromise of the truth as He has revealed it to any of us. Truth is one and undivided. He is the Truth. Whatever of disunion there is among us must necessarily imply the existence among us of something which is rot of Him; and, in loyalty to Him, wp must, seek to have the non-truth, or warped and twisted ideas and expressions of the truth, taken away, and the full Truth as it is in Jesus revealed afresh. One makes bold to say that if the devil had not been permitted by that readiness of man, in spite of God's wonderful revelation of Himself, to be led into error, so that our Blessed Lord could at fill times in the centuries past have found His Church visibly one and undivided as a. weapon in His Hand for the establishment of His Kingdom upon earth, tho whole world would by now have been won for Him. No " Magic" in Sacrapients. It is surely not asking too much of tho leaders of thought outside the Anglican communion to suggest that they will at least acquit our bishops of having auy other desire than that this vision shall become increasingly seen and pursued in our times. In the movement toward reunion, as fostered by our bishops, there is no covert wish or desire to make the whole of Christendom Anglican! Another appeal one would make to leaders of thought outside our Church is to refrain from tho use of terms which betray in them an imperfect understanding of what our Church holds and believes, and to take the trouble to understand before they condemn. In illustration of this suggestion I quote some of the terms used recently and reported by you. "The grace of God is independent of Church mechanism": that word "mechanism" is abhorrent to any of us who see in tho Church nothing but the sharing in the very life of God Himself: and the Church, although she insists upon the value and importance of the sacraments "where they may be had" has never been guilty of limiting the free operation of the Holy Spirit in every human heart. "Magical sacraments" is a horribly ques-tion-begging phrase. There is no "magic" in the sacraments, and to us to whom the glory of God's sacramental gifts is one of the deepest treasures of His revelation, the use of such a phrase is most •wounding, and arouses pity for those to whom the truth has not yet come. Evangelical Fervour. The suggestion that "tho evangelical tiature of religion" needs to be safeguarded suggests that we of the English Church do not safeguard this truth. God forgive us, we may share with others lukewarmness in our zeal for tho conversion of souls by the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, but there is no lack of evangelical fervour, even in the most "extreme" Anglo-Catholic circles. On the contrary, earnest ''Evangelicals," both within and without our Church, have gloried in the evangelical zeal of men like Stanton and Dolling, the "extremest" of "extreme" Anglo-Catholics. "The refusal of inter-communion before corporato union" merely implies that we cannot pretend a unity of heart, mind and belief which does not, as yet, exist. The reunion that is to be will be consummated by glorious acts of corporato communion throughout tho world. We dare not anticipate that end by acts which would find many of us wondering just how far we were really united. The Greatest Barrier. There will be no need for anyono to "gi,ve up the priesthood of all believers" in any reunited Church. The Church of England, in common with Catholic tradition, most carefully safeguards "the priesthood of the laity" in her insistence that, in our chief corporaie act of worship, there must always be present some representatives of the lay people. These are just a few of the phrases recently used which show the necessity of many round-table conferences, having as their main object the arrival at a true understanding of "what the other man really does believe." lam convinced that the greatest barrier in the way of reunion is the sort of failure to understand our real position and beliefs, which the uso of such phrases reveals. In God's name, let t/s pray for mutual trust and the desire to understand each other, and to be willing to be led by God tho Holy Spirit into all the truth.