The War and Unity: Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918
Religion
The War and Unity: Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918
Christian sociology; Christian union; Social change; World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects
(_d_) Cooperation in these great matters will not only promote unity,
but display already the men of Christ as one before the world. But it is
not enough. How about cooperation in directly religious work and
worship? "The visible unity of the Body of Christ is not adequately
expressed in the cooperation for moral influence and social service,
though such cooperation might with advantage be carried much further
than it is at present; it could only be fully realised through community
of worship, faith and order, including common participation in the
Lord's Supper[16]."
Here let us once more and finally insist that the all-important thing is
the development of the desire for Unity even in the most local, or
uneducated, or out-of-the-way congregations. Most of the clergy now are
revolutionaries for better, bigger things; but, frankly, we fear the lay
people who hate change, and desire things to remain as they are--in
church and out of it. That is why I should so like my imagined Council
to set going my imagined National Mission of Love. But much can be done
besides. Those who seek unity will be labouring fruitfully for it, if
they simply devote themselves to developing social and Christian
friendship between Churchmen and Nonconformists in town and village.
There might well be an enormous growth of meetings, both of clergy and
laity of different denominations, for conference, devotion, even
retreat. We want more than one "Swanwick." Can we not go further, and
draw together by experimenting with each other's devotions or
organisations of proved value? For instance, I wonder if it is
suggesting too much, to suggest that if Nonconformists appropriated with
vigour our Christian year, they would be sharers with us of a devotional
joy and help, which would certainly promote spiritual sympathy. In the
same way, the Church of England has been crying out for some method of
using the spiritual gifts of her laymen in church. Why not borrow
notions from those who know how to do it?
These are but scrappy examples of ways by which right spirit can be
developed within the single communion, or between separated bodies. The
_right spirit_ won, the whole battle is won.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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