Church of England problems Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 704, 2 July 1929, Page 7

Church of England problems Reviewed

TWO EXTREMISMS BISHOP CHERRINGTON’S ADDRESS

.from Our Own Correspondent) HAMILTON, Today. The problems confronting the rhurch of England today were relewed by the Bishop of Waikato, 'y Rt . Rev. c. A. Cherrington, at the Diocesan Synoy, which opened this afternoon.

His Lordship said it was now a comnplace to say that there were many o thought and hoped that in the nvidenee of God the Anglican Communion might be the instrument evenm nv of the reunion of all Christian rhurches, for which they all prayed C d of which some of them dreamed ““uld ultimately be brought about. There were, he supposed it was corc' to say. three great ideals or re j es of thought in the English rhurch today. They were labelled for 1 ant of a better method of delineation the titles of Catholic, Liberal Evangelical and Modernist. Each of Oiese modes of thought was necessary to the well-being of the whole, and it must be remembered that every one merged into the other. Thus the m o3 t thoughtful Christians of the Anglican Communion shared in all of them to some extent. His Lordship said it was perfectly true that there were extremists in each of these directions whom for the time being it was so easy to condemn. \\e were so impatient with some supposed eccentricities that we were liable to condemn off-hand what might prove to be, if we had a little more patience, an emphatic, though perhaps for the moment unbalanced, statement of what was really an underlying truth.

WIDER OUTLOOK Taking its rise early in the 19th century as an offset on the part of churchmen to the great Methodist revival. the Evangelical School had now become in the words of its representatives today Liberal Evangelical Churchmen. In a recent volume of essays by representatives of this part of the Church, including such names as the present Bishops of Manchester, Hereford and Birmingham, the position of men called by this name was clearly ami fearlessly stated. The book showed very conclusively how a school of thought, which once stood for very definite and perhaps somewhat narrow principles, admitted that 1t had ben led by the Spirit of God to a very much wider outlook To the Evangelical for years the Bible was literally interpreted and the 39 Articles were the fixed points of his authority. There were many who supposed that these articles were their tenets still. It would be as well if all those who labelled themselves still by the name of Evangelical could make themselves familiar with what their accredited leaders today were thinking and teaching.

With what the Bishop of Manchester said In his essay on worship Ihere were few who disagreed except ierhaps the method in which some of :he statements were put. Simplicity, beauty, liberty and fellowship were to be the marks of our worship. That it should be intelligible to all that colour, music, art. should have their due place and there should he freedom to adapt the details of worship to changing conditions. Above all there shouid be that fellowship implied by the general parish Communion on the Lord’s Day. As to ritual, it should bo as stately and teachable as was necessary for due decency and order. CATHOLIC IDEAL Continuing, the Bishop said it was unnecessary to claim that the Catholic ideal or viewpoint had its due place in the fold of the English Church. And yet with a great many people, in spite of the advancement of learning and spread of education, "hen this particular aspect was dealt with the imagination immediately flew to matters of ritual and controversy. The spectre of the Scarlet Woman and tile dread of Papal interference were not yet dead, added his Lordship. Such phrases as “High Church." “Anglo-Catholic,” and the like still aroused in some people’s minds the idea that the position of the Church of England was in danger. "The Catholic part of the Church had stood for this: That the Church of England is an Integral part of the Church of Christ; that with the great Churches of the East and West, she holds her place; that she maintains the full liberties and doctrines of Christians, while her ministry, creeds and sacraments are as they were at, and have been from,* the beginning. The Church is a spir’ , ”"t society, free from State control, and is guided by the spirit of God. She has a great reverence for the past, and yet a readiness to move forward into the future. This is, or should be, the attitude of every catholic-minded churchman." His Lordship added that an enormous amount of doctrine, practice, and interpretation for which members of that school had fought, lived, and fl'cd, were now commonplaces in the ordinary atmosphere of the Church. The necessity of the threefold ministry, the importance of duly using the sacraments, the legality of prayers for our departed friends, the value of the doctrine of incarnation, the close connection between the sacrifice of talvary, and the blessed Eucharist — each of which had been a plank in ha platform of the so-called Catholic hrty—were accepted for the most Part by everybody. VIEWS ON MODERNISM Referring to the modernist moversll** Bishop Cherrington said many People were disturbed over this, and m view of some of the statements made by some of the so-called moderns ts there was no wonder. It was w ell to remember that fresh ideas I fresh ways of stating ideas had "ays disturbed people. He supped that no greater stir was ever / e^ te d than by “Essay and Reviews ’ . ..'Last Century." For being a conibutor, objection was made to the hsecration of the great Archibishop emple to the see of Exeter. All of t fhust be modernists to some ex_at,” he added. “For example, the h l " t h°n of verbal inspiration of the ; e ’ the acceptance of the theory of elution, and the doctrine of the of He nos is, to mention but a few ‘ne controversies which have J sed some earnest people to think , at ,h e Church would be wrecked, Place*."* l°°ked upon as common-