CHURCH AND SOCIETY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 717, 10 April 1953, Page 5

CHURCH AND SOCIETY

Sir,-In implying that in the Protestant view the church is but "an infinite series. of groups of like-minded individuals," and neither "an organic unity" nor "the Body of Christ" on earth, your: reviewer "PIC" must, I feel, have given offence to many of your readers. Whether it wads his’ intention to use the word "Protestant" in its popular meaning, or to allow it its proper historical sense, the fact remains that he has, in his review, publicised a notion that is not merely false end therefore misleading to the ill-informed, but also gratuitously offensive. This last may not have been intentional, but the patronising tone of his concluding sentences leaves me little doubt in the matter, Finally, may I say that I have no wish to appear to defend the work reviewed. A reviewer is entitled to say exactly what he thinks about a book. This does not, however, in my opinion, entitle him to use his review as a vehicle to promulgate incidental inaccuracies of the magnitude of those I have referred to.

E. F.

RIVE

(Kaitaia).

Sir,-I have not read John Armour’s Story of Christianity, but if "PIC’s" review of it in The Listener is a fair one, it obviously would not make an admirable reference book for the Sunday Schools of Protestant sects-not at least those major denominations which are represented on the National Council of Churches, and the World Council of Churches. "PIC" may be an expert on the Ebionite heresy, but his words would suggest that the great new fact of our time (to quote Archbishop Temple) has not yet received his attention, It is hard to see how one who writes with such authority could fail to take into account the Ecumenical movement, which among other achievements has already brought about over 50 major acts of ehurch union in this century: it is also hard to understand how anyone who has read recent Protestant theology from theologians of many branches of the World Church could see Protestantism accepting the view that the Church is an infinite series of groups of likeminded individuals. The Protestant Church, like other branches of the Church, has betrayed her Lord time and again; but to suggest that she accepts the state of schism as the norm and denies that Jesus left behind Him "something which was to grow into an organic unity" is to show either John Armour or his reviewer to be a blind leader of the blind.

SELWYN

DAWSON

(Porirua).