Unity in Britain

Today Christianity is implicated in history just as much as Israel was in the age of the prophets. . . . In the old days war could be regarded as Caesar's proper business, but today it is everybody's business and it touches the things of God as well as those of men. . . . Modern war is a . . . test of moral strength for the whole population: and hence in the last resort it is a conflict which calls for the intervention of spiritual powers and demands a spiritual decision.

For the first time since the Reformation, Britain's Catholics, Anglicans and dissenters got together in London last week for two church-sponsored, jampacked, inter-faith mass meetings. The Catholic Primate of England presided at the first session, the Anglican Primate of all England at the second. The purpose was to dramatize the Church's determination to play a leading part in the post-war settle ment. The justification is quoted in italics above.

Prime mover for this gesture was the Sword of the Spirit (S.O.S.). Heretofore this has been an entirely Catholic movement, but a significant development at the rallies was the suggestion that Sword of the Spirit groups be formed in Protestant parishes as well. S.O.S. is a loose-knit series of groups for waging anti-Nazi spiritual war, draws its name from Ephesians 6:17: "And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)."

Lean, square-chinned, purblind Arthur Cardinal Kinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, and shrewd, courtly Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, each spoke briefly at the meetings over which they presided--in the Stoll Theater, garish London movie house, before and after a night of Blitz. But the principal fireworks were supplied by the Bishop of Chichester in a strong attack on the British Government for not giving the anti-Nazi world a post-war program to fight for.

"The Nazis have a weapon which they wield with tremendous effect," said the Bishop. "It is the weapon of the idea. They proclaim the New Order. . . . We proclaim no order at all. . . . Our official spokesmen have never yet uttered any statement of British aims which envisages a situation after victory. . . . We stand for a Christian order--a better order than any of us have yet known. It is not the order which existed when the war began or ... the order which was imposed when the World War ended. . . . But the winning of that order is the only thing which offers any hope or comfort or inspiration to the common man."

The churchmen approved a ten-point peace program based on the proposals of Pope Pius XII and the unprecedented joint letter which the Archbishops of Westminster, Canterbury and York, and Dr. Walter H. Armstrong, moderator of Britain's Free Church Federal Council sent last December (TIME. Dec. 30) to the London Times. This program quite clearly presupposes a new society. But Britain's Christians now realize what they did not at the start of World War II: that Hitler is fighting the war with an idea, and that unless Christianity can counter with a better idea it is done for. Britain's churches are also saying clearly that, necessary as it is to win the war. it is still more important to win the peace.

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