Unity, a Fighting Word

The Protestant (undenominational) Christian Century was fed up. It had had great hopes of possible unity between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. It had bridled when Episcopalians showed signs of reneging on their nine-year-old invitation to Presbyterians to consider union with them. This week, after the Episcopal General Convention at Philadelphia had turned down the report of its Joint Commission on Approaches to Unity (TIME, Sept. 30), the Century let go its safety valve:

"The question will now be asked: What goal does the Episcopal Church have in view for the ecumenical movement? . . . Does the Anglican communion envisage a united church in terms which embrace all non-Roman churches, or does its enthusiasm for unity derive from the expectation that the Episcopal Church will itself absorb all other churches into its own ecclesiastical system . . . The attitude revealed at Philadelphia will be interpreted as a disclosure of the sectarian isolationism of the Episcopal Church. . . . [Its] prestige . . . as a leader in this great [unity] enterprise has been damaged, if not forfeited.

"[Yet] the convention, we believe, really defeated the opponents of eventual union without being fully conscious that it was doing so. The commission's plan has by no means been laid on the shelf. It will be studied despite the failure of the convention to recommend that it be studied. It will be laid alongside the [Lambeth] Quadrilateral* with a challenge to its opponents to point out wherein it diverges from or fails to safeguard the essentials which that instrument sets forth."

But the Living Church, Anglo-Catholic Episcopal weekly, foe of the proposed plan of union, liked what had happened at Philadelphia. It found the convention's "request" that clergy and laity study church unity for the next three years "all to the good." Said the Living Church: "The important thing is that, while this particular avenue of approach to the Presbyterians is closed, the approach itself remains open. It is to be hoped that, with the air cleared, discussions may proceed in an atmosphere of complete frankness and understanding. . . . [And] when, in the fullness of time, reunion with another Christian body is achieved, it will not be at the expense of the very precious unity that already exists within our own Church."

* A statement by all Anglican bishops setting forth the four points of Christian unity: 1) the Bible; 2) the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed; 3) the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper; 4) the historic episcopate.

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