The Churches
Ding-Dong Merrily on High
By MONICA FURLONG
WELLELL, now, having dutifully stoned Stephen, , the Holy Innocents, as well as receiving the three unpunctual Orientals and im- bibing lots of goodwill from spiritual and other sources, perhaps we can get back to the good old ding-dong of Christian unity. Before I broached the subject of intercommunion a few weeks ago in these columns I thought my large collection of abusive and anonymous letters on the subject of religion was unusual. Now I am sure it is unique and 1 am arranging to leave it to the nation after my death, as it seems at least on a par with the elephant's-horn furniture they treasure so lovingly at Osborne. Religious people are certainly odd and particularly so on the subject of religion, though unfortunately I am scarcely in a position to laugh. I have, how- ever, been puzzled by a humanist who wrote crossly to say I am un-Christian, the gentleman in the Spectator correspondence column who said that he was sure if I stopped and thought I would agree with him, and Canon Patey, writ- ing in the Coventry Cathedral Review, who described my article as 'unfortunate.' What can he mean? As a professional journalist I read hundreds of newspaper articles a year and some of them are bad, and some of them are good, but I never yet remember reading one that was `unfortunate.' What 1 suspect he means is that I don't agree with him, but I cannot for the life of me see how this is unfortunate, except, of course, for Canon Patey.
What slowly breaks upon me after all the fuss about the thirty-two theologians, and the how- ever-many-it-was laymen who opposed them, and the modish ecclesiastical gossip in the Observer and all those spitfire letters in all the intelligent papers, is that we don't, any of us, really know how to carry on a reasonable theological conversation without raising our voices and trotting out old scores which should have been repented of and forgiven long since. It isn't entirely our fault (we grew up to the sounds of our ecclesiastical elders quarrelling and have a much bigger swear vocabulary than one of endearment), but the truth is that either we have to learn to keep our tempers or the movement towards church unity stops here and now. So well aware are many Christians of this, includ- ing some who declined to sign the Cambridge letter, that they have for some time felt it wiser to avoid any kind of religious controversy in the hope that in the silence the arguments will be either dissolved or at least postponed.
But for better or worse religious controversy has broken out; and, according to the poll con- ducted by the Church of England Newspaper, the Church of England is fairly evenly divided against itself. Innumerable ripples have already spread around the Open Letter, with Free Churchmen shocked and hurt at how many Anglicans are not ready to communicate with them, and Roman Catholics worried that they have allowed their friendship with the Anglicans to go as far as it has, what with all those fellows who don't give a fig for the Apostolic Succession. So whither ecclesia anglicana now? Should she attempt a pan-Protestant alliance, thus making a tremendous step forward as far as unity with the Free Churches is concerned, but inevitably making the gulf between Protestant and Catholic wider than ever? Or should she continue sitting on the fence until either the iron enters her soul or the full Protestant/Catholic pattern is com- plete?
I won't inflict my views on readers again, sin& they haven't changed a particle since the last time I wrote on the subject, and because, in any case, action does not seem imminent. What matters most at the moment is that all of us who are engaged in this or other religious controversies should learn to 'pay the other side the elementary compliment of supposing that they have thought about it and, incredible as it is, have come to a different conclusion from our own. Judging by all those hot-headed letters that appeared in all those correspondence columns it's not simply charity we haven't got, but all those milder pagan virtues (which are, however, an expression of it), such as courtesy and urbanity and imperturbability. Getting hot under our choler is, in this delicate field of operations, next door to a sin. Most Christians have to put up with a good deal of patronising from rationalists on the lines that if they'd ever really thought twice about God they'd have to give it up, which ought to train us to see that when another Christian starts talking about something that turns our stomach--Apostolic Succession, the Inner Light, Predestination, the Index, Transubstantiation, the Sacrament of Penance, you can take your emotive pick—we have no choice but to assume that the other chap has thought about it and means what he says. It is only on such a gentleman's agreement that any sensible or fruitful dialogue can take place. Break the contract for even a minute and the rotten tomatoes start to fly.
What is equally important is that we should learn not to be frightened by certain words, th ones that used to make our Victorian forebears leap as if stung by gnats and release torrents of ecclesiastical Billingsgate. The obvious examples are 'Protestant' and 'Catholic' (though there are lots more) and even the most liberal and tolerant people are apt to come over funny at the men- tion of one or other of these words. One of the most liberal-minded men I know was telling me only the other day that you could recognise Catholics by their faces. I can only suggest that, readers who were brought up, as I was, more or less in a Protestant tradition should follow my example and have a budgerigar taught to say nothing but 'Catholic.' When we can listen to the sound all day without noticeably emoting we are on the way to salvation (Roman Catholics should, of course, do the same thing in reverse). Bottom marks, however, to Lord Alexander of Hills- borough, who was telling people the other day that the Vatican had political designs on the world, though, I suppose, as P. G. Wodehouse remarked of Mr. John Gordon, he has his part in the Divine Plan, difficult as it is for us with our finite minds to see what it can possibly be.
When we have listened courteously to each other, and managed not to flinch at the more outrageous aspects of the other's personality, we are still not home and dry. For we *have then got to learn to pursue the intellectual argu- ment without giving the slightest quarter while still remaining on amiable, indeed affectionate. terms with our opponent. There is so much mis- understanding about this that one almost despairs that we shall ever seriously get down to it. Employ all your intellectual powers, to- gether with any wit, conviction or persuasiveness you happen to have kicking around unused, in an attempt to convince the other side or the uncommitted of your beliefs, and you will be rounded upon and accused of lack of charity. But there is nothing Christian about stupidity and it is not charity that stops a man using his brains and his tongue as far as he is able; it is either dishonesty or laziness. The theological battle may be as fierce as we like provided that in personal relations with one another we re- main lighthearted and friendly and full of a spirit of acceptance. The better sort of Christians in all the denominations manage this already- 1 am reminded of the distinguished Jesuit who invited me last summer, a stranger and an Angli- can, to his seventieth birthday party. The worse sort does not even try.
Prism, the highbrow Anglican monthly (gor- geous January number, mostly about unity), tells of a study that Christians of various denomina- tions have been doing in Birmingham to discover the gaps in the Welfare State and how best to fill them. Where the group discovered people in serious need they passed the message on to the church in the area, irrespective of its denomi- nation. I am so won over by the thought of this sensible exercise in unity and brotherly love that I've nearly made a New Year resolution never to be nasty about Lord Alexander again. Do you suppose there's a chance this might in turn per- suade him to think beautiful thoughts about Roman Catholics?
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