The Lambeth Proposals for the Reunion of Christendom

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The Lambeth Proposals for the Reunion of Christendom written by D. P. Wagner

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From The Canadian Forum, October 1920, p. 12

The secular press has given so much publcity to the "Appeal to All Christian People" recently issued from Lambeth Palace by two hundred and fifty bishops assembled from all parts of the world, and opinions, both editorial and personal, have been so freely expressed as to the merits and demerits of this document, that it may not be out of place, in a journal with broad interests, to open the question as to what issues are really involved in this new phase of the movement towards a reunited Christendom.

The bishops begin their appeal, as also the Encyclical Letter issued at the conclusion of their Conference, by stating the position of the Anglican Communion in relation to the rest of Christendom. To many staunch Anglicans, as well as to critical outsiders who may be inclined to regard this'body as a close corporation, the attitude of the bishops will appear well-nigh incomprehensible, for these fathers of the Anglican Communion have virtually declared that Anglicanism is as dead an "—ism" as its bitterest opponents could wish it to be. Neither appeal nor Encyclical so much as mentions an Anglican "Church", while, in the formal resolutions adopted by the Conference, the phrase is used on only one occasion, and then in order to avoid the use of the word "Communion" in two different senses. The bishops are insistent upon the conception of an Anglican Communion which neither claims, nor aspires to claim, the right to isolate itself from the rest of Christendom. To the Lambeth Conference, the "Anglican heresy" is a real heresy, and the good bishops have had the shrewdness, as well as the candour, to confess the corporate guilt of which Anglicanism by its long isolation stands convicted.

It is therefore not as Anglican prelates but as "archbishops and bishops of the Holy Catholic Church" that the Lambeth Fathers address themselves to Christendom. They then proceed to define the Catholic Church as being, on the human plane, the whole body of baptized Christians, and, on the divine plane, nothing less than the very Body of Christ. For this reason, the use of the word "Church", except when referring to a specific national body, is limited, throughout the Encyclical and the Appeal, to the Catholic Church as above defined. The term "Communion" is used for all bodies of Christians sharing in common in the one confession of belief (in the Person of Christ) and baptized in common into the one baptism (in the Name of the Trinity) but varying in their acceptance of other articles of faith and in their interior economy of sacraments and order. The bishops also state — not in the sense however, of qualifying their Catholicity — that they are "in full communion with the Church of England", which means nothing more nor less than that the foreign and colonial prelates believe in articles of faith and make use of ministry and sacraments identical with those accepted and used in the historically national Church of England. By their definition of the Catholic Church and their claim to speak as commissioned officers of that Church — not as Anglican prelates — the bishops have put forward premises the acceptance of which by the rest of Christendom will bring reunion measurably nearer, while their rejection will leave either absorption or federation as the only alternative to the present impasse. Let us consider what each of these latter courses involve.

The absorption of one Communion by another has no other practical meaning than the submission of the weaker to the stronger as the result of one of three causes — pressure from the stronger Communion, pressure from a third party driving the weaker to the stronger for protection, or pressure from within the weaker Communion itself, arising from a conviction that, in the presence of newly found light and life, its own traditions are false and its own vitality hopelessly impaired. The conversion of the individual from one religious faith to another proceeds from one of the same three causes, but only in the case of the last, namely a conviction as to the futility of his old beliefs and practices, can the conversion be called sincere. The individual is bound, more perhaps by ties of blood-relationship than by spiritual or intellectual sympathy, with the faith of his fathers. He can, therefore, change his religious allegiance without committing intellectual or spiritual suicide. But with the Communion this is impossible. Its corporate life, transmitted from generation to generation through the channels of tradition and sacramental form, having as its very reason for existence a perpetuation of itself throughout succeeding generations, is terminated by submission, and its inherent grace is acknowledged to be, and always to have been, objectively worthless. From the standpoint of loyalty and honour there is the added consideration that a trust imposed by the past and already undertaken on behalf of the future has been shamelessly violated.

On behalf of this absorptive plan of reunion, the Lambeth bishops make no appeal. Their conception of a reunited Catholic Church is sufficiently broad and practical to adjust itself to the continuance within its visible and organic unity of Communions each with its peculiar customs and formularies but sharing a common belief, common sacraments and a common ministry, and inspired by a common purpose. They in fact protest that they "do not ask that any one Communion should be absorbed into another", but express the belief that in the ideal Church "all the treasures of faith and order, bequeathed as a heritage by the past to the present, shall be possessed in [p. 13] common and made serviceable to the whole Body of Christ. Within this unity (they add) Christian Communions now separated from one another would retain much that has long been distinctive in their worship and service".

Federation, on the other hand, along the lines of a League of Churches, based upon mutual recognition and mutual independence, cannot be regarded as a satisfactory solution of the problem. If unsuccessful, it will lead to even greater separation. If successful, it will lead to a denial of the vital necessity of real union. For the living organism of the one Body, difficult to materialize perhaps, but conceivable as an essential truth, it substitutes an organization of individual bodies, basing its action not on any real conviction of the sin of schism (upon which the bishops lay particular stress) but upon grounds of expediency alone. There is no connection between the idea of a Catholic Church and that of a Federation of Christian Churches, and the bishops have not passed over this in silence. In their Encyclical they state that they "are convinced that this ideal (i.e., the manifestation of the Catholic Church as one, according to the Divine Purpose) cannot be fulfilled if these groups are content to remain in separation from one another, or to be joined together only in some vague federation. Their value for the fulness of Christian life, truth and witness can only be realized if they are united in the fellowship of one visible society whose members are bound together by the ties of a common faith, common sacraments, and a common ministry".

The first step towards this end must be the conviction that the present state of affairs is evil, not because it is anti-social or economically wasteful, but for the obvious theological reason that it is contrary to the Divine Will. The bishops urge that, according to this Will, unity has always existed and that its apparent negation is due to the sin of schism. They confess on behalf of their Communion — and it is a noteworthy confession^ — some "share in the guilt of thus crippling the Body of Christ and hindering the activity of His Spirit". They name as "principal factors" in the sorry process of separation, ambition, self-will and lack of charity, and they frankly admit that the Anglican Communion has been guilty of all three. It is difficult to believe that this confession is an act of spontaneous humility. The historical sense has always been so strong in the Anglican Episcopate that the catalogue of "principal factors" appears to have a direct bearing upon the schisms of Christendom in which the Church of England has played her part. The ambition of the Western Patriarchate, which at that time included the growing Church in England, was a very important factor in bringing ai>out the first great schism within the Catholic Church, when East and West were torn asunder. Five centuries later, the self-will of an English king was the formal cause of a definite rupture between Canterbury and Rome. It was mainly lack of charity on the part of English gentlemen that drove from the Church of England the devoted followers of John Wesley. And this tripartite confession from dignitaries supposed by some to be Protestant prelates, and by others to be prelatical Protestants! Quantum mutati ab illis.

The appeal to Rome and the East, as to "other ancient Episcopal Communions", should not come as a shock to Protestants, to whom the identical appeal is made. There is no doubt that the occasion of this manifesto is the sympathetic attitude of the non-episcopal bodies to the question of reunion, although it also marks an important stage in the negotiations with the Communions of the East. But there is also no doubt that, had the appeal been made solely to the non-episcopal bodies, the bishops would have destroyed the only foundation upon which the visible unity of the Catholic Church can be built. Episcopacy is, after all, the crux of the whole situation. Details of faith and formularies are matters that concern this early period of negotiation in only a very elementary way. It is enough that the bishops base Catholic faith upon the Holy Scriptures and the Nicene Creed, and Catholic practice upon the two greater sacraments. To do more would be to raise a storm of controversy that would defeat the very object of the appeal. On the other hand, practical requirements call for a definite statement as to the manner in which it is proposed to convene, govern, and perpetuate the united society. Hence a question that seems to be at first sight of subsidiary importance is made the immediate issue.

It would be absurd to suggest that the subject of order is not a highly controversial subject, and this the bishops make no attempt to do. They base their defence of episcopacy before the non-episcopal Communions not upon an a priori theory of church government but on grounds of history and practical experience. They point out that, so far as historic Christianity is concerned, the episcopate has always been the normal means of government. They are content to waive for the moment the question as to whether episcopacy is of the esse of the Church, at the same time maintaining that it is of the bene esse, and urging that "the office of a bishop should be everywhere exercised in a representative and constitutional manner" in order to conform to the Catholic ideal. Whether the present objectors to "prelacy" will be convinced of the historic claims and practical value of the episcopate remains to be seen. At any rate the bishops have raised the question out of the mire of a priori speculations and offered to apply to it the touchstones of fact and practicability.

But the whole question of order involves a decision as to the nature of the ministry required by the Catholic Church. This the bishops believe to be a synthesis of all existing ministries. Without casting any reflection upon the ministries in non-episcopal [p. 14] Communions, they maintain that they are, by virtue of certain limitations (which do not, however, prejudice their operation in these particular Communions), inadequate to the service of the re-united Catholic Church. There is no question here as to absolute validity of orders. Orders are valid for exactly those purposes for which they were intended. In the Catholic Church they must be valid for all the purposes of the Church, not only for those of a particular Communion. This adequacy, or validity for all purposes, is claimed for Anglican orders, as proceeding from the episcopate. Of course this assumption will be promptly denied by a considerable number of those to whom the Appeal is addressed, but again the bishops have changed the issue, by applying to existing orders the test of adequacy instead of absolute validity.

The concrete proposals made by the bishops to ensure this adequate ministry, though developing logically from the arguments outlined above, have been the subject of much comment, partly cynical, partly sympathetic. The bishops profess that they and their subordinate clergy are willing to accept a "form of commission or recognition" from other Communions. This "commission" is almost certainly a Divine commission (which Anglican prelates already claim to possess and to be able to transmit), while the "recognition" must mean the acceptance of this ministry by the congregations. A "commission" (given sub conditione) would be accepted at the hands of authorities in other Episcopal Communions, several of whom might have scruples as to Anglican orders, and from non-episcopal Communions who might base their conception of government on the rule of elders. "Recognition" would be accepted at the hands of those who had no scruples as to the validity of Anglican orders, but desired to have the authority ratified by congregational consent. Independent of this proposal is the suggestion that ministers of non-episcopal Communions should receive their "commissions" sub conditione from bishops. In the following generation all ministers of the Catholic Church would thus be episcopally ordained. It is with this end in view that the resolutions adopted by the Conference encourage the co-operation of existing Communions in furthering the cause of a re-united Christendom. To guard against a Federation of Christian Churches, however, the resolutions discountenance any general interchange of pulpits or admission to sacramental fellowship of unconfirmed persons, at the same time leaving these matters in the hands of the individual bishops as the authorities best competent to judge how far the strict letter of the law is to be observed. A bishop may thus permit a minister of a separated Communion to preach in an Anglican church, provided he is known to be inspired with the ideal of a Catholic Church as set forth in the Appeal.

Whatever may be the practical outcome of the bishops' Appeal along the lines of negotiation for reunion, a new set of problems has arisen which can be solved by charity, whereas the old problems, involved in controversy, had no solution at all. That consideration should give the Lambeth Proposals at least a fair hearing in Christendom.

D. P. Wagner