Religion: 400-Year Advance

Britain advanced further towards practical interfaith cooperation in the last fortnight than any other nation has in the last 400 years.” Between Sept. 23 and Sept. 30 British churchmen:

> Formed a unique Council of Christians and Jews whose joint presidents are Britain’s five top-ranking ecclesiastics—the Archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican), the Moderator of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), the Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council (Nonconformist), Arthur Cardinal Kinsley (Roman Catholic Primate of England), and Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz of the British Empire. Only remotely similar organization is America’s National Conference of Christians and Jews—and it has no such official church backing, especially among Catholics.

> Organized a British Council of Churches, whose 112 Anglican, Presbyterian and Nonconformist members will serve as “an official representative organization for common planning and action.” The closest counterpart is America’s Federal Council of Churches—which again has never had such a galaxy of top-flight sponsorship.

> Held the biggest follow-up yet of the famed Malvern Conference (TIME, Jan. 20, 1941): a mass meeting which jammed London’s vast Albert Hall, and, even so, turned 8,000 away. The meeting was addressed by Sir Stafford Cripps and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, followed the full Malvern line. It drew Anglican prelates, Free Church and Eastern Orthodox leaders, Roman Catholic representatives, and stirred up a controversy that is still crackling briskly in British newspapers.

All three of these moves have been years in the making. All have their limitations. But taken together there has never been anything like them anywhere.

Clearest note as to what such cooperation means was struck by Canterbury at the inaugural service of the British Council of Churches. The Archbishop took his text from Exodus (And Jehovah said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward):

He said: “Our differences remain. We shall not pretend that they are already resolved into unity or into harmony, but we take our stand on the common faith of Christendom.”

How wide and firm that stand can already be was indicated by the scope of the projects discussed at the Council’s first meeting. Among them: rural reconstruction, the home and family life, chaplaincies among munition workers, youth, prisoners of war, the position of churches on the Continent, post-war reconstruction of Europe and the Far East.

Though none of the speakers at the Albert Hall rally went beyond Malvern, all made it clear that the once-conservative Church of England intends to play a leading and radical part in social reconstruction after the war. Canterbury, for instance, urged national control of money and land ownership, virtual abandonment of the profit motive, and the abolition of British class distinctions.

His proposals brought a spate of angry letters to the Times. The gist: “There is surely enough for the church to do within its own accepted field.” One defender of the Archbishop popped up with a retort from the late G. A. (“Woodbine Willie”) Studdert-Kennedy, best-loved British padre of World War I: “Nobody worries about Christ so long as He can be kept shut up in churches . . . but there is always trouble if you try to let Him out.”

From the U.S. last week came one hopeful sign that religious leaders are eager to follow the British trend. The Jesuit weekly America, which often sets the pace for Roman Catholic action, devoted its lead editorial to cooperation with non-Catholics on post-war planning, praised British Catholics for working with “informed and convinced Christians [i.e., Protestants].” It also declared that U.S. Catholics “can afford to lose no time in getting busily to work” in similar fashion—once “norms and principles” for it have been “laid down by those whose office it is to authorize the participation of Catholics in any such discussions.” But as yet neither of the two American cardinals or the 18 Catholic archbishops of the U.S. have shown any public desire to imitate Cardinal Kinsley’s action.