Modern Trends Towards Christian Unity

by W. BUNTING, Edinburgh | Category: The Reformation | May 1964

Some sixty years ago a remarkable document appearing for Christian unity was issued with the approval of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the heads of all the Free Churches. Although it bore no signature of a representative of the Roman Catholic Church it did elicit a sympathetic letter from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. The document contained the following statement: "That our Lord meant us to be one in visible fellowship: that our existing divisions hinder or even paralyse His work: that we all deserve chastisement and need penitence, for the various ways in which we have contributed to produce or promote divisions: that we all need open and candid minds to receive light and yet more light, so that, in ways we perhaps cannot hardly imagine, we may be led back towards unity."

The document appealed to all Christian ministers of religion to prepare their congregations. for a united effort of prayer for the reunion of Christians and added, "special care being taken that such prayer should be entirely uncontroversial and should involve no assumptions except those which all Christians can make their own".

The desire for closer union amongst professing Christian communities is a most laudable one. Nothing but vital truth can ever justify separation. With regard to the proposed union which the document has in mind we would like to quote some words which appeared in Needed Truth 1906 Vol. XVII page 126.

"Sad as it makes us to think about it, we are obliged to say we anticipate that such a union will one day take place. Rome, it must be remembered, has always held the principle of a Catholic visible unity, and condemned divisions. Inflexibly has she maintained her claim to he the divine unity on earth. This claim which has been largely and strenuously resisted, will we believe, one day be admitted and the Protestant Sects which in their historical sequence in a certain sense came out of Rome, will go back to The Mother Church which in her future and final form is pictured in Revelation 17, Mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. That some of God's people will be deceived and ensnared in this colossal counterfeit of divine unity is evidenced from the divine call 'Come forth My people out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues' (Revelation 18 4)

What would the writer of those words have to say if he could with his searching mind, examine the position today. The late Dr Inge in his book 'The Church and the Age' wrote "The idea of re union with Rome on any terms except complete submission is really childish. To hold such an expectation is to show that a person has wholly misunderstood the position and policy of the Roman Church The claim to a universal spiritual empire is an essential part of her wh9le system".

The position of the Church of Rome was put very clearly by a Roman Catholic Peer, the Earl of Longford in a debate in the House of Lords on May 10th, 1961 - "Between us Roman Catholics and others outside our communion there is bound to be this fundamental difference. Most, I think look upon the Church as divided and consequently regard the reunion of Christendom as the healing of disastrous divisions within the Church. That was clearly the way the noble earl Lord Arran saw it, but we look upon this process of reunion as the gathering once more of the separated parts into the never failing unity of the mystical Body of Christ which has its earthly head and divinely appointed centre in the Holy See".

The World Council of Churches came into being in Amsterdam in the autumn of 1948 with the goal of achieving "One Church in One World". It is of course intended that the Greek and Roman Churches should be included On the doctrinal side this Council has a very liberal basis and such vital matters as the Deity of Christ or the authority of the Scriptures are liberally interpreted. The Council now embraces almost every Church except the Church of Rome

We' have witnessed in recent years a series of visits to the Vatican

by leaders of the Protestant Churches, beginning with the former

Archbishop of Canterbury; now Lord Fisher of Lambeth. A Roman Catholic lecturer recently pointed out the significance which his Church sees in these visits - "More and more," he declared, "our separated brethren will perceive that they need the successor of St. Peter and will come to him in gradual, perhaps almost imperceptible steps, courtesy visits merging into consultative visits, and these into acceptance of a primacy of precedence in direction and guidance."

The present Pope has chosen the title Pope Paul VI. At his coronation recently, when speaking of the Roman Catholic Church, he said, "We will seek to conserve and increase the pastoral virtue of the Church. As already announced, we shall resume the Ecumenical Council, and we ask God that this great event may confirm faith in the Church, renew her moral energies, rejuvenate her, adopt her forms to the needs of the times, and thus present her to the fellow-Christians separated from her perfect unity, to make attractive, easy and joyful to them the sincere rejoining to the mystic body of the one Catholic Church in truth and charity" (The Scotsman).

While the Pope chooses to use subtle language when dealing with the question of reunion, the Roman Bishop of Madrid uses more direct and forceful language, as quoted recently in the British Weekly - "In spite of the ecumenical movement and the Week of Prayer for the reunion of Christendom, we must move without any humane consideration against Protestants when they try to spread their errors and heresies, because true ecumenicalism, after all, means only return to Rome".

This article has been written with the object of showing, particularly to young people, the great debt we owe to the Reformers and of the dangers inherent in the present trends towards so-called Christian unity.

In closing, may we quote the warning given in Needed Truth in 1906, page 144 - "If children of God are tempted to co-operate in movements for a union of Christians that fails to give the Lord Jesus Christ His place, they would do well to consider whether they may not be unconsciously lending their aid to Satan's preparation for the coming Man of Sin. From all such dangers he will be delivered who knows what it is to give, first in his heart and then in every sphere of relationship, the right place to Christ Jesus as Lord".

W. BUNTING, Edinburgh | May 1964
The Reformation