A Catholic, whose interest in the movement for Christian unity urges him to make ecumenical contacts with other Christians amongst whom he lives, will find himself, at least in town and city areas, confronted by Presbyterians, by Methodists, Congregationalists and Baptists, and with a certain dominance of prestige by Anglicans. For his encounter a Catholic ecumenist will want to know about some if not all of these differing religious bodies; what sort of people are they, what divides them from each other, on what are they agreed? He will probably need knowledge to supplement his vague ideas of their history and how they came into being. He will be interested in their antecedent presuppositions, but still more in what are their aspirations, hopes, doubts and fears today concerning the prospect of future unity; its possibility, the changes it would involve and its dangers.

The Star Books on Reunion a series of six inexpensive paperbacks on unity as Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists and Roman Catholics see it, contains the substance of this information in accessible and readable form. It is a pity that a seventh volume, on the Eastern Orthodox, was not included in the series, for full understanding of unity problems, especially the theological ones, requires the witness of these ancient churches. The authors are well chosen, highly qualified, theologically and pastorally, to represent the position of their respective communions. All of them share common ground in their conviction of the paramount importance of the ecumenical approach between Christians.

You cannot, says Karl Barth somewhere, talk about God simply by talking about man in a loud voice. But it may be asked whether, if you talk about man loudly enough, he does not eo ipso become a ‘god’ in some sense - in the sense in which St Paul says that the god of some men is their belly (Jung, rather unkindly, applies the same text to Freud), and in which the Psalmist said that the gods of the heathen were but idols. These uses illustrate the difference between what one might call the objective and subjective meanings of the word ‘God’. The Being ‘who alone exists of himself, and is infinite in all perfections’ (a well-known objective definition of the God in whom Christians believe) is an object of worship, of valuation above all else, for Christians (i.e. is their ‘God’ in the subjective sense). I call a humanist theology the intellectual formulation of a religious attitude which makes man its ‘god’ in the subjective sense. Someone might object that to call this a theology is an abuse of the term; yet such an abuse may be justified in as far it draws attention to interesting, and possibly disturbing, analogues to theology proper.

Men seem to have a disposition to talk about whatever they value most highly in a way comparable to Christian talk about God. As creatures prepared by creation to know and love God, we might be expected, when we do not believe in him or when we temporarily forget him, to apply the concepts we should have reserved for him to other objects. The Austrian biologist Konrad Lorenz finds that he can train goslings of the Greylag Goose to treat him just as though he were their mother goose. H. G. Wells admitted to what he called a ‘Godshaped gap’ in human consciousness; in a similar way there was a gooseshaped gap in the soul of the goslings, which in default of the real goose could be filled by Konrad Lorenz. So much for the justification of the locution ‘humanist theology’. I shall continue with a brief account of the subject, merely sketching its beginnings in Hegel’s philosophy, and giving somewhat more space to its more thoroughgoing manifestations in the work of Auguste Comte and, more recently, Sir Julian Huxley.

Now that the negotiations on Britain’s application for membership of the European Economic Community have broken down, many people are asking what will happen next. Few are suggesting that the Common Market itself is in danger of disintegration because of the arrogant manner in which General de Gaulle chose to break off the negotiations, with complete disregard for the wishes of France’s fellow members. There can be no doubt that France never wanted Britain to join, for the reasons given by General de Gaulle - if really representing the motives for the French action - should have led France to have rejected the idea of British membership at the very outset. The negotiations were, in fact, a farce, and one can only accept the explanation given by Mr Macmillan in his broadcast to the British people: France brought the negotiations to an abrupt end when they appeared in danger of succeeding, not when they looked like breaking down. What France had hoped for, throughout the eighteen months of negotiations, apparendy, was that agreement would prove impossible, and that Britain would be kept out of the Common Market without France having to incur the odium of exercising her veto.

France’s partners in the Common Market are, no doubt, displeased with the use of the veto, and above all the manner of its exercise. The Common Market will remain, however. The Five may feel that for some time to come, they must assert themselves in the internal discussions of the Common Market. They will show stronger opposition where, as on a number of issues, they do not see eye to eye with France. Far from benefiting the rest of the world, however, this may have serious consequences for countries outside the Common Market.

‘Come to Nigeria to die’ was not the specific call that the missionaries of the last century answered when they flocked to Africa. But the Christian ethic of their times and the demand that they go and teach all nations spurred them on to face hunger and death in the service of an ideal. Today the ethic has changed and the cry is for the technocrat to help the underdeveloped and newly free countries find stability, security and material welfare. As then the rich countries of the world provided the teachers and priests, so today only the rich countries can spare the skilled men that are needed. The Churches are being supplemented by the Peace Corps and the VSO Committee. It is the work of the latter, more precisely called the Committee on Service Overseas by Volunteers, that this article is to examine.

The Committee is a co-ordinating body, overseeing four different organizations (their addresses will be found at the end) who are all working towards roughly the same ends and using roughly the same methods, and the discussion concentrates on the ends and methods of VSO itself, as the largest of the four.

It is rare for a volunteer to go out for more than two years, or for less than one. Both cases are known, but they are exceptional and the standard period of service is about twelve months. The variety of the work is impressive: the five heads listed in the official handout comprise teaching, agricultural production, medicine, engineering and administration. In fact, what is wanted are those people who might be described as the architects of society. The countries to which the volunteers go are the new countries, countries in every imaginable stage of advancement and voracious for anyone with the requisite skills.

When it is considered that jazz is but half a century old, that it was only the spontaneous means of self-expression of a repressed minority, it is then that one wonders at its international acceptance. Surely, it must cater for some deep- seated hunger, for otherwise how could it have achieved such an acceptance?

Jazz, today, can be divided into three rough categories - traditional, mainstream, and modem. The traditionalists maintain that the old times were the best, and to persuade us that this is true they not only use the line-up of instruments fashionable earlier this century (banjo, cornet, even tuba), but also dress in the style of a bygone era, eras which have nothing at all to do with the genesis of jazz. One band dresses up in Confederate uniform, another as Mississippi gamblers, and one of the best known bandleaders, Acker Bilk, dons bowler and striped waistcoat. In the effort to project the potential listener back into the period, posters and advertisements are executed in a pseudo-archaic typographical style that often antedates all jazz by as much as a century.

The mainstreamers eddy midway between the traditionalists and the modernists, borrowing from both. No one has yet successfully defined mainstream. It uses a harmonic vocabulary more advanced than the traditional variety, more down to earth than the modernists. Mainstream is ideally suited to the middlebrow jazz listener. There is not so much of the plink-plonk of trad, nor the muffled profundities of the modernists.