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The Unity of the Church in Twentieth-Century England: Pleasing Dream or Common Calling? (Presidential Address)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David M. Thompson
David M. Thompson*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Studies in Church History , Volume 32: Unity and Diversity in the Church , 1996 , pp. 507 - 531
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Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1996

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References

1 Kent, John, The Unacceptable Face. The Modem Church in the eyes of the Historian (London, 1987), p. 203 Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., p. 204.

3 Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen Charles, eds, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948 (London, 1954)Google Scholar; Fey, Harold E., ed.. The Ecumenical Advance: A History of the Ecumenical Movement, vol. 2, 1948-1968 (London, 1970)Google Scholar.

4 Kent, The Unacceptable Face, p. 7; cf. Berger, Peter, The Sacred Canopy (New York, 1969), pp. 162–4 Google Scholar.

5 Kent, John, ‘Hugh Price Hughes and the Nonconformist Conscience’ in Bennett, G. V. and Walsh, J. D., eds, Essays in Modem English Church History in memory of Norman Sykes (London, 1966), p. 185 Google Scholar; Kent, John, The Age of Disunity (London, 1966), p. 199 Google Scholar.

6 Rouse and Neill, History of the Ecumenical Movement, p. 417.

7 See Thompson, David M., ‘Theological and sociological approaches to the motivation of the ecumenical movement’, SCH, 15 (1978), pp. 467–79 Google Scholar.

8 Wilson, Bryan R., Religion in Secular Society (London, 1966), p. 179 Google Scholar

9 Currie, Robert, Methodism Divided (London, 1968), p. 314 Google Scholar.

10 Wilson, Religion in Secular Society, p. 221.

11 See the discussion in Dunn, James D. G., Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London, 1977)Google Scholar.

12 Stephenson, Gwendolen, Edward Smart Talbot, 1844-1934 (London, 1936), pp. 114–15 Google Scholar.

13 Lidgett, J. Scott, My Guided Life (London, 1936), pp. 230–1 Google Scholar.

14 The Bishop of Winchester, ‘The Lambeth Appeal’, Contemporary Review, 118 (Oct. 1920), p. 469, quoted Newman Smyth, A Story of Church Unity (New Haven, Conn., 1923), p. 48; cf. Garvic, Alfred E., Memories and Meanings of My Life (London, 1938), p. 193 Google Scholar.

15 Lockhart, J. G., Cosmo Gordon Lang (London, 1949), p. 267 Google Scholar.

16 Bell, G. K. A., Randall Davidson, 3rd edn (London, 1952), pp. 690–708 Google Scholar; Noble, W. J. and others, Towards a United Church, 1913–1947 (London, 1947), pp. 15–63 Google Scholar. Talbot had been one of the leading English bishops to warn of the problems caused by Kikuyu: see Stephenson, E. S. Talbot, pp. 240-1.

17 Documents Bearing on the Problem of Christian Unity and Fellowship, 1916-1920 (London, 1920), pp. 37–47 Google Scholar.

18 Bell, Davidson, p. 1012; Lambeth Conference 1920, resolutions 10–12, The Six Lambeth Conferences, 1867-1920 (London, 1929), Appendix, pp. 29-31.

19 Henson, Herbert Hensley, Retrospect of an Unimportant Life, 2 vols (London, 1942-3), 2, p. 4 Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., p. 10.

21 Bell, Davidson, p. 1011.

22 Jasper, Ronald C. D., George Bell, Bishop of Chichester (London, 1967), p. 57 Google Scholar.

23 Bell, Davidson, pp. 1007-15, 1115-24.

24 Documents on Christian Unity and Fellowship. This volume was edited by Bell (although his name does not appear on the title page), which is acknowledged in the British Library catalogue, but not, for example, in the Cambridge University Library catalogue.

25 Rouse, and Neill, , History of the Ecumenical Movement, pp. 409–10 Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., pp. 411-12; ‘Bulletin of the Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church, no 5’, reprinted in Epting, K.-C., Ein Cespräch beginnt (Zurich, 1972), p. 332 Google Scholar.

27 Henson, Retrospect of an Unimportant Life, 1, p. 202; Peel, Albert, These Hundred Years (London, 1931), p. 395 Google Scholar, indicates that the autumn assembly in 1910 was held at Hampstcad, rather than Portsmouth as Shakespeare told Henson, so Shakespeare’s memory may have been at fault.

28 Jordan, E. K. H., Free Church Unity (London, 1956), pp. 127–35 Google Scholar; Shakespeare, J. H., The Churches at the Cross-Roads (London, 1918), pp. 118–20 Google Scholar; Black, Arthur et al., Pathways to Christian Unity (London, 1919), pp. 148–51 Google Scholar, where the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, formed in 1905, was cited as a model.

29 Simpson, P. Carnegie, Recollections (London, 1943), p. 75 Google ScholarPubMed; the statement is in Black, Pathways to Christian Unity, pp. 222–6.

30 Documents on Christian Unity and Fellowship, pp. 5-9: the differences were the extent of uniformity or variety in the visible society of the Church; the conditions in the ministration and reception of the sacraments on which their validity depends; and the question of whether the authority of the ministry was derived through episcopal or presbyteral succession or through the community of believers, or by a combination of them.

31 Ibid., pp. 11-13.

32 Lidgett, Scott, My Guided Life, pp. 243–4 Google Scholar.

33 Garvie, , Memories mid Meanings, p. 193 Google Scholar.

34 Documents on Christian Unity and Fellowship, pp. 54-6.

35 Ibid., pp. 81-6; quotation from p. 84. (It should perhaps be noted that contemporary references to this conference, e.g. Contemporary Review, 117 [March 1920], pp. 364 ff. refer to this as the third Oxford conference.)

36 Ibid., pp. 73-6; quotation from pp. 74-5.

37 Sundkler, Bengt, Nathan Sõderblom (London, 1968), pp. 220, 226 Google Scholar; Jasper, George Bell, pp. 57-60; quotation from p. 60.

38 See the Report of the Mürren Conference in The Review of the Churches, ns 2 (Jan. 1925).

39 Documents on Christian Unity and Fellowship, p. 87.

40 Ibid., pp. 88-93; quotation from p. 89; Cross, F. L., Darwell Stone (London, 1943), pp. 140–1 Google Scholar.

41 Cross, Darwell Stone, pp. 141-7.

42 Headlam, A. C., The Doctrine of the Church and Christian Reunion, 3rd edn (London, 1929), pp. 242–7, 261–9 Google Scholar.

43 Lidgett, J. Scott, ‘The Anglican Church and Evangelical Nonconformity’, Contemporary Review, 117 (May 1920), pp. 643–4 Google Scholar.

44 Prestige, G. L., Vie Life of Charles Core (London, 1935), p. 453 Google Scholar.

45 Bell, G. K. A., Documents on Christian Unity 1920-4 (London, 1924), pp. 146–51 Google Scholar; quotation from p. 150.

46 Ibid., p. 158.

47 Stephenson, E. S. Talbot, p. 261.

48 Bell, Documents 1920-4, pp. 159-60.

49 Jasper, Ronald, Arthur Cayley Headlam (London, 1960), pp. 151–2 Google Scholar.

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51 Bell, G. K. A., Documents on Christian Unity: Second Series (London, 1930), pp. 82–4 Google Scholar.

52 Jasper, Headlam, pp. 153–4.

53 Paget, Stephen, ed., Henry Scott Holland (London, 1921), pp. 170–1 Google Scholar.

54 Carnegie Simpson wrote in 1920 that ‘the only two people in England who make reunion impossible are the exclusive Anglican and his brother the close Baptist’: ‘Some Steps towards Reunion’, Contemporary Review, 117 (March 1920), p. 369.

55 Glover, T. R., The Free Churches and Reunion (Cambridge, 1921), passim, especially p. 53 Google Scholar.

56 Manning, Bernard Lord, Essays in Orthodox Dissent (London, 1939), p. 142 Google Scholar.

57 Huntington, W. R., The Peace of the Church (London, 1891), pp. 204, 206 Google Scholar.

58 Smyth, Newman, Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism (London, 1908), pp. 154–5 Google Scholar; cf. Newman Smyth, Story of Church Unity, pp. 7-13. Dr Brian Stanley’s paper (pp. 399-426) also draws attention to the significance of Smyth’s book.

59 Sundkler, B., Church of South India: the Movement towards Union, 1900-1947 (London, 1954), p. 178 Google Scholar.

60 Kent, , The Unacceptable Face, p. 203 Google Scholar.

61 E.g. Jordan, , Free Church Unity, p. 174 Google Scholar.

62 Wilson, , Religion in Secular Society, pp. 163–9 Google Scholar.

63 Berger, , Sacred Canopy, pp. 139–44 Google Scholar.

64 Bell, Randall Davidson, pp. xvi-xviii.

65 United Methodist Church Act, 1907 (7 Edward VII, c. lxxv), clauses 6 and 7: see Townsend, W.J., Workman, H. B. and Eayrs, G., eds, A New History of Methodism, 2 vols (London, 1909), 2, p. 570 Google Scholar. Later clauses in the Act required the same majority for changes in the constitution and deed poll.

66 Carnegie Simpson, Recollections, p. 81.

67 Lidgett, Scott, My Guided Life, pp. 251–8 Google Scholar; Davies, Rupert E., ed., John Scotr Lidgett (London, 1957), pp. 199–201 Google Scholar.

68 Documents on Christian Unity and Fellowship, pp. 57–8.

69 Sundkler, , Church of South India, pp. 233, 236, 329 Google Scholar.

70 Berger, , Sacred Canopy, pp. 143–4 Google Scholar.