World chaos or world Christianity, a popular interpretation of Oxford and Edinburgh, 1937

Front matter

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

WORLD CHAOS OR

Foreword

Oxford and Edinburgh in London Town Oxford Listens

Oxford Thinks Collectively — and Speaks

Edinburgh Speaks Oxford and Edinburgh Act

FOREWORD many of the Christians of the world are aware, two highly representative councils of church delegates from forty-five countries — practically the whole of non- Roman Christianity — met at Oxford and Edinburgh in the British Isles during July and August, 1937. More than a solid month of meetings, with many subdivisions for the consideration of specific questions, produced a mass of ma¬ terial of which much deserves to be made permanent. As a matter of fact, the major findings and accounts of the gen¬ eral proceedings of both conferences are available. The present brief survey therefore is not intended to be exhaus¬ tive, or simply factual, or even chronological. It is only the attempt of one who was intimately connected with both conferences to describe their outstanding characteristics and to sum up his chief impressions of days spent in memo¬ rable fellowship with many men of many views who never¬ theless were — as the affirmation which crowned the work of the Edinburgh Conference asserts — “ conscious of a unity which is deeper than all their divisions/’

These words are being written on the Scotch Isle of Skye, which for variety and beauty of scenery is unrivaled any¬ where in the world. He who would attempt to describe it knows at the outset that nothing he can say will be ade¬ quate. His impression of the place is gained through his own limited faculties, and he remembers only what has imprinted itself deeply on his consciousness. He can take but one path at a time and even if he could make others see all its beauty he would know that he had missed many other paths equally beautiful and inspiring.

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Foreword

This is a symbol of some of the limitations of which I am acutely conscious as I set out to share with friends who did not have the privilege of attendance something of the inspiration and enlightenment which came to us all at Oxford and Edinburgh. If what is written here encourages any to further study of the actions of these great councils of the church, and leads, even to a small degree, to increased consciousness of world unity among the followers of our Lord — over against an ever more hostile world which presents rival claims to man’s supreme loyalty — I shall feel more than repaid for the effort involved in preparing the chapters that follow.

Henry Smith Leiper

WORLD CHAOS OR

WORLD CHRISTIANITY

I

S tanding on the broad front steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, early on the evening of July 29, 1937, I wit¬ nessed a scene which not even a hardened sightseer would soon forget. Up the slope from Ludgate Circus streamed a great company of people whose dress made it plain that they came from many nations. They were all bound toward the top of the hill, where for more than thirteen centuries a Christian church has stood. On every hand the sidewalks were thronged with curious crowds who watched quietly from every available vantage point. Handsome, courteous London “ bobbies ” kept order, but their task was an easy one, for the onlookers, though their interest was obvious, readily cleared a path for those who were on their way to the cathedral. Above the voices of the people rose the chim¬ ing of bells, ringing their changes under the hands of en¬ thusiastic English bellringers.

A hush of expectancy, and all eyes turn toward the ap¬ proaching procession. First comes a coach magnificent in red lacquer and gold, in which ride the formal attendants of the Lord Mayor of London; then the Lord Mayor him¬ self, wearing his robes of office and sitting in his splendid state coach. The Prime Minister of England follows on foot, and after him march the leaders of the churches of forty-five lands, a company in colorful ecclesiastical cos¬ tume, in gowns and hoods and sashes fashioned after the tastes and traditions of all parts of the globe.

The ends of the earth are literally met together. The Japanese Bishop of Tokyo marches near the head of the group that represents the Russian Church in Exile. The head of the United Church of South India is to be seen along with the primates of the Church of England, the arch¬ bishops of Canterbury and York. The president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America walks near the Archbishop of Thyateira. The chairman of the Evangelical Church Council of France leads the primates of Denmark and Sweden and a half dozen other lands whose churches are established by the state. The moderator of the United Church of Canada and other moderators of Presbyterian and Congregational churches all round the world are there, with Mar Shimun of the Ancient Assyrian Church and Mar Thoma of the Syrian Church in India.

Bishop Perry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America is one of a group from the New World. Near him walk the leaders of both the Northern and Southern Baptist conventions; of the Augustana Synod and of the United Lutheran Church; of the Methodists and of the Disciples; of the Friends and of the Old Catholic Communion. Dr. Timothy Tingfang Lew of Yenching University, a member of the legislative council of his nation, leads a company of eminent Chinese churchmen whose stature and attire con¬ trast with those of tall Dean Brilioth of the University of Lund in Sweden. Great missionaries march beside great laymen — men whose names are known around the world for their distinguished services in government and business — ambassadors, ministers of state, judges, educators, bankers, merchants, scientists and physicians.

There are women too — Mrs. Fred S. Bennett, Mrs. Harper Sibley, Miss Dorothy Fosdick, Mrs. Harrie R.

Chamberlin, LL.D., Miss Eliza H. Kendrick, Ph.D., Miss Mary A. Dingman, Mrs. Henry Hill Pierce, Miss Anna V. Rice and Miss Ruth Woodsmall. The presence of women in such a formal ecclesiastical procession was in itself sig¬ nificant — although their small number seemed to support the mistaken idea that the church has no places at the top for members of the fair sex!

The long procession winds across the central plaza and disappears into the cathedral, thronging the vast nave, the transept, the choir, the galleries, and presently overflowing through the doors. Within, the ushers are busy trying to find room for these thousands of worshipers. The ushers themselves are the youth delegates and official visitors to the two conferences. They have come from Algeria, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Greece, Holland, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Rumania, the Russian “ diaspora ” in exile. South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States!

For fifteen hundred years London has harbored ecclesi¬ astical gatherings, but never before had it watched so rep¬ resentative an assembly as this. And never before had Christians come from so many lands to worship on this site which was consecrated to the service of God in Christ eight hundred years before Columbus discovered America. I have been in hundreds of cathedrals and have attended festal services in at least a dozen parts of the world, but the throng that had come together in this huge church over¬ whelmed me. When they stood to sing Martin Luther’s hymn the sound was like “ rushing, mighty waters.”

The service began. In the sanctuary leaders of various communions took part in the service, which led up to the sermon preached by the venerable Archbishop of Canter¬ bury, Cosmo Lang.

The archbishop took as his text these words: “ And the Lord said unto Moses: Wherefore criest thou? Speak unto the people that they go forward.” What he said was as memorable as the setting. When we are dismayed at our difficulties in trying to unite all branches of the Christian church, he said, we do well to remember that Moses came to know the certainty of God’s plan even when he could not see the way ahead. Our goal may be distant but the imme¬ diate road is plain and we must follow it steadily. No man who has seen the vision of a united Christendom can ever abandon the quest. Oxford has proved that our common Christianity is a great and inspiring reality capable of be¬ coming a mighty redeeming force in the chaotic world.

Differences cannot be overcome by simply ignoring them; but if we build upon the central faith which we hold in common we will see these differences in their true pro¬ portion. Our growth into union is to be by way of unity; and such growth is really growth “ into Christ,” as Paul would have said. The source of unity is not the consenting movement of men’s wills but the eternal purpose of God. Just in proportion as we find in Christ our one center shall we grow into him and, as individuals or churches, grow together. In view of such a purpose — God’s and ours — delegates to such gatherings as those of Oxford and Edin¬ burgh must regard themselves not as recipients only but as trustees of a creative experience.

In characterizing the trends in the ecumenical movement as a whole the archbishop declared two features note¬ worthy: the recognition of the place of common worship — since in worship men know themselves to be at one in prayer and in silence — and the new emphasis upon the importance of the church as the instrument of the kingdom.

The movement represented by the conferences of Oxford, Edinburgh and Hangchow (this last planned for 1938) is more important than any single manifestation of it — and the church as a whole has not yet realized how significant it is. We cannot doubt but that through it God is reuniting his broken church; and through such practical activity as is rendered possible by a council of the churches we are making ever more visible the unity which we hope some day to see consummated.

As the aged primate finished there was a deep hush, more impressive and inspiring than any sound could have been. Then the organist began playing the familiar hymn, “ Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! ” and the wor¬ shipers sang it, in many languages but with one spiritual voice. There followed an act of invocation led by the Indian Bishop of Dornakal, an act of penitence led by Archbishop Eidem of Sweden, an act of intercession led by Dr. Cockburn of the Church of Scotland, and an act of adoration led by the Eastern Orthodox Archbishop of Thyateira. Then came the Te Deum — sung like the hymn in many languages simultaneously — swelling in mighty chorus to the final lines, “ O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee. O Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.”

As the long procession wound its way out of the cathedral into the early twilight of London I found myself asking questions and answering them as best I could. How and why were all these gathered here from the ends of the earth, obviously at great cost of time and money? And what was really their common interest? Their common interest, I felt sure after personal contact with them, was the unity of Christ’s church. Their common concern was lest its weakness in the face of the threats of its modern rivals be increased by its internal divisions. Their common objective, as the Archbishop of Canterbury had said, was to find the ways by which Christians of all kinds could work together, grow together, and ultimately achieve the re¬ union of Christendom in a church whose witness and work would, more nearly than ever in the past, approxi¬ mate the witness and incarnate the spirit of its common Lord. They had come to London, at the invitation of the archbishop and the Dean of St. Paul’s, to worship together and symbolize in one great public service something of the spirit and hope in which they had met and were again to meet in council.

Although chronologically this service came after the Ox¬ ford Conference and before the Edinburgh Conference, there is good reason for beginning my account with it. The middle is often a good starting place: from it one can work both backward and forward. And in this case the link between these two parts of what is really one movement bears witness to that essential oneness. This was doubtless the last time these two bodies would meet as separate and autonomous entities, and so the service in St. Paul’s may well have been prophetic as well as symbolic.

But what lay behind the calling of this meeting— what indeed is the movement of whose common interest and concern it was an evidence? In order to find the answer let us glance at Christian history both ancient and modern and recall certain relevant facts.

“ I am the light of the world,” said Jesus to his followers. That is but one of the many sayings in which he implied that the whole world was the natural object of concern for those who came in contact with his universal spirit and tasted something of his experience of the all-inclusiveness of God’s love for mankind. Conscious of the inclusive character of the new faith, those who composed the church during the early centuries formed the habit of appointing from time to time representatives who might gather to think and plan collectively for the difficult task which was theirs, namely, “ to make disciples of all nations.” These councils had a certain quality of which all those connected with them seem to have been aware; and the Greeks had a word for that quality: they called it “ ecumenical ” — that is, pertaining to the whole household of the faith, inter-racial, supra-national, supra-denominational, com¬ plete. Because of the strong sense which pervaded the early church of the importance of keeping Christianity undi¬ vided and ecumenical it was possible for observers to say that “ the Christians hold the world together.”

This quality has been so little in evidence during recent centuries, particularly since the Reformation, that many Christians do not even understand the idea of the ecumeni¬ cal church. And of course they do not know or use the word which the Greeks used. Not that they have any other word; they haven’t, and they don’t feel the need of one just because they have so tragically missed the whole idea and have accepted as a matter of course the divided and scattered church whose racial, class, national and denomi¬ national lines cut back and forth across the world in every direction.

Under the guidance of God’s Spirit the last thirty-odd years have witnessed, throughout the churches of the world, the gradual growth of a new desire for a truly ecumenical expression of the spirit of Christ in communion and fellow¬ ship. After strenuous efforts to overcome all manner of indifference and difficulty and in spite of repeated failures and discouragements, from 1900 on, with increasing fre¬ quency, there have been held in different parts of the world conferences that more and more approximated ecumenical representation and were drawn from the whole household of the living church. Of these the most notable, from the point of view of creative impulse toward fuller unity, was held in Edinburgh in 1910 and dealt with the church’s mission to carry its witness to all mankind. Its conception of the churches’ collective responsibility for spreading the gospel led to the formation of the International Mis¬ sionary Council. The most widely representative con¬ ference and the first to bring the great Eastern Orthodox communion into touch with the Anglican and Reformed (Protestant) world in general was successfully called at Stockholm in 1925 after nine earlier attempts of the same sort had failed. The Stockholm Conference was concerned with unity in Christian life and work, the practical side of cooperation being considered more than the philosophical, theological or organizational sides. The most nearly offi¬ cial conference and the one most concerned with the actual unity of the church in its faith and organization — its “order” — was that held in 1927 at Lausanne, known as the World Conference on Faith and Order. It was sepa¬ rated by only a year from the conference in Jerusalem which carried forward the missionary task envisaged at Edinburgh.

Here we have three bodies — the councils on missions, on life and work, and on faith and order — all partly ecumenical (none can be fully ecumenical which does not actually include the whole of the church throughout the world) and all so constituted as to be able to call world gatherings from time to time. But 1937 marked the first attempt of all three to plan together for something still more united and representative. It was, therefore, clearly not accidental that the two world conferences of 1937 met in the British Isles within one week of each other and held certain joint sessions in London. One of these con¬ ferences— that at Oxford — had to do with the church in its relations to the state and the community or social order, and was called and managed by the body which had grown out of the Stockholm Conference, i.e., the Univer¬ sal Christian Council on Life and Work. The other — that at Edinburgh — was the second world conference on faith and order and it was planned by the continuation committee appointed at Lausanne. “ Life and Work ” was anxious to have — and secured to a degree hitherto un¬ known— the cooperation of other world-wide Christian organizations in preparing for the conference. Thus the International Missionary Council, the World Alliance for Friendship through the Churches, the World Alliance of Y.M.C.A.’s, the Y.W.C.A., and the World Student Chris¬ tian Federation, as well as “ Faith and Order,” all lent it assistance through their official staffs or otherwise.

Attempts were made to secure the cooperation of the Roman Catholic Church for both Oxford and Edinburgh. Although in the view of the leaders of that communion it was not possible for them to take part directly in either conference, the state of the church throughout the world and the growth of a more Christlike attitude toward their “ separated brethren ” did lead them to cooperate in certain invisible ways with the Oxford Conference studies and to address a significant message, couched in terms of warm friendliness, to the Edinburgh Conference. Of this more will be said later.

It is not my purpose here to review in detail the pre¬ paratory work for the conferences. But some understand¬ ing of the preparation is essential if one is to grasp the importance and significance of what happened. The pri¬ mary thing to be made clear is that neither conference was an event in itself, detached and complete. Both confer¬ ences were, as I have indicated, part of the general move¬ ment for greater Christian unity which I shall refer to io World Chaos or World Christianity

hereafter as the “ ecumenical movement ” (and such it is as a matter of fact called by those most closely related to it, particularly in Europe).

The conference at Lausanne had agreed upon a common statement of the church’s message to the world; it had made clear some of the major differences which keep the various communions apart; it had stimulated detailed study of possible reunion. Thus it had focused attention upon cer¬ tain subjects as the basis of further discussion. From year to year its continuation committee had met in Europe, formulating in considerable detail the plan of work for the 1 937 conference. Four commissions had been formed, each centering in a different part of the world and engag¬ ing the particular attention of competent students. Here in the United States, for example, Dean Wilfred Sperry of Harvard Divinity School led a distinguished group of scholars in the preparation of materials for the study of the church’s unity in life and worship. Part of this work developed into a study written by Dr. Paul Douglass of New York, the most remarkable factual study yet produced of the many actual unions which have taken place all over the world between separate denominations. Incidentally it made very plain what were the practical things which could be done to promote and develop the desire for unity in advance of its actual consummation in organized life.

The other three commissions had worked for years in preparing the ground for fruitful discussion of such divisive matters as views of the ministry and the sacraments, the doctrine of grace, and the meaning of “ word of God ” as used by the different branches of the church. Long before delegates were appointed to Edinburgh a whole shelfful of scholarly books had appeared as a result of the work done in various lands by these commissions. Their work may sound theoretical and abstract to the ordinary layman but anyone can see that it is intimately related to the basic ideas which constitute the church and that no progress can be made on the formal side of reunion until such matters have been made clear and an understanding has been reached as to what should be taught concerning them in the church of the future.

Perhaps I should point out here, as I did when presenting the opening statement at the Edinburgh Conference, that the place of theology in the life of the church can be ignored only at our peril. An illustration may help to make plainer why this is so. Suppose that a great bridge were to be built to connect two cities on opposite sides of a deep river. Bankers, real-estate men, traffic experts, river pilots, and politicians would all have to be consulted, as well as the engineers and designers. To discuss this work intelligently the engineers would have to agree on certain abstract prin¬ ciples of higher mathematics. All the stresses and strains, all the calculations of tensile strength, wind resistance and the like, depend upon certain applications of higher math¬ ematics. But the other people interested in the bridge would not be at all interested in higher mathematics — unless it be the bankers. The real-estate men, the pilots, the politicians and the others would perhaps urge the en¬ gineers to get down to something practical and leave off their theorizing. Yet the mere fact that the relevance of the higher mathematical theories did not appear to the non¬ engineers would not make these theories unimportant.

Theology may not be exactly like higher mathematics, but it does represent the reflection of honest minds upon the mysteries of religious experience, and it does record their efforts to understand and explain as far as may be the facts of spiritual life and the laws of spiritual growth. That’s why I would say that just as a bridge between two cities cannot be built without higher mathematics, so the bridge between the different communions cannot be made without theological understanding.

And so it was that before the conference met in 1937 all the delegates received advance reports summing up the work done in the theological field during the ten years following the Lausanne Conference. All could, and many did, study these with care before undertaking to discuss their revision or submission to the churches as a basis for advance toward union on the technical and organic side.

I have spoken of the preparation for Edinburgh first because it actually began before the preparation for Ox¬ ford. Now let me describe briefly the process by which the program of the Oxford Conference was set up. World conditions in 1933 made it plain that a tremendous chal¬ lenge to the church was arising in the development of what is known as the totalitarian state — one in which every as¬ pect of life — ethical, educational, cultural, economic, as well as spiritual — is regarded as the direct concern of the political organization of the national state. The work of the research department of the Universal Christian Coun¬ cil after 1930 led directly to the consideration of this prob¬ lem which emerged simultaneously in different parts of the world. By 1933 it was obvious to thoughtful observers that the world was approaching one of the great turning points in history, comparable in significance to the great change which took place at the end of the Middle Ages and gave form to our modern world. The prodigious expansion of the state’s functions which had come about particularly as a result of the World War had made it necessary for every nation involved to control more and more of life. The new absolutism which ensued came to be recognized in Russia, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, and other lands as a definite if not always openly avowed substitute for the

Christian religion in the determination of ideals of both individual and collective conduct.

In the attempt during this critical period to follow out lines of action in common, the churches, as represented in the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work, dis¬ covered that among all the questions which they faced none was more central or fundamental than that of their rela¬ tions with the modern state and with the secularized society from which the basic character of the state derives. Particu¬ lar point was given to this discovery by the situation con¬ fronting the Evangelical Church in Germany as a result of the deliberate attempt of National Socialism to prostitute that church to the purposes and ideals of a “ positive Chris¬ tianity ” which on inspection turns out to be no Christian¬ ity at all.

Now, at the very moment when it realized how desperate was the need for common thought and action, ecumenical Christianity found itself deeply divided by differences of interpretation of its message and its task. Deeper in many cases than the supposed differences of denomination were those concerning the nature of God, his relationship to the world of men, his purpose for mankind, and the consequent basic ideals of human conduct. The critical nature of the struggle into which the churches were moving on many fronts made it necessary that these underlying differences be frankly faced — not to create an interesting debate on the floor of a council, but to arrive at vital truth and to gain new strength for battle against forces which, if victorious, would doom the church either to perish or to undergo such transformation as would make it only the ecclesiastical arm of some racial or nationalistic group intent upon objectives quite other than those of the kingdom of God.

In 1934, at its meeting in Fan0, Denmark, the Universal Christian Council came to unanimous decision as to the themes which should engage the representatives of the churches in a world conference on Christian life and work. Thanks to the generous hospitality of Oxford University, the place of the conference was later set in that famous town so closely linked with Christian history, and a distinguished son of Oxford, Dr. Joseph H. Oldham, long secretary of the International Missionary Council, was charged with the responsibility of planning and conducting the preliminary studies as well as the program to be followed in the confer¬ ence.

In consultation with Christian leaders from many lands Dr. Oldham shortly decided on the main questions to be examined. These were, as I have suggested, determined not by abstract reasoning but by observing the actual trend of events in many parts of the Christian world. The con¬ crete situations implied definite points of view. They were obviously dependent upon certain ideas and convictions, upon a philosophy or “ ideology ” — in religious termi¬ nology, a “ theology.” The primary question usually was: What is man himself intended to be? By what principles and purposes is his conduct to be controlled? What does he live and die for? All theories of the state were seen to de¬ pend finally upon certain assumptions concerning the ori¬ gin and destiny, the nature and potentialities of man. And never has there been less agreement than at present con¬ cerning this basic question! Marxists say that man is wholly determined by the material forces of his environ¬ ment. Hitlerites avow that race, blood and soil are what matter most in his destiny. Behavioristic naturalistic phi¬ losophers teach that he is but part of the animal world, sub¬ ject wholly to elemental forces in instinct and impulse. Mussolini thunders his conviction that man derives the only significance he can have from his participation in the life of a nation. Humanistic philosophers now as in the time of the Greeks find in man’s reason the guide to his nature and potentialities.

Dr. Oldham and his associates therefore had to ask: “ Is there a Christian understanding of man distinguishable from all of these? Is man’s essential nature to be found in the fact that a word is addressed to him by a personal God, demanding from him a response, and thereby constituting him a person and calling him to a life of sonship and free¬ dom and fellowship and service in a community of per¬ sons? ” They were sure that the Christian church is com¬ mitted by its central affirmations to the belief that the life of man finds its expression in a community of persons. God has spoken to man the individual and to mankind in com¬ munity through his Son. “ He has revealed himself through his Word. The word — used in the widest sense to include every form of self-expression — is the means whereby persons communicate with persons.” Through our response to God’s word we become responsible persons, bound to our fellows and united with them in a community ruled by love. “ God bids us serve him as his free sons in the only way we can serve him—by ministering to the needs of our fellow men. What we do to them he accepts as done to himself. The love of God and the love of our neighbor are inseparable. . . . Therefore the church is the community of those who have been redeemed from a selfcentered existence which is death, into the objectivity and freedom of a life of personal response to the demands of persons, a life of trust and loyalty, of faith and love.”