Ecumenism: need for

ma a militant alliance ,FEW men can have contri buted more to ecumenism than my father, Sir Henry Lunn, I hope it may be possible to arrange a small meeting next year to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the first of many Reunion Conferences which he organised at Grindelwald, and whose discussions were .reported in The Review of the Cluirche.s.
My father was a realist. After we returned from a meeting to celebrate the reunion of different Methodist Churches, a reunion to which he had made a definite contribution, he said: "Of course I'm pleased that Methodism is reunited, but I must admit that there was more life in Methodism when the Primitive Methodists doubted the salvation of the other Methodists than there is today."
My father had no illusions about the basic problems of ecumenism, the normal if not inevitable relationship between religious vitality and religious intolerance.
Authentic Christianity
"To the extent." wrote the Rev. H. C. J. Brown, an American Protestant. "that it results from growing indifference as distinguished from tolerance, the ecumenical movement is just as much a product of the modern secular movement as the peace movement." (National Review, June 1. 1963).
That "nothing is really worth arguing about" is indeed the equivalent of saying that "nothing is really worth fighting for." Man is a social animal, who normally wants to be "with it," and unfortunately authentic Christianity is difficult to reconcile with Withitry. "Ye shall be hated of all men," Our Lord warned. "for my Name's sake ... Think not that I urn come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace hut a sword."
Like my father. I am an ecumenist, and I have written three books in collaboration with my Anglican partner. Garth Lean. I agree with the statement of the American publishers of the third of these book S. "Christian Counter-Attack," that it "expresses a Christian ecumenism that asks neither party to compromise his vital beliefs . . . It is the very antithesis of the lowest common de nominator so ,common today — an ecumenism which often manifests a tack of faith."
There is no prospect in the immediate future of a Reunion of the Churches which would include the Catholics. but there is an urgent need for transformation of the ecumenical movement into a militant 'alliance of Christians who are prepared not only to defend Christianity but to attack the materialism. overt or camouflaged. which is gradually undermining what is left of Christian faith and morals in this country.
Communication problems
So far the ecumenical movement does not seem to have much effect in arresting the advance of secularism. To an atheist, ecumenism might merely confirm his conviction that the Christians were los ing faith in their absurd beliefs. and were prepared to jettison any dogmas which prevented them from huddling together for comfort in their ever shrinking ghetto.
In the Sixties an American Bishop said to me, "The last time Catholics were associated with an unpopular cause was in the Spanish Civil War. We are no longer unpopular because we are regarded as innocuous."
Every great Christian revival has begun by demanding not concessions but sacrifices. The transformation of the ecumenical movement into a militant alliance will disturb the tranquillity of those Christians who are content to be "innocuous," and for whom the Church militant is an unwelcome figure of speech.
The first task of the Council of Militant Ecumenists, the C.M.E. which has yet to he formed, is the problem of communication. Christianity is no longer a fashionable subject for discussion. The majority of those who consider themselves educated are grossly ignorant of the claims and history of the religion which transformed the Roman Empire. and enriched Europe with her greatest architecture, art and literature.
Many of those who would never read a defence of Christianity, or attend a lecture on a Christian theme, will read, as I have proved, an exchange of controversial letters between a Christian and a secularist. or attend a debate. A Communist with whom I debated in America was good enough to state in an article that the debate had been a major influence in his return to the Church; and the late Cyril Joad, whose letters with me were published under the title "Is Christianity True?" made a similar admission.
Rational defence
A debate should end. as a hard-fought cricket or tennis match should end, with a metaphorical handshake. St. Augustine's "Love Men, Slay Errors," is indeed the code for such debates.
Infinitely the most important fact about Christianity is that it is true. The son of a Galilean carpenter proved his deity by rising from the dead, and yet in all my life I can remember hearing only one sennon on the evidence for the Resurrection.
I wish schools which provide a Christian education could produce one pupil in 50 who would dedicate part of his leisure to the rational defence of Christianity.
If the ecumenical movement, which so far has virtually neglected such apostolic activity, were to combine not only in defending Christianity but in refuting secularism, it would not coincide, as at present, with a decline of Christianity but with an increase of converts.
The criterion by which ecumeniSm should be judged is whether it does or does not provide a cure for what a great Anglican, Professor E, L. Mascali, described as "the failure of nerve which has stampeded so many contemporary theologians into a total capitulation to their secular environment."