Abstract
E. Gordon Selwyn (1885–1959) was the founding editor of Theology, serving from 1920 until 1933. He was appointed Dean of Winchester Cathedral in 1931, finally retiring in 1955.
With this issue of Theology we conclude the 27th volume of the Journal and its 162nd number, and lay down a task which has occupied us for thirteen and a half years. Our first number appeared in July, 1920, at a time when the heart and flesh of a war-stricken humanity were still quivering with pain, and looking with unaccustomed urgency for such remedies of hope and leadership and strength as the Christian Church could supply. Two great gatherings marked that summer. In July the first Anglo-Catholic Congress was held, and none who attended it will ever forget the warmth of devotion, the wide sweep of missionary vision, and the fine quality of theological teaching, at once Catholic and liberal, which distinguished it. In the following month the bishops of the Anglican Communion assembled for the Sixth Lambeth Conference; and it was universally felt throughout the world that they had risen to the greatness of the occasion. It was manifest that the differences of tradition and outlook which are found within our Communion had been gathered up by the Spirit of God into a new-found unity; and in the power of this inspiration bishops were enabled to address ‘to all Christian people’ an Appeal which still governs in large part the conscience of Christendom.
Much that has happened since in the Church has followed from these two gatherings in 1920; and it has been the business of this Journal to chronicle it and to comment upon it. Both the internal and external relations of the Church of England have been decisively affected. The ‘one mind and one heart’ in which Catholic and Evangelical discovered themselves united at the Lambeth Conference needed to be embodied in concrete formulation; and it was with this in view that the Archbishops’ Doctrinal Commission was appointed in 1924. Its work has inevitably been slow, and reports of progress have had to be confined to the barest outline: but those who are engaged in the task speak with real hopefulness of the outcome.
In sharp contrast with the secluded work of the Doctrinal Commission was the blaze of publicity in which the Revision of the Prayer Book was conducted. The principal events in that story received considerable attention in Theology. The view we took was that Revision was both desirable and possible. In regard to the Canon we supported the position of the late Dr Armitage Robinson, and contended that any revised Canon which seriously shifted the emphasis in the Consecration Prayer from our Lord’s own words of institution would involve too great a departure from immemorial English usage to secure general acceptance in the Church; and … our opinion is unchanged. In the matter of Reservation, we thought the 1928 rubrics reasonably satisfactory, though we hope that eventually something far simpler will be adopted. As regards the proposed new prayers generally, we agreed with the late Dr Brightman that they contained elements that were weak and turgid; and we supported the appeal of the late Dr Page, Dean of Peterborough, for their submission to a small committee of English scholars for emendation in points of style.
The action of Parliament, however, brought the Revision movement to a sudden halt. We did not, and do not, take too tragic a view of that occurrence, which was due chiefly, we believe, to the opinion of the House of Commons that the 1928 Book would not in fact secure the obedience and peace that were claimed for it. Meanwhile, a valuable breathing-space has been gained, during which parts of the Book are in widespread use, and wheat and chaff can thus be winnowed by experience; while the other and controversial parts may be presented in some years’ time in forms more likely to win general acceptance. The constitutional impasse produced by Parliament’s action has led to the appointment of a Commission on the relations of Church and State; and we must hope that its report will not make these relations any less amiable than they are at present.
In external affairs, the Lambeth Conference of 1920 gave a powerful impetus to the movement towards Re-union. In certain directions marked progress has been made: intercommunion has been formally established with the Old Catholics, and on a more restricted basis with the Orthodox Church of the East and with the Church of Sweden. Home Re-union has presented far greater difficulties; and it is bound to do so, so long as the Nonconformist bodies claim a Catholic validity for their ministry. We believe that the difficulty is surmountable only along the lines and in the spirit indicated by the Lambeth Conference of 1920, when the assembled bishops expressed themselves as prepared to contemplate conditional re-ordination for the Anglican clerus, if by that means doubts as to the validity of our orders would be removed. The Anglican episcopate, that is to say, declined to regard the rejection of Anglican orders as an insuperable impediment to Re-union or even as a prior matter to be determined: other issues fell to be dealt with first. These other issues are those of faith, doctrine, and jurisdiction. So far as Rome is concerned, the Malines Conversations did a valuable work in clearing the ground and showing how much was held in common. On a still wider scale the World Conference on Faith and Order initiated at Lausanne has provided an oecumenical centre for the cause of Re-union, and is still in being.
When the Lambeth Conference met again in 1930, new issues had arisen and required to be faced. These were partly intellectual, the result of the new picture of the universe which science had been unveiling, and partly ethical, caused by the widespread questioning of Christian sexual morality which was one of the aftermaths of the war. The first of these groups of issues was dealt with in a masterly section of the Bishops’ report entitled ‘The Christian Doctrine of God’: the second reflected acute differences of opinion both inside and outside the Conference on the subject of Birth Control. The majority findings of the Conference provided a crucial test of the liberal Catholicism with which Theology has been identified; and, though we were dissatisfied with the form of the Bishops’ pronouncement, we concurred with its substance. Mr Will Spens, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, contributed a valuable discussion of its ethical aspects to this Journal. Elsewhere the subject received bold treatment at the hands of Fr Milner-White and Canon Wilfred Knox in their book One God and Father of All, which appeared a few months before the Conference met; while after the Conference its handling by Mr T. S. Eliot in his Thoughts after Lambeth was a model of cautious and critical appreciation …
In 1920, when this Journal started publication, the League of Nations seemed to offer the hope of a new order in the politics of Europe, and indeed of the world; and the Church was pledged up to the hilt to its support. In the early years of its history the League fulfilled many expectations and played a most valuable part in giving confidence to those who were engaged on the task of economic reconstruction. Its cause received severe rebuffs: Mussolini, for instance, seemed in those days to be a constant menace to it, while the French occupation of the Ruhr represented a policy which was the very opposite of its ideals. But it weathered these storms, and in the signature of the Locarno Treaty seemed to establish itself securely. None can deny, however, that in recent years its prestige has been seriously shaken. And we believe that thoughtful people are more and more asking themselves whether the methods of ‘diplomacy in public’ which it follows are calculated in every set of circumstances to make for international security and good-will. A test case, in our judgment, was its handling of the Manchurian question, where the terms of the Lytton Report were certainly not such as to soften the pride or allay the prejudices of a brave and high-spirited people like the Japanese. The fact is that public lectures on international virtue often fan the very flames they are supposed to extinguish.
At the present moment it can scarcely be disputed that Japan has restored an unaccustomed peace and order to Manchuria and Northern China; and that in Europe the strongest influences making for peace are to be found not at Geneva, but in Rome. We see no reason, moreover, to doubt the sincerity of the pacific utterances of Herr Hitler, and we conceive that Franco-German negotiations such as he has proposed might lead to useful results. We have never agreed with those who would put all the eggs of peace into the basket of disarmament. Peace is undoubtedly a major interest of the Catholic Church, as it is of every nation: but there are more ways than one of securing it. And the Church’s main concern is with the best way of all, which is the propagation of the Christian faith.
Such have been the principal events which have formed the outward setting to the developing life of this Journal. Of the movements of thought and devotion which have nourished it inwardly it is more difficult to write briefly: for month by month its articles and reviews have borne witness to them. During most of the period the two outstanding theological teachers of the day were Bishop Gore and the Dean of St Paul’s, the one the acknowledged leader of the Catholic school, the other of the Protestant. It has been our good fortune to count both of them among our friends, and Dr Inge has occasionally contributed to our columns. Two other great thinkers are also familiar to readers of Theology, Professor A. E. Taylor, who has frequently written in the Journal, and Baron von Hugel, whose philosophy has haunted its pages in the writings of others. Greatly as these Christian philosophers differ in outlook and temper, they find a common master, though in varying degrees, in Plato; and we should say that the trend of the best religious philosophy in this country since the war has been towards a Christian Platonism …
The standpoint which this Journal has endeavoured to reflect throughout these events and currents of thought is that of what is commonly called Liberal Catholicism. The term is not easily defined, especially when it represents a theological attitude and temper rather than a creed. There can, after all, in the larger sense be but one creed, the Catholic faith, taught in Scripture, expressed in dogma and liturgy, and attested by the witness of the Church in every age and every clime. But there are more ways than one in which this faith can be held, proved, and defended. It may be held in unreason, proved by false logic, and defended by illegitimate appeals to authority. Along such lines it can make no headway either against Modernism or unbelief. In this Journal we have endeavoured to accept the full implications of the Anglican position, to meet argument with argument, and to confront error and defeat it in terms of reason. And this especially in two directions. On the one hand, we have insisted on full rein being given to the critical method in the study of the Scriptures, believing that, though many erroneous conclusions are put out as ‘assured’, the method itself is right, and that even erroneous conclusions often prove a halfway house to the truth. On the other hand, we have maintained that the processes of thought which underlie the utterances of authority in religion cannot be wholly divorced or different from those which condition authority in other spheres of knowledge. The ‘given-ness’ of the Christian revelation, that is to say, finds its response and expression in the religious experience of the Church in every age and race; and the methods of inductive reasoning are therefore valid in this sphere, and are indeed required for a rational theology …
And so we take our leave. The work has been arduous, but enjoyable, not least because of the close links which it has forged for us with readers and writers in all parts of the world. Their steady support, which we trust will be continued to Theology under its new editor, leads us to believe that the work has not been unfruitful. We have tried to be steadfast to the main purpose which we avowed in our first number – that of furthering our Saviour’s promise, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ If we have contributed something to the Church’s witness to the truth, we are content: for whatever has been amiss we ask our readers’ indulgence, and the pardon of God.
The editorial originally appeared in Theology 27 (162): 301–9. The full text can be found at <https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X3302716201>.