An extraordinary book burst like a bombshell on the British ecclesiastical scene this summer. Its title: Power Without Glory: A Study in Ecumenical Politics (Hutchinson, 30s.). Its author: Ian Henderson, professor of systematic theology at Glasgow University, doctrinally a radical and never slow to acknowledge indebtedness to Bultmann.
Such dubious antecedents have been waived in the welcome given the book in some ultra-conservative circles, who are in this case Churchillian to a man. “If Hitler invaded hell,” said Sir Winston once, “I should feel constrained to say a good word for the devil.” What a potent uniting factor is a common antagonism!
Only brief mention is possible here of some points Henderson raises in his 184-page attack aimed at exposing the tricks of the ecumenical trade. A cosmic swindle is being practiced; ecumenical discussions are never what they seem; the double-think and the double-tongue are inevitable; language is used to conceal rather than reveal motives; ecclesiastical takeover bids have increased, are increasing, and ought to be diminished; failure to recognize institutional churches as power structures is leading to mass delusion; and, far from desiring organic unity, God finds the whole concept as distasteful as does Ian Henderson. The latter, indeed, regards One Church-ness as “the greatest thing we have to repent of,” for it is an expression of power rather than of love. In its name threats of death might one day be made against nonconformity, for Henderson fears that the Coming Great Church will deny to objectors the ordinances of the Christian religion.
“The ascription of his own successful activities to God,” Henderson holds, “is an age-old device of the ecclesiastical power operator.” God, despite any contrary suggestion, does not will unity just because the Lausanne Declaration says he does. In that document Henderson sees “the death warrant of all non-episcopal churches” and “the charter of Anglican imperialism.” Chief conspirator here was the American Protestant Episcopal Church, whose hand can be seen in the present WCC constitution.
In the Evanston Report’s reference to disunity as disobedience and sin, says Henderson, the WCC committed itself to “a ruthless and inveterate attack on denomination.” The problem is exacerbated by a series of mergers—exhortations to “ecclesiastical flies to walk into the webs of ecclesiastical spiders.”
More particularly on the British scene, the professor is infuriated by the pretensions of Anglicans who, he says, are diplomats before they are churchmen. Certainly (I would add), if it is accounted diplomatic virtue to concede as little as possible, the Anglicans who have been conversing with the Scots emerge magna cum laude. The summa must always be out of reach for them because of their tacit presumption that in things ecumenical the churches of the Anglican Communion are negotiating from a position of strength. The durable Anglican fallacy of the “apostolic succession” might be seen to have an interesting parallel in the exasperated Labouchere’s remark about Gladstone: he did not object to Gladstone’s always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve but only to his pretense that God had put it there.
But to return to Henderson. He holds that his fellow Presbyterians in talks with the Church of England are chosen on the basis of “securing the right committee majorities.” The horns of their mitres the professor can detect with prophetic and jaundiced eye. By an appallingly bad argument, he couples them with the seventeenth-century Covenanters as “the will of God men,” hints at dark skulduggery in interchurch conversations, and questions the integrity of some of his fellow presbyters.
Yet some will think that Henderson makes valid points here and there: his indictment of the ecumenical tendency to brand critics as enemies of God, and of the studied and necessary ambiguity of language called for by the WCC’s use of propaganda; his suspicion that “the heathen who marvelled at the way Christians loved one another didn’t know them very well”; his suggestion that a false distinction is made between ecclesiastic and theologian, with the dice loaded against the latter. In one place he makes the mystifying declaration that “the argument of this book does not stand or fall on Bultmann’s view of Gnosticism.”
There may be those who welcome such assurance, but they might also ask where then the crux of the matter is. What does this volume ultimately say? Ian Henderson seems concerned to pull down the walls of Geneva, but what then? He has few constructive bricks laid up for the rebuilding.
Even more baffling, however, is the lack of clarity on what it is Henderson wishes to defend and maintain. His attitude toward the Bible reflects that of his German teacher. He is not in the theological succession of Knox and Melville. And he would be foremost among those who would quietly dispose of the Westminster Confession as a subordinate standard of the Kirk—in which, ironically enough, he would be at one with most of the ecumenical party in the Church of Scotland against whom this book is ultimately directed.
If I were asked to express some of my objections to the ecumenical movement, I would say that it draws a circle that takes in too much and so dilutes the biblical and reformed faith, particularly in its view of the Atonement. I would add misgivings that the ecumenical quest may demand and sap the energies of men to no purpose unless it is regarded, not as an end in itself, but as part of the desire for spiritual renewal as a whole.
Ian Henderson does not argue on this level. If I dare say so and risk misunderstanding, his book shows an odd lack of spiritual dimension. Goethe once said you could assess a man by what he considered laughable, but just as significant is what a man leaves unsaid.
The professor is concerned that the Coming Great Church should make room for a far greater diversity of belief and practice. We seldom connect intolerance with the World Council of Churches, but a recent development makes us think that Henderson might have a case here. Just after the publication of Power Without Glory, the NCC’s Colin Williams said that he simply could not live comfortably in the same church with Billy Graham. This sounds like a staggering confirmation of Ian Henderson’s argument.
J. D. DOUGLAS
