The Henson Journals

[158]

Monday, July 21st, 1930.

It would appear that opposition to the South Indian Scheme of Reunion is developing in South India from the side of the non–episcopalians. A pamphlet prepared by the Bishop of Dornakal at the request of the Joint Committee on Union has provoked protests on the ground that is an Anglican plea for the Episcopacy rather than an explanation of the scheme. The objection is of course, against the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession, the definite repudiation of which, it is maintained by the protesters, is an indispensable condition of lasting reunion! This is certainly an ugly reminder of certain facts which it is convenient at Lambeth to forget: & it confirms the suspicion which gathers strength in my mind, that the South Indian Scheme expresses rather the ardour of individuals than the serious purpose of the churches which they affect to represent. However, the Bishops of Madras & Dornakal assured me that the opposition in South India is limited to a group of elderly & disgruntled missionaries, indurate secretaries, who had been in antagonism from the first.

[159]

We made good progress, mainly in the right direction. As soon as the minutes had been read and passed, I rose & called attention to a statement very prominently placed in the Morning Post which professed to be "authoritative", & to give a true account of our proceedings. It said we were much influenced by the happy progress of negotiations between the Bp. Of Gloucester & the leaders of the Free Churches. Headlam said, what, indeed, was apparent, that this was totally false. Later, the Archbishop of Canterbury came into our Sub Committee, & referred to the matter in strong terms.

[It is thought that the author of this impudent fabrication is that man Douglas, the bore of the Church Assembly, and the brother of the Orthodox patriarchs' bear–leader.]

I walked with the Abp. of Dublin (Grey) from the Athenaeum to Lambeth, & had much talk with him about the Historic Episcopate. He is a much stronger episcopalian than I am, but au fond he is not a little perplexed as to our combination of insistence on the fact, and repudiation of the theory, it apparently implies.

[160]

These discussions on the South Indian Scheme are very illuminating. They illustrate the paradox in which Anglicans are immersed. To combine a firm insistence on episcopacy as the indispensable form of ecclesiastical polity and a frank recognition of the non–episcopal ministries as 'real ministries of the word & sacrament in the Universal Church' is a difficult position to defend. Carnegie Simpson took strong ground when he challenged the Sub–Committee to tell him what there was that we could add to the ministry which he already possessed. For our episcopal orders are as decisively, nay far more decisively, rejected by the Church of Rome than are his Presbyterian orders by the Church of England. The most that can be said for Anglican episcopacy is that it is a real ministry of the Word & Sacraments in the Universal Church, & that is what we are not prepare to deny to the presbytarian polity. Indeed, it is difficult to rebut the contention that non–Roman episcopacy introduces its adherents to a smaller section of the Christian family than Presbyterianism: a contention which many non–episcopalians do not hesitate to urge against the Anglican claim.

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