View source for XIV A MOBILIZATION OF THE CHURCH.

<CENTER><b>XIV<br><br>

A MOBILIZATION OF THE CHURCH <ref> 1. As a matter of fact, nearly all ordinands of the Church of England, being of the right age and sound of, limb, have enliste or been granted commissions in the Army. In addition many of the younger clergy have found their way into the ranks of the R.A.M.C., and even of combatant units. The writer has, however, retained the article because he is convinced that the present crisis is, for the Church of England, an unprecedented opportunity for either making a fresh start or committing suicide.</ref>
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<br><br>I HAVE recently read two books, both dealing with the probable
effect of the war on the Churches. One of them was by a clergyman
of the Church of England, and the other by a Nonconformist layman.
Both agreed that the Churches were hopelessly out of touch with
the average laity, and both were concerned with the problem which
will confront the Churches when the war is over, and the fighting
men return to their civilian occupations. These men will return
from their experience of hardship and danger, pain and death,
in a far more serious frame of mind than that in which they set
out. Then, if ever, will they be willing to listen if the Churches
have any vital message for them, any interpretation to offer of
their experiences, any ideal of a practical and inspiring kind
to point to. If the Churches miss that opportunity, woe betide
them! It may be centuries before they get such another. So far
both writers were agreed, and also in their anxiety, that the
Churches were not fit to grapple with that opportunity, that they
were too remote in their methods and doctrines from real life
to be able to give a lead to men whose minds were full of real
problems. But in their remedies for that unfitness the two writers
were wholly at variance. The clergyman looked to his colleagues
for help. They must cut themselves loose from the business of
parochial and philanthropic organization on which at present so
much of their energy is expended, but which is not really their
proper work. Instead they must devote themselves to cultivating
a deeper spirituality, repair more diligently to the Mount of
God, there to receive enlightenment and revelation. The layman,
on the other hand, abandoned the clergy as hopeless. They did
not know enough about life to be of any use in this work. It was
laymen, men who had shared the experiences of &quot;the lads,
&quot; who would have to be their prophets and interpreters. It
was not in the ordinary services of Church or Chapel that the
returning soldiers would find the sort of religious teaching and
worship which they needed, but in Adult Schools and P.S.A.'s organized
by their fellow laymen-men who had struggled and suffered at their
side, and had found and tested in their own experience how communion
with God can raise a man, and make him contented and clean and
useful.

<br><br>Personally, my sympathies are much more with the Nonconformist
than with the clergyman. The clergy are out of touch with the
laity. They do not as a rule understand the real difficulties
and temptations of the ordinary man. The sin against which they
preach is sin as defined in the Theological College, a sort of
pale, lifeless shadow of the real thing. The virtue which they
extol is equally a ghost of the real, generous, vital love of
good which is the only thing that is of any use in the everyday
working life of actual men. Although there are brilliant exceptions,
this is almost bound to be the case as long as the majority of
ordinands are segregated in the artificial atmosphere of the clergy
school before they have any experience of life; as long as the
work of the younger clergy is so largely concerned with suffering
women's gossip, ministering to the amusement of children, and
trying to help the hopeless, so that they have no time or opportunity
for free intercourse with the adult male inhabitants of their
parishes; as long as the old traditional mistrust exists between
clergy and laity, due in no small measure to the refusal of the
Church as a whole to face the facts of modern science and research,
and breeding as it does misconception on the one side and reticence
on the other; as long as the teaching and worship of the Church
continue to be a compromise between the two historic parties to
an outworn ecclesiastical controversy rather than the interpretation
of the real needs and aspirations of living men. As long as these
are the outstanding features of clerical training and life and
method it is difficult to see how anyone can expect the average
clergyman to be able to help or lead his brethren of the laity.
It is useless for him to go to Horeb until he has understood the
life in the streets of Samaria. It is useless for him to spend
more time in praying until he has more to pray about. And the
situation is not going to improve one bit if the younger clergy
are kept back from taking their share in the nation's present
struggle. If, while men of every class and every profession are
uniting in the common life of service., the ordinands and younger
clergy are alone withheld, at the end of the war they will be
more out of touch with the laity than ever. In such circumstances
one could only agree with the Nonconformist writer that after
the war it is laymen who must minister to lay men, while the clergy
are left to attend to the women and children. But since the Bishop
of Carlisle has had the courage to declare that he can find no
reason either in the New Testament or in the Canons of the Reformed
Church why clergy should not be combatants, one is emboldened
to ask whether there is not opened up a yet more excellent way.

<br><br>Suppose the Church were mobilized so that the majority of the
younger clergy and all the ordinands were set free for service
in the Army, the situation at the end of the war might be very
different from that which we have been anticipating. There is
no life more intimate than that of the barrack-room. There is
no life where the essential characters of men are so fully revealed
as the life of the trench. Those of the combatant clergy who returned
from the war would know all that was worth knowing of the characters
of ordinary men. They would have seen their weaknesses in the
barrack-life at home, in the public-house and the street. They
would have appreciated their greatness in the life of the trenches.
They would know their potentialities and understand their limitations.
They would be able to link the doctrines of religion to the lives
of men, and to express them in language which no one could fail
to understand. With such men as clergy a new era might dawn for
the Church in this land, and the Kingdom of Heaven be brought
very nigh.

<br><br>The Church could be mobilized so as to set free a large number
of the younger clergy, if only her leaders could see that the
greatness of the opportunity made the sacrifice worth while. To
begin with, an enormous amount of ordinary parochial work could
be discontinued for the duration of the war with very little loss.
A large amount of relief work could be dispensed with, men's clubs
could be shut, men's services suspended. Visiting could be confined
to the sick, and a good deal of the work among women and children
handed over entirely to lady helpers. A large number of older
men could, if they were public-spirited enough to consent, be
set free to take the place of younger men. It is being done in
almost every other profession, so why not in the Church? The majority
of the city churches could be temporarily shut down, and in almost
all large towns quite a third of the churches could be closed.
Of course, parochial work at home would suffer; but that is a
sacrifice from which we should not shrink---in view of the unique
nature of the opportunity.

<br><br>The chief fear of the Bishops seems to be that there might
be a dearth of clergy at the end of the war. Personally, I believe
that the reverse would be the case. There are in the ranks of
the Army many men who at one time have contemplated being ordained,
but who have been greatly discouraged during the past year by
realizing more intimately the conditions with which the Church
has to deal, and perceiving more acutely than ever before her
inability to deal with them satisfactorily. Such men, if they
knew that the Church was resolved to learn, was resolved to make
sacrifices in order to establish a new contact between herself
and the laity, would be confirmed afresh in their determination
to help her. If ordinands are scarce, it is simply because the
relations between the clergy and the laity are so lacking in cordiality,
and the obvious way to secure a larger number of ordinands is
to cultivate better relations with laymen.

<br><br>The opportunity is indeed great. All that is wanted is faith
from the leaders of the Church., and loyalty from the other incumbents.
The younger clergy will need no pressing. They are splendid fellows,
most of them, fully alive to the disadvantages of their position,
full of enthusiasm for any scheme which would enable them to restore
cordial relations between themselves and their brethren, and would
give them the intimate knowledge which they need before they can
preach a living Gospel. Mobilize the older clergy, and mobilize
the noble and efficient army of women helpers, and parishes at
home will not suffer very much: while the mission to men will
be prosecuted under conditions more favorable than have ever occurred
before, or are ever likely to occur again.
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