THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 72
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Communion in the Anglican Church. It is also recommended that, in case Swedish churches are not available, the use of Anglican churches be permitted, with the consent of the diocesan, for marriages, burials, etc.; while Swedish ecclesiastics might profitably be permitted to give addresses occasionally in Anglican pulpits. It is the hope of the commission that there may ultimately be intercommunion between the two churches. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that there are grave barriers still, even after Anglican acknowledgment of the validity of Swedish orders. Thus in Sweden the diaconate has been lost since the seventeenth century, and confirmation is administered (when administered at all) by the second order of the ministry, as in non-episcopal Lutheran bodies; while reference to the ‘‘ holy Catholic Church ” has been expunged from the Creeds. Though one may waive, as more than counterbalanced by other passages in the liturgy, the substitution in the ordinal, from 1809 to 1894, of ‘‘ preaching office ” (predikoembet) for ‘‘ priestly offices”’ (prestembet) (but see Bishop G. M. Williams, in The Living Church, xliii. 18-19), there can be little doubt that, as has been semiofficially declared by Swedish Lutherans, the Swedish communion regards the episcopate as “a good external order which ought to be retained, but which is not essential to the life of the Church,” while the Swedish Church itself is classed as one of several ‘‘ Lutheran Churches” (the alleged point of contact between the Anglican and Swedish Churches that both?are Protestant may be due to the fact that katolsk in Swedish means only “ Roman Catholic ’’).
In the United States this movement has encountered bitter opposition on the part of the various Lutheran bodies, especially in the Augustana Synod, an intensely antiepiscopal body (see Bishop Williams, in The Living Church, xliv. 165, 173, 201), to which the majority of Swedish immigrants naturally first turn.
The outcome of the efforts for Anglo-Swedish intercommunion it would be premature to forecast.]
II. Orthodox Catholic Position: One of the most promising signs of the times, in the present divided state of Christianity in Europe and America, is that this generation is witnessing the waning of active sectarian antagonism. The former constant strife of partizan polemics inseparable from denominational dissension, which has silenced again and again
irenic writers pleading for Christian
1. Recent charity, and urging the mutual ap-
Decline of proach, recognition, and ultimate union
Denomina- of the several reformed communions
tionalism. in the West, is ending slowly but sure-
Py ly; and even the newer dissenting divisions of those same older communions, each of which, whether large or small, was organized as an evident consequence of minor doctrinal differences, magnified or overstated by implacable theological partizans during the continuation of the successive reforming movements since the sixteenth century are striving to find in their common ecclenantingt descent, and in their similar statements of belief, an effective basis for cooperation and for union. Until the last decade of the nineteenth century, de-
cided and uncompromising denominationalism was the common characteristic of American Christianity; but during this period a movement as significant as it was'spontaneous, the gradual restoration of ritual, became evident, and has resulted everywhere in the more and more general observance of the chief festivals and commemorations of the Western church year. That even various praiseworthy leaders in the several reformed communions, whose Puritan forefathers had rejected and repudiated those same Christian symbols and sacred historic ceremonies, should strive so successfully to regain more and more of their ecclesiastical inheritance gives promise of the coming of a second great spiritual renaissance. This revival of ritual, with the restoration of the church year to its former vitalizing function in the parochial life of the people, could not fail to direct the attention of many earnest denominational scholars to the renewed study of the faith, government, and worship of the primitive Catholic Church; while the reexamination of these seemingly separate yet clearly connected subjects which were debated so defiantly in the past by the sectarian scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been facilitated during the present period by searching studies of recently discovered documents that both simplify and at times solve successfully many perplexing ecclesiastical problems. One of the most reassuring results of this recent reaction from post-Reformation prejudices and preferences is seen in the increasing consciousness of the defects and dangers of denominationalism, and there is also a general willingness on the part of these same separated communions to discuss fraternally, and to define irenically, the doctrinal differences which divide them, not only from each other, but also from their common mother, the Western or Latin Church, and from its elder sister, the Eastern or Greek Church.
The well-known ‘‘ Quadrilateral ”’ of the Protestant Episcopal bishops of America, afterward affirmed in 1888 without change by the Lambeth Conference (q.v.; see also above, I., 2, § 38), called forth many essays discussing, from various denominational positions, the desirability or the necessity of Christian union. This joint Anglican proposal has been thus far seemingly unsuccessful, but it has certainly aided in directing the attention of the clergy and the laity, in both England and
America, to the necessity for Christian 2. The cooperation and eventual corporate
Four Fun- union. In no other way can the
damental Church of Christ even regain, during
Principles. the present period, much less increase
in the future, its all but impotent spiritual influence over modern materialism, that significant symbol and dangerous defect of our complicated Western civilization. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the memorable Edinburgh World Missionary Conference (1910) is evidence of the increasing interest in the searching historic study of the four ecclesiastical fundamentals of the ‘‘ Quadrilateral,” since summarized under the connected titles of ‘‘ Faith and Order.” Faith has always been defined to be generically the authoritative traditional teaching of Christ the Incarnate Logos,