Religion: To End a Scandal

• Share

(9 of 9)

"The Peril Is Delay." Many critics of Blake's plan feel that its principal drawback is the unmanageable size of the church that would result. "I don't see how it could be run except on an authoritarian basis," says Methodist Bishop Gerald Kennedy of Los Angeles. "That's fine for the Roman Catholic Church, but I think that a great many Protestants would be shocked at the thought. I'm deeply suspicious of the present trend toward monolithic organization. You see it in government and in business. I regret to see it in religion." Methodist Bishop Lloyd Wicke of New York is "not convinced that denominationalism is an absolute evil. Fragmentation has always been both the bane and the genius of Protestantism—giving the individual the right to express himself in chaos and unity."

But a third Methodist bishop, John Wesley Lord of Washington, D.C., is one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the Blake plan. "It is a proposal of historic significance," he says. "We can no longer afford the luxury of our separate ways. Unification will be the most difficult task of the century. It is easier and more satisfying to live one's religious experience in a familiar context of old and accepted beliefs. But the church, or communion, or denomination, is never self-sufficient, and must not succumb to this illusion.

"It's not a question of timing. The peril is in delay. The situation reminds me of a sign you sometimes see on the corrugated road's of Africa. It reads: TOO ROUGH TO

GO SLOW."