THE ECUMENICAL CENTURY

It was Thomas Cranmer's wish that there should exist a union of the Reformed churches of Europe. In 1530 he had travelled as Henry VIII's ambassador to a number of German states, and in Nuremberg he had married the niece of the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander. As archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer later invited a succession of protestant scholars from the Continent to England, among them Martin Bucer, and he continued to press for a closer relationship between their churches and his own. But such a vision was not to endure. The European Reformation fractured the face of Christian Europe; its Reformed churches had secured their freedom from the Pope by framing alliances with political states and seeking to confirm the emergent identities of new nations. Protestantism embraced, and was an integral part of, the national argument which now gave Europe its form and set it on its hectic course. Each church now spoke a different language and each developed the different forms of doctrine and self-government they inherited from their founders. Rarely did they communicate with each other.

At the onset of the twentieth century this was set to change. Protestant ecumenism broke out with all the splendid vitality and confidence of an enthusiasm, and those who committed themselves to serve the new ideal did so with excitement. Journals were printed; conferences were held; books were published and reports submitted. In a popular phrase, Archbishop William Temple spoke of the ecumenical movement as the ‘great new fact’ of Christian life. In England church leaders believed that a new, sustained dialogue between Christian churches would restore the unity of purpose which faithful Christians in all countries now sought. In a divided world, meanwhile, the churches together could work for peace and concord where there was distrust and fear. Ecumenism was an idea whose time had come. There were trains, aeroplanes and motor cars to bring churchpeople together, and there were prophets in each land to inspire a following. The World Missionary Conference of 1910 sounded the first blast of the ecumenical trumpet and inaugurated a new era in the Christian world. The movement was soon institutionalized in the forms of two bodies: Faith and Order, which addressed questions of doctrine and sought reunion, and Life and Work, which devoted itself to the Church's relationship with the world.