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Newman Smyth and the Congregational-Episcopal Concordat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Peter G. Gowing
Peter G. Gowing
Affiliation:
Silliman University, Philippines
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Extract

At the Sixtieth General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in Detroit, Michigan, in September of 1961, the Bishop of West Florida moved, the Bishop of California seconded, and the Convention voted a radical revision of Canon 36 of the Church's Constitution and Canons. The revision of Canon 36 marked the end of a slow death for the “Concordat” painfully hammered out between 1919 and 1922 by representatives of the Episcopal Church and the National Council of Congregational Churches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 1964 , pp. 175 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1964

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References

1. See The Living Church (10 8, 1961), pp. 9–10Google Scholar; and Constitution and Canons … of the Protestant Episcopal Church … Adopted in General Conventions 1789-1961, Canon 36, pp. 88-93. For the previous wording of the Canon, see Constitution and Canons … (printed for the General Convention, 1952), pp. 88–92.Google Scholar

2. Actually the Commission was divided into three departments and Dr. Smyth served as chairman of the Department of Unity (hereafter referred to as the Congregational Commission on Unity).

3. Smyth was a reconstructionist liberal who embraced whole-heartedly the methods of natural theology. Among his best-known books are: Old Faiths in New Light (1879), Orthodox Theology of Today (1883), Christian Ethics (1892), Through Science to Faith (1902), Constructive Natural Theology (1913), and his autobiography, Recollections and Reflections (1925). See Peter G. Gowing, Newman Smyth— New England Ecumenist (a doctoral dissertation written for the Department of Ecumenics, Missions and World Religions, Boston University School of Theology, and published by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1960).

4. See letters from Zabriskie to Smyth, May 12 and 15, and June 4, 1918, and from Smyth to Zabriskie May 4, 1918, in Smyth Collection (in Manuscript Library, Yale University).

5. Smyth, , A Story of Church Unity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), pp. 26, 27.Google Scholar

6. Smyth, and Walker, Wiliston (ed.), Approaches Towards Church Unity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), pp. 158–165.Google Scholar See also Boyd Vincent, William H. Day, et al., Proposals for Approach Towards Unity (a pamphlet published privately in New York in 1919, a copy of which is in Smyth Collection).

7. Passing Protestantism and Coining Catholicism (New York: Scribner's 1908), pp. 207–208.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., pp. 167–169.

9. For a more full treatment of Smyth's ecumenical philosophy and strategy see Gowing, op. cit., Chapters V and VI.

10. Passing Protestantism…, p. 162.

11. In 1913 this Special Committee was incorporated into the Commission on Comity, Federation, and Unity, with Smyth as chairman of the department of Unity (see note 2 above).

12. Gowing, op. cit., pp. 170-178 and Appendix B.

13. Ibid., pp. 183-195 and Appendix C.

14. Ibid., p. 257. Appendix D is a copy of the Appeal.

15. See for example the letter from Smyth to George Pepper, December 8, 1917, in Smyth Collection.

16. Smyth, and Walker, , Correspondence With The House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church (a pamphlet published privately in 1918, in Smyth Collection), p. 15.Google Scholar

17. Letter from Smyth to Talbert, May 15, 1918, in Smyth Collection. The story of the “Appeal” is summarized in Gowing, op. cit., pp. 195-210.

18. Letter from Anderson to Smyth, September 30, 1919, in Smyth Collection.

19. Quoted in Smyth, , A Story of Church Unity, p. 29.Google Scholar

20. Letter from Smyth to Brent, October 16, 1919, in Smyth Collection.

21. Letter from Anderson to Smyth, October 22, 1919, in Smyth Collection.

22. National Council of Congregational Churches Minutes (1919), pp. 26, 255.Google Scholar See letter from Smyth to Anderson, October 30, 1919, in Smyth Collection.

23. Smyth and Walker, , Approaches Towards Church Unity, pp. 163–165.Google Scholar

24. Report No. 13 (report of the Committee on Amendments to the Constitution of the House of Deputies, General Convention, 1919, in Smyth Collection).

25. Letter from Smyth to Anderson, December 13, 1921, in Smyth Collection.

26. Report of the Joint Commission on the Concordat (Report to the General Convention of 1922, in Smyth Collection.

27. Smyth, , A Story of Church Unity, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

28. Gowing, , op. cit., pp. 211–220—summarizes the early history of the Concordat.Google Scholar

29. Interview with Dr. Roland Bainton, November 28, 1958.

30. Letter from Smyth to Brewster, April 23, 1923, in Smyth Collection.

31. Letter from Brewster to Smyth, May 11, 1913, in Smyth Collection.

32. Cf. clipping from The Churchman (September, 1923) in the possession of Dr. Bainton. Some information bearing on this matter was supplied by Dr. Bainton hi the interview noted above and from material in his files which he graciously showed the writer.

33. See Smyth to Brewster, May 13 and 14, 1923, and Brewster to Smyth, May 17, 1923, in Smyth Collection.

34. Smyth, , An Open Letter to the Rt. Rev. Chauncey B. Brewster, Bishop of Connecticut (New Haven: 06 5, 1923— in Smyth Collection)Google Scholar, and Brewster, , “An Open Letter: A Reply to Dr. Newman Smyth,” The Living Church (07 7, 1923—Google Scholara clipping of which is in Smyth Collection).

35. Letter from Smyth to Vincent, August 16, 1923, in Smyth Collection.

36. Letter from Lines to Smyth, September 19, 1923, in Smyth Collection.

37. N. C. Minutes (1923), pp. 40, 218–222.

38. See White, E. A. and Dykman, J. A., Annotated Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A., Vol. I (Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury Press, 1954), pp. 613–626.Google Scholar

39. Bishop Stephen O. Neil, writing in 1952, reported that only two cases of ordination under the Canon were on record. The writer has been informed of others. See Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen (ed.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948 (London: S.P.C.K., 1954), p. 540.Google Scholar

40. Cf. Pike, James A., “That They May Be One,” The Christian Century, LXXVII, No 2 (01 13, 1960), pp. 46–48.Google Scholar

41. Cf. letter from Pike to Gowing, January 21, 1960. Bishop Pike was kind enough to supply the writer with a copy of his “Memorandum.”

42. Pike in The Christian Century, LXXVII, p. 48.Google Scholar See also Otwel, John, “A Methodist is Reordained,” The Christian Century, LXXVI, No. 48 (12 2, 1959), p. 1404;Google Scholar Kean, Charles D., “A Broken Church Means a Divided Ministry,” The Christian Century, LXXVI, No. 52 (12 30, 1959), pp. 1529–1530Google Scholar; and Nelson, J. Robert, “Pike, Hedley and Otwell,” The Christian Century, LXXVII, No. 10 (03 9, 1960), pp. 279–280.Google Scholar

43. Letter from Pike to Gowing, September 16, 1963.

44. See Bishop Neill's list of Church unions negotiated in the period 1910-1952 in Rouse and Neill, op. cit., pp. 496-505.

45. Cf. Blake, Eugene Carson, “A Proposal Toward the Reunion of Christ's Church,” The Christian Century, LXXVII, No. 51 (12 21, 1960), pp. 1508–1511.Google Scholar See also Haselden, Kyle E., “Fusion at Oberlin,” The Christian Century, LXXX, No. 14 (04 3, 1963), pp. 422–423.Google Scholar