Robert Campbell Moberly

“ The fact is, that undenominationalism, so far from being really unsectarian in character, is itself an instance of the sectarian spirit in its most exclusive and aggressive form. It is really itself of the nature of an attempt at a new denomination, more latitudinarian and rationalistic in basis, more illiberal and persecuting in method, than any that before exists. It sins so flagrantly against the first principles of liberalism as actually to attempt the suppression by force of the liberty of every denomination other than itself. ”

“ It is ideas like these—or (too often) prejudices more degraded and ignorant than these, but not less sweeping in momentary power—which seem to men in their day almost self-evident; which sweep men along with irresistible power; which it is thought almost idiocy to disbelieve, and sheer madness to challenge. There is nothing in the world so practical, so irresistible in practice, as an idea once fully accepted as principle. And now undenominationalism seems to sway the public mind, in the manner of ideas like these. Men do not examine it. ”

“ But it is the principle which matters—the principle of perfect religious fairness. Once get the principle true, and just, and illuminating; and much can be done, after all, in the way of making the best of difficulties in detail. Such a provision was an essential feature in the scheme that commended itself to the Committees of the Convocations in July, 1901. Its omission is a grievous wound alike to the logic and to the fairness of the Bill. Its omission has done much to clothe a measure of justice to the Church with the aspect of a measure of injustice to the Dissenters. ”

“ But of the experience of Power, by which alone the ideal would become possible, there could be no real word. To those who see no great importance in Church or creeds or ministries or sacraments, it may seem no great injustice to insist on treating them as immaterial accessories. But what is the injustice to those to whom they constitute the real intelligence and possibility of all the rest? It is not that the Churchman undervalues moral character, or wants to have Church observance added on to it also, whether as of higher or of lower value. ”

“ But in point of fact, in respect of education, at least, we have reached a point in England at which this exclusive choice of any one denomination has become inconceivable. The State must remain impartial amongst denominations. And yet it must look to the denominations for the religion which for itself it intensely needs, but which it cannot, save through them, supply. The State desires religious citizens. The purpose of the State would therefore be served best of all if schools avowedly denominational, and educating on the basis of religious conviction, could cover the whole ground. ”

“ The community as a whole need not be, and is not, indifferent to religion. It need not, and does not, acquiesce in deliberately non-Christian education. But it must deal with the fact, which, whether deplorable or not, is at all events fundamental for the purpose, that Christians are sharply divided from one another. It is not, then, to be impartial as between religious and irreligious education. In England, at least, it does not need to be impartial as between Christian and non-Christian education. ”

“ It is very difficult to justify a large measure of relief to denominational schools on a basis of undenominational principle. If it is an axiomatic principle that all education provided nationally by the community ought to eschew denominational distinctiveness of every kind; then a national measure for preserving denominational education from being superseded by undenominational is an inconsistency which is open at every turn to the most damaging attacks. ”

“ An Education Law has become in modern times the business of the community as a whole. The community as a whole does not believe in the Church, and Churchmanship cannot be imposed upon the community. Of course it cannot. The community as a whole can only be perfectly just by being perfectly impartial between denominations. Such perfect impartiality can never be attained by imposing upon them all what is unjust to almost all of them, but unjust in almost incredibly unequal degrees of injustice. ”

“ It cannot be too often or too strongly insisted that there is no such thing as purely negative teaching. Every negation contains an affirmation; and every omission implies a positive precept. You cannot, by any possibility, forbid the teaching of what is distinctive—which will include all creeds, catechisms, ministries, sacraments, church duties and privileges, and everything that belongs to Christian theology or experience—without thereby necessarily teaching, through the very prohibition, that insistence on these things may be amiable but must be untrue. ”

“ The dominance of ideas is conspicuous in every department of popular history. Most peoples have had their innate ambitions or antipathies. Again and again there have been places or times in which some one broad generalization or other has so completely dominated the general imagination and, as it were, possessed the very atmosphere of thought, that any protest on the other side sounded, to the popular ear, like a voice of foolishness, to be laughed down rather than to be considered seriously. ”

“ You are teaching a fundamental habit of mind which the pupils whom you mould will never wholly forget. It is only, indeed, by a serious revolt against the whole principle of their own education that they will ever escape from its practical influence. ”

“ The fact that men greatly differ as to interpretations, expressions and methods, does not in the least degree make it more possible to secure the central reality by dispensing with them all. If impartiality is the object of the community, it is in some other direction than this that impartiality is to be found.
Besides being unphilosophical,—which means really, in the last resort, inherently unpractical,—the effort of undenominationalism is also intensely narrow-minded and unjust. ”

“ It is necessary to insist the more clearly upon the duty of impartiality, because, as a matter of history, the religious body known as the Church of England has had, or been supposed to have, as the nationally "Established" Church, some special, if not exclusive, right to be the exponent and standard of the national religion; and because it was, to an indefinitely large extent, from the religious motive, and under the shadow of this Church, that the fabric of national education in England grew up. ”

“ As has been said already, it is undenominationalism all round, undenominationalism as a positive principle, with the positive prohibition of more serious training in religion, which is a tyranny wherever it is imposed by compulsion, and a tyranny of more and more galling character, just in proportion as the convictions which it overrides are more and more specific and profound. ”

“ To a very large part of the community, strangely enough, the principle just stated does appear to be axiomatic, and indeed selfevident. No wonder that opponents of the bill are often jubilantly confident in their consistency, and that its supporters, even though they feel themselves at bottom to be right, are conscious of a most uncomfortable uncertainty of logic. ”

“ There are widely different conceptions as to where the true differentia of Christianity lies. There are those to whom Christianity means primarily an exalted moral standard. The Decalogue, or the Sermon on the Mount,
or the moral ideal of character exhibited on the Cross;—these, as ethical ideals, represent the whole core of the matter. It is a great appeal to men to conform themselves to a certain type of character. The moral ideal is the great thing, and the greatness of the ideal constitutes in itself an effective appeal. ”

“ It is to pronounce them to be at best unimportant, and inherently beset with doubt. Men think of undenominationalism as purely negative, as though it taught nothing at all about the things which it omits. On the contrary, it teaches that they are to be omitted; and this, in respect of such things as creeds, ministries and sacraments, necessarily amounts to teaching that they are, at the most, immaterial; and this is hardly distinguishable, if distinguishable at all in experience, from teaching that any earnest teaching about them is positively mischievous because positively false. ”

“ The forcible exclusion from national education of all definiteness of religious creed, even if it could be conceived to be otherwise desirable, is essentially incompatible with liberal principle. And it is astonishing to try and follow the processes by which so-called "liberalism" has been seduced into the ways of extreme religious intolerance. ”

“ But the very fact that the general mind is dominated so largely by this idea may serve to illustrate the principle—if any illustration be needed—that it is ideas, as such, which, whether for good or for mischief, do dominate the world. ”

“ It is in the principle that the importance lies. Opponents will concede a good deal, in practice, for the moment, to denominational schools, provided that the principle of undenominationalism be paramount. They are perfectly right in their estimate of the comparative value of ideal principle. And conversely, the most convinced Churchmen might accept a good deal of neutral, undenominational effort in practice, provided only that it were done in strict subordination to the denominational principle—the principle of real religious liberty. The real conflict is a conflict of principles, of ideals ”

“ But it is probably also true that it is in respect of excellence of ethical standard that some non-Christian religions approach most nearly towards a real comparison with Christianity. There are phases alike of Greek philosophy and of Oriental asceticism, which so far as insight and aspiration go, are very nearly as Christian as Christianity itself. What they lack is not so much moral insight, or the appeal which a moral ideal can make, as any effective means of entering into relation with the ideal. What they lack is power. ”

“ Now here is a view of Christianity which puts the main stress upon knowledge of certain events. So far it may seem to be a matter of simple teaching. But the knowledge must be believing knowledge; and belief requires something more than study of a text. This conception, then, does not so easily dispense with creeds. For if the facts are more than an appeal to ordinary human motives of conduct, their significance must be expounded theologically. Theology becomes indispensable: and if theology then orthodoxy also. There must be right understanding ”

“ Denominationalism, that is to say organized religious conviction really definite and really alive, though encouraged to do the utmost that it could, would necessarily, it is to be feared, leave very much undone. It is in that case only, as the third alternative, to be fallen back upon as a makeshift, when both the more desirable methods have unhappily broken down, that there is a real place for "undenominational" teaching, that is, for the attempt to give some general foundation of religious knowledge, with a neutral intention, and apart from any particular convictions or ordinances. ”

“ And therefore it is matter of the most profound regret to many Churchmen that the Bill was introduced without an express enactment of the principle that, in any or every primary school in the land, parents might lawfully provide religious instruction for their own children in accordance with their own faith. It is important, for that equity toward Dissenters which is essential to liberal principles, that this liberty should be secured wherever there is one school only, and that one school is Anglican. ”

“ But it is true, no doubt, that denominational schools, however liberally encouraged by the State, do not and cannot cover the whole ground. It becomes, therefore, matter of national necessity to supplement them, in the second instance, by schools belonging to no denomination in particular. But these schools should not therefore forget the importance of the denominational principle to national well-being. ”

“ The strength of the opposition rests perhaps mainly in this, that this "undenominationalism" is only the true logical completion of the principle which on the whole has been taken for granted as the basis of the national attitude concerning education, since education became a national affair. On the other hand, the difficulty of the Government position turns largely upon this, that they appear to be endeavouring to counteract an outcome of the basal principle which has been for many years taken nationally for granted, without challenging the justice of the principle itself. ”

“ On this basis a measure to preserve denominational schools from extinction by national action, would lack no logic and require no apology. And this, in principle, is the true way of reconciling the maintenance of religion with a strictly impartial neutrality among forms of religion. It is probably the only effective mode of conservation. It is certainly the only true liberalism. It is only this which treats different forms of Christianity with respect ”

“ There is a most serious question of religious liberty. There is even a question of fundamental theological truth. And the pause in itself seems to constitute something more than an opportunity for reviewing the principles involved. There may seem indeed to be little or no political value or meaning in any words said on the subject so far away from the din of politics, or the assumptions which men call practical. ”

“ There may be very considerable importance in such teaching of religious knowledge, if conscientiously given, where more serious training in religion is unhappily impossible. Whether more satisfactory or less, it would at least be an honest attempt to supply deficiency, not a piece of religious oppression. ”