In many respects the video produced by the Southern Province, describing ‘the United Reformed Church and its life, is very good. But there is one memorable moment when a church member is asked what they like about the URC, and the reply is, more or less, ‘What I like about the United Reformed Church is that you can believe what you like’. Of course, we all know what is meant, but it is not exactly a reply calculated to appeal to the Convener of the Doctrine and Worship Committee - and in certain important respects it is simply not true.

What’s in a name?

You can tell a great deal about what a Church regards as significant by its name. The Joint Committee, on which I was an observer, spent a considerable amount of time between 1966 and 1969 discussing the name for the proposed new Church. An early suggestion was that it should be called the Reformed Church, indeed a draft of the proposed Basis of Union was published using that title.

The reasons for this were fairly straightforward. Both Presbyterians and Congregationalists were part of the Reformed tradition, and the World Presbyterian and Congregational bodies united to form the World Alliance of Reformed Churches at about the same time at the beginning of the 1970s.

The name Reformed linked us to historic Churches in Europe, such as the Eglise Reformee in France, or the Reformed Church in the Netherlands. Some, however, said that no one would know what Reformed meant, because it was simply not a word used in English churches, except by specialists.

Another name suggested was United Church of Christ, as in the United States of America, but that was felt to be perhaps a little too arrogant, making g too strong a claim.

Eventually the Committee’s compromise was United Reformed and that was the name adopted.

The main problem about that title, which was foreseen, was that most people, even in the church, would refer to the URC, rather than the United Reformed Church, and URC would become just another acronym, but without the advantage of, for example, ‘C of E’, that most people had at least some idea what the initials stood for.

At the General Assembly of 1993, someone said that one of our problems was that no one knew what the United Reformed Church stood for. In replying to that debate, I said that our Church was united, and that it was reformed, and it was quite straightforward to explain the significance and meaning of those two words. In what follows I shall attempt to respond to my own challenge.

‘United’

The Basis of Union begins with the words, ‘There is but one Church of the one God’, and goes on to explain briefly (paras 2, 3 and 4) the holiness, the catholicity, and the apostolicity of the Church. It acknowledges (para 5) that those classical marks of the Church have been obscured by failure and weakness, and that Christ’s mercy, in continuing His call to the Church, has taught that Church ‘that its life must ever be renewed and reformed according to the Scriptures under the guidance o f the Holy Spirit’ (para 6).

The Church’s division makes it impossible for Christians fully to know, experience, and communicate the life of the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church (para 7). So the United Reformed Church has been formed in obedience to the call to repent of what has been amiss in the past, and to be reconciled (para 8):

‘It sees its formation and growth as a part of what God is doing to make His people one, and as a united Church, will take, wherever possible, and with all speed, further steps towards the unity of all God’s people.’

That is our continuing ecumenical mandate.

We believe that God wills the visible unity of the Church, and our Basis of Union testifies to our belief that matters which have caused division in the Church in the past need not and should not divide it any longer. Hence our church structure sought to overcome the differences between Congregational and Presbyterian forms of church government. The incorporation of Churches of Christ was undertaken in the confidence that it was possible to hold together the practices of Infant and Believer’s Baptism in a way which respected the conscientious beliefs of each tradition.

It is that ‘holding together’ of different beliefs in mutual respect that is the test. It is always easier to say, ‘Let each go their own way’; and ever since the United Reformed Church was formed there have been voices saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if those who wanted to do one thing did it their way, and those who wanted to do another thing did it theirs.’ No doubt it is simpler - but does it actually do justice to the richness of the gifts which God has given to God’s people?

That need to reconcile different practices and beliefs has been with the Church ever since the decision that the Gospel of Jesus was also for the Gentiles, as Paul’s letter to the Galatians bears witness. That was the most significant step taken by the early Church. It was a decisive step but part of its decisiveness has been lost to us because we, for the most part, have lost Jewish Christians. We have become an entirely Gentile Church so that the significance of that bridging of what - in the ancient world - was an almost unbridgeable gap, has been obscured for us.

‘Reformed’

We have already seen that the Basis of Union acknowledges the need for constant renewal and reform in the life of the Church, according to the Scriptures, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The test of scripture

First, and foremost, that means that the teaching of the Church must always be tested by reference to Scripture, though the way in which we would apply such tests has changed significantly since the sixteenth century. Essentially - at least as far as belief is concerned - it is a negative principle. It means that you cannot be required to believe anything that is not in Scripture as something essential to salvation. That does not mean that you have to believe in everything that is in Scripture in order to be saved. The difference between the two interpretations of that principle is quite significant.

Saved by grace

Secondly, to be in the Reformed tradition refers to the principle that we are saved by grace through faith. In other words, there is no way in which, as sinful human beings, we can ever deserve to be saved, nor is there anything that we can do to justify our salvation. We are saved through God’s free action in Christ. God chooses us: we do not choose God. That is the significance of the doctrine of election, over which so much ink has been spilt.

Yet even though we affirm the importance of being saved by grace through faith, most of us would probably not share Luther’s low opinion of the Letter of James. Luther called the Letter of James an ‘epistle of straw’ because of its emphasis upon good works. More probably we, like James and indeed John, would believe that faith without works is dead.

A sense of order

Thirdly, a Reformed Church structure is not a free-for-all, but rather an ordered church life in which the Word is properly preached, and the Sacraments properly administered.

What do we believe?

Each of us has a variety of beliefs which are more or less strongly held. Beliefs are not simply concerned with matters of religion: we have beliefs about how we should behave, beliefs about politics, even beliefs about matters such as art, or architecture, or literature, or music.

Are these beliefs all the same? Are they matters of taste so that no one can say that some are ‘ right and others wrong, or that some are more right and others more wrong?

Truth or sincerity

There has been a great tendency, particularly in this century, to suggest that all beliefs, of whatever kind, are in the end matters of opinion, and that truth, as it used to be understood, is not something which can ever be attained with any kind of certainty or conviction in this life. As people have moved away from an interest in truth, they have come to emphasise ‘sincerity’. People say that someone is a ‘conviction politician’ - or they say that someone is ‘sincere’ - and it is difficult to know whether to interpret that as a compliment or an insult. Sincerity has become an ambiguous concept in a situation in which any belief is regarded as being as good as any other belief, and therefore what matters is how strongly you hold it, rather than whether the belief is actually true or not.

So is it more important to believe in God, or to believe that injustices in the world should be corrected? When we are asked about what we believe, we are also often being asked about how we rank our various beliefs in order of priority, and it is important to be aware that these are two entirely different questions.

Believing in the Trinity

I remember an elder once asking me what I thought it was most important to believe as a Christian. After some thought I replied ‘The Trinity’. Her face fell. ‘Oh dear’, she said, ‘I thought you might say that.’ Many others might respond in the same way, but it is still true that the doctrine of the Trinity, properly understood, expresses the whole doctrine of creation and redemption.

God creates the world and human beings in God’s own image. Human beings use their freedom to disobey God.

God gives God’s own self to the world in Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures.

God also gives the Holy Spirit to renew our lives, to refresh, to reinvigorate.

In other words to say that God is, is also to say that God is a communion of relationships, which enfolds in a single purpose the whole human race to reflect that divine relationship of love.

To say that is truly to convey good news. Of course, that is saying a great deal in a very short space, so I went on to say to that elder that I thought it important that people like myself, who were engaged in the academic study of theology, had a responsibility in the Church to explain the significance of what we do in ways which everybody can understand. Unfortunately, ‘theology’ has come to mean, in popular parlance, something that is quite out of touch with real life. In fact, theology is simply trying to think systematically about God. And if some of us do not think systematically about God, we shall not be able to answer the questions that people keep on asking. That is why we have a job to do.

Confessing the truth

All of this is expressed in the Confession of Faith contained within the Basis of Union.

[Note: Since the Confession is a historical record of what was actually read and used responsively in the Inaugural Service for the United Reformed Church in Westminster Abbey in 1972, this Confession is the one part of the Basis of Union that has not been put into inclusive language]

We believe in the one, living and true God, creator, preserver and ruler of all things in heaven and earth, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Him alone we worship and in him we put our trust.

We believe that God, in his infinite love for men, gave his eternal Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who became man, lived on earth in perfect love and obedience, died upon the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, and lives for ever more, saviour, judge and king.

We believe that by the Holy Spirit this glorious Gospel is made effective, so that through faith we receive the forgiveness of sins, newness o f life as children o f God and strength in this present world to do his will.

We believe in the one holy, catholic, apostolic, Church in heaven and on earth, wherein by the same Spirit, the whole company of believers is made one Body of Christ, to worship God, and serve him and all men in his kingdom of righteousness and love.

We rejoice in the gift of eternal life, and believe that in the fullness of time, God will renew and gather in one all things in Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.

In those words can be found the Trinitarian basis of our faith and the link between the Church and the Kingdom. Like the earliest Confessions of Faith, it is an affirmation which ends in praise. Those earliest Confessions were not simply statements of what we think about God in our heads: they expressed the commitment of hearts and lives in thanksgiving and praise.

The beliefs expressed in our Confession are held in common with the whole Christian Church, everywhere. I cannot think of any church in membership of the World Council of Churches that would not be able to affirm them with exactly the same conviction as we do. They might add things - indeed we add various things in the rest of the Basis of Union - but as a Confession of Faith it is not in any real sense denominational.

So the beliefs with which we began - what it means to be ‘united’ and ‘Reformed’ - are, in a sense, secondary. They are the working out of our more basic beliefs. And it is just because those beliefs are more central - and because they are shared by all Christians (or most who would call themselves Christians) - that we believe unity to be so important.

Distinctive beliefs

To discover some of our distinctive beliefs we need go no further than the Statement about the Nature, Faith and Order of the United Reformed Church (Schedule D of the Basis of Union), which is read at the ordination of ministers, and at the induction of ministers to new charges. It is also included in Rejoice and Sing as no 761.

The statement begins with an affirmation of belief in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Next comes the emphasis that the life of faith is gift, given to us in the form of Word, in the form of Sacraments, and in our Christian life together. It continues: ,

The highest authority for what we believe and do is God’s Word in the Bible, alive for his people today through the help of the Spirit.

In what follows we accept in thanksgiving the witness that comes in statements from the past - the Nicene and the Apostles’ Creed and the various statements of faith made by Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Churches of. Christ. We also state our belief that the Basis of Union contains the essential elements of the Church, both catholic and reformed.

We should emphasise that phrase ‘both catholic and reformed’ to those among us who think that we should locate our identity in the Reformed side of our tradition. We should certainly affirm that Reformed side but we should never forget that there is a concern for catholicity in the Reformed tradition as well. To be ‘reformed’ is not to deny the catholicity of the Church. We express our commitment to reform by saying that, although we believe the Basis of Union contains the ‘essential elements’ of the Church’s life, we are ready to change it if we can be persuaded that there is something better to put in its place.

Held together in the Body of Christ through the freedom of the Spirit, we rejoice in the diversity o f the Spirit’s gifts, and uphold the rights of personal conviction - though it is for the Church to decide when those differences of conviction hurt our unity and peace. This is another important balance about which I shall say more in a moment.

We believe that the government of the Church is distinct from the government of the State, and the Church is not subordinate to the state in things that affect obedience to God. We also believe that the civil authorities have a duty to serve God’s will of justice and peace and to respect the rights of conscience and belief.

Finally we affirm a commitment to carry on praying and working... for the visible unity o f the Church in the way Christ chooses, not just for its own sake, but so that people and nations may be led to love and serve God, and praise him more and more, for ever.

Though some people complain about the length of Schedule D, others find fresh things in it every time they hear it read, or join in the saying of it. It is not sacrosanct, but it certainly repays more study.

United Reformed revisited

How is all this relevant to our everyday lives? I ask this because I do believe that these things are relevant to our ordinary, everyday lives. So I want to go back to my earlier statements about what it meant to be united and reformed to flesh them out somewhat.

The commitment to unity

We ought to remember that disunity between Christians does not always take the rather comfortable form of the religious pluralism that we are used to in this country. There are parts of the world where the disunity of the Church has led directly to war.

One example which springs readily to mind is that of Bosnia. One of the more surprising things about the reaction to events in the former Yugoslavia is the simple fact so many people are surprised at what happened. Anyone who takes original sin seriously (and historians tend to be acquainted with the outworking of original sin) knows that unity, order, stability, harmony, relationships, neighbourliness etc. are all things that have to be constantly worked for. They do not just happen - if anything, the opposite is more likely to happen.

In the case of Bosnia, the fundamental religious divisions that underlie what has gone on there have been largely overlooked. The reason for this is that the conventional wisdom is that religious divisions are not important any more. Yet what has happened in the former Yugoslavia is a renewal of an age-old conflict between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox to gain the upper hand - with the Muslims in the middle. And I am particularly amazed that we in this country should be so surprised by Bosnia when we have events in Northern Ireland on our doorsteps every day.

One of the things that has emerged recently from research done in the North of Ireland is that the willingness to regard members on ‘the other side’ of the religious divide as enemies intensifies as you go down the age range. It is people in their 50s and 60s who think that Catholics and Protestants can and should live together, and people below the age of 30 who think there is no possibility of that. If you ask why, you only have to think of when the troubles began - many of those young people know nothing else. They have never had the opportunity to experience those areas in Belfast or Londonderry that were once integrated but now have become separated. This is what happens if people do not work at unity and neighbourliness.

So there is something very significant about the act of holding together different beliefs in mutual respect. We are often very good at affirming the right of people to have different beliefs, but not quite so good at going on to the next stage: the mutual respect for those different beliefs. In some ways our differences about baptism are almost a trivial example, though they have caused heart-searching and even heart-break in some of our congregations in the last decade. Even so, they are a step in trying to explore what mutual respect really demands - believing what you believe, but recognising that there is another belief which deserves to be taken seriously and which needs to be respected in practice.

Reformed decisions

So we can relate our commitment to unity to the real world and our daily lives. What about the elements of our Reformed tradition we discussed earlier? Here too we discover that those distinctive notes are intimately tied up with hard questions which touch all of us.

Take, for example, our readiness to test church teaching by Scripture. When the Church looked at an issue like the ordination of women, it was necessary to balance one view of Paul - that women should keep silent in church - with another of Paul’s affirmations that the difference between male and female is overcome in Christ. That kind of question cannot be resolved simply by appealing to Scripture, otherwise we end up simply setting one text against another. The only solution is to work through to see what the underlying principles of the Gospel are. Only then is it possible to judge what the essence of the Gospel requires in a particular situation.

A second Reformed emphasis is that we are saved by grace through faith. What does that mean today? I think it means that we are under a recurrent pressure to be more open and less self-righteous, to show the faith by which we are saved. There is a popular hymn, which says, ‘They will know we are Christians by our love’. We sing it with enthusiasm but we need sometimes to reflect on how we live up to it.

A third Reformed emphasis is on an ordered church life of Word and Sacrament. How do we apply order? How do we respond to a statement from the Doctrine and Worship Committee on, say, presidency at the sacraments? How do we handle the gifts of the Spirit? How do we reconcile the need for order with the acknowledged diversity of the Spirit’s gifts?

There are no simple answers to these questions. You cannot simply turn to the Manual and say, ‘It says this’. Or, rather, you can, but it does not take you very far. It begins a discussion which you then have to follow through, and talk through.

The distinctive elements of our Reformed tradition - our church structure, our belief in the eldership, in the church meeting, in the conciliar government of the Church - have not just come about because we happened to become democrats before democracy was widespread in politics. We believe these things because they embody something true about God, and the way in which God is related to God’s people.

We believe in elders because we believe that the pastoral care of people is a shared responsibility between the minister and other members of the congregation. We believe in the church meeting because we believe that the Spirit will speak through any or everyone of us in ways which cannot be predicted. We believe in a church structure based on councils because we are not prepared to leave authority only with one person and because it is the inter-action of committed Christians that mirrors and reflects the relationships in the Godhead which we seek to embody in our church life.

These are some of the theological goals of our church structures, but we often never realise that there are theological reasons for doing things in these sorts of ways.

Conclusion

It is vital to remember that while we often define what we are by questions which belong to previous generations of our faith and our tradition, they are not the only questions that really matter.

In more recent years we have been forced to confront the question of biblical criticism, for example. How far are we prepared to question our traditions in order to save ourselves from having to believe seven impossible things before breakfast, yet still be wrestling with Scripture in such a way that we continue to find fresh insights?

What about the question of science and religion? We in the Theology Faculty at Cambridge were amazed by the storm that resulted when we received a benefaction of one million pounds to establish a lectureship in science and religion. Some of the most respected members of the scientific community not only wrote to national newspapers but even produced an editorial in Nature saying that the whole thing was a complete waste of time. Anybody who thought that the question of the relationship between science and religion was dead was shown to be wrong, not by the reaction of the theologians but by that of the scientists!

What about the relation between Christianity and social, political, economic questions? We constantly forget what a luxury it is to be able to debate such points when for so many of our fellow Christians around the world these are matters of life and death.

I think of a Roman Catholic friend of mine visiting Peru who arrived at a priest’s house to be told that the local guerrillas were trying to kill all the Roman Catholic priests, because they were giving the lie to the guerrillas’ accusation that the Church was not concerned with the poor. I think of a Christian in the former East Germany, when I visited Erfurt in 1983, who was a nurse. At a meeting that some of us had with the local Christian community there she would not give her name because it was forbidden then for any known Christian to be in one of the caring professions, lest it show that there was something in Christian diakonia (service). Things have changed in Eastern Europe, thank God, but there are still great problems for Christians there. Or I think of Desmond Tutu, who cheerfully said at the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Conference in Santiago that when Christians are in prison together their denominational differences do not matter.

Such contemporary questions are as important as any of those which we examined earlier. They are intimately involved with my unity vision because they cannot be answered by separated Churches without the danger that new divisions, new fracture lines, will arise within the Church. I am deeply convinced that only the vision of unity of the Church gives a proper focus and a proper context for the answering of such questions - and I am humbly grateful to have played a small part in creating a Church that is committed to follow them through.

Revd Dr David Thompson

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