FOR the edification of some of your correspondents can we establish that liberalism and traditionalism are items of ecclesiastical politics. They are belief.

To a Liberal, the church is an institute, which, for all practical purposes is human and not divine. Its problems are to be solved by human action and ingenuity alone. God comes into it somewhere, but He has devolved His functions to Mankind. Therefore the church is man-centred, not God-centred.

It follows that a church which is too closely identified with secular assumptions is vulnerable to changes in social and political fashion. It is not the duty of the church to be a social glue to society. It is to change and transform it.

Traditionalists can be of the Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Evangelist wings of the church.

Anglo-Catholicism is the more advanced section of High Church in the Church of England. It emphasises the dogmatic and sacramental aspects of the Christian Creed, life and historic (tradition) continuity of the existing church with that of the Middle Ages.

High churchmen see the church in the sense of the visible. Ordered Christian Community is itself a sacrament of Christ's continuing presence among us. It is more than a convenient assembly of the faithful for religious exercises.

It is an instrument used by the Spirit to accomplish the purpose of God.

D G GRIFFIN,

The Beauchamp Community,

Newland,

Malvern.