Lib a Mighty Army . . .

"The truth about our religious culture is that all of us continue to be Jewish, and Orthodox, and Catholic, and Protestant, and liberal; and so that each of us is more than any one, more than all of these if taken separately. . . . Our religious heritage remains one more truly than it has become many; and its whole is greater and truer than the sum of its parts."

This rose-colored view of a divided Christendom comes from an ex-British, China-born Methodist minister who teaches economics, preaches sermons, and performs marriages at California's Mills College. From behind his usual king-sized cigaret, short, russet-haired Dr. George Hedley last week explained his double job: "You see, the Dean of Chapel at Mills is a layman, so he couldn't perform marriages. I am an ordained minister. . . . When I first came ... in 1940 the Dean of Chapel and I made an arrangement. He taught one of my courses and I gave half the sermons."

For his 1943-44 series of sermons, Preacher-Professor Hedley asked the students what they wanted to hear, learned they were most puzzled by the differences between the major sects of Christianity. Hedley's resulting sermons boosted chapel attendance about 25%. As he described each sect, Methodist Hedley did his best to approximate its ritual; i.e., for his sermon on Quakers he took down decorations and cross, sat in a business suit in the front pew.

Published in book form, as The Christian Heritage in America (Macmillan; $2), the sermons provide an informal, quickly read handbook of U.S. sectarianism. Methodist Hedley comes close to toppling over backwards in his effort to play no favorites, to find and set forth the essential good in every splinter of Christianity. But the effort is well made and to better purpose than merely striving to please. In opposition to those who would force all Protestants into a Procrustean bed of "unity" (as the Christian Century's fiery Charles Clayton Morrison would), Author Hedley sees no innate evil in sectarianism as such. To him each denomination is a division in the mighty army of Christ, bearing different designations, emblems and proud traditions. Says he:

"We rejoice as we hear the battle cry of each advancing unit of our forces. With the revivalists we seek for man's saving from sin. With the liberals we 'test all things.' . . . With Alexander Campbell [of the Disciples of Christ] we speak what we are persuaded is the truth, keep silent when we know we do not know. With Wesley [of the Methodists] we ask 'Is thine heart right?' ... 'In this Silence,' with [Quaker] Woolman, 'we learn abiding in the Divine Will.' With the Elkhorn Baptists we see believers as the subjects, of the divine command. . . . With the Anglicans we pray 'for the whole state of Christ's Church.' With the Presbyterians we seek to glorify God in the doing of His will. With Luther we cry 'Here we stand. God helping us, we can do no other.' "With the Catholic we seek the saving grace that lives in community. With the Orthodox we labor to discover and to define the truth. With the Jews we pledge allegiance to the one Lord who is theirs and ours, the Lord to whom they first introduced us. With every sharer in the Hebrew-Christian tradition we look toward the Christ who is God incarnate in humanity."

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