ember is like a
citizen who is not a voter--he is shirking his responsibility.

We must free our minds from prejudice against those whose ways of
stating their beliefs, whose modes of worship, whose methods of working,
differ from our own. We are not to argue with them which of us is nearer
the customs of the New Testament; that is not to the point. Wherever we
see the Spirit of Christ, there we are to recognize fellow churchmen in
the one Church of God. We do not wish uniformity, but variety in unity;
for only a Church with a most varied ministry can bring the life of God
to the endlessly diverse temperaments of men and women. We are not
seeking for the maximum common denominator, and insisting that every
communion shall give up all its distinctive doctrines, ritual, customs
and activities. We do not want any communion to be "unclothed," but
"clothed upon," that what is partial may be swallowed up of fuller life.
Dogmatists, be they radicals or conservatives, who insist on a
particular interpretation of Christianity, ecclesiastics who arrogantly
consider their "orders" superior to those of other servants of Christ as
spiritually gifted and as publicly accredited, sectarians so satisfied
with the life of their particular segment of the Church that they do not
covet a wider enriching fellowship, and churchmen whose conception of
the task of the Church is so petty that they fail to feel the imperative
necessity of articulating all its forces in one harmoniously functioning
organization, are the chief postponers of the effective unity of the
Body of Christ.

We have to consider the particular communion to which we ourselves
belong, and ask whether there are any barriers in it that exclude from
its membership or from its working force those who possess the Spirit of
Christ, and so are divinely called into the Church and divinely endowed
for service. We must make our own communion as inclusive as we believe
the Church to be, or we are not attempting to organize the Church of
Christ, but to create some exclusive club or sect of Christians of a
particular variety.

We must study sympathetically the ways of other communions, and be
prepared to borrow freely from them whatever approves itself as
inspiring to Christian character and work. A Presbyterian will often
refuse to avail himself of the great historic prayers, simply because he
thinks he would be copying Lutherans or Episcopalians, forgetting that
he is heir of the who