Whenever I see photographs of the Pope smiling alongside Anglican bishops, I am reminded of the general enthusiasm for Christian unity of earlier decades and how this now seems a forlorn and distant prospect. Stephen Walford raises this vexed question in his book The Communion of Saints, about which I blogged earlier this week. So I ask him how likely he thinks unity between the Christian churches is.
He tells me that “barring a miracle of epic proportions, I don’t see it as realistic. The differences – women priests, theological issues etc – are too great. Also, Protestantism is so fragmented and so varied that it is very difficult to see how all these could come together.” He thinks “unity with the Orthodox at some stage has much more of a chance.”
