intention of verifying by experience. Why do people cling to dogma?
Again religious belief can most conveniently be analysed; and good example is the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession. Is it a truth, or is it mumbo-jumbo?
Now one undoubted effect of this doctrine is that it tends to prevent the unification of Anglicans and Methodists. There are of course many sects of the Christian Church, let us say thirty; and some of them claim the apostolic succession and some of them do not. The Anglicans are among the sheep; the Methodists among the goats. However when one views the divisions between the various sects of the Church from the point of view of the educated agnostic, one tends to draw the conclusion that either the thirty sects are worshipping thirty separate occult invisible beings, or alternatively that none of the thirty sects has got to know the one invisible being particularly well; otherwise they would see what every outsider can see, namely that their divisions make them a laughing stock. They preach one thing and practice another. Nevertheless it is this doctrine of the apostolic succession that prevents Anglicans and Methodists from having inter-communion. And so the conscientious church-goer is bound to ask himself, “Has this doctrine a positive side to it, or is it just an excuse for a Holier than Thou attitude?”.
When the Church began, this gift of grace which came with the laying on of hands (now called the Apostolic Succession) was said to be given for a number of purposes; mainly to work miracles, such as healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, making the lame walk. That was the theory; but nowadays that side of it is systematically ignored in this country, except for a few remarkable people like the late Rev. Cameron Peddie in Glasgow. Perhaps sensibly it is left to the National Health Service; and in the Church of England at any rate the chief claim that the clergy make in the name of this doctrine is…