Lamenting an Evangelical Disinterest in Unity

"I belonged to a generation which had been given their formative vision of the Christian life and received their Christian calling in an ecumenical setting. But now the majority of those in the Churches (of England) had been shaped either in a conservative evangelical setting where visible unity was not seen to be important, or in a merely denominational setting which had deprived them of opportunity to form deep and trustful friendships outside of that setting.... I find myself driven back to the simple fact that Jesus prayed for the unity of the Church, that he still prays for it, and that that prayer cannot be for ever denied. And I remember with gratitude the text which Visser't Hooft preached to us in Madras at the Second Synod of the Church of South India more than thirty years ago: 'We are partakers of Christ if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end'" (Unfinished Agenda, p. 250).