ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a theological theme, and it seemed appropriate to reflect upon the doctrine of the Church as expressed within Clyde Binfield's own tradition. The following autobiographical reflections are those of one among a number who, in the 1960s, had theological reservations concerning certain proposals which were put before the Congregational Union of England and Wales but who, following intense discussion, were reassured and proceeded into the Congregational Church in England and Wales and thence into the United Reformed Church. In 1957 Howard Stanley, the General Secretary of the Union had begun to promote the idea of a review of the entire life of the denomination from the point of view of administrative and other practicalities. It would be quite wrong to leave the impression that the matter of the relations between local Congregational churches and the wider fellowship did not surface until the middle of the twentieth century.
