A church becomes the ecclesiastical analogue of the socialist state when it places its trust in rules and regulation, statements, and documents. We do better by trusting in God than in paper. There are today a number of important moves toward church reform and renewal. They are all exciting and wonderful developments, and nothing I have written here is meant to discourage or downgrade their great importance and my delight in them. My concern is that they do not repeat the errors they are denouncing by an undue trust in paper.
Paper money is a fitting symbol of our time, a preference of paper over gold and silver.
Let it not be said of the church that it prefers its paper prescriptions over the Holy Spirit.