Author Archives: Elizaphanian

About Elizaphanian

Rector of West Mersea

Longing for an unafraid church

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The Church of England is afraid of dying; consequently it is failing to be a church at all.

As someone who is persuaded of the merits of the ‘Limits to Growth’ argument – and who believes that we missed the opportunity to change course back in the 1970’s and that therefore our industrial growth culture is substantially over – I have become very familiar with the language of ‘doom’ and the way in which it can be misused. Just because something can be misused, however, does not mean that it is always false. The core argument of the Limits to Growth, after all, was that if present trends continued, then we would end up arriving where we were headed – and, indeed, we have now arrived there. Can the same analysis not be applied to the Church of England? 

After all, it is fairly unambiguous where we are headed – by the mid 21st Century there will be less than 100,000 members. It is not as if the trend has been hidden and come upon us unawares – it has been the unpleasant background music for several decades now. Clearly, unless something changes, the Church of England as it has been known and understood for several centuries is going to die within the next generation or so (the institution will collapse under its own weight well before we get to 2050). Perhaps the history of the Church will be described as resting between the two Elizabeths – the first pulled it together, and the second watched it pull itself apart.

Let me at once clarify two things. The first is that this anticipated fate of the Church of England needs to be separated out from the expected fate of Christianity within the world as a whole. I expect that well before 2050 disciples of Christianity will pass beyond 50% of the world’s population. Key to this will be the continued growth of Christianity in China, which already has more practising Christians than Western Europe, as well as all the other places where the faith is being spread. The gates of Hades will not prevail against the church, and I am confident that one day, at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.

The second point to make is that the Church of England is not the be all and end all of Christianity in England. Whatever the merits of Catholic Emancipation – and I suspect the Church has still not caught up with what it meant – the consequence is that there are now more practising Christians in England outside the Church of England than in it. Whereas it has historically been the definitive form of English Christianity – as epitomised by its establishment status, and (in many ways) in its ongoing self-understanding – it has become, to all intents and purposes, merely another sect. Theologically the status quo is untenable, and the Church of England has to either fight that fate or embrace it.

Now an objection might easily come to mind: what if there was a revival? For sure, a major revival might well stop the Church of England declining so much – and I’m sure that evangelisation is one of God’s priorities – but we have been needing such a revival for some time now. I am persuaded that the tide of faith has turned, the Spirit is moving; I am convinced that the bombast of atheistic secularism is the last gasp of a dying ideology, and the potential for growth is immense – but might it not be the case – and I say this with all due humility – that God doesn’t want the Church of England to continue? I’m sure God wants Christianity to continue, but the Church of England, in its present form? Of that I am not so sure.

Might it not be the case that, rather than a story about the long, melancholy withdrawing roar of the Sea of Faith – and therefore a sad story of decline and death – what we have in the religious history of England over the last 150 years is, in fact, the direct working out of God’s will? In other words, that the Church of England, as a centralised and established form of Christianity, intimately bound together with the legal and constitutional arrangements of the country, that this glorious old lady has in fact achieved all that God wanted her to achieve (quite possibly the worldwide transmission of the via media approach to the faith) and that, now this task has been accomplished, what God actually wants is for her to enter her rest, and hear those most gracious words ‘well done thou good and faithful servant’?

After all, what is it that is actually ‘dying’? It isn’t the gospel itself; it isn’t Christianity in this country; it isn’t even the local church, which is often in robust good health. No, it is simply the place that a particular form of Christianity held within the national life of England. England has moved away from it, and all of the ways in which being an Anglican were tied in to the old cultural forms are now dying. What is wrong with that?

I believe that we most need to recognise that the good ship of Establishment is sinking, and trying to prevent that from taking place is not simply a wasted effort on our part, it is actually a blasphemous and misguided attempt to thwart God’s will. What we are called to do is the same as what all Christians are called to do, every where and at every time – to be faithful, to hold on to Christ alone and to be willing to let go of everything else. The centralised Church of England is sinking – what strikes me now as being worthy of theological interest is the multitude of Anglicanisms that shall follow – a flotilla of lifeboats floating away from the wreckage, seeking a new shore on which to embark on new adventures. Which is, after all, a more exciting and more inspiring prospect.

Terry Leahy, in his book ’10 words’ begins by talking about truth, as the foundation for everything else that can come, and writes “Organisations the world over are terrible at confronting truth. It is so much easier to define your version of reality and judge success and failure by that.” Why does the Church have such a problem with truth and honesty? My take on this is that it is because we have lost our way spiritually – we are afraid of our own death – and yet we can see the consequences around us of that state. We can feel that we have been mortally wounded, but we can’t see where the wound was inflicted and so, in lieu of actually dressing the wound and healing it (allowing God to heal it) we throw ourselves into ever more frenetic endeavours to try and cover up the truth. We substitute social and secular agendas for the gospel to show to the world how righteous we are (as if the gospel could be reduced to being righteous); we throw away the inheritance of our liturgy for the mess of pottage that is children’s entertainment, poorly done (as if the right way to worship God could only be properly discovered with the advent of Powerpoint); and we throw away the long, slow obedience of loyal, local discipleship for the ‘because I’m worth it’ pick and mix of the preferential rather than the penitential. Is it any wonder that we are in the state that we are in? 

I believe that the only thing that will energise the church and lead it out into the kingdom is a renewed appreciation of the gospel – a sense of confidence that what we share and why we share it is genuinely a matter of real life and real death – and that that in itself will give the strength for mission, and allow the temperature of things like the women bishops debate to be lowered. At that point all will recognise that wrestling over who has the helm is not the most crucial decision at a time when the ship is sinking and all hands need to be on deck. Given the nature of the traumas that have begun to be inflicted upon our culture – and which will continue to worsen through the coming years, with all the genuine hardship, poverty and starvation that ensues – I believe that we will look back on our arguments at this time with a profound sense of shame; shame not simply that we were distracted from the one thing needful, but shame that this blinded us to the mission that God wishes us to carry forward in a time such as this. 

The blunt truth is this: the Church of England is at death’s door. All I’m arguing for here is that I’d rather that we went out fighting for a joyful gospel rather than trying to save a particular historically conditioned administrative pattern which has turned the cornerstone of our faith into the proverbial millstone around our neck.

(This is a Courier article, drawing together a couple of previous blogposts)

FrankenBibles and the Sandman’s Ruby

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It is becoming clear that Protestantism is an historical phase which is coming to an end. What I mean by this is not a matter of ecclesiology but of culture, of relationships to texts and the written word, which was dominant in North-Western Europe for around five hundred years from the invention of the printing press to the invention of the cathode ray tube. Take, for example, the impact of ‘FrankenBibles‘ which is the term given to a translation of Scripture that is at least partly generated by a computer. With the development of sufficiently capable translation technology it is now possible to generate our own translations of particular texts, including Bibles as a whole. This development is likely to have huge effects upon the way that students in general, and Christians in particular, relate to their Holy Scriptures. Put simply, the resources that are now available on-line to any interested Bible student hugely outweigh the resources available to almost any student in the past, including many of the greatest theologians in history, the Luthers and Calvins and Aquinases. In just the same way that the translations of the Bible into local languages enabled more people to assess whether the local religious authorities were accurately teaching from Scripture, now the impact of technology means that anyone with an interest can very swiftly gain access to any and all translations and arguments about any particular verse from Scripture.

Given the way in which Protestant culture has geared itself around the importance of particular printed texts, most typically the King James version of the Bible, I do not think that it is possible to underestimate the cultural disruption that such a development will have. Rather than authority being placed in a particular text as such, authority will become placed in other bodies, whether a network of trusted friends, a pastor, a particular denomination and so on. In many ways this is part and parcel of the wider ‘post-modern’ shift in society, which has broken apart every text. I don’t believe that a Christian living in the contemporary world can ever have the same attitude to Scripture – indeed, to any text – as would have felt so natural as to be unobservable in the Modern era. Does this mean that Christianity has come to the end of its natural life? I don’t believe so.

Let me share a story from a graphic novel – that’s a ‘comic’ to most of us, but a comic that can bear an immense weight of literary analysis. The story is about a character known as the Sandman, and what happens to his ruby. The Sandman, also known as Morpheus or Dream, is one of the Endless – seven ‘beings’ or ‘anthropomorphic representations’ of aspects of creation. The story sequence begins with Dream being mistakenly captured by an Aleister Crowley type character, and the initial seven issues of the comic describe the immediate consequences of the capture – Dream’s escape and pursuit of the valuable objects taken from him – his helm, his ruby, and his pouch of sand. The ruby eventually ends up in the hands of a madman named Doctor Destiny, who uses it to perform diabolical acts, and then to fight Dream himself. Dr Destiny drains Dream of all his power, and then destroys the Ruby, thinking that in doing so he will destroy Dream. In fact the reverse happens – all of Dream’s power and identity that had been vested in the Ruby is returned to him, and he is ‘recalled to himself’, thence easily able to overcome Dr Destiny, and return him to Arkham Asylum.

What struck me on originally reading this story is that it is a parable for the church and the Bible. The Church is formed by the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost; the community gathers for prayer and fellowship, the apostle’s teaching and the breaking of bread; it grows and strengthens around the world. Eventually it creates an object, a tool, which allows it to pursue its ministry – what we call the New Testament. That New Testament is then taken away from the living church community (which is the only place wherein it is able to be used properly) and diabolical consequences result. In particular, the Bible is taken into the academic community, and is used to make dark materials which are destructive of the church. The academic community has now, in effect, destroyed the Bible that it originally took from the church.

Yet it seems that what is now opening up is a possibility of the church being able to return to its divine origins, to allow the Bible to be what it always was – the principal tool of the church, not something of divine origin in and of itself – the Bible can return to what it is, and the church can return to what it was always intended to be: the Body of Christ in the world, a group of people trying to work out and accomplish all that Christ might accomplish, yes ‘and even greater things than these’.

Until Jesus returns and establishes his Kingdom, the final resting place for the interpretation of Scripture is, for me, the consensus fidelium – the considered and settled opinion of the faithful – and that settled opinion can itself develop over time, and change. It is expressed, most of all, through worship – lex orandi, lex credendi – this is why it must be rooted within the communion, when we sing our love songs to Jesus and renew our marriage vows. It is when we break the bread and renew the new covenant that we are authentically the church, that we are authentically the Body, and that we can authentically listen to His voice. It is when we are enabled to truly hear the word that we are enabled to interpret the word; and then to speak that word within the world. Scripture belongs to the church – it was formed by the church for the church, and it is for the church to interpret it, for good or ill.

Where is the redeeming grace?

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There is one aspect of the conversation about gay marriage and so on which is really starting to become clear to me, which is, put simply, that to get from a conservative premise to a conservative conclusion you need to resort to some distinctly ungracious arguments. This is what I understand the conservative argument to be:

1. In the beginning were Adam and Eve, male and female, with no confusion between them. This establishes the pattern for human sexual relations, viz, monogamous, essentialist and heterosexual.

2. Through the Fall, disorder enters into the world. Homosexual desire is ‘objectively disordered’ and not part of God’s original intention for humanity.

3. To enable the consummation of homosexual desire is to assist in perpetuating the Fall, ie to connive in the furtherance of sin. As such, any support of homosexual relationships is to be rejected. Hence, no to gay marriage, no to gay partnerships, no no no no no….

I hope this is a fair summary, albeit a brusque one.

Where I think the ‘distinctly ungracious’ arguments come in is between points 2 and 3; that is, I think it is logically possible to accept premises 1. and 2. but reject the consequence of 3.

A parallel could be drawn with a physical disability. I am completely deaf in my left ear, since birth. I have no doubt that this is not part of God’s original intentions for humanity and counts as something which is ‘objectively disordered’. Yet society does not see the need to confine me to the natural consequences that follow from this disorder – indeed, it has very kindly provided me with a hearing aid, which I use as occasion demands. Also, unlike ancient Israel, I am not barred from a full participation in human life and the common assembly as a result of my human imperfection.

Why is the same grace not extended to those in the LGBT community, even when these conservative premises are accepted? In other words, why is the reality of the ‘disability’ not acknowledged but room given for God’s redeeming grace to come in and transform the situation as each context makes possible? Perhaps for some the redeeming grace might indeed be a life of celibacy, but for others might it not be the case that the way in which God’s redeeming grace takes effect is precisely through the stability, companionship, fidelity and so on that a covenanted and monogamous relationship gives? It’s still possible to say ‘this is objectively disordered’, but there is so much more human grace and compassion involved, and an openness to the God of Surprises. I say this because it also seems to me, given what Jesus says, and Paul writes, that heterosexual marriage is itself a falling short of the ideal, and not part of our eternal destiny!!

No, even though I remain sceptical about gay ‘marriage’, I’m more and more persuaded that the arguments against a full acceptance and inclusion of our LGBT friends in Christ are rooted in a theology which is itself objectively disordered. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. I’ll start taking such arguments seriously again when they recognise that Jeffrey John would make a good bishop.

On being a politically conservative Christian

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So, I go away for a few days, and on my return discover that my former boss John Selwyn Gummer, aka Lord Deben, has been casting aspersions on my spiritual and theological integrity (he probably didn’t like this post; my thanks to Cranmer for his kind words). I thought that it would be worth saying a little bit more about my political perspective, not least considering the statement publicised today by many Bishops.

I see it as axiomatic for a Christian to be concerned with social justice. As I wrote in my book, it is not possible to be a Christian and not have such a concern. Where there are political parties that are based around a repudiation of social justice, that explicitly embrace ‘devil take the hindmost’ then I would see an irresolvable tension between support of such a party and continued Christian faith.

However, that does not mean that there is no longer any room for political argument. Most especially it does not mean – as so often seems to be assumed amongst the less reflective of the progressive establishment – that it is impossible to be a conservative and a Christian. As I see it, the heart of the disagreement lies in how we are to understand the role of the state. Roughly speaking, the progressive side of the political divide sees the state as a generally benign institution, and one to which resort may be made whenever a problem presents itself. Whereas the conservative side of the political divide is sceptical about the state, sees it as tending towards being a malign institution, and would far rather find non-state solutions to problems that arise.

Lying behind this difference is a divergent understanding of human sinfulness. The progressive agenda proceeds on the basis that human nature is perfectible, that, if the structural conditions were only to be correctly arranged, then human flourishing would be enabled. The conservative agenda, in contrast to this, sees human sinfulness as endemic and therefore seeks to avoid concentrations of power – for where there is a concentration of power it is inevitable that such a concentration of power will be wielded by a sinful human being, causing much havoc in consequence. Moreover it sees the wider distribution of power as best being embedded in the peculiar and local institutions that have grown organically around distinct communities. It sees the warp and weft of historical culture as a safeguard against the unwitting tyranny of bureaucrats with a Procrustean “vision of the anointed”. So everything from a monarchy to a parish council can be part of a human ecology which best maximises human flourishing. It will never be perfect – but it is the acceptance of imperfection that is both the blessing that a conservative perspective brings to the political conversation and also its vice, when it curdles into blind reaction.

Consider today’s statement signed by bishops. It is indeed a terrible blight upon our society that people face the choice between ‘heat or eat’, and also that there exists such malnutrition – although I suspect that latter might have as much to do with ignorance as with poverty directly. Yet the political conversation that Christians can have in such a context begins with ‘what shall we do about this?’ If the truth is that the state and only the state can provide an answer, all well and good. Yet if a more diverse response, with distributed power, is able to provide an answer then that, from a conservative perspective, is devoutly to be preferred. As Tim Worstall points out with regard to Jack Monroe, her story is actually about the horrors of being left with nothing to turn to except a remote and incompetent bureaucracy.

It often feels strange to enter into political argument with ‘progressive’ Christians, for it seems to me that the nature of the progressive stance does entail a great many consequences which the progressive would instinctively wish to fight against. For example, my opposition to Tesco was rooted in the conservative vision that I described above, a concentration of power leading to impoverishment of the local and the particular, in this case farmers and local communities. This is, on the surface, a cause that progressives seem to be sympathetic to. It is a form of resisting the imposition of a monoculture, and monoculture is the inevitable result of the concentration of power. The sick ideology that justifies what happens when Monsanto is given charge of seed provision is the same sick ideology that justifies what happens when monopoly supermarkets eviscerate our High Streets, but this is also the same sick ideology that justifies what happens when the centralised state is given a monopoly on social welfare.

We know what this sick ideology looks like. It is the enemy at the heart of so much popular culture. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. The matrix has you.

What I find most striking is that so much progressive language uses Christian tropes in the service of such a dark, dehumanising and nihilistic project. Then again, the enemy is called Lucifer because he has stolen the language of light.

To my mind, the greatest grief that comes from this conversation – and indeed the bishop’s statement – is the ignorance of the wider crisis that we face as a society, of which the increase in poverty is simply a leading symptom. Not only are our bishops distracted by second order issues, on which they cannot even get their facts right, but they have lost sight of the spiritual heart on which we are to stand as we engage with the deluge of problems descending upon us. For more on this, see my book.

In our present context, the conflicts and contradictions at the heart of the progressive worldview are now bearing their inevitably bitter fruit, and the centralised, legibility-seeking, monolithic, overbearing and incipiently dictatorial gigantism exemplified in the EU is going to crash. I see the single most important political step that needs to be taken as withdrawal from that Leviathan. This is why, as I explained in my earlier post, I support UKIP. I am both a Christian and a conservative, in that order of priority, and the only political party that comes close to reflecting my understanding of the world is, with all of its flaws and embarrassments, UKIP.

The Lego movie and the House of Bishops Statement on gay marriage

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A polished version of this morning’s sermon

In our reading from 1 Corinthians this morning St Paul writes of the importance of building upon good foundations, and then goes on to talk about what it is to be an ‘expert’ or ‘master builder’. This gives me the excuse I needed to talk about the Lego movie, which I took my boys to see last weekend, and which they are now pressing me to take them to again. The movie tells the story of Emmet, who is just your average Lego person, and who refers to the Lego instructions every moment of the day – to learn what to do when he gets up, when he goes to work, when he has coffee and so on. The arc of the movie is all about him becoming a ‘master builder’, someone who doesn’t just follow instructions but is able to be creative and new. Someone who can take the instructions for what they are but not be restricted by them.

I see the Lego movie as a good example of where our Christian heritage appears anonymously in popular culture. St Paul wrote (2 Corinthians 3): “Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

This is a commonplace within Christian culture. Our gospel reading this morning is a perfect example of the way in which Jesus pushes beyond a simple legal framework. Jesus repeatedly says “you have heard it said…I say unto you”. You have heard ‘do not murder’, I say when you are angry in your heart, it is as bad. You have heard ‘do not commit adultery’, I say when you lust in your heart, it is as bad. Jesus is pushing for a change of heart, a metanoia, one where consideration of the Law is simply the starting point for our journey into God, not the end.

There are wider issues at stake as well. When St Paul talks about ‘the works of the Law’ he is not referring to a legalistic righteousness; rather, he is talking about the cultural boundary markers which specify who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. Where the Hebrew community of the time rested in a sense of identity that was bounded by things like circumcision, food laws and sabbath observance, for Paul these were overtaken by our identity in Christ. Hence in Galatians Paul famously writes that in Christ we are neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. What this does – and Jesus lives out this teaching before Paul codifies it, when he spends his time with the sinners and tells them that they will enter heaven before the religious teachers – what this does is establish a new form of social organisation.

Rather than a group being defined by the exclusion of the ‘other’ – in other words, all the lego parts that don’t fit, that aren’t given a role in the instructions – now there is an identity formed by the sinless victim, Jesus himself. We each come to Jesus and find identity with him on the basis of our redeemed sinfulness. There is no righteous group passing judgement on another ‘less’ righteous. This is the working out of the fundamental law that the measure that we give shall be the measure that we receive. We are all sinners. We either live by a spirit of judgement and condemnation, or we live by a spirit of compassion and forgiveness. One is a spirit of domination and slavery, the other, as St Paul writes, is freedom: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

As Christians, therefore, we are called to be on guard not to allow legalism, an emphasis upon certain particular actions, to define our identity but rather to recognise the humanity and ‘God-lovedness’ of the Other. To not to be legalistic, but to pursue the right Spirit and allow that humility and compassion to guide our choices; and to rejoice in the freedom from legalism that being guided by the Spirit can bring. After all, Jesus told us that we have the keys of the kingdom, what is bound on earth is bound in heaven and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven. In other words, it is not an antinomian distaste for a little book of Lego instructions that drives us. Instead, it is the liberty that comes from being a master builder. Everything is permitted, but not everything is edifying. The church community as a whole, commissioned in our baptism, has the authority and responsibility to pursue the free life of the Spirit, a Spirit that is known by the fruits of love, peace, joy and grace and so on.

This is what I believe the gospel to be, and I do not believe that I am alone in such an understanding.

So, having said all that, it may be possible to explain why I feel the need to have something of a rant. The House of Bishops of the Church of England has just issued a statement about gay marriage, and so far as I can tell the presiding spirit of the statement is in direct contradiction to the faith.

For those whose lives mercifully spare them from having to read such things, I will give a very rapid summary. The letter is addressed ‘to the clergy and people of the Church of England’, which is why it is right to discuss it with you this morning. Three key points:
it’s OK for a Christian gay couple to get married, so long as it is not in church – that couple can still be baptised and receive communion, and are full members of the body of Christ;
it’s not OK for a gay clergy person to get married, because clergy have to show higher moral standards;
clergy are forbidden from conducting gay weddings, also forbidden from conducting services of blessing for gay civil partnerships, but are encouraged to offer other things. In other words – I can invite a gay couple who have been married to have some prayers of thanksgiving said in church, I can bless them as individuals, I can pray for their future together, but I cannot invite them to be blessed as a couple. Despite the fact that the statement recognises that they can be admitted to communion. Obviously the House of Bishops consider a prayer of blessing to be more theologically significant than reception of communion.

In this debate, there are some consistent positions possible, and there are some creative positions possible. Sadly this House of Bishops statement is neither creative nor consistent.

EITHER – the church still thinks an active homosexual relationship is sinful, in which case we stick by established teachings, and the consequence of that is, logically, to disbar married gay couples from baptism and communion, due to their unrepentant sinfulness. The trouble with that is that almost nobody in this country is seriously suggesting it, and it runs very much counter to the warm words which the Bishops speak about homosexual relationships; OR they could say, we now accept that God is working through the culture, we have been in error and now see the light – and so fully buy into the changes that the government legislation enacts; OR they could say, we are working through these issues. There are still many conversations to be had around nature of marriage, but we no longer see homosexuality as necessarily sinful. Therefore, as a sign of our good faith, we are accepting blessings for civil partnerships and setting up some new liturgy for clergy to use.

The Bishops don’t choose any of the consistent or creative possibilities, they simply continue to fudge the situation. Why? And what is being held constant? It’s certainly not a strict reading of the Bible, for that would entail a much stricter approach to divorce than these Bishops have accepted, as Jesus discusses this morning. No, this is simply a political document. Sadly, the interests of this Church in England continue to be sacrificed to the altar of the ‘worldwide Anglican Communion’. This statement is quite clearly driven by placing interests of parts of the established churches in Africa ahead of the gay people in this country and abroad.

The real heart of the problem is the ‘us and them’ mentality, in other words, a form of destructive legalism which is used to ground a sense of identity. There is an official viewpoint which asks whether ‘Others’ meet certain standards or not, which says that some things are OK for some members of the Body of Christ but not for others. I am increasingly of the view that we will only be able to make progress on this issue when those speaking from positions of authority recognise that as the Body of Christ we are both queer and straight in the same way that we are male and female, slave and free, Jew and Greek – in other words, we will only be able to make progress when our gay bishops feel safe enough to ‘come out’, when the Spirit that sets free from legalistic demands is able to act and guide our House of Bishops.

Let us remember that Jesus had this to say about homosexuality…

Whereas he had this to say about those in positions of religious authority: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces. “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.” One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”

It is a sadness to reach the conclusion that this statement from our House of Bishops is utterly bankrupt theologically. It is mealy-mouthed and meretricious nonsense, a document driven by political considerations, designed to try and keep the different parts of the communion together, when most of the communion has already moved on, and moved on in different directions. It is a locking of the stable door after the horse has bolted. Elvis has left the building…

When did we become the Pharisees? When did we get so appallingly useless at what we do that the Lego movie is a better guide to Christian truth than official statements from our own House of Bishops?

We as the people of the new covenant are called into a relationship of freedom, led by the Spirit in which we can enjoy a relationship of non-condemnation and forgiveness, founding our identity on Christ alone. Perhaps the only fitting conclusion comes from this morning’s gospel:

Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

The argument from authority and CAGW

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Here is a classic quotation from John Gummer, for whom I used to work (as a civil servant): “No reasonable person would ignore expert opinion and wager his children’s future on the contrarian views of people who are not peer reviewed.”

This is an appeal to authority – to ‘expert opinion’ which has been ‘peer reviewed’. Now, in straightforward philosophical terms, this argument is an error, it is the epitome of a text-book mistake. Appealing to authority is only as effective as the authority itself which is being cited and conveys no additional weight. In the absence of other consideration it can have some use, certainly it makes for a much more efficient life if the vast majority of our understandings can be developed by those who do things professionally. However, where those authorities themselves are in dispute, where their findings are contentious, then a proper response is not to retreat to ‘authority’ but to engage in the substantial issues.

So, with respect to Global Warming, the emphasis upon ‘consensus’, ‘expert opinion’, ‘peer review’ and all the rest of it makes sense in so far as those things themselves stand up to scrutiny. Where they do not – where, for example, the IPCC is shown to be systematically unscientific and corrupt, where the process of peer review is so problematic, where the predictions made are so at variance with observation – then the argument from authority is not simply mistaken, it is pernicious.

This is not the only field where appeal to authority causes problems, it is simply a very salient issue at the moment given our weather. Having authorities does not absolve us from the responsibility to think for ourselves. Most of all, having authorities does not absolve the church of the responsibility to think for itself on the major issues of the day. I am more and more persuaded that most of the problems with the Church relate to it having given up on the intellect – as if it feels it has lost the battle for intellectual credibility and now tries to justify itself to the world through its acceptance of social progressivism and works of peace and justice. See, we’re nice people, now you don’t need to be so horrible to us by pointing out our intellectual nakedness!

We need to be much more robust. We need to once more believe that theology is the queen of the sciences, and therefore all other knowledge is subordinate to the knowledge of the living God. Doubtless many will instantly cringe at such a cry – that is the depth to which we have fallen. If we concede this, we concede all.

The worldly widowhood of the Church of England

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Sorry, bit of a rant coming…
As I am on lots of ‘green’ mailing lists, it hasn’t escaped my notice that the General Synod is about to debate climate change. This is, on a generous reading, about twenty years too late. If we had done this in the mid-1990s it would have been a timely move. Doing it now, however, is catching a bus just after the engine has failed. People are now getting off this particular bus.

Which of course is no problem at all if it is the right thing to do. We are – as the Gospel reading set for tomorrow tells us – to be salt and light in the world. We are to be distinctive, not following worldly values.

Yet this General Synod actually seems to me to be doing precisely the opposite of what we are called to. The aphorism is that ‘a church that marries the spirit of the age will be a widow in the next’. This time around it seems that the church is actually deciding to marry a dead body straight off, without getting the benefits of a living period first.

The worst thing is that the Church is missing the more important issues. If we look at environmental questions and social justice questions then we need to pay attention to the issue of the Limits to Growth more generally, recognise that we are crashing into them at great speed, and start taking steps to prepare people for coping with what is taking place. Most of all – and here I have an interest of course – we need to ground it in a much broader spiritual vision. To narrow down our attention to the one element of the green perspective that is increasingly (and rightly) being seen as profoundly mistaken seems doubly unfortunate. Yet again the Church hands over its thinking function to worldly authority, forgetting that ‘love God with your mind’ is in the first commandment, not the second. It’s not quite fiddling whilst Rome burns, more like knitting blankets when the house is on fire.

Ah well. The floods that are coming may well wash the CofE away. That too may be God’s will. Rant over.

We don’t worship the creeds

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In the song ‘Armageddon Days’ by The The there is the line: “The world is on its elbows and knees, we’ve forgotten the message, and worship the creeds”. What I want to do in this article is explain why it’s a mistake to ‘worship the creeds’.

The first point to make is a simple historical one. The creed that is presently used in church services dates mostly to the fourth century AD and the Council of Nicaea, although there were still significant changes made for another 150 years or so after that. In other words, Christianity experienced its greatest success and most transformative influence upon the world before the creeds were agreed, and certainly a long way before they were ever thought of being used in worship. There is therefore no sense in which any particular creed is essential to Christianity. Creeds are not essential, but they are helpful.

Helpful in what way? Well, they are a little bit like the instructions that come with a Lego set. They are a guide to how things fit together. In just the same way that Lego instructions, if followed carefully, allow for the particular toy to be built so that it looks like the picture on the front of the box, so too do the creeds, if followed carefully, allow us to look like the ‘picture’ on our boxes; that is, they enable us to look like children of God, to look like Jesus.

The word ‘creed’, after all, comes from the Latin word ‘credo’ which means ‘I believe’. The creeds are a summation of doctrinal beliefs, the things that a particular church believes about God in general and about Jesus in particular. Doctrines, moreover, are simply the medicine for the soul that a particular church has understood. The word doctrine is related to the word doctor for a very straightforward reason. The creeds might well be understood as a sort of ‘gymnasium for the soul’. That is, once the different elements are understood and accepted, then the soul will be healed of various afflictions and then the world and the individual’s place within the world will be seen correctly.

The creeds, in other words, aim beyond themselves. They are a tool that are used to create a healthy soul. In just the same way that the Lego instructions are not what you buy Lego to play with – you buy the Lego to play with the bricks – so too the creeds are not what you become a Christian to play around with. You become a Christian in order to enjoy life in all its fullness. The creeds are a particular tool to enable that to happen. The creeds are like the proverbial finger pointing at the moon – don’t focus on the finger!

There is something distinct about Christianity in having a role for creeds in this way, as it makes Christianity vulnerable to falsification in a way that other religions are not. Christianity does make particular historical claims, in particular that Jesus lived, was tortured by the state, died and was raised on the third day. If the resurrection was demonstrably proved false then Christianity would collapse. I say ‘demonstrably proved false’ in order to try and avoid the generalised, hand-waving, scientistic ‘such things can never happen’ sort of objection. More than this, if evidence emerged to show that Jesus was simply not the sort of person that is portrayed in the gospels, if there was evidence that he was significantly immoral in some way then, again, Christianity would collapse.

Having said that, there is a a potential misunderstanding here, and I need to deploy a Wittgenstein quotation to clarify. Wittgenstein once wrote: ‘Christianity is not based on a historical truth; rather, it offers us a (historical) narrative and says: now believe! But not, believe this narrative with the belief appropriate to a historical narrative, rather: believe through thick and thin, which you can do only as a result of a life. Here you have a narrative, don’t take the same attitude to it as you take to other historical narratives! Make a quite different place in your life for it.’

To be a Christian is not simply to believe that certain things took place in history – even the demons believe, and they tremble. It is to pursue the life that those events witness to. It is to structure one’s life around what is revealed by them. To have, for example, a modern film crew with scientific support sent back in time to the third day after the crucifixion, and join St Thomas in physically inspecting the risen Jesus in such a way that all possible objections were overcome – this, of itself, would not generate Christian faith. This, of itself, would simply reveal a curious fact about the world. The leap of faith does not come here, in the believing in certain facts. No, the leap of faith comes when, in the light of what such events reveal about the nature of the world, a person chooses, for example, to take the risk of forgiving.

Which is where the really essential point about the creed becomes clear. The creeds are like Lego instructions, or a recipe for a meal, or any other particular tool. They are used for a particular purpose. Where that purpose is lost sight of and forgotten, the tools can be used for the wrong purposes, or used mistakenly. So with the creeds, whereas their original purpose is to help a particular person become more like Christ, where that spiritual aim is lost, the creeds become vulnerable to being used as a shibboleth, a way of discriminating between an ‘in-group’ and an ‘out-group’. In other words, if you’re ‘one of us’ then you will say the same things as the majority. You will be assimilated, resistance is futile and so on. They become an instrument of power, not a vessel for liberation.

This is why the song that I quoted at the beginning of the article is called ‘Armageddon Days’. Where a society has lost sight of the spiritual and has reduced human beings to more or less productive and efficient economic units, political struggle and war is not far behind. The song continues: “If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today, He’d be gunned down cold by the CIA. For the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart. For God didn’t build himself that throne, and God doesn’t live in Israel or Rome. God doesn’t belong to the Yankee dollar and God doesn’t plant those bombs for Hezbollah. God doesn’t even go to church, and God won’t send us down to Allah to burn. God will remind us what we already know, that the human race is about to reap what it’s sown. Islam is rising, the Christians mobilizing. The world is on its elbows and knees, it’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds. Armageddon days are here… again.”

It’s all about the symbolism

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josh cagw ice
I have long thought that the green movement made a huge strategic mistake by going ‘all in’ on global warming as the goad to try to change human behaviour. Sadly, after several rounds of ‘double or quits’, even the smallest events get used against the narrative. It’s time for those who are persuaded of the reality of the Limits to Growth to accept that the political argument about global warming has been lost, for at least another generation, and try and find a more productive way to communicate important truths. Hint: it won’t involve Chris Huhne.

So that was 2013

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A year of consequences. The main event, obviously, was this, which overshadowed a lot of other things.

Some highlights:
– having a lead role in a play put on by the Mersea Island Players, what a lovely bunch of people;
– my best Greenbelt ever;
– spending lots of time with good friends, doing great things, having time to breathe spiritually;
– various long term work issues being resolved, and we’re looking good for some outreach next year;
– coming to some conclusions about writing and the church – see especially this one and this one. I hope to gather some of these threads together in 2014.

Not sure it counts as a ‘highlight’, but making the decision in November to homeschool my two eldest, that felt like a tremendous liberation, a stepping out in faith which I trust that God will prosper, for however long it lasts. I’m very excited by this.

Rather strangely, on a purely personal and selfish level, I would say that this has been a very good year, certainly in comparison to last. My creativity has begun to return, and my energy and joie de vivre also. I am really hoping that I will return to being a ‘fully functioning Sam’ some time in the next several months. I have a lot to look forward to in 2014.

I think my principal conclusion is this: it is not possible for bitterness and happiness to coexist in the same heart. One will devour the other. I choose to strengthen the happiness.

Previous years: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
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