Category Archives: ang communion

Priestly priorities: inside out?

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I want to engage with Kathryn’s comment on my ‘doomed’ post. Kathryn writes: “I’m just wondering what, under the “membership” model of church, happens to those who don’t see themselves as members anywhere, but who clearly value and engage with the ministry of their vicar. Far more of my time, & by far the most fruitful spiritual encounters here are with those outside the church, who see me as “their vicar” because they have a strong sense of local community. I totally understand that we have passed the point of no return with the current situation – but I cling to the idea that I am here above all to serve those who are not members of the church.”

This provokes several thoughts from me. Firstly I very much agree with Tim that “in New Testament Christianity the entity which is supposed to serve the whole community is the church, not the vicar” – in other words, it is the common vocation of all Christians to carry out such service, not the separate vocation of the ordained.

I don’t believe that it is possible to understand the role of the priest separately from that of the mission of the church as a whole, and specifically the function of the laity within the world. To understand the priestly role distinct from that of the laity is like trying to understand the purpose of a shoe without considering the sole, that which actually makes contact with the ground. I think this is a problem with many of the discussions about ‘models of ministry’ (including some of my own thoughts).

What then is the priority of the priest? Inside or out? By which I mean, should the work of the priest be centred upon those who gather for worship and teaching, or on those who have yet to hear the message? Not so long ago, within a culture which still assumed and shared much of the teaching of Christianity it was possible to do both – and this is reflected in the ordinal. Yet in the present context it is radically destructive to pretend that the ordained can carry out the same tasks in the same way as before. We need to choose, and to choose wisely.

According to Scripture (mediated here) the Biblical model for leadership involves three things, and three things only: being of good character, maintaining sound doctrine, and having the ability to teach. I believe that the church is suffering from a lack of focus on these elements, and that the poverty of sound teaching is one of the principal reasons for the withering away of faith.

Perhaps the point is to discriminate between those who are called to work within a church to ensure that the members are formed for discipleship, and those who are called to work outside the church as missionaries and evangelists. Both sorts might be priests, but let us call the first ‘pastors’ and the second ‘missionaries’. This ministry might overlap on occasion, but there are different gifts needed for each, and continuing to expect the one person to excel in all areas is likely to continue to contribute to our decline.

There is another element to be pondered here, which is the cost of such work. For how long should a particular congregation be expected to pay for work to be done outside of the church at the expense of work inside the church, if this means that the church itself is shrinking? (I take shrinkage to be the natural consequence of either insufficient or inappropriate pastoring.) Of course, the church must engage in missionary work – and such work is especially essential in England at this time – but missionary work is a sign and product of a spiritually healthy community, and the decline of the Church is eloquent testimony that such a description does not apply.

I would want to argue that the most effective missionary work is done on a small scale, from a Christian to a non-Christian, person by person. Such work can be fostered and encouraged by the right sort of leadership, but it cannot be carried out by them. It is when each individual Christian is given all joy and hope in believing the gospel that the gospel is inevitably shared and allowed to grow. I would see that as the expected consequence of a healthy ‘pastor’ type ministry, and that is why I would want to argue that the principal focus of the stipendiary priest of the Church of England needs to be internal work with the “membership” rather than external work into the community.

Taking forward the logic of this, however, causes much pain.

The statistics of decline

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I wanted to grab together a handful of statistics that give substance to the notion that the Church of England is declining, if not ‘doomed’. I accept the criticism that the the figures I linked to in my last post on this are flawed, but I believe the main point still stands. I’m not going to talk about what needs to be done in this context – that is what I’m exploring in my other posts.

These are the figures quoted by David Keen

This data from the Church Society (source) also seems useful:

And this one confirms it:

We can add to this the expected rapid decline in clergy numbers over the next ten years (as the baby boomers retire and aren’t replaced) and the way that this links in with the increasing age profile of attenders (and what this means in terms of a sudden drop for actuarial reasons). See also David Keen’s post on Diocesan growth here.

“One of our problems may be that decline is so slow and imperceptible that we don’t really see it coming clearly enough. I have seen large companies perfectly and impeccably manage themselves into failure. Every step along the road has been well done. Every account is neatly signed off… I sometimes feel the Church is a bit like that. I wish that all of us would have a sense of real crisis about this.”

(Andreas Whittam Smith)

The Lord being my helper I expect to be working for the church until my family dies until 2040 or so. If things don’t change, I may outlast the good old CofE…

Is the Church of England doomed?

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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 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 (source http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/anglicanism-religion). 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.
How might the Church of England respond in a timely fashion to the circumstances within which it finds itself? Well, here is one proposal, made with a modicum of hope that God does not want Anglican witness to be extinguished within the country that gave it birth. At the heart of what I am arguing for is a sense that the local church must be set free. Put differently, what I believe is that the Bishops in a properly episcopal church are called to exercise oversight rather than control, and that this can only be properly rooted when they exercise faith rather than fear. What might this mean?
First and foremost, I believe that the parish system should be abolished. The idea that everyone living in the country had their own parson, to whom they might turn when in need, was a noble one – and yet it is an increasingly untrue piety. I believe that this needs to be recognised – and what this means is that the Church needs to genuinely recognise the reality of the Christian ministry undertaken by other churches. Of course there are theological differences – some of them I would view as rather important! – but in the context of what is shared, especially in contrast to the surrounding culture, they are mostly trivial. The consequence of this is that the Church of England accepts that it is a ‘sect’ – that is, it is a Church which has a particular inheritance of faith. It is the distinctive theology which supplies the identity of the Church, not the establishment ecclesiology. In many ways all I am arguing for here is that an existing reality is affirmed rather than denied and that the inheritance of establishment, which assumes an equivalence between ‘resident of the parish’ and ‘member of the church’, is done away with. Canon law must be changed, most especially with regard to the occasional offices.
What this would mean is that each existing church is allowed to pursue its own sense of mission and vocation. Much of the substance of this would end up being financial. The existing system of parish share has very few defenders. Bob Jackson puts it well:
“In conclusion, the whole chaos of quota, parish share, or common fund systems is simply not serving the church well.
1 It is inconceivable that every diocese, with its own unique system changing every few years, has currently found the best possible one, or even a good one;
2 Systems risk provoking conflict and dishonesty. They can lead to more serious division;
3 They do not provide a secure and stable framework in which churches can do long-term planning;
4. They fail to provide the fairness their architects desire;
5. They absorb the best energy, time and expertise of diocesan leaders and officials. They divert people at every level from concentrating on the real ministry and mission of Christian churches;
6. They asset-strip the large churches and tax away the growth of growing churches. They encourage the declining and sleepy in their ways;
7. They encourage false judgements to be made of clergy and endanger the future provision of dynamic senior leadership;
8. They cannot cater for fresh expressions of church;
9. They fail even to maintain the current levels of parochial staffing, let alone to produce the resources for growing the new sorts of expression without which the Church may wither away.”
Jackson recommends a solution incorporating the following elements:
1. Churches pay the costs of their own ministers
2. Fee income stays with the local church
3. Diocesan costs are shared by local churches
4. The total bill (1&3) is presented to each church each year, and published in the church accounts.
Essentially what Jackson proposes is a way of a) localising the process; b) making the system completely transparent (and therefore much more defensible); and c) restoring the relationship between those who give and those who receive. I think this is the way forward, and I would add that responsibility for clergy housing should also be passed down to the parishes.
What might this mean for the central authorities of the Church? Well, rather than Bishops being concerned with ensuring that a parish pays its quota, they might be set free to ensure that those clergy who are licensed by them are exercising their ministry in an appropriate way – most especially that they are orthodox (I touched on this in my Spanish Train post). In other words, the core function of the Bishop becomes less administrative and financial than about preserving the truths of the faith and exercising pastoral care and leadership of the clergy. I have a sense that this is what Bishops are supposed to do…
This is likely to provoke great fear and concern – what about the poor parishes? What about our need for mission? Well, what about them? Aren’t they precisely the natural concerns of Christians – so why wouldn’t the Church seek to pursue such priorities, even if there wasn’t a central system to enforce it? Put differently, if we do not do the right thing because we are afraid that our people will not act as Christians then we are already doomed. Which does perhaps raise what is the most central issue facing the Church of England: not that the model of ministry for the priest has to change – although it must – but that the distinctive Anglican patrimony has to cash out in a distinctive ministry of the laity. I’ll have to write more about that another time, as this post is long enough.
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 the 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.

Pray for the Church of England

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I’m feeling a bit sad this afternoon.

A fellow priest, close to me, and very important to me, dropped dead of a heart attack last Thursday. I discovered this a few minutes before taking a 9.30 Communion service this morning. In God’s strange provision I had material on hand for offering up an intention for the mass, which I found tremendously helpful

Everlasting God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion and glorious resurrection,
that, in the last day, when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

Life is so short and so precious, and poised to end at any moment. It really is a frightening waste and blasphemy to spend our time on anything other than what God is calling us to do. And yet – doing just that is hardly straightforward.

I think it’s called carrying our cross.

It’s also called working for the church.

We are called to love the church, and I believe that completely – but it needs to be a clear-sighted love, for only such love might resource the cleansing of blemishes and the enabling of holy work. It is not ‘my country right or wrong’ – for if we are destined to judge the angels surely we can exercise some form of discrimination with regard to our own internal life?

At General Synod we hear that by 2020 the Church will be dead (good analysis of underlying trajectory here, the Synod story contains all sorts of assumptions). We have lots of schemes and ideas and we run around chasing our tails because we have lost sight of the one thing needful. We’re in a complete funk about sexuality – whether it’s homosexuality or the gender of the episcopate – a subject on which Jesus said very little. We forget this, because we’re not sat at his feet. When we do respond to promptings of the Spirit we don’t follow through on them. I believe that the Church of England is living through a period of chastisement – that we are being pruned in order that we might become more fruitful – but I am less and less confident that the established CofE is a part of the fruitful future (whereas I AM convinced that Anglican theology is part of that future).

It is the response to the pruning which is so dispiriting. We spill our blood keeping the show on the road, when God is more and more clearly asking us to change the show (not the content but the form). If we are to be the Church of England we need to recognise that England is not what it was, in so many diverse and mutually contradictory ways. I think there is a reason why I don’t know many happy incumbents, for incumbency drives out priesthood – we are the shamanic cruise directors on the proverbial sinking ship. The church – this beloved institution – has become monstrously abusive and doesn’t even realise it.

Father forgive her, for she knows not what she does.

We no longer know what we are here for. We don’t know what we are doing or why we are doing it. We have become entangled in the worship of Mammon and are choking. With you is my contention O Priest!!!

What I want is to know the gladness and sadness of the gospel and to share the conversation of God with others and for others. Please pray for the Church of England, that she might be recalled to her vocation, that she might remember her beauty in the sight of God.

And pray for me, a sinner too.

In the meantime, I shall listen to Mr Mumford:

Because I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be

And I will hold on hope
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I’ll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I’ll know my name as it’s called again

Contrary to Scripture?

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John Richardson left a comment on my Jeffrey John post arguing that JJ “teaches a position contrary to Scripture”. I don’t believe this to be true – or, rather, I believe that this way of characterising the debate begs the question at issue.

Take the eating of shellfish, which is described as an abomination in Leviticus 11. This prohibition is overturned in the New Testament, most especially through Peter’s vision and the subsequent discussion in Jerusalem (Acts 11).

Does this change represent a change of detail or a change of method? That is, is this simply a case of amending a law code, leaving everything else as it stands – and, therefore, the ‘structure of righteousness’ as it stands? Or is this a demonstration of a new kind of authority, ie accepting ‘it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us’ as of higher authority than the written law? So the gathered church has the authority to determine what is acceptable to God and what is not?

To say that JJ’s teaching is ‘contrary to Scripture’ is to assume the first to be the case. That is, at the very least, a debatable point – but what I want to emphasise here is that arguing in the way that JJ does is NOT ‘contrary to Scripture’, it is to interpret Scripture in a different way, one which is at least as grounded in the long Christian tradition as the post-Reformation emphases. Does anyone else find it odd that the Christian tradition that has most emphasised ‘sola gratia’ is the one that is most insistent on a legalistic understanding of Scripture in this debate?

Jeffrey John

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Came across this picture at Ruth Gledhill’s blog, and thought it very striking.

I greatly admire Jeffrey John. He is someone who has immense gifts which he has given to the church in loving service. In return he has been betrayed, abused and calumnied – and he has not given up. He continues to serve the church with loyalty, grace and dignity. He’s an example to all of us, and a bit of a hero for me. I hope that one day the CofE can get over itself sufficiently to let him exercise a greater degree of leadership.

I read this yesterday, and I suspect it lies behind John’s approach –

“I’m sure there are ministers who are treated abominably by churches, just as I am sure that there are churches that are treated abominably by ministers, but the former, at least, has never been my experience. We have so many continuing and precious friendships from both these churches and, indeed, from so many other churches that in less prominent ways have been part of our story. I have little patience with ministers who moan about churches: Jesus loved the Church and gave himself up on the Cross for the Church (Eph 5.25); the Church is precious to him and the Church should always be precious to us.” (John Colwell, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’)

Seeking a Christian England

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So – we live in a secular society, not a Christian one. Nice to have it laid out so clearly by the judiciary. It grates that these judgements are so philosophically ill-grounded – but I’ve discussed that in more detail before.

“…if such a thing should be, the crimes of that nation will probably begin in infringement on Apostolical Rights ; she will end in persecuting the true Church ; and in the several stages of her melancholy career, she will continually be led on from bad to worse by vain endeavours at accommodation and compromise with evil.”

Should Christians be worried about this? Given that the church was (arguably) at its healthiest when working within the avowedly pagan Roman Empire, one would suspect not. Yet surely it is understandable for a Christian to want not to suffer so much? In a way, it will make Christian witness rather clearer. This isn’t a point about homosexuality so much as a broader point about how a distinctive Christian life is possible in a secular society. For example, take issues at the beginning and end of life. At what point will a Christian doctor be disbarred, or restricted from practicing in certain areas, if they, eg, refuse to terminate a baby’s life, or refuse to administer euthanasia? Will Christians be allowed to teach differently to the secular world-view? Will parents be forbidden from teaching Christian doctrine in those areas where it clashes with secular assumptions? “That’ll never happen!” Right.

“How may a man best reconcile his allegiance to God and his Church with his duty to his country, that country, which now, by the supposition, is fast becoming hostile to the Church, and cannot therefore long be the friend of God?”

I think what’s really running around my mind is whether it is legitimate to seek to make England a Christian nation (I leave off the possible ‘once again’ as it begs too many questions). There are, of course, all sorts of potential idolatries here – I have read my Hauerwas – but there is also an idolatry in quietism. If we, as Christians, are inevitably committed to questions of social justice then we are also inevitably political creatures – which, logically, and under God with all due humility, must mean seeking to so order our political arrangements in such a way that abundant life can flourish – and that “abundant life” is irreducibly Christian in character, not secular. We are therefore in necessary tension with any secular state.

There are several threads that I want to knit together:

– the internal collapse of the Church of England, culturally and theologically (symbolised by the abandonment of the BCP, however sensible that step was);
– the death of England more broadly;
– the on going threat of Islamisation, and the sometimes unhealthy political reaction to it;
– the way in which the Anglican Communion will split, and how TEC may be a better vehicle for the Anglican theological spirit than a Covenantised CofE; and finally
– the unhealthy nature of Anglo-Catholicism within the CofE (reactionaries contending with liberals), compared to the initial flowering of Anglo-Catholicism sparked by a political controversy.

I just wonder if there is a ‘sweet spot’ lurking here that would mean the project of seeking a Christian England would be blessed. Watch this space.

“What are the symptoms, by which one may judge most fairly, whether or no a nation, as such, is becoming alienated from God and Christ?
And what are the particular duties of sincere Christians, whose lot is cast by Divine Providence in a time of such dire calamity?”

The Ordinariate: more consequential for the RC than the CofE

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So we now have The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I can’t help but think that the consequences of this will not be anything like what is expected by the Vatican or their cheerleaders.

Consider that, in Roman Catholic theological terms, three lay men were ordained as priests without having to go through seminary or be committed to celibacy. What, therefore, is the theological justification for either of those presumed requirements when other candidates for the priesthood present themselves? In reality, what the decision shows is that the Catholic hierarchy do in fact give some substance to ministry conducted in the Anglican church – that is, in practice, the hierarchy do not see Anglican orders as ‘null and void’. The perpetuation of that canard is a wholly political practice, without spiritual substance, as has now been proven by these ordinations. In an environment when there is a very large practical rejection of hierarchical teaching and authority by RC laity in the British Isles, most especially with regard to the insistence on clerical celibacy, I cannot but see long term consequences from this action that undermine what Benedict is trying to achieve.

Whereas the CofE can only benefit. ‘Flying bishops’ caused all sorts of ongong problems for the CofE and the one thing that the Ordinariate has done is remove that ecclesiastical anomaly. Forward in Faith was only ever one branch of Anglo-Catholicism and I now hope and pray that, freed from internecine strife, the remaining Anglo-Catholics can simply get on with expressing their strand of Anglican life unashamedly. There is still a great deal of theological work to be done – but that work is joyful work.

The authority of Scripture

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First published: 19/12/07
Archbishop Rowan – peace be upon him – says in his Advent letter “a full relationship of communion will mean… The common acknowledgment that we stand under the authority of Scripture as ‘the rule and ultimate standard of faith’, in the words of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral; as the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which decisively interprets God to the community of believers and the community of believers to itself and opens our hearts to the living and eternal Word that is Christ. Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. We recognise each other in one fellowship when we see one another ‘standing under’ the word of Scripture. Because of this recognition, we are able to consult and reflect together on the interpretation of Scripture and to learn in that process. Understanding the Bible is not a private process or something to be undertaken in isolation by one part of the family. Radical change in the way we read cannot be determined by one group or tradition alone.”

Sadly I’m coming to see that I don’t agree with this. This post explains why – and it ties in with a conversation about fundamentalism that John, Doug and some others have been having. This is really a post about my view of Scripture, and it’ll overlap with some of my recent Learning Church talks.


I think the first and most important thing to say, and the root of my disagreement with Rowan’s letter, is that I don’t see Scripture as my highest authority; I don’t see Scripture as “the rule and ultimate standard of faith”; and I don’t see Scripture as that which “decisively interprets God to the community” (my italics). To be honest, I’m surprised to hear that from Rowan, but there is a fair bit of evidence that his views have developed over the last several years.

Now why am I saying this? Am I turning into a liberal backslider? I really don’t think so. It’s more that I start from a different place – and a place that I described when discussing the Chicago Statement of Faith. I see Jesus Christ as the Word of God; the Word Incarnate; the Word made Flesh. And I understand ‘word’ to be a mere shadow of what is meant by the untranslatably rich word λογοσ – so all of the emphases relating to all things being created through him and nothing being made without him are very real and meaningful to me. Now I see that Word – the living Christ – as the highest authority, the Lord to which we are subject, and I have difficulty with something other than that Lord being put in his place! Which seems to be what Rowan’s language is doing.

Strangely enough I consider myself to have a high view of Scripture. I would want to talk about the authority of Scripture, and I would want to flesh that out with some description of what it means to live under the authority of Scripture. So, for example, I would want to say that Scripture is a) the principal witness to the Incarnation – and thereby an irreplaceable source for how we know Jesus (and that not being restricted to the Gospels, or even the New Testament); b) independent of my own preferences; and c) something which has the capacity to question and interrogate me, and overthrow my self-delusions. Yet what is often missed is that Scripture testifies about itself that it refers beyond itself. The point of Scripture isn’t that we get to know Scripture, it’s that we get to know Jesus, that we get to know the God who is revealed in Jesus. When this part of the process gets missed then we are stuck with the Pharisees who spend time searching the Scriptures and don’t realise what they are for.

What this means is that Scripture neither captures nor controls Jesus. It is of supreme importance, but it doesn’t have a lock on the living Christ. I believe that there are two other ways in which Christ can be known. I don’t believe that these ways conflict with Scripture – that is, they needn’t conflict with the proverbial ‘right interpretation’ of Scripture – but when Scripture is absolutised in this way then these other forms are needlessly, and recklessly, diminished.

The first way is through the community of the church, most particularly the sacramentally shaped community. Jesus said that wherever two or three were gathered in his name, there would he be in the midst of them. He also said that those who loved Him and obeyed Him would abide in Him, and the Father would make his home with them. This seems to me to describe an independent access to Jesus and the Father, one which is not mediated by Scripture. The community comes first; the praxis of the community drives the formation of the language which shapes and structures the community; and then Scripture captures that language and records it for posterity. Yet the life is not reduced thereby – it remains independent. I believe that Jesus can be known – and his life can be shared, in fact it IS shared – by a community gathered in His name which is concerned to love Him and obey Him. That community will undoubtedly revere Scripture, yet it need not give to Scripture the role which Rowan describes. Jesus will be found in such a community – he will be known in the breaking of the bread – and that knowing is not circumscribed by Scripture, however much the knowing in one way is interpenetrated by the knowing otherwise.

There is also, I believe, a third way in which Jesus is known – and that is by direct revelation. This need not be Road-to-Damascus style dramatics, it may be simply a long, slow dawning realisation that ‘here is Christ’, or ‘this is what Christ requires of me’. Jesus told us that at Pentecost the Spirit would come to give us all that is from Him, and that the Spirit would lead us into all truth. In other words the disciples around him did not have all truth. I don’t believe we yet have ‘all truth’, though I am sure we are more deeply embedded in it. Neither Scripture nor the community can capture the Spirit, for it blows wherever it will – but it will accomplish all that Jesus promised it would.

So I believe that there are three ways in which one can relate to the living Christ at this present time – and I do not believe that Scripture can be so construed as to become hegemonic over the other two.

Let us return to my triangle, which I have amended:

The origin for this triangle was Hooker’s three legged stool, which I’ve always understood as the ‘classic’ Anglican approach, but I’ve made two explicit changes to it as I don’t take Hooker to have the last word(!). I have changed the word ‘tradition’ to the word ‘community’ to better reflect the nature of that field. I could have used the word ‘church’ instead, for that is what I am thinking of but I think that the word ‘community’ is less ambiguous and question-begging. (I also think that Scripture is itself a tradition!) Secondly, I have changed the word ‘reason’ to the word ‘culture’. I was never happy with ‘reason’ as the third element as reason is simply a tool not a source of authority, and as time has gone on it hasn’t captured what that third strand is really about (neither does “experience” which seems to be to be irretrievably compromised by Enlightenment metaphysics, but that’s a whole other story). What seems to be at stake in the third strand is what it means for the community informed by Scripture to incarnate in a particular time and place – not simply what is it to be faithful to Christ, and bear his witness in Scripture and Community, but what is it to be faithful to Christ here and now, in this place and this time, with these people holding these beliefs?

So I see these three sources of authority – in other words, these three ways in which the living Christ can be known – as both interdependent and themselves subject to Jesus himself, who is represented by the yellow area at the centre. I was asked, when discussing this in my lectures, about mysticism, and where it fitted in. Mysticism is the yellow area – it is where our path of discipleship is tending – it is where Christ lives in us and we live in him – and each part of the triangle is capable of leading us there.

No area of the triangle can preclude access to Christ from anywhere else and – possibly more importantly – each of the areas need the others if they are to have a full understanding of Him. The outer ‘spikes’ represent what happens when one of the areas believes it can travel alone. So the outer green represents fundamentalism; the outer blue represents a dead tradition and ritualism; the outer red represents the logical culmination of liberalism in atheism and cultural collapse.

The mid-points also represent something.

Firstly, opposite the red cultural area is a mid-point between tradition and community. This I see as ‘conservative’ Christianity, opposed to innovation, concerned to safeguard the faith that we have inherited; as opposed to the opposite side which might be seen as the ‘liberal’ emphasis in the faith – that which is most concerned to be understood in the culture as it actually exists.

Secondly, opposite the blue community area is a mid-point between scripture and culture. I see this as charismatic Christianity, concerned to express the living reality of worship and being filled with the Spirit; as opposed to the blue Anglo-Catholic area (where I would situate myself) which is most concerned to carry forward the gifts, blessings and commands which Christ gave to his body, the church.

Finally, opposite the green area is a mid-point between culture and community. I see this as liberal Catholicism – Affirming Catholicism territory – which seeks to renovate the inherited traditions of the church in such a way that babies are not discarded with bathwater; as opposed to the green Scriptural area which is concerned to be faithful to the teaching of Scripture, the Word of God written down for our instruction, God-breathed and useful. This tensional line, between the liberal Catholic and the Scriptural is clearly the one presently dividing our Communion, however differently it is described elsewhere (in other words, it’s not simply a conservative-liberal argument).

We need all the different elements in order to be complete.

Which is why I have real problems with Rowan’s letter, and the language he uses – however well supported and affirmed they might be within Scripture and the tradition of Anglicanism. What Rowan seems to have done is exclude any way in which Christ might make himself known in a new way. For undoubtedly Christ does do so, and sometimes we are called and commanded to change both how we interpret Scripture and how the community functions; that is, even when Scripture and tradition are unanimous on a matter, that is still not sufficient to capture Christ. That happened with regard to slavery; it is in the process of happening with regard to women’s ministry. The argument at present is whether it should happen with regard to homosexuality. What Rowan seems to have done, through using the language that he has, is made such a development impossible, given the form of authority that he here recognises.

My qualm is not that the changes that TEC have made are necessarily right (though I become more persuaded that they are, however many tactical qualms I have) – it is more that the schema that Rowan here endorses precludes the possibility of change as such. I can’t believe that Rowan intended this wider consequence, but nor can I see a way for the Spirit – understood as potentially conflicting with “Scripture” and “Tradition” – to be allowed to lead us into all truth.

One final aspect to all this. I feel as if I am at one and the same time finally becoming a Protestant, in the sense of abandoning catholic ecclesiology, at the same time as realising that Protestantism is an historical phase which is coming to an end. In that latter sense it 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 (say) five hundred years from the invention of the printing press to the invention of the cathode ray tube. 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.

So I am a little troubled by the way my thoughts have gone. Yet I simply can’t see Scripture in the way that Rowan seems to require, and I suspect that I am not alone in this. So I shall continue to worry and fret about the choices that will soon be imposed upon us, yet my mind is also gaining clarity as to what is at stake, and therefore what is right. Above all, I shall continue to trust in Him who is my highest authority, revealed to me in Scripture and through my sacramental community, and who wishes for me to reveal Him here, and now, on Mersea.