The CofE and its clergy: decline is not inevitable

The Times on Saturday chose to run with the ‘news’ that the number of stipendiary Anglican clergy is in decline. According to their article, the Church of England will lose “as many as one in ten paid clergy in the next five years”.

Of course, for many Anglicans, this is not news at all, especially if they are in rural areas (which means anywhere outside an urban environment). Typically, rural ‘parishes’ now consist of agglomerations of individual parishes, even into double figures. Recently I met a clergywoman from Norfolk looking after no less than fifteen. And the number of parishes involved is no guarantee of a full-time minister. In our local area another clergywoman is overseeing five parishes whilst holding down a part-time diocesan post.

Typically, urban churches tend to be protected from such amalgamations by the size of their populations. In our diocese, the ‘cap’ is now something like 3,000 people per full-time minister, which means that most urban parishes are safe —for the time being. However, the ‘cap’ is constantly increasing, so that eventually even the urban parishes will have to be merged.

There are, however, two schools of thought as to why this situation has come about and continues to worsen. The official line is that this is essentially a matter recruitment. The Times quotes a typical (though anonymous) church spokesman saying that, “The bigger pressure is the really quite encouraging number of ordinations is not as big as the number of those retiring.”

But this is slightly misleading, for the ‘encouraging number’ of ordinands includes an increasing proportion of part-timers. Moreover, when the difference between part and full-time clergy is taken into account, a significant demographic variation emerges. Amongst the part-timers, a disproportionate number are female, over forty, training on part-time courses. Amongst the full-timers, a disproportionate number are male, under forty, and training on full-time courses at evangelical colleges.

There is thus a correlation between the intended work-pattern and what might be called the ‘socio-theological’ profile of the candidate.

And this hints at another, alternative, explanation of the decline in clergy numbers, which is that it reflects a fiscally-constrained, socio-theological agenda. In other words, those running the Church of England are planning for a declining workforce on the principle that, whilst it is all they believe we can afford, they also do not believe it particularly matters for the overall ministry of the church.

Whether this is indeed the case, and whether they are right in their analysis, is a matter for debate. At the grass-roots, however, the people responsible for finding the money —the laity in the pews —are quite clear in their own minds that the willingness to recruit manpower, not the ability to raise money, is the real problem. And, ironically, I think they are convinced of this precisely because, despite raising large amounts of money, they see little return by way of ministry. From their point of view, the manpower is definitely there —after all, this, they are told, is why their money is needed —it is just somewhere else!

They see their money going out, and they know how it is being spent, but they see little in return, most especially if they are in one of the typical multi-parish rural benefices. (Next year, our own deanery of some thirty parishes will pay £625,000 for 8.7 stipendiary clergy —a staff level which is about to be reduced by 1.)

This being so, the institution needs to take account not just of the fiscal implications of its current policy but the psychological implications. It is not enough simply to tell people that ‘X’ costs ‘Y’, and then expect them to find the money with unfailingly good grace, even in a good cause.

In order to get the best (and, dare it be said, the most) out of them, people need to see a connection between their giving and others’ receiving. The Bible speaks about ‘koinonia’ —fellowship —as the basis for giving to other Christians (2 Cor 8:4), but that sense of fellowship has to be sustained, and it has to be seen to be fair. Too many congregations feel as though they are paying taxes, whilst being deprived of ministers.

And this impression is reinforced by the resolute refusal of diocesan officialdom to change the basis on which money is raised and disbursed. Despite evidence for its inefficiency, most dioceses insist on a ‘quota’ based arrangement, where parishes pay a sum, set by the central authority, into a diocesan ‘pot’, from which money for stipendiary clergy is then disbursed, via the Church Commissioners.

The argument for this system is that it is ‘fair’ —‘rich’ and ‘poor’ parishes alike pay as they are able and receive as they need. In practice, however, it is neither particularly fair nor at all effective.

To begin with, the notional ability to pay often overlooks the actual situation in a congregation, since it is often assessed on the basis of local income and deprivation levels for the area, not the church members, whose disposable income may be quite at variance with that of the local population. Thus in supposedly ‘rich’ rural areas, many congregations consist of retired people with correspondingly restricted disposable wealth, whereas in ‘poor’ urban areas, congregations may contain a disproportionate number of relatively well-off members, compared with the local population.

Furthermore, the ‘need’ for ministry cannot simply be estimated on the basis of either population density or social deprivation. The fact is, an individual clergy person can reasonably deal with a a congregation of perhaps 120-160 adults. Research done back in the seventies showed that beyond that point, congregations typically grew only to the extent that they could add on more pastoral workers. Once a congregation reaches this size, the size of the parish population becomes more or less irrelevant.

Figures derived for our own diocese (Chelmsford) suggested that beyond a certain size, the larger a parish becomes the more people are simply unreached by the parish church. Thus the population ‘cap’ becomes basically irrelevant. If a church, or group of churches attracts a certain number of adults, the minister is effectively at full pastoral stretch, whether the parish is large or small, urban or rural.

Part of the trouble is that the Church of England’s ‘managers’ have in many cases committed themselves to a model of ministry which denies that the clergyperson is ‘chaplain to the congregation’. Ministry is conceived as being to the ‘whole parish’, and since need is seen in material terms, a large parish in a deprived urban area is defined as more ‘needy’ than a small parish in a well-off rural area.

The problem with this model is that the ministry of the Church in the urban area is simply not able to deal with the ‘needs’ so-defined. It can alleviate some of them, but very few. And in any case, the very fact that this is set within a parish environment, with the usual paraphernalia of services, congregations and PCCs says that the model is not even coherent. The minister is expected to be both chaplain to the congregation and, somehow, a ‘parson’ to the whole community —and often fails to be effectively either.

What is needed are new approaches to the recruitment, funding and deployment of ministers. The basic unit of ministerial funding needs to be seen as the viable congregation (or group of congregations), with those congregations giving as directly as possible to the funding of their own ministers. Instead of stretching ministry more and more thinly, resulting in the demoralization and decline of congregations, especially in rural areas, the Church of England needs to establish strong centres which are then given the vision to support an expanding ministry in other, weaker, situations which are not, initially, able to support their own ministry. Once again, however, the link between giving and recipient parishes needs to be kept as direct as possible.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons why this is resisted seems be a central fear of losing control. Proposals that ministers should be paid for locally are rejected as ‘congregationalist’, as if Congregationalism were a matter of accountancy rather than theology!

The time must be fast approaching, however, when the pips being squeezed for the funding of the Church’s ministry do, in fact, squeak, and the people in the pews begin to start asking hard questions about the policy which is so manifestly failing. Perhaps it is time for some rich benefactors —and such do exist —to begin funding the modern equivalent of the ‘lecturers’ who dotted the landscape in Puritan times. Whatever may be the outcome, what is desperately needed is initiative and boldness, not further cuts, leading to further reductions. If we were a business, the shareholders would be demanding answers from the management. We are not a business, but that is no excuse for not being businesslike, especially in the service of our Lord.

John Richardson
29 November 2009

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What next for the West?

Recently I have been revisiting Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence, and have been struck by the importance of his definition of decadence for what we now see happening in the Western world:

All that is meant by Decadence is “falling off.” It implies in those who live in such a time no loss of energy or talent or moral sense. On the contrary , it is a very active time, full of deep concerns, but peculiarly restless, for it sees no clear lines of advance. The loss it faces is that of Possibility. The forms of art as of life seem exhausted, the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully. Repetition and frustration are the intolerable result. Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces.

It is this which we surely see in our own culture, and it is important not just for those of a ‘religious’ persuasion but for us all.

To put it in its most simple terms, as we look at the present state of the Western world and ask ourselves “What next?” the question is difficult to answer at every level.

What next in art, for example? We have had modernism, and post-modernism. But as Barzun observes, it is the very fact of decadence itself which inspires “the repeated use of the dismissive prefixes anti- and post-”. They are symptomatic not of ideas, but of a lack of ideas. He continues, “The hope is that getting rid of what is will by itself generate the new life.”

And what next socially? One of Barzun’s ‘themes’ of the last five hundred years of Western civilization is emancipation —the desire to be ‘free from’ perceived constraints. The sexual revolution, and now the homosexual revolution, are simply the latest variations on this theme. But over against this, we see another set of forces at work, whereby the individual perceives increasing bureaucratic constraints, just at the point where God and respectability are losing their old power.

Or what of politics? There is an increasing ‘greyness’ about the old parties, whose agendas are no longer clearly distinguished from one another. What was ‘new’ about New Labour was not a radical socialist agenda but a departure from traditional socialism in favour of something much nearer to the middle ground.

As a culture, we are staring into the abyss, not of the unknown but of the completely, and repetitively, known. What we face, in our darkest moments, is not the fear of danger but the fear of ennui — that there really is nothing more to life than this.

This goes some way, I believe, to explaining the various responses to global warming, for what this provides is not simply a threat to be addressed but a moral cause. On the surface, climate-change is a ‘scientific’ issue, but the language of the ‘debate’ about climate-change is anything but ‘scientific’. One well-known campaigner, for example, refers to climate-change sceptics as ‘scumbags’.

Now my own view is that at the end of the day, such people may be wrong, but if they genuinely believe the evidence favours their point of view, then that is all they are. They may be frustratingly wrong, they may be dangerously wrong, but in strictly scientific terms, they cannot, as the term ‘scumbag’ implies, be morally wrong.

But addressing climate-change is not simply about the science —it is a cause, which is why, as we have seen recently, people are prepared to lie about it.

In short, for some people, the climate-change issue provides a welcome cause: a rationale by which to live. It is worth getting up in the morning in order to save the planet. We are moved and motivated by pictures of melting ice-caps and floundering polar bears. But what if we think beyond the challenge? What if we save the planet? What next? And what if we don’t? Will it matter, given that, in the great scheme of things, we know (‘scientifically’) that the planet is doomed anyway?

We have reached a stage where it is best not to think too deeply about anything. In such a situation, to become regularly and blindingly drunk, as some sections of our society now do, may be an entirely rational response. It was, after all the very rational philosopher David Hume who wrote that when his reflections brought on too much melancholy,

I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold and strained and ridiculous that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

Surely those who fill the streets of our towns and cities with ‘revellry’ on a typical Friday and Saturday night are simply applying (albeit unconsciously) the same remedy. We are developing at one level in our society a class which is not so much ‘under’ as consciously aimless.

Those who are fortunate enough to have the resources and the imagination to construct their own ‘micro-meanings’ will, of course, apply themselves to other goals. For most of the middle and upper classes, these consist of material acquisition and advancement, coupled with ambitions for their children and the ravelling and unravelling of their own domestic arrangements. The trick, however, is not to stop and ask why or for how long. For the inescapable truth, as Hume knew, is that these things last but the blink of an eye, then they, and we, are gone.

How can we of the West deal with that? This is surely as great a challenge to our cultural life as the threat of global warming is to our physical survival.

John Richardson
26 November 2009

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Music to die to

Last Saturday I was reminded why Martin Luther wrote about music, that “it alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely, a calm and joyful disposition.”

The occasion for this was a visit to the High Barn, at Great Bardfield, to hear Gordon Giltrap, my favourite solo guitarist, where we were also treated to a set by another guitarist, Clive Carroll.

Now I have to admit I’d never heard of Mr Carroll before this, and as I hadn’t booked the tickets I was a trifle disappointed to have precious ‘Giltrap time’ being taken up by someone else. But within ten minutes I was completely hooked. Carroll has a virtuosity with the guitar which has, literally, to be seen to be believed. A recording may capture the sound, but seeing him live you realize it really is just him, and it really does involve just one guitar.

As well as enjoying the concert, however (and Carroll duetting with Giltrap was an added bonus), I found myself wondering at the power and mystery of music. We refer loosely to animals such as whales and birds ‘singing’. But a biologist will tell us that the sounds they make serve not to entertain but to inform — to mark out territory, to announce danger or food, and so on.

Yet it is surely difficult to treat human music-making in the same reductionist manner. There is certainly a ‘visceral’ effect to some music. Certain beats and rhythms do seem ‘primitive’, in the sense that they draw on an almost biological impulse. But the sheer difficulty of some musical forms surely demolishes the notion that biology is the basis for our production and enjoyment of music.

Indeed, I would go as far as to suggest that music is one of the points at which materialism is confronted by a different view of reality. Luther believed that “the devil, the creator of saddening cares and disquieting worries, takes flight at the sound of music almost as he takes flight at the word of theology.” And the Bible speaks of how David’s music soothed the demon-troubled Saul.

We speak of how music ‘lifts us up’ —but lifts us up to what? To some illusory experience of electrical impulses in the neural cortex? Can it be that all the music of the world, and all the musicians, and all those who have ever listened to music and been moved to sing and to swing, to sway, to dance, to laugh, to march, to cry —all this is just the bumping together of atom and molecules, yet another fortunate by product of the Big Bang,  like the ‘Good Samaritan’ impulse of some to help, rather than beat up (or eat) the stranger?

Remember the scene in Philadelphia where Tom Hanks’s character is listening to La Mamma Morta, whilst wheeling his drip-feed round the room? OK it is acting, but the emotion of the scene is instantly recognizable. I am of the view that there is music not only to live for but to die to, precisely because there is (or seems to be) something about music which is truly transcendental. The music, says Hanks’ character, “fills with a hope” —and so do we.

So I want —amongst others —John Renbourn’s The Pelican, Gordon Giltrap’s Nursery Chimes and why not the Cocteau Twins’ Pearly Dewrops Drop? That’ll do for now.

John Richardson
24 November 2009

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Sermons: Joshua 1-2, 3-4

We have started a new series on the book of Joshua, to take us up to Christmas (no, there is no obvious link!).

Joshua 1-2 can be downloaded here and 1-2 can be listened to inline here (excuse the fact that I keep calling Rahab Rachel!)

Joshua 3-4 can be downloaded here and 3-4 listened to inline here.


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The head that wears the crown

Apropos my piece on who is now the ‘Supreme Governor’, in Anglican terms, of the Church of England, I note that the popular, and generally astute, Cranmer blog has this comment on EU legislation regarding sexual equality:

The spirit of Factortame is alive and well as once again Her Majesty’s Government is forced to amend a sovereign Act of Parliament in order that it might conform to a higher-sovereign EU directive.

Importantly, he adds,

There are now so many sovereigns that it is difficult to find the head that wears the crown.

As Christians (following the principles of Romans 13) we are, of course, subject to the governing authorities, whoever they are. But as Anglicans in particular, we recognize that the head that ‘wears the crown’ is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. That was part of the original, and almost unique, Anglican self-understanding at the time of the Reformation.

At his trial, Cranmer (the other Cranmer) was forced to acknowledge that in this, narrow, sense, Emperor Nero was ‘head of the church’ in the time of the apostles, which raises the worrying picture that the self-described ‘grey mouse’, Herman Van Rompuy, now fits that bill.

This is also a reminder that the Christian’s attitude to government in Romans 13 must always be offset by the Christian’s experience of government in Revelation 13. In today’s climate we might be especially aware of the warning in v 17 that “no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.”

The Babylon of Revelation is not a bad place to live, provided you toe the line. There are harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, workmen of every trade, millstones grinding, lamps shining at night and the joyful sounds of weddings filling the air, whilst the ‘great ones’ of her world are the merchants who provide the wealth to keep it all going (Rev 18:22-24).

The only people who really have to worry about life in Babylon are the Christians. “Welcome to the suck.”

John Richardson
23 November 2009

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Rowan's Roman Bluff

For a man hardly renowned for his robustness, the recent speech given in Rome by the Archbishop of Canterbury was remarkably robust. Of course, it was given partly in response to the announcement from Rome on October 20^th of effectively a ‘safe haven’ for Anglicans disenchanted by the policies of the Church over which Rowan Williams presides. Few will forget his somewhat glum and deflated appearance at the press conference called for that purpose, which must have been an intensely difficult and embarrassing moment for him.

Could it be that the man has feelings just like the rest of us, and that his visit to Rome came as a personal opportunity to put a few things straight? Despite its donnish language, there are elements of the speech which are decidedly ‘in Rome’s face’, and some will welcome this.

Yet in the present climate, it is necessary to look at any such speech not only in terms of how it challenges Rome, but how it accords with the nature and doctrine of the Church of England. And here, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is of as little comfort to the Anglican as it is to the Roman orthodox.

Williams begins with a claim that there has been real ecumenical progress and convergence. Indeed, his theme throughout is that Rome and Canterbury are so close as to be almost touching. What, then, is keeping them apart? He responds that there are three key issues, whose significance must therefore be considered.

... the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight — issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).

Over against these issues, there is substantial agreement on what Williams feels are the things which really matter. And this is not just a question of theorising. The life of the Church is suffering whilst we delay:

When so very much agreement has been firmly established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the Church, is it really justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?

But to show the difference between ‘first order’ and ‘second order’ issues, we must understand the nature of the Church itself. And this, Williams argues, mut be defined ‘theologically’, not ‘institutionally’, not set up by divine command establishing a ‘chain of command’ but ‘emerging’, as it were, from the nature of God and the incarnation.

Briefly, but importantly, Williams sums up the underlying theology of the Church as being that God is a Trinitarian community, the incarnation opens up the possibility of people being drawn into this community and the Spirit makes this actual. The Church is then constituted by a ‘filial’, godward, relationship and ‘communal’, human, relationships.

So, regarding the sacraments there is a substantial, if not always acknowledged, overlap:

The whole discussion of sacramental life is centred upon how the believer is established in filial communion through the act of the triune God; there is little to suggest that outside the Roman fold there is any ambiguity over this priority of the divine act, or any separation between the act of God in salvation and a purely or predominantly human activity of recalling or expressing that act through human practices. (Emphasis added.)

In the light of this understanding, which Williams clearly believes should be a matter of common agreement, he argues that current ecumenical debate is not really about the essential shape of the Church but “about where the fullest realisation of communion is to be found.” So we return to his three key issues three key issues, on which he poses a series of questions. On authority and the magisterium:

Is there a mechanism in the Church that has the clear right to determine for all where the limits of Christian identity might be found?

On primacy:

Is the integrity of the Church ultimately dependent on a single identifiable ministry of unity to which all local ministries are accountable?

On the universal Church:

Is it an entity from which local churches derive their life, or is it the perfect mutuality of relationship between local churches – or indeed as the mysterious presence of the whole in each specific community?

For Williams these are, it seems, the remaining stumbling blocks in the way of fuller ecumenical recognition. Yet his answers in each of these areas are confusing. On authority, he speaks of how responsibility is distributed amongst “the communion of the baptised”. But on reaching agreement, he says simply that we have different ways of expressing this.

On primacy he says, starkly, there are two options regarding the present papal model: either it is essential, or it is not ‘fit for purpose’. Yet in its place he offers“a recognition of a primatial ministry” that is “not absolutely bound to a view of primacy as a centralized juridical office”, and appeals to the Anglican covenant as an example of communities bound by what he refers to earlier as “terms of lasting loyalty, shared theological method and devotional ethos.”

On the ‘local’ and the ‘universal’, he argues that, “the church is local community gathered around the bishop or his representative for eucharistic worship not as a portion of some greater whole but as itself the whole,” whilst nevertheless recognizing it exists in connection with the other parts. Thus,

... the question here becomes one about what criteria help us establish that the same Catholic life is going on in diverse communities.

To this, he poses a further question:

The facts of corporate reading of Scripture, obedience to the Lord’s commands to baptise and make eucharist, shared understanding of the shape and the disciplines of what we have called filial holiness — can these be utilised as they stand or do we need a further test — visible communion, say, with a universal primate?

The answer lies in decision making processes — say, for example, on the ordination of women. And on this, Williams poses a direct question to Rome:

... the challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking on this would have to be: in what way does the prohibition against ordaining women so ‘enhance the life of communion’, reinforcing the essential character of filial and communal holiness [the ‘godward’ and ‘human’ elements] as set out in Scripture and tradition and ecumenical agreement, that its breach would compromise the purposes of the Church as so defined [in terms of reading Scripture, baptism and eucharist]?

Williams answers with a further question, but appeals to Anglican experience:

Even if there remains uncertainty in the minds of some about the rightness of ordaining women, is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals? In terms of the relation of local to universal, what we are saying here is that a degree of recognizability of ‘the same Catholic thing’ has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration.

So far, the structure of Williams’ argument is clear: we are almost at full, ecumenical, agreement. Fundamentally, we agree on the shape of the Church and the nature of its sacramental life. We are kept apart only on what are apparently second-order issues, and within Anglicanism itself, we have found a way to organize our life which can overcome our own internal tensions. But then, still on this issue of women’s ordination, he becomes completely unrealistic, if not downright disingenuous:

It is this sort of thinking that has allowed Anglicans until recently to maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves, despite the sharpness of the division over this matter. It is part of the rationale of supplementary episcopal oversight as practised in the English provinces, and it may yet be of help in securing the place of those who will not be able to accept the episcopal ministry of women. There can be no doubt, though, that the situation of damaged communion will become more acute with the inability of bishops within the same college to recognise one another’s ministry in the full sense. Yet, in what is still formally acknowledged to be a time of discernment and reception, is it nonsense to think that holding on to a limited but real common life and mutual acknowledgement of integrity might be worth working for within the Anglican family? And if it can be managed within the Anglican family, is this a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene?

The problem, of course, is with the phrase ‘until recently’. For what Williams presents as a successful balancing act, which might be “a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene” is, of course, likely to come crashing down, and is precisely the reason Rome acted in the way it did via the offer of the Personal Ordinariate.

Moreover, it is surely exactly the experience of the Church of England at this point which demonstrates it is not the way to go. Extraordinarily, Williams says that this is “still formally acknowledged to be a time of discernment and reception”. Yet as we know, the decision making processes of the Church of England mean that process has been pushed forward by facts on the ground —not least the avoidance of consecrating traditionalist bishops —and is now dominated by a ‘kill everybody’ mentality on the part of the pro-women’s ordination lobby.

Like the desperately-unhappy John and Mary O’Leary in Father Ted, he seems to hope that a smiling face will conceal our domestic conflicts from the visiting priest. Yet if there is deceit, it is one which Williams himself seems to believe, for he asks, in apparent seriousness,

At what point do we have to recognise that surviving institutional and even canonical separations or incompatibilities are overtaken by the authoritative direction of genuinely theological consensus, so that they [the divisions] can survive only by appealing to the ghost of ecclesiological positivism?

“Are we missing something?” he seems to be saying, “Or are we just waiting to clear up some trivial difficulties between Rome and Canterbury in the way that the Anglican communion is already doing so successfully?”

All I have been attempting to say here is that the ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full – and then to ask about the character of the unfinished business between us. For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain. And if it isn’t, can we all allow ourselves to be challenged to address the outstanding issues with the same methodological assumptions and the same overall spiritual and sacramental vision that has brought us thus far?

And at this point, the reader may wish to pause for breath, for it is nothing if not a bold take on the ecumenical venture and on the issues which have divided us for the last 450 years.

Yet if we simply survey it from a confessionally Anglican perspective, it is a vision which raises as many questions for Anglicans as it must for ecumenists.

To begin with, is Williams right in his claims regarding what truly divides the Church of England from the Church of Rome? Is it our understanding of the nature and function of the Church, or is it rather, as it was when we divided, still the nature of grace and our response to it, and in connection with that, that nature of sacrament and the ‘sacramental’ priesthood?

A glance through the Anglican formularies would suggest it is still the latter. And the test of this will surely be the liturgical traditions which Anglicans will be allowed to carry over into the Personal Ordinariate. Will this include the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, rubrics and all, or will it only allow the non-sacramental services? And what about the requirement that the standard of belief will be set by the Roman Catechism? One only has to look at the sections on justification and grace to know that Catholic and Protestant are still as deeply divided as ever on this subject, where the Church of England is committed via Article XI to justification by “faith only”.

Again, Williams’ doctrine of the Church, whilst couched in terms of episcopal and sacramental significance that would appeal to many in the Anglican hierarchy, is a long way from Article XIX’s understanding of the Word of God preached as being fundamental to the Church’s nature.

And aside from all this, one must ask why, if the ordination of women and their consecration as bishops are second-order issues which we are so effectively resolving, they generate so much heat and so much potential for real division. Why, if they represent a ‘glass half full’, are so many saying that there must finally be a ‘like it or lump it’ acceptance by those who, as Williams puts it, are still possessed of some ‘uncertainty’ on the subject?

For all its robustness of tone, Williams speech represents what happens when a ‘fuzzy’ theology encounters institutionalized clarity. His appeal, in the end, relies on the acceptance of the same fuzziness. But perhaps because this is its intellectual centre, it seems blind to its own inherent contradictions. Not only is it fundamentally un-Anglican in key areas, it is not even a reflection of the realities on the ground, in the parishes, in the dioceses and in the decision-making bodies of our own national church.

It is a bold try. But Williams does not have the substance behind him to back it up.

John Richardson
21 November 2009

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Anglicans, Anglican'ts and Anglicuckoos

There is a moment in the otherwise-dire Once Upon a Time in Mexico, where Johnny Depp’s character asks a henchman, “Are you a Mexican, or a Mexican’t?”

I want to steal that idea to say how tired I am of the Anglican’t. You know the kind — the member of the Church of England (often one of the clergy) who hasn’t got a good word to say about it. Bishops are useless, Archdeacons execrable, the parish system an obstacle to gospel ministry, the parish quota an imposition, the priesthood unspeakable, the sacraments unnecessary, the Prayer Book a relic and modern liturgy a waste of space.

Now of course, there are many things wrong with some, if not all, of the above. But oddly enough, when you go to other parts of the Anglican Communion than our own, they have the same structures yet they are growing healthy churches in expanding dioceses.

I said to someone just the other day, it is rather like comparing armies. They all have footsoldiers and generals. They all have a bit of gold braid and a bit of ‘square bashing’ — but they vary hugely in their effectiveness and performance. The key is not having generals or getting rid of lance-corporals. It is in what you do with these things.

In the same way, such problems as the Church of England has are not because of bishops, parish boundaries, or any of the other things per se about which Anglican’ts complain.

So enough with the constant whingeing. If you think its that bad, why not go somewhere else? There are other boats, and there are plenty of fish out there to catch. And hey, it might actually be more fun.

But then we come to the Anglicuckoos.

What is one to make of someone who is adamant that a bishop should be accorded the functions and authority ascribed to them in the Church Fathers, but who does not give a hoot (or a cuck-oo), for what the Church Fathers believed about Christ, heaven, hell, salvation and damnation? What is one to make of clergy whose ascribing to the Declaration of Assent means, in effect, they merely acknowledge that the Creeds, the Prayer Book, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Ordinal express what people believed when they were written, but have no definitive status for what Anglicans should believe now? What are we to make of those who revel in the orders of the Church and the performance of its liturgy, but sit light to its doctrines and whose manner of life is scarcely any different from the local teacher or social worker?

The Anglicuckoo is, ultimately, far more of a problem, not only because they absorb the energies and resources of the church, but because they can actually rise high in its ranks. It would be bad enough if they were confined to preaching and teaching for a small congregation — for even small congregations in 'insignificant' parishes need the word of life. But sometimes they are actually responsible for the selection, recruitment, training and deployment of other clergy. And, like its ornithological namesake, the Anglicuckoo is jealous about the nest.

So let us hear less from the Anglicant’s. But if you hear an Anglicuckoo, keep away!

John Richardson
19 November 2009

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Episcopal credit where it's due

In the ‘credit where credit is due’ department, I want to note that I’ve just come back from a very positive episcopal review with my Area Bishop, the Rt Revd Christopher Morgan.

It was a bit overdue (like about two years), but timely given our interregnum and the other stuff currently going on.

I think it was helped by me not completing the official review form. I spent a depressing half hour the other day trying to tick its particular boxes and eventually decided I’d just write him a couple of sides on where and what I was up to.

We thus spent a happy hour and a half discussing a whole range of things, which included sharing our perspectives on what it means to be Anglican, doctrinally as well as functionally.

He has also invited me to go back and talk with him in the New Year over the issue of women bishops.

So, all in all, a much better start to today than yesterday which began with a sudden invitation to see the dentist about a painful tooth, followed by half-an-hour drilling for gold. (At least, I guessed that must have been what he was after, when I got the bill.)

John Richardson
18 November 2009

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Which of our bishops are guarding the gates?

Back in the mid-1980s, I was at St Helen’s Bishopsgate for the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at which the Revd Phillip Jensen gave a rollicking series of talks on ‘A Ministry that Changes the Church’.

Certainly these talks changed me, for they restored my lost confidence in parish ministry. However, there was one thing in what he said which has, I think, been very unhelpful for the church in this country, and that was his memorable use of the phrase, “Bishops are deacons and priests are bishops.”

It is not the second part of this phrase that bothers me. There is a widespread acknowledgement, going back to Archbishop Cranmer and beyond, that the ‘presbuteroi’ (for which read ‘priests’) of the New Testament church can be identified with the ‘episkopoi’ of the same (for which read ‘bishops’). And in a world where priests are being expected to become ‘managers’ of groups of parishes, their office is (or ought to be) becoming more consciously ‘episcopal’.

No, the problem lies in the first statement: “Bishops are deacons”, which Phillip argued on the basis that they spend most of their time on ‘admin’, like a deacon, and almost none on preaching, teaching and evangelism, which is the ‘front line’ work of the church (as, I would suggest, the Apostles understood things in Acts 6).

Understandably, the line played very well to a Conservative Evangelical audience. It was what we wanted to hear, and it was true to our experience. Nevertheless, I believe it has left a dangerous legacy, not least because it is so memorable. Thus I continue to hear the same view asserted in the same circles, yet I look around the world —indeed, I look at Sydney itself —and I see remarkable things happening where there is effective episcopal leadership.

Virtually all of these examples come from overseas, I am sorry to say. But there is one area even in England where the work of a bishop is unique and powerful in its effects, and that is in being the gatekeeper for the church’s ministry. It is the bishops who, in the Church of England, are those who, as Article XXIII carefully puts it, “have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.”

It is therefore the bishops’ responsibility to make sure that these ministers are suitable for the job. At their ordination as priests, the bishop is to ask the archdeacon, presenting the candidates, whether they have been examined as to the soundness of their learning and the godliness of their manner of life —and the archdeacon is to answer in the affirmative!

The question that must be asked, however, is whether this is happening — or to put it another way, whether the necessary questions are being asked.

This is very important when we consider the way ahead for the Church of England at this present time. Since October, it is certain that it will lose some of its most ardent traditionalist Anglo-Catholics. Meanwhile, the ‘evangelicals’ are so divided amongst themselves that the word has ceased to have much use. (I have heard just recently that one evangelical patronage society is now requiring candidates to affirm explicitly that they will teach the traditional view of human sexuality, having been caught out on more than one occasion by appointees who subsequently did not.)

Meanwhile, it is also certain that at some stage in the near future the church will have women bishops, and although this is supported by some within even the traditionalist evangelical camp, it is strongly advocated by the liberals, from whose ranks many of the women bishops will undoubtedly be drawn.

In the face of this, I have been advocating that traditionalists should orientate not around a redefined evangelicalism or a renewed catholicism, but around a reasserted Anglicanism, which takes full advantage of the ‘privileging’ in the Canons and in law of the doctrines of Scripture expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. (This is not, incidentally, to ignore the teachings of the ancient Fathers and the Councils of the Church, to which reference is also made in Canon A5. But those sources are complex and require a considerable breadth of reading, as well as discernment as to what is, indeed, a teaching agreeable to the scriptures, whereas the Articles, Prayer Book and Ordinal are succinct and readily available, not least in many of our parish churches. It is, moreover, the Articles, Prayer Book and Ordinal which give the Church of England its uniqueness, through those things which, as the Prayer Book itself says, apply “to our own people only”.)

This strategy, however, admits of a certain risk. It would involved, for example, acknowledging that as per the spirit of Article XXXVI, those women who are ordained as deacons and priests or consecrated as bishops are to be deemed “rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated or ordered.”

The ‘trade off’ is that all the Church’s deacons, priests and bishops abide by the spirit and letter of Canon A5. And if their knowledge of the fathers and the councils is not all it might be, they at least be committed to the positions on the teachings of Scripture expressed in the Articles, Prayer Book and Ordinal.

For that to happen, however, questions must be asked, and satisfactory answers must be given according to this standard. And this is where the bishops come in —or ought to, for I am left wondering just who is taking on this responsibility.

Personally, I have never, ever, been examined as to what I believe by any bishop. Nor is it clear to me what standards, if any, our bishops apply via their supervision of theological education, other than a broad-brush belief in ‘God and Jesus’. Certainly when one looks at the teaching programmes of the various colleges and courses, both for clergy and for laity, the one thing that becomes clear is that nothing is clear when it comes to what the Church of England expects people to believe.

If the bishops are acting as the gatekeepers, it seems that the gate is very wide and the path very broad that leads to Anglican orders.

When I look at the Church of England today, I am reminded of the classic line by Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski: “Smokey, this is not ’Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.” The trouble is, the rules are being freely ignored on all sides. The catholics, and to some extent the evangelicals, ignore the liturgical rules; the evangelicals want to, and in some cases do, ignore the boundary rules; the liberals ignore the doctrinal rules. And the inevitable result is that what finally matters is power, and the power to enforce the rules upheld by those in power.

Thus we have a situation where many who are liberal in their convictions nevertheless want bishops to be thoroughly ‘catholic’ in their orders, appealing to the church Fathers regarding the nature and function of episcopacy, but entirely ignoring the Fathers when it comes to what bishops should believe, or require of their clergy that they should believe.

If there is to be some regaining of Anglican coherence, there needs to be some quid pro quo on those things which Anglicanism says defines Anglicanism. This does not need to be a rigid ‘work to rule’ approach. Indeed, those with any memory of this particular concept know that it was used precisely to stop any work being done. There needs to be a recognition of the difference between ‘core’ concepts and ‘peripheral’ matters —something which cannot be left to the lawyers. The problem is that, in terms of present discipline, it is the peripherals (namely ‘administrative’ rules) which are often treated as ‘core’ what should be at the core (namely faith and morals) which is treated as peripheral.

Addressing this is the challenge which I would argue faces the Church of England generally, and the ‘traditionalists’ within it particularly, since we are the ones who have lost most, and who have most further to lose, under the present arrangements.

Meanwhile, I would be interested to hear from contributors of their experiences of episcopal ‘gatekeeping’, where they themselves have been required to give an account of their beliefs to their bishop, and to show that they are abiding in doctrinal orthodoxy within the boundaries established by the Anglican formularies. Feel free to name names that should be on the episcopal wall of fame!

John Richardson
17 November 2009

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The fourth sermon on Ruth

My fourth sermon on the book of Ruth can be downloaded here or listened to inline here.


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Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution

One you may have missed ...

... it is not unusual for homicidal maniacs to cite great writers when seeking to justify their crimes. The Chicago spree-killers Leopold and Loeb (the models for Hitchcock’s 1948 film, Rope) claimed Friedrich Nietzsche as their muse, as did the Moors murderer Ian Brady. Other deranged misfits have nominated Albert Camus, Jean Genet and André Gide. But it may take a keener intellect than was possessed by Harris, Klebold or Auvinen to negotiate such a reading list. The basics of evolution are much more accessible and are taught in every high school, so it should not be surprising that Darwin seems to be emerging as the inspiration for the more dim-witted schoolboy sociopath.

Read more

It does, of course, also pick up on the ideas I explored in my talk Darwin, Dawkins and Dictatorship.

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Women Bishops: here’s the (new) deal

The news is that the Revision Committee of General Synod, after sparking some hoo-hah, and even a debate in Westminster, earlier by suggesting it might go for some statutory provision for those opposed to women bishops, has now announced there will be no such provision.

This is widely, and rightly, being hailed as a ‘triumph’ by the supporters of women bishops and will no doubt prompt some Anglo-Catholics to take up Rome’s offer.

But what about other Anglican Traditionalists who are not Anglo-Catholics able to go to Rome?

Well, life is about give and take, so here’s what I suggest should be the new deal. Anglican Traditionalists like myself accept the non-statutory transfer of powers from the bishops, provided all the bishops believe and, as they promise to at their consecration, work to preserve in all other respects the Anglican Tradition — the Creeds, the Articles and the other formularies.

I think I could live with that.

Revd John P Richardson
15 November 2009

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The Church of England: above the law or just confused?

On Wednesday of this week, Robert Key, the Conservative MP for Salisbury, succeeded in having an Adjournment Debate on “The Application of the Sex Discrimination Legislation to Religious Organisations”.

Such debates are an opportunity for Members of Parliament to discuss subjects of concern that would not normally get an airing. They do not result in legislation, but they do allow MPs to express an opinion.

It immediately became obvious, however, that Mr Key had only one religious organization in view, namely the Church of England. This may be less surprising when one realizes that he is also a member of the General Synod and, more importantly, a clear supporter of the consecration of women bishops.

Mr Key’s concern was that despite last July’s vote, the revision committee of the Synod is likely to bring forward a proposal not merely for a code-of-practice for those who do not want a woman bishop but what he called “the imposition by statute of flying male bishops, who could land in a diocese with a woman bishop and deprive her—automatically—of her authority and religious functions.” It is thus clear, as they say, where Mr Key is coming from on this one.

In his introduction, Mr Key claimed that “most members of the Church of England who go to church want women to be ordained as bishops” (though he did not explain why, as he also observed, across the entire Anglican Communion, in the last twenty years, fewer than thirty women have actually been bishops).

In a brief theological excursus, he also observed that,

Most Christians believe that God is above gender. The disciples with whom Jesus surrounded himself were both women and men. It is not true that He thought that women were not up to it; on the contrary, it is striking that Jesus treated people the same, whether they were male or female.

The absence of reference to the all-male twelve, or to the words of the Apostle Paul are certainly discrete, even if some might feel somewhat disingenuous. Nevertheless, Mr Key did have a further point to make. The Sexual Discrimination Act 1975 allows religious organizations to discriminate on the grounds of gender where this is a matter of doctrine or of the views of significant numbers of the religion’s followers (that, at least, was the summary given in the debate by the Parliamentary Secretary and Government Equalities Office, Mr Michael Jabez Foster). Mr Key held, however, that the Church of England had systematically removed itself from qualifying for that exemption: in 1975, the General Synod declared that there were no fundamental objections to ordaining women as priests, in1992, the Synod voted in favour of women priests and in 2005 it decided that there was no fundamental objection to women bishops.

It would therefore, he argued, be illegal for the Church to continue to discriminate in this area as the revision committee might propose, and (since the Church of England is an established Church) it would similarly be illegal for Parliament to endorse the proposal when it was brought for approval as a Measure.

The response of MPs, however, was mixed. Some, like Mr David Taylor of North-West Leicestershire and Mrs Ann Cryer, for Keighley, agreed with Mr Key. Indeed, Mrs Crier, in a short contribution, felt it would set a good example to the Muslims in her constituency —something of which they might perhaps take note.

Others, however, took a less enthusiastic view, including, despite his avowedly non-religious views, Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford, West and Abingdon. Like others who contributed, Dr Harris felt that although he himself would prefer there to be no discrimination at all anywhere, the Church of England ought to go on enjoying the same exemptions as applied to other religious organizations. For him, such exemptions were a matter of religious freedom, with which he was reluctant to interfere.

Mr Key was supported, nevertheless, by the Roman Catholic MP for the Forest of Dean, Mr Mark Harper, who agreed that, “because the Church of England has decided in principle that women are able to be priests and bishops, [the] exemption does not apply and regular law therefore applies, and the Church of England would have to treat women bishops in the same way that it treats male bishops.”

A similar point was made by Mr Jabez in his summing up. Referring to future legislation, he observed,

Whether ... a requirement that bishops should be men was in place in order to comply with the doctrines of the religion or to avoid the kind of conflict described—is ultimately a matter for the courts.

Meanwhile, he concluded,

The Church’s debate ... [is] not about whether in principle women should be bishops, but about how, and about what accommodation could or should be made for those in the Church who do not think that they should. It is a very difficult question, first of all for the Church of England itself, and it is obvious from what we have heard today that the Church is wrestling with it.

And there, as far as Parliament is currently concerned, the debate ended. Nevertheless, it sends, as it was no doubt intended to, a clear warning-shot across the bows of the General Synod: do not presume that what you propose will simply receive a ‘rubber stamp’ by a disinterested Parliament.

What, then, can be said in response?

First, it shows that the current position of the Church of England is thoroughly Erastian, in that a Parliament of increasingly avowed non-believers nevertheless regulates the details of church life.

This, of course, was never the intention in the establishment of the Church of England by law. Rather the aim was that the nation should have an integrated life regarding both its ‘spiritual’ and ‘temporal’ organs. And indeed that vision, enshrined also in the coronation oath, was, for some considerable length of time, realized to various degrees. The degree of theological sophistication in parliamentary debates at the end of the nineteenth century is extraordinary to modern ears, and of course it was Parliament which prevented the theological innovations of the 1928 Prayer Book.

The move by Mr Key, however, represents little more than an attempt to recruit the secular will for a supposedly ‘spiritual’ end. And if that is a possibility, then it may be that the inevitability of disestablishment is to be welcomed sooner rather than later.

Secondly, however, it surely raises a real question as to whether any provision for opponents of women bishops is legal. My own view of Mr Key’s argument is that it seems essentially right in law that if the Church of England has decided that men and women can be both priests and bishops, any appeal to exemptions under the existing sexual discrimination legislation is invalid.

However, if that is the present position of the Church of England, then the present provisions are themselves illegal, including those in 1993 Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure and the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod from the same year.

It would be surprising, however, to discover that Parliament had approved an illegal regulation and allowed it to remain on the statute books for so long. One must therefore ask whether this is, in fact, the case, and the answer would seem to be that it is not.

Yet here we run into a difficulty about decision making in the Church of England itself. Mr Key observed in his opening remarks that in 1978 the General Synod voted on ordaining women as bishops, priests and deacons. However, although the necessary two-thirds majority was achieved in the House of Bishops and the House of Laity, the House of Clergy recorded only a simple majority, and so the motion fell.

The problem is with voting and majorities (whether simple or substantial). As Mr Key pointed out, the General Synod voted in 1975 that there were no fundamental objections to ordaining women as priests. That vote, however, left the Church in a logically incoherent situation, for the sheer fact that it was a majority vote, rather than a nem con, meant that there were indeed some, even in the Synod, who felt there were indeed ‘fundamental objections to ordaining women as priests’, and rather like the Jebusites in Jerusalem, they are with us to this day —a fact which is evident in Synod itself and in the continuation of Resolution A, B and C parishes.

Winning a majority vote, even by a large margin, does not disprove a position or eliminate its supporters. Furthermore, the Church of England has itself recognized the existence and the legitimacy of the objectors in this case by putting in place legal provisions for their views and advancing them to Parliament.

Moreover, whilst there are “significant numbers” of adherents of the Church of England who take a contrary view, even to the majority, the law apparently allows the institution an exemption. That, presumably, is why there was no parliamentary objection to the 1993 legislation.

Mr Key, I would suggest, is correct in principle —that if the Church of England has decided the matter as he claims then it cannot use the legal exemption —but wrong in fact, insofar as the Church of England has clearly said one thing in terms of motions voted through Synod, but done quite another in terms of legal provisions put in place by the same Synod.

The situation is inconsistent, but the solution is not immediately obvious. One answer, as Dr Harris recognized in the debate, is that the Church of England should adopt an “either/or” solution —in effect it should make its mind up absolutely one way or the other, so that it either continues to accept there are principled objections to women priests and bishops, or it should decide that there are not and that henceforth to be a member one must accept their offices and ministry.

The latter would have the merit of consistency, but it would lack the merit —especially if it were again done by majority vote —of Christian ‘inclusiveness’. In a small way, it would parallel the ‘Great Ejection’ of 1662, forcing some to choose between the Church they regard as ‘home’ and the dictates of conscience.

It might just as easily be argued, however, that the problem lies in the Synodical process, which is responsible for this incoherent situation. And indeed it is arguable that the Synod, because of the way its structures operate, is somewhat masking the reality on the ground. It is obvious, for example, that since the advent of women priests, clerical objectors to women’s ordination are increasingly unlikely to be elected onto General Synod as the number of women voters increases. When we add to this the fact that, contrary to the Act of Synod, preferment is no longer given to those who object to women’s ordination, the Houses of Clergy and Bishops in the General Synod are, on this issue, effectively subject to Gerrymandering. Mr Key and his supporters could perhaps force through their position, but it would scarcely be a moral victory.

As things stand, then, my own conclusion would be that Parliament is right to allow for the reality that there are still those within the Church of England of the minority view, even though what the Church of England has voted on this subject might be taken as an ‘absolute’ position.

Revd John P Richardson
13 November 2009

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Rome's offer — any takers?

The Vatican has now published the details of the ‘Personal Ordinariate’, Anglicanorum Coetibus (does that mean‘Towards a Congregation of Anglicans?’), and at first glance I must say I can’t see how this is really going to work.

The difficult features seem to be these:

I §5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.

In other words, members of the Ordinariate will have to accept every detail of the Catechism, just as do ordinary Roman Catholics. But that being the case, why not just become a Roman Catholic?

III. ... the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See ...

But this could hardly include the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (certainly not with its rubrics!). One is left wondering which books will be approved and if there will be enough left to give an Anglican identity to what remains.

The fundamental question which must be asked is why anyone who wanted to be adopted into the Ordinariate would not, on these conditions, simply go the whole way. Answers on a postcard, please ...

John Richardson

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Tom Wright's theology 'leading Protestants to Rome'

A correspondent sent me a link to this article from Christianity Today, headlined 'Not all Evangelicals and Catholics Together'. Bishop Tom Wright is expressing surprise at the thought that his theological views are influencing people in this way. Later in the article he is quoted as saying, "I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community, or eschatology." Nevertheless, something big is possibly going on 'across the pond' - and we know how those things seem to travel. JPR

An InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter can look very different in the fall than it did the previous spring. But the chapter at George Washington University (GWU) in the nation's capital is dealing with change of a more uncomfortable kind than absent graduates and incoming freshmen.

Shortly before students left for summer vacation, the D.C. chapter split when all ten student leaders resigned to form a new campus ministry called University Christian Fellowship. More than half of the chapter's roughly 100 students joined them. At issue was student leaders' worry that the national ministry confuses the gospel by cooperating with Roman Catholics, and has a mission statement that Catholics could sign without violating church teaching on the doctrine of justification—how sinners are declared righteous before God.

Over the past decade, justification has become one of the most hotly debated doctrines at conservative Protestant theology conferences and in the catalogs of highbrow Christian publishers. But it has almost entirely stayed in the academy and a handful of churches and denominations. The GWU clash suggests the debate may divide parachurch ministries and reshape evangelicals' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

Jolt of Intensity

The long debate over how Protestants should view the Roman Catholic Church has received several jolts of intensity in the past 15 years. The group Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) touted a 1994 statement, "The Gift of Salvation," in which several prominent Roman Catholics affirmed "justification by faith alone." The unofficial statement predated an official agreement between the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, called "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification." The church allowed that anathemas the Council of Trent delivered in the mid-1500s do not apply to Protestants who agree with the joint declaration.

But Protestants' internal disagreement over justification has complicated matters. A Presbyterian Church in America committee reported in 2007 that reformulations of justification (especially two views known as the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul) fall outside the bounds of historic Presbyterian confessions.

The committee's study of the New Perspective focused largely on N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham and a prolific biblical scholar. This year Wright published Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. The book counters his critics, especially John Piper, who published The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright in 2007. (See "The Justification Debate: A Primer," CT, June 2009.)

Another bombshell hit in May 2007, when Francis Beckwith, then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, reverted to Catholicism. The Baylor University philosopher has since published an account of his journey, titled Return to Rome.

"I have no doubt that the New Perspective and Federal Vision have had an effect on the Protestant-Catholic debate," Beckwith told Christianity Today. "I have met several former evangelical Protestants who have told me that Wright's work in particular helped them to better appreciate the Catholic view of grace."

Taylor Marshall went even further. Now a Ph.D. philosophy student at the University of Dallas, he started reading Wright while attending Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He said Wright's work shifted his assumptions so he could understand the Council of Trent's position. Marshall does not believe Wright holds to the full Catholic view. But he said Wright's critique led him to conclude that the Reformers departed from Scripture by teaching "forensic justification through the imputed alien righteousness of Christ." Read more 

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Drugs: Better than reality

From Clive James at his usual level of excellence:

Decriminalise all the drugs, put things back the way they were before the roof fell in, and you might still be stuck with people for whom real life simply isn't thrilling enough, even when they are otherwise quite good at it.

I think they're wrong, but it isn't easy to make a case. Western civilization is up against it in that respect. Now that religious faith is so weak a force, how do you convince people that ordinary life is worth the effort?

Read the rest.

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Goodbye Church of England, hello Church of Europe?

It is a little-understood feature of Anglican theology that the relationship between the Church of England and the Queen is not entirely unique.

This is because the principle that the Queen is the Church’s ‘Supreme Governor’ depends not on the nature of the Church of England, but on the nature of the Queen’s rule. Article 37 deserves careful reading in this regard:

Where we attribute to the King’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers. (Emphasis added)

Three things should be noted. First, the powers attributed to the monarch are given by God, not designated by the Church. It is only required of the Church, therefore, to recognize those powers. Secondly, the powers of the monarch apply to all ‘estates and degrees’ under their rule, without exception. Any and every institution is governed by the monarch. Thirdly, this includes the Church of England, but applies equally to every ‘Ecclesiastical or Temporal’ body. According to this understanding, the Queen is thus ‘Supreme Governor’ of the mosques, the gurdwaras, the synagogues, the Baptist chapels, and yes, even the Roman Catholic Church in these islands.

Properly speaking, then, The Episcopal Church in the United States is the Church of America, whose Supreme Governor is Barack Obama (it matters not one whit that church and state are separated in law), the Supreme Governor of the Church of Nigeria is Umaru Yar’Adua, and so on, in just the same way as the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England (indeed, in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, England is generally italicized in such a context).

Or rather, it might be more accurate to say ‘was the Supreme Governor, up until recently’. For the reality is that, even in terms of a constitutional monarchy, she is no longer the supreme governor. That power now lies somewhere else, and since it does, the Church of England becomes, de facto, subject to that power and authority. It may be geographically still in England, but it is not the same as before.

One of the key ‘building blocks’ of the Henrician Reformation was the 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals, the opening paragraph of which read as follows:

Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realmof England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king ... etc.

This principle, together with the older Statute of Praemunire, was the basis on which it was declared in the Act (to the clergy specifically) that all legal cases,

... shall be ... heard, examined, discussed, clearly, finally and definitively adjudged and determined within the King’s jurisdiction and authority, and not elsewhere ...

Now of course, this has not applied for some considerable time in these islands. As far as I can determine (though I am happy to be corrected), the Statute of Praemunire was repealed by the Criminal Law Act of 1967. (I vaguely recall that Enoch Powell was one of the few MPs to draw attention to the enormous significance this might have.)

However, with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, commentators are now recognizing that we are in a radically different situation regarding our own sovereignty. Indeed, it is clear that absolute sovereignty, of the kind conceived in the days of Henry and beyond, no longer applies.

The fundamental question, then, is whether the Queen is still the ‘Supreme Governor’ of England, via her ministers in Parliament. Of course she is in a ‘sentimental’ way —but is she in political reality? If she is not, then she is no longer the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

And this outcome is not a matter for debate if the political realities have changed. At his trial, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was forced to admit that in the times of the Apostles, the earthly ‘head’ of the Church was the emperor Nero. Why? Because in that capacity, he beheaded the Apostles, who had to submit to his authority (following Romans 13).

We are therefore in the curious situation where the Church of England might theologically more properly be called the Church of Europe. Even more worryingly given the possible outcome of the appointment of the EU President, we may be about to see Tony Blair about to become, in effect, its Supreme Governor.

Revd John P Richardson
7 November 2009

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The Bishop of Peterborough said what else?

The more I look at this, the more confused I am about the new Bishop of Peterborough. In the Diocesan press release it is stated that,

Contrary to some inaccurate decade-old news reports still in circulation,[Donald Allister] ... never refused communion to unconfirmed children if the parish church has followed the proper guidelines for their preparation [...]. He remains concerned, however, that the rite of confirmation should not be under-valued or down-played.

Now I presume he has not “refused communion to unconfirmed children if the parish church has followed the proper guidelines for their preparation”, because under the regulations of the Church of England, he cannot:

A child who presents evidence in the form stipulated in paragraph 9 that he or she has been admitted to Holy Communion under these Regulations shall be so admitted at any service of Holy Communion conducted according to the rites of the Church of England in any place, regardless of whether or not any permission under paragraph 4 is in force in that place or was in force in that place until revoked. (Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regulations 2006, para 10, emphasis added)

However, some time ago —I am not sure when, but presumably quite recently —Donald wrote a leaflet for Reform, opposing not only the admission of children to Holy Communion but even the supposition that bishops have authority to grant this:

This present case of admitting children to communion before confirmation marks at least one and probably two further abuses of episcopal authority.

It is doubtful whether bishops really have the authority to admit unconfirmed children to communion. Canon Law (B15A) allows those who are “ready and desirous to be so confirmed” (not just “desirous” as it is often misquoted), and allows baptised but other unconfirmed people to be admitted “under regulations of the General Synod” but does not allow bishops to admit those too young to be confirmed.

[...]

But if it is doubtful whether bishops have the authority to admit unconfirmed children to communion it is absolutely certain that they do not have the authority to force clergy or churches to admit to communion those prohibited by Canon Law or by the doctrine of the Church as found in the Prayer Book or by the Bible. In fact the Bible, the Prayer Book and Canon Law make it clear that any such instruction should be resisted.

Incidentally, the only connection with Reform mentioned in the Peterborough press release is that, “Twelve years ago he stepped down from the Council of ... Reform because of its support for parishes which invited overseas bishops to ordain or confirm.” There is no mention of his leaflet-writing activities for that body.

Now I am encouraged that Donald is aware of such abuses of episcopal authority as suspending livings without proper authority or “insisting on ordinands wearing stoles at the ordination service when the rules clearly state that they should have the choice of the traditional reformed preaching scarf instead.” The people (and ordinands) of Peterborough will sleep a little easier, perhaps.

As it happens, I disagree with Donald's Reform leaflet, but there does seem to be some tension between the wording of that leaflet and the press release. In the former, he says that confirmation should be “a requirement for receiving communion”. In the latter we read only that “the rite of confirmation should not be under-valued or down-played.”

Revd John Richardson
6 November 2009

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The new Bishop of Peterborough said what?

Yesterday’s news that the Venerable Donald Allister had been appointed the next Bishop of Peterborough initially came as a pleasant surprise in the midst of all the doom and gloom.

Donald is well-known in Conservative Evangelical circles — indeed he used to be chairman of the Council of Church Society.

I therefore found myself somewhat baffled by what Donald is quoted as saying in a press-release on the Diocese of Peterborough website:

“I’m happy to be described as an evangelical if that is understood as someone who prioritises evangelism and the Bible,” he explains. “But liberals and catholics can do evangelism and read the Bible as well!”

Whoah! When he says “liberals and catholics can do evangelism and read the Bible as well”, does he really mean (as implied by the word ‘but’) that the evangelical understanding of evangelism and Bible reading is essentially the same as the catholic and the liberal understanding of evangelism and Bible reading? If ever a statement called for an apostolic, “By no means!” (Rom 6:2), it is that one.

Surely evangelical and liberal Anglicans, in particular, have quite different views of the Bible as God’s word, and they have quite different attitudes to, and understandings of, the human condition and God’s response to it in Christ?

Donald seems to be saying there is nothing special about these evangelical ‘priorities’ — evangelicals ‘do evangelism and read the Bible’, and catholics ‘do evangelism and read the Bible’, and liberals ‘do evangelism and read the Bible’. But surely the point is that they do them differently? Otherwise, we might as well add, “and Jehovah’s witnesses ‘do evangelism and read the Bible’”.

It is all rather puzzling —and worrying.

John Richardson
6 November 2009

But now see here for what else the Bishop has said:

The Bishop of Peterborough Said What Else?

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