A church halfly reformed?

Update: for a 'full on' presentation of the 'Catholic' view of ministry, see here, and for confirmation that this is by no means confined to the Church of Rome, see Peter Ould's (Anglican) blog here, to which I owe the link.

When I began what has now become a series of articles on the Anglican ministry, I set out rather like Abraham in Hebrews 11:8, not knowing whither I was going. Now, in this post, I feel that I’ve arrived somewhere that has a certain feeling of inevitability, even though it wasn’t where I expected to be.

After due consideration my conclusion is this: what we have in the Church of England is a Catholic structure of orders, operating on Protestant principles, upheld by an Erastian authority. This is surely a recipe for confusion!

The godly prince
Let me take the last point first. By ‘Erastianism’, I mean basically ‘the exercise of supreme authority by the state in the affairs of the church’. And I would want to observe immediately that this was not the original nature of the ‘Henrician’ project at the time of the English Reformation. For if we look carefully at contemporary statements about the authority of the monarch, we find a fundamental assumption, preserved in our Articles but no longer in our laws, that authority to order the Church in matters of doctrine was derived from God through the monarch, rather than inherent in the state.

Thus, in his speech at the coronation of Edward VI, Cranmer announced both to him and to the assembled listeners,

Your majesty is God’s vice-gerent and Christ’s vicar within your own dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josiah, God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed, the tyranny of the bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed. (Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Ed J E B Cox [Cambridge: The Parker Society, 1846, reproduced by Regent College Publishing], 127)

This power belonged to the King as of right. As Cranmer had said earlier in the same speech,

For they [kings] be God’s anointed, not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in consideration of their power which is ordained, of the sword which is authorised, of their persons which are elected by God [...]. (ibid, 126)

Nevertheless, the key to the English Reformation at this point was what Article XXXVII, ‘Of the civil magistrate’, calls “godly princes”. Thus godliness (specifically, Christian and un-Roman godliness) was an attribute which it was assumed all King’s should display if they were to fulfil their calling under God. Hence, as we have seen, what was intended in Henry’s day was not an ‘Erastian’ state control of the Church, but a godly society, ruled by the godly Prince, under whom the ‘temporal’ and ‘ecclesiastical’ functioned with the monarch’s authority.

An Erastian authority
Over the course of time, however, the authority of the monarch was gradually diminished. Just as gradually, the original Church of England of Henry’s day, intended to be the same everywhere throughout his dominions, became a denomination — something neither Henry nor Cranmer would have welcomed. Throughout this process, the established Church fought to retain its state-sanctioned privileges. The unintended consequence of these developments, however, was that the Church of England found itself under the thumb of a mixed, and in recent decades increasingly secular, parliament.

By the 1950s, senior appointments in the Church of England were thus virtually in the hands of the Prime Minister and his Appointments Secretary. And as recently-released correspondence has shown, whilst these duties were generally taken with utmost seriousness, the considerations behind the appointment of bishops were in every sense ‘political’. Thus from the years of Harold Macmillan, we have a revealing letter from his Appointments Secretary. It is worth quoting at length:

The first and greatest problem [in September 1960] is the See of Canterbury, and here I see only two candidates of archiepiscopal stature: the Archbishop of York ([Michael] Ramsey) and the Bishop of Bradford ([Donald] Coggan).

Here it is fair to remark that the Archbishop of York has not settled down happily alongside the present Archbishop of Canterbury. He never seems quite to have got over the relationship established at Ropton [sic, Repton public school], where Ramsey was at school when Fisher was headmaster.

They are men of a very different type and live on entirely different planes. Ramsey is less worldly and a more distinguished theologian than Fisher. He knows absolutely where he stands on all matters of doctrine and theology. Fisher likes to have his own way and is sometimes unpredictable in his actions and judgements. His capacity is prodigious and he hates to delegate. None of this makes him an easy man to work with, and Ramsey is not the first to suffer these difficulties.

I mention this relationship for two reasons, partly as a warning that Fisher’s view of Ramsey ought not to be taken altogether at its face value, and partly to explain why Ramsey, during his five years as Archbishop of York, may appear not to have grown in stature to quite the extent that was hoped when he was first appointed. He nevertheless remains the outstanding figure in the Church of England today. He is, of course, a definite high churchman, but I have not gathered any impression amongst people of a different way of thinking that he is in any way intolerant of their point of view.

The Bishop of Bradford, Donald Coggan, is much younger (51 in October) but is coming on fast, and is about the only member of the Bishops’ Bench who earns unqualified praise from all quarters. He would make an excellent Archbishop of York, if it were decided to move Ramsey to Canterbury. He would also make a possible Archbishop of Canterbury if it were decided to leave Ramsey at York. He is too big a man to have any definitive party allegiance, and has grown from an evangelical background into a central churchman. His evangelical background would provide a balance to Ramsey’s tendencies in the opposite direction, and together they would be a truly representative pair of Archbishops.

One fascinating aspect of this is that Coggan was always (even in my memory) regarded by evangelicals as definitely ‘one of their own’, whereas the establishment clearly regarded him as one of their own — a man who had “grown” into “a central churchman”. But, above all, we should notice, in the last sentence especially, the deliberate intention to produce balance. Erastianism in the Church of England was not so much about the imposition of doctrine as the imposition of tone. The Church would be a moderate body, kept so by the appointment of moderates, from differing backgrounds, but not prone to any “party allegiance” (though Ramsey was an acknowledged “definite high churchman”, he was not, note, “intolerant”).

Protestant principles
We must move on, though, to the second element of the Anglican ministry, namely its underlying Protestant principles. Here again, though, we must be careful what is meant. I do not mean the theologies of Calvinism or Lutheranism, much less the views of Calvin or Luther! Rather, I refer to that streak of individualism and independency which has, at its best, been a defining strength of the English character, and at its worst makes each man (or woman) what Robbie Low memorably called a pope in his own front room.

The most obvious effect of this inchoate Protestantism is that the Church of England clergy have never exercised that grip on the laity enjoyed (for better and for worse) by the Catholic priesthood. The Church of England has, in the past, used the law to enforce attendance, but it has never been able to rely simply on the power of the clergy to command or to sanction.

There is, however, another, and less obvious impact, which is that the same Protestant attitude is taken up into the ordained ministry itself. Thus, Low spoke also of the person who is pope in his own parish. And this does not apply only to protectionism with regard to the daily practicalities of ministry (whereby, for example, a parish priest can for the most part, in a very un-Catholic manner, effectively ignore his or her bishop, even when he or she does not have the freehold).

More importantly, the parish clergy bring (and indeed are encouraged to bring) the same individualistic attitude to doctrine as do the laity. Thus it is a long time since newly-instituted clergy were required to ‘read themselves into’ their new appointments by reciting the entirety of the Thirty-nine Articles from the pulpit. But it is even longer since they were actually expected to believe them “in the plain and full meaning thereof”, as the preface requires.

Indeed, for some considerable time the Church of England had a common, national (and indeed international) liturgy, but an increasingly local (indeed parochial) doctrine, determined in practice by whoever wore the senior dog-collar. The current ‘local difficulty’ in The Episcopal Church’ may be seen as the logical outcome of this attitude.

Catholic orders
In all this, however, the Church of England has outwardly maintained the ‘Catholic’ threefold order of ministry: the deacon as probationary priest, the priest as the one solely authorised to administer the sacraments (lay Readers can, of course, fully share the ministry of the Word), and the bishop as the one who rules a diocese and ordains the clergy.

Yet this is done despite a conscious disavowal of the pre-Reformation understanding of priesthood. One only has to look at the tortuous justifications put forth by the House of Bishops in their report Eucharistic Presidency for denying celebration of Holy Communion to authorised laypeople, to see that the Church of England’s position is formally unlike that of Roman Catholicism. Here, there is none of the clarity that a priest is given at ordination a ‘charisma’ that the laity do not have. Instead, the position of the report is that,

... presidency over the community’s celebration of the Eucharist belongs to those with overall pastoral oversight of the community ... (Eucharistic Presidency: A Theological Statement by the House of Bishops of the General Synod (London: Church House Publishing, 1997] 49)

It is thus the function of the ‘priest’ in relation to the parish which notionally gives him or her the ‘exclusive’ right to celebrate, not the ontological nature of Anglican ‘priesthood’. And yet, of course, the argument wobbles as soon as the assistant curate, or a visiting minister, celebrates in the absence of the priest-in-charge or incumbent.

The whole thing is desperately confused, and yet at this point so is the Church of England. We deny the Catholic doctrine of priesthood, but we attempt to retain the Catholic privileges of priests.

Where from here?
Logically, then, there might seem to be only two places to go: the Church of England must become more Catholic or more Protestant.

The former is, of course, the position of the Oxford Movement and its inheritors. In this respect, it is surely significant that the movement itself began in response to a perceived unwarranted interference of the state in the affairs of the Church, when the government of the day decide to abolish a number of Irish bishoprics. What began as a protest against the diminution of the Church in public life, however, (Keble’s Assize sermon repays reading) could not end, finally, in full union with Rome, despite years of work by the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.

Instead, the Protestant principles of the Church of England, and the wider Anglican Communion, have inevitably asserted themselves, not least (some would say) in the admission of women to the Church’s orders.

Logically, therefore, the Church of England, minus those who accept the Papal offer of an Anglican Ordinariate, ought to become more Protestant. Yet to do so ought to mean to become more biblical — at least according to the Church’s own self-definition in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. Otherwise, it will surely suffer the same fate as other institutions, such as the Quakers or the Unitarians, which may have begun well but which, divorced from Scripture (though notionally reliant on the Holy Spirit), have declined into a vague ‘spirituality’, unrecognizable as historically Christian.

We may therefore take the view of the Puritan, William Fuller, that the Church of England is still “but halfly reformed”. Yet a full reformation would surely involve a radical reassessment of Anglican orders — of which the ‘probationary’ diaconate should surely be the first victim!

There is, however, a third option. And in reality is seems to be the one the Church is most likely to adopt, namely to sit, as it always has done, rather awkwardly on the theological fence. This is the much-vaunted, though historically revisionist, position of Anglicanism ‘between Rome and Geneva’. And, arguably, it has served us well in the past. The Church of England has been, variously, a chaplain to the nation for those so inclined to see it that way, and an excellent boat from which to fish for those who take a more evangelistic approach to ministry.

The trouble is, fence sitting is, by its very nature, indecisive. And the Church of England may be about to face making decisions which will challenge its fundamental character at the same time that the nation has decisively turned away from the Church that bears its name. Fence sitting is written into the Anglican character. But it is not an inevitable outcome of history. We may already be in the time when we must choose whom we will serve.

John P Richardson
27 February 2010

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Misleading Headlines No 97

The problem with newspaper headlines is that sometimes the desire for brevity conflicts with the need for clarity. A legendary example comes from the Second World War and announces (in one variant) "Eighth Army push bottles up Germans".

Unfortunately, that remains unverified as an actual headline. However, this from the Daily Mail is entirely true. In the online page 'header' it reads "Could you get away with (etc)?". However, on the internet page itself it has been abbreviated to the rather more eye-catching,

Could you pull off... Girls Aloud Nicola's red dress?

Well, it makes a change from discussing women bishops. Answers, as they say, on a postcard ...

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Anglicanism, Authority and Ordination

Ministry, Catholic and Protestant

As I outlined in an earlier post, there are within Anglicanism basically two views of ordination, which may roughly be termed the ‘catholic’ and the ‘protestant’. (It is, incidentally, in my view, not worth quibbling over whether the Church of England is or is not technically ‘protestant’. The Articles and the Prayer Book are quite robust in their attitude to Rome and ‘Romish doctrine’, and the Church of Rome has, until now, been equally robust in return.)

The ‘catholic’ view regards the threefold order of ministry (bishops, priests and deacons) as emerging in the providence of God, rather than being found ‘full blown’ in the pages of the New Testament. But it regards those orders as subsequently embodying and preserving what the Church is — they are of the esse, the very being, of the Church.

The ‘protestant’ view, however, regards the threefold order as being less intrinsic to the Church, more open to question. And it is on this latter view that I want to focus in this post, where I will consider the implications it might have for the future regarding conservative evangelicals within the Church of England.

Evangelicals, then and now
Unfortunately, one can no longer simply talk about an ‘evangelical’ view of the ministry. The days when Michael Green’s Called to Serve could act as a primer for any evangelical considering ordination sadly no longer apply. Nor would it be possible to gain an evangelical consensus for the view expressed in paragraph J6 of The Nottingham Statement, issued after the 1977 National Evangelical Anglican Congress (an event that history will surely show was the high-water mark of post-war Anglican evangelicalism):

We repent of our failure to give women their rightful place as partners in ministry with men. Leadership in the church should be plural and mixed, ultimate responsibility normally singular and male.

To many contemporary evangelicals, of course, this is a contradiction in terms since, to them, the ‘rightful place’ of women is in taking that ‘ultimate responsibility’ which the Statement reserves (normally) to men.

By and large, then, supporters of women’s ordination have joined together what the Nottingham Statement puts asunder — namely ministry and authority. And I would venture to suggest that, for evangelicals specifically, the opening up of the ordained ministry to women has been the cause of confusion rather than the result of clarification on this issue.

Authority, A and B
In 1976, a year before the second NEAC, John Goldingay, then lecturing in Old Testament at St John’s College, Nottingham, published a Grove Booklet titled Authority and Ministry. In it, he identified two kinds of authority. Authority A is the institutional kind possessed by the centurion, who said to one man “‘God’ and he goes, to another ‘Come’ and he comes.” Authority B, he said, is the kind possessed by Jesus who, “spoke with authority because he was in touch with God and with truth” (8).

Goldingay then went on to consider the implications for the church’s ministry, with the following observation:

... in the church it is the position of elder-presbyter-priest/bishop that has become, as it developed clearly into two offices, the most important locus of Authority A in the church. (22)

Goldingay’s distinction may be criticized in the details of presentation (did Jesus not possess an ‘Authority A’, precisely as recognize by the centurion?), but it is helpful in considering the nature of authority itself, particularly as it applies to the ordained ministry. For what many members of the Church of England do not realize is just how much the authority of their ‘hierarchy’ is an Authority A, not B.

Dominion, Popish and English
To be pushed through (and in the first instance it was pushed through) the English Reformation relied initially on a number of legal Acts designed to break the link with Rome: the Act for the Pardon of the Clergy (1531), in Restraint of Appeals (1533), for the Submission of the Clergy and Restraint of Appeals (1534), Restraining the Payment of Annates and Concerning the Election of Bishops (1534) and the Ecclesiastical Licenses Act (1534).

All these culminated in the Act of Supremacy 1534, which in one magnificent sentence of 275 words (give or take!) famously declared that

... the King our Sovereign Lord, his heirs and successors ... shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England ... (Gerald Bray, Documents of the English Reformation, 113-114)

Now as I have painstakingly tried to show on repeated occasions, this did not create a unique relationship between the monarch and one particular ‘branch’ of the Church within his realms. Rather, it formally stated what was taken to be the existing right of the king’s rule to include the Church. Thus, as the Articles of Religion carefully explain,

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. (Article XXXVII)

The point is made even clearer by the next sentence:

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

The engineers of the 1534 Act of Supremacy viewed it as a tidying-up operation, not so much extending of the rule of the monarch as removing the interference of the Pope.

Power, ecclesiastical and civil
All this, however, this had substantial implications for the Church of England, insofar as its hierarchy was now seen to be exercising the authority of the King himself. This is stated clearly by Thomas Cranmer himself, in response to some questions about the authority of the ministry:

The civil ministers under the king’s majesty in this realm of England, be those whom it shall please his highness for the time to put in authority under him: as for example, the lord chancellor, lord treasurer, lord great master, lord privy seal, lord admiral, mayors, sheriffs, &c.

The ministers of God’s word under his majesty be the bishops, parsons, vicars, and such other priests as be appointed by his highness to that ministration: as for example, the bishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Duresme, the bishop of Winchester, the parson of Winwick, &c. (‘Questions and Answers Concerning the Sacraments and the Appointment and Power of Bishops and Priests’ in Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Ed J E B Cox [Cambridge: The Parker Society, 1846, reproduced by Regent College Publishing], 116)

In short, there is an exact parallel throughout the administration, from ‘the lord chancellor’ and ‘the bishop of canterbury’ at the top, right down to the local ‘sheriff’ and ‘parson’. Both are the King’s own ministers, appointed by him, since godly princes are responsible for “the whole cure of all their subjects” (ibid).

No king, no bishop?
It is a magnificent (if perhaps optimistic) view of one nation truly under God, taking Romans 13 to its furthest possible extreme. But of course it is quite different from the idea that the hierarchical rule of the Church is intrinsic to the Church’s own orders of ministry. On the contrary (as we have observed before), the Book of Homilies asserts boldly that,

Our Saviour Christ ... [forbade] his Apostles, and by them the whole clergy, all princely dominion over people and nations: and he and his holy Apostles likewise, namely, Peter and Paul, did forbid unto all ecclesiastical Ministers dominion over the church of Christ. (Sermon Against Wilful Rebellion)

The same attitude is also seen in the careful wording of Article XXIII. ‘Of Ministering in the Congregation’:

It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching or ministering the sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard. (Emphasis added)

Those men who have ‘public authority ... to call and send ministers’ are, of course, the bishops, but as we have seen above, that public authority is ‘given unto them’ —at least in this realm of England — by the King who “must have sundry ministers under [him], to supply that which is appointed to their several offices” (Cranmer, op cit).

The lawful authority of the ministers of the Church of England, then, is in Goldingay’s terms entirely an ‘Authority A’, and the minister’s ‘Oath of Canonical Obedience’ is thus an oath of loyalty with respect to this authority vested in the Bishop:

I, A B, do swear by Almighty God that I will pay true and canonical obedience to the Lord Bishop of C and his successors in all things lawful and honest ...

Obedience is thus not ceded to ‘my bishop, right or wrong’, but to that authority, in law, which the bishop is by law entitled to exercise.

Obedience, canonical and spiritual
And this is where the exercise of ordained ministry in the Church of England is so fraught with complications, for the present structures instantly confer on the ordained person an ‘Authority A’ — a legal, institutional, authority — which is not possessed by the layperson who may, nevertheless, have more Christian experience and maturity, and indeed (these days) more theological education, and hence more ‘Authority B’, than the minister set over them.

In an ideal world, of course, the Church would only and always confer the rights and privileges of Authority A on those who had already developed Authority B. Canonical obedience would then only be demanded for those who deserved spiritual obedience.

In reality, to quote a well-known advert, “It doesn’t work like that,” and of course, it specifically does not work “like that” for conservative evangelicals regarding women bishops. Not that they might not recognize the presence of ‘Authority B’ qualities in an individual, but that the superimposition of ‘Authority A’ creates an irresolvable tension.

In short, it is matters of law, as much as matters of spirituality, which are creating the present difficulty. It is the refusal of the General Synod to grant legally supported alternatives for those who cannot accept women bishops which is at the heart of the problems for the latter. And yet the good news is that therefore the current impasse need not be regarded as a theological inevitability.

Ironically, as I suggested earlier, it is arguable that the admission of women to the ordained ministry has constrained, rather than liberated, our thinking at the present time. Without endorsing it, let me end with a long quote from Goldingay’s booklet, which sets out a vision held by many in the mid 70s, just before the apparent triumph of evangelicalism turned into division and decline:

The church ... has to ask questions about the crisis over authority; the individual Christian may not be called to submit to the fiat of Authority A ... but has to resist the temptation to rationalize his obstinacy over doing his own thing by aspiring to ‘Here I stand; I can do no other’. As we return to scripture, we find that it is not less radical than the questions of the day, but more so. It still contains a rich inheritance for us to enter into, not least in this vision of the Christian congregation, under the lordship of the Spirit as this is manifested in scripture, in the word of its bishop, in the ministry of its prophets, and in the corporate leadership of its elders, growing into maturity in Christ, and more powerfully itself exercising the authority of Christ in the world. (op cit 24)

John Richardson
25 February 2010

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What court action within a diocese looks like from the inside

Sometimes when I read those accounts of The Episcopal Church suing to get 'its' property back I have visions of Ali McBeal type lawyers haggling in a plush office. This is what it looks like on the sharp end. 

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Women's ordination and the other elephant

In all the recent debates in the Church of England about women’s ordination (in which I include those going back to the eighties and nineties), there have been not one, but two elephants in the living room.

The first elephant, gradually acknowledged and initially given space, has been the indecisive attitude of the church. Women’s ordination was sold to the Synod and to the wider Church on the basis of an accommodation. Women would be ordained, but the ordination of women would involve a further process of reception. What lay behind this was a hope on the part of some that there would always be a place for opponents, and on the part of others that opposition would die out as time went on.

Now that (thanks, in part, to some judicious gerrymandering of the bench of bishops) numbers favour the ‘pro’ side, we are seeing signs of the ‘end game’ on this initial compromise.

However, as we look at the options resulting from shooting the first elephant, we must now confront the second, which is that the Church of England embraces two entirely different concepts of the ordained ministry.

At the risk of oversimplification, one of these basically assumes that the pattern of having bishops (who run, or help run, dioceses), priests (who minister more locally, celebrate the sacraments, preach and pastor), and deacons (who are probationary priests), represents the way the church long has been and forever should be. The other takes the view that these same orders are, in the form in which they are found in the Anglican Church, essentially man-made, and therefore dispensable. They may sometimes serve the Church well — they are of its bene esse (its ‘well being’) — but they are not, in their present form, of the esse (the ‘very being’).

Most laypeople, I suspect, take the former view. It is how they have always seen and experienced the Church of England, and they have never bothered to look into why this is the case. So, of course, do the Anglo-Catholics clergy, though they consciously look back to the tradition of the Fathers for a justification. But to them we must add also the Liberal Catholics, who generally take a very ‘high’ view of the ministry, even whilst they might take a very sceptical view of traditional theology.

Then we have what may be popularly known as the ‘Evangelical’ view, though it can be found long before the movement of that name, in the writings of the Fathers of the English Reformation. This group places far more emphasis on the fact (generally acknowledged by Catholics both traditional and liberal), that the New Testament displays nothing exactly like the orders we know in Anglicanism. Specifically, the ‘priest’ of the New Testament church is actually a ‘presbyter-bishop’, whilst the deacon is something entirely distinct, in no way comparable to our one-year ‘priest in waiting’. As to the bishop as the ‘area leader’ of a group of non-episcopal priests, this figure is nowhere to be found.

Like most Catholics, the early members of this group were generally happy to acknowledge that the emergence of the threefold pattern known to us from later years took place in the providence of God. Unlike the Catholics, however, they were equally happy to see it disappear, should it be found to have outlived its usefulness.

Thus, Richard Hooker wrote, in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, that no “true and heavenly law can be shewed, by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed presbyters for ever to be under the regiment of bishops” (VII v 8). Therefore, as far as he was concerned, their authority is “a sword which the Church hath power to take from them” (ibid).

In other words, the Church could manage without bishops — especially if, as he warned, “bishops forget themselves, as if none on earth had authority to touch their states” (ibid).

The same view is found in the writings of Thomas Cranmer, who asserted that, if necessary, the Church could start up from scratch, with the first bishops and priests being ordained by laypeople. And in a series of Questions and Answers Concerning the Sacraments, etc, he asserted that in earliest times the churches were not ruled by the Apostles, but simply listened to their advice:

... not for the supremity, impery [sic], or dominion that the apostles had over them to command, as their princes or masters; but as good people, ready to obey the advice of good counsellors.

Just as importantly, the Homilies (which form part of the historic Anglican ‘formularies’) also recognize an earlier time in the Church’s history when different arrangements prevailed. Thus,

Our Saviour Christ ... [forbade] his Apostles, and by them the whole clergy, all princely dominion over people and nations: and he and his holy Apostles likewise, namely, Peter and Paul, did forbid unto all ecclesiastical Ministers dominion over the church of Christ. (Sermon Against Wilful Rebellion, emphasis added)

In all this, of course, the Reformers were following the Continental Protestants, as was Cranmer in his revision of the service of Holy Communion and in the formulation of the Thirty-nine Articles.

Yet the Church of England never entirely shed its Catholic elements, and under the impulse of the nineteenth century Oxford Movement, reintroduced practices which had not merely been abandoned since the Reformation but declared illegal. Thus, by the time we reach the middle of the twentieth century, we have a Church which is a caricature model of schizophrenia — one side taking the Catholic and the other the Protestant view of the ministry, but both outwardly belonging to the same organization.

Moreover, as I have indicated, the demarcation is not clear-cut, for there are theological ‘liberals’ with decidedly ‘fundamentalist’ views of the threefold ministry (to say nothing of the absolute authority of bishops and the unchangeable nature of the church’s orders). And there are ‘evangelicals’ today whose views of priesthood or episcopal ministry (particularly their own!) are of a decidedly ‘catholic’ bent.

This would be bad enough, but it becomes even more complex when we add in the ordination of women, for then we encounter two quite different objections, for the Catholic objection centres on the nature of priesthood and its relationship with the sacraments, whilst the Protestant objection centres on the nature of ministry and its exercise in the congregation.

Between the two, the Catholic objection is actually easier to present. For the traditionalist Catholic, what matters is the embodiment of the truth in the person of the priest, and the validity of that priest’s sacramental ministry. For Catholics who oppose the ordination of women, the problem is not that a woman should not be a priest but that a priest stands as the eikon of Christ — the embodied representation of the Son of God.

What this means regarding gender is, perhaps, best summed up in the words of Newman’s hymn Praise to the Holiest in the Height:

O generous love! that he who smote
in Man for man the foe,
the double agony in Man
for man should undergo.

Behind this is the thoroughly biblical idea that Jesus is the man par excellence, in whom ‘man’ — the human race — finds redemption. It is an inclusive idea which, significantly, cannot be expressed in modern ‘inclusive’ language, because it runs entirely counter to the modern understanding of humanity. But in this view, the iconic status of Christ requires a man for its present embodiment. And without this, the validity of the priesthood, and therefore the validity of the sacraments, is negated.

Now, at the risk of losing the few internet friends I have left, I must say that this is an argument with which I disagree. But I can feel its force, and I can recognize why, for those who do hold to this view, the issue is so urgent.

For the Protestant, however, things are a bit more messy, and this is because he does not take the same view, either of priesthood or sacrament. Indeed, some Protestants, like Martin Luther, held that women could, indeed, celebrate the sacraments, just as they could proclaim God’s word. The Protestant objection to women in leadership (an objection which was advanced by Luther also), has to do with authority, not sacramental ministry or ontological ‘priesthood’.

The problem, as they experience it, is that in the Church of England, ordination generally not just recognizes ministry but confers authority. This must particularly be so in the case of the episcopate, where the bishop is not merely in authority over a particular congregation (to which the individual may or may not choose to belong), but over entire groups of clergy, who will be given no choice in the matter.

Now again, one may not agree with the argument, but it needs to be understood and recognized. And yet it also needs to be recognized that it is a quite different argument from that advanced by Catholics, and therefore it may admit of quite different solutions.

One unintended consequence of the current debate about women bishops, therefore, may well be to highlight these different views on ordination. For a century, the Church of England has managed to get by without confronting the issue. And whilst the status quo of a universally recognized ministry prevailed, it was able to muck along. Now that the options to compromise are being reduced, the willingness to overlook those differences may also be coming under pressure. And that may have its own unintended consequences.

Revd John P Richardson
21 February 2010

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A spoonful of fudging helps the heresies go down

OK, I admit straight away, this isn’t really about ‘heresy’ in the full-on sense of ‘damnable religious errors’. Nor can I think of a word-play on ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. But in the old sense of haeresis, meaning wrongful divisions in the body of Christ, I do think that we are currently facing ‘heresies’ caused by fudging the issues, and we will soon be facing more.

Let us go back, for a moment, to the decision to ordain women into the priesthood of the Church of England, taken in 1992 — or rather, let us go back to the ‘indecision’, for that is unarguably what it was.

When the Church of England put to Parliament (as it had to) the necessary legislation to allow women to be ordained as priests, it included in that legislation the option for parishes to reject their priestly ministry. Looking back on it, that was an extraordinary thing to do. Is there any other example of a law where people can choose not to have that law apply to them?

Moreover, the Church itself spoke about the introduction of women priests as being a ‘process of reception’. That is to say, it was not prepared to commit itself to saying that this was exactly right —rather the approach would be ‘suck it and see’.

Then, on top of all this, Synod introduced its own legislation, an ‘Act of Synod’, to provide episcopal ministry for those who would be discomfited by the association of their existing bishop with the theology and action of ordaining women.

Thus, from its inception, the ordination of women was a fudge: systematically, deliberately — and inevitably, for without such a fudge it would not have taken place when it did. If the General Synod had been told, “You must decided now, one way or the other”, it is certain that it would have decided to wait.

However, the fudge was in place. And what happened next was equally inevitable, but unforseen by many. First, the assurances contained in the legislation where deliberately, but covertly, disregarded. The Act of Synod had declared that a person’s views on women’s ordination would not count against them when it came to selection for the higher offices in the Church. Yet extraordinarily, after 1993 almost no opponent of women’s ordination was found to have the qualities necessary to become a bishop. Indeed, there were unsubstantiated rumours of potential candidates being given a ‘fireside chat’ to inform them that on this issue there was only one option —you were for, or you were out.

Secondly, however, it may be argued that the basis of the Synod’s decision affected the quality of the candidates for ministry. Specifically, (and unsurprisingly, given the nature of its debates) the Synod had not decided that ‘this was what the Bible said ought to happen’. Rather, it had fudged the theological basis by failing to settle the biblical issue. Unsurprisingly, those women drawn to ordination to the priesthood tended to be those less committed to biblical precision, whilst those women drawn to full-time ministry, but of precise views, tended to avoid ordination to the priesthood.

What followed was inevitably an influx of women priests with generally ‘liberal’ theological views. And this had a further effect, for gradually the voting constituency for elections to Synods also shifted. The more that liberal women came in, the harder it was for conservatives to get elected. So, just as the Bench of Bishops was gradually being gerrymandered away from traditionalism, so the Houses of Clergy were being voted in the same direction.

Thus, contrary to the (palpably ludicrous) statement made in the 1970s, the theological objections to the ordination of women did not go away, but the objectors were increasingly marginalised. The Church was unequally divided, but the divisions would rapidly become more imbalanced.

Yet the objectors found it difficult to object! On paper, they were to be given equal treatment. Outwardly, the ‘period of reception’ would continue for as long as necessary. They had not been told they were wrong, only that they were a minority — but they were an honoured and welcome group, who would continue to be a valued ‘integrity’ within the Church of England. And most of them believed it. The Anglo-Catholics accepted the very considerable ‘bone’ of ‘Flying Bishops’. The Evangelicals were happy so long as they could get men ordained and accepted into parishes, and for the most part they thought the bishops were pretty laughable anyway. The Catholics fudged their attitude to Rome, the Evangelicals fudged their attitude to Anglicanism, the Liberals fudged their attitude to the Bible. Everyone was happy!

Now let us turn our attention to homosexuality, for back in the 1990s, the Church of England was also tackling this challenge. The definitive solution, however, was reached in 1991, when the House of Bishops produced a short statement titled Issues in Human Sexuality. With typical Anglican deftness, this managed to endorse the prevailing orthodoxy without actually insisting on it. The classic instance of this was the acceptance that the laity could engage in homosexual acts (since they were not bound to exemplify the church’s teaching) and that the clergy could argue for homosexual acts, but not engage in them (since the church’s teaching was binding on their behaviour but not their personal doctrine).

It was a small chunk of fudge, but enough to do the job.

Now let us fast-forward to 2005 and the introduction in the UK of civil partnerships. This was itself a classic fudge, being basically a government ‘cover’ for gay marriages in all but name. However, there was enough compromise involved in the legislation to allow Anglican bishops in the House of Lords to speak in favour of the development on the basis of ‘justice’ (but against broadening their provisions to include siblings or lifelong, opposite-sex, friends).

But what were the bishops to do about partnered clergy? The answer, given in another statement, was to allow for them, on the basis that, according to Issues in Human Sexuality, such relationships need not breach the church’s teaching on sex outside marriage:

The House of Bishops does not regard entering into a civil partnership as intrinsically incompatible with holy orders, provided the person concerned is willing to give assurances to his or her bishop that the relationship is consistent with the standards for the clergy set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. The wording of the Act means that civil partnerships will be likely to include some whose relationships are faithful to the declared position of the Church on sexual relationships (see paragraphs 2-7). [Civil Partnerships- A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England, para 19]

Notice, however, the caution in the first sentence of the above paragraph, that clergy in such partnerships should be “willing to give assurances” about their behaviour to their bishop. This was emphasised two paragraphs later:

... Partnerships will be widely seen as being predominantly between gay and lesbian people in sexually active relationships. Members of the clergy and candidates for ordination who decide to enter into partnerships must therefore expect to be asked for assurances that their relationship will be consistent with the teaching set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. [Ibid, para 21]

Notice, again, what is said: civil partnered clergy or ordination candidates “must ... expect to be asked for assurances” about the sexual nature of their relationship.

Notice also, however, what is not said. It does not say that the responsible bishop must actually seek such assurances, only that partnered clergy should “expect to be asked” for them. In fact, such assurances are certainly not sought by bishops in every case. Yet taken with paragraph 19, the implication is that it is the bishop, and not other potentially interested parties, such as churchwardens, parish representatives or neighbouring clergy, who is entitled to these assurances. Hence, although bishops are not always seeking these assurances themselves, they are unwilling to allow others to seek them, even though, as paragraph 21 says, the public perception of such relationships is that they will be sexually active.

Hence we have more fudge, and its divisive effects continue to spread. Thus the General Synod of the Church of England recently voted to approve pension rights to the civil partners of clergy, though not to their other dependents or supporters. The ‘marital’ status of civil partnerships thus seems to be reaffirmed. But on the basis of justice and morality it is hard to deny at least what was granted (even though one may have reservations about what was not), since all clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to be celibate and to be ready and willing to assure their bishops that this is the case, should they be asked. The assumption is breathtaking, though be careful you don’t choke on your fudge!

Meanwhile, on the ground the facts will establish themselves. Civil partnered clergy will become accepted, and the failure of bishops to establish, clearly and publicly, the nature of their relationships will pass unchallenged. But at the same time, the discomfort of those who hold to the traditional view will increase, for there will be no assurance, and no way of being assured, that the morality which the bishops have declared to be biblical (see their further and much larger document confusingly titled Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003) is actually being maintained by those they see in civil partnerships.

The Church of England has, in the past, acted as if compromise were the ‘genius’ of Anglicanism. History, I suspect, will show the opposite — that far from being its genius, it was the agent of its downfall. And why should we be surprised? If the devil is the Father of Lies, then the half truth is surely his own offspring.

Revd John P Richardson
17 February 2010

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No sects please, we’re Anglicans

When I first heard a few years ago the proposal advanced at our Diocesan Synod in Chelmsford that the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993 should be abolished, I genuinely felt a cold chill. This was not because it presaged the arrival of women as bishops. Rather, it was because it heralded the potential end of the Church of England as I knew, and loved, it.

I argued then, and I am convinced now, that such a move would give the Church of England the character of a sect, by introducing preciseness of belief and practice in this one area, in a way comparable to nothing else that has recently been discussed or debated.

This was brought home to me by the recent experience of a friend who is being interviewed for possible ordination. One of his interviewers asked him what he thought about women bishops. My friend answered that personally he disagreed with it, but that the Church of England allowed for different points of view.

“Oh no,” said the interviewer, “That only applies to people who were ordained in the past. Everyone coming in now will have to accept women bishops. There will be no provision for those who don’t.”

Now this is interesting, and it relates directly to the question of what sort of church the Church of England is — or intends to be.

As the Manchester Report observed, the introduction of women bishops without acceptable provision for those who cannot agree with this (acceptable, that is, to those with the reservations) would change the very nature of the Church by narrowing its membership where previously it had maintained some breadth.

Now there is, perhaps, something to be said for narrowing, if not the membership of the Church of England, certainly the range of those admitted to its ministry. Is it acceptable, for example, to have clergy who doubt the physical resurrection of Jesus, who reject the Virgin birth, or dispute the ‘reality’ of God? Such do exist, though one hopes that these days they would not get past the selection process.

But are there not other areas where, whilst the Church has standards, it also, rightly, has flexibility? The heart of the Church of England’s official doctrinal position is admirable, at least from a Protestant perspective:

The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation. (Article XX)

Yes, the Church of England can declare a position on a controverted issue of Christian belief. But it has disqualified itself from doing so in any way that is either directly contradictory to the Bible, or which relies on artificially setting one part of the Bible against another. And it cannot therefore require people to go against biblical teaching.

Now of course the problem on women’s ordination is that there are, until now, loyal Anglicans who believe that Scripture stands in the way of consecrating women as bishops. Moreover, the Church of England has not, as far as I am aware, decided that the issue is settled against them. That is to say, it has not declared that their take on the Bible is a misunderstanding (remember that we are still, officially, in the ‘period of reception’ on this issue).

However, it does seem now prepared to say that, nevertheless, you can only be a full member of the Church of England, eligible for its ministry, if you take one view on this and not the other.

In other words, it is prepared to narrow its membership not at a point of settled biblical doctrine, but at a point of hitherto-disputed practice.

Moreover, it is choosing a slightly bizarre point at which to do this. My friend, for example, is a committed ‘Thirty-nine Articles’ Anglican. He is an enthusiast for parish work, and is entirely positive about the structures that this entails, up to and including recognizing the office of the bishop. That is actually why this matters to him!

But what if he, and his like, are unacceptable for Anglican ministry? If that is the case, then in future, the key definition of a ‘full’ Anglican will be that you accept women bishops. That will become our litmus test, for you will apparently be able to accept all the former definitions of Anglicanism, but if you will not accept this then you will not henceforth be as welcome.

To me —and this was my worry all those years ago —this no longer looks like what I have tried to maintain that the Church of England should be: the Church, of England, as close as we can possibly maintain it to the ideal of the one, undivided, Church Christ intends.

Imposing women bishops without due provision for opponents will, undoubtedly, divide the Church of England. All sides, I think, recognize this. Moreover, it will divide it at a point which will, henceforth, become definitive, and yet which the proponents do not argue is the settled sense of Scripture. When people ask, in future years (as they ask me now about differences between denominations) what is it that divides the Church of England from whatever offshoot body this creates, will we have to answer, “Well, it’s really just about women bishops”? And will that make us proud?

For the sake of preventing that situation, I think the present moves ought to be resisted.

Revd John Richardson
15 February 2010

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Why God gave us brains and the internet?

Someone, somewhere, spends their precious time on this.

Actually, before wasting your equally precious time, I should point out it is a 'satirical' website attacking all things GAFCON, which apparently includes me. Kind of an honour, really!

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Reform's 'Blazing Saddles' moment

Just when I was enjoying blogging about atheism, the Church of England drags me back, with the news from its General Synod that women bishops are likely to be introduced in the near future without much of a nod to traditionalists.

This has evoked a letter from Reform, the Conservative Evangelical pressure group, signed by fifty incumbents of churches, and it is to this that I want to devote most of this post.

Don’t tell my wife, but when we were on honeymoon in Scotland, back in July 2008, I kept sneaking away to telephone friends in Forward in Faith asking about their reaction to the General Synod earlier that month. This, you may remember, was when the Synod first decided that any provision for opponents of women bishops would henceforward “be contained in a statutory national code of practice to which all concerned would be required to have regard”.

I think it is fair to say that they were in a state of shock. Assurances given in 1993 had just been reneged on by the new generation of Anglican ‘politicos’, who were quite happy to say (as they said to me) that a promise made by an earlier generation could not be binding on the next.

That being the case, those to whom the new assurances were being given (by the same betrayers!) were understandably doubtful about codes of practice to which people would be “required to have regard” (rather than, for example, —in the spirit of earlier Anglican regulations —being required to keep them on pain of death and the confiscation of their goods).

Thus, in July 2008, the fact that they had been treated so badly by ostensibly fellow Christians had induced something like paralysis in the traditionalist camp, and from where I was in Scotland, on the end of a mobile phone, it was hard to do more than sympathize.

Nevertheless, I did offer a practical plan and it was this: first, the ‘Flying Bishops’, along with the Bishop of Fulham, should immediately announce that, as a matter of pastoral responsibility, they would under no circumstances abandon the flocks under their present care. If the Synod ‘abolished’ them, they would simply carry on, and if one of them died, they would consecrate another. Secondly, the Conservative Evangelicals should immediately approach the Anglo-Catholics, apologise for being nasty about them, and ask if they would very kindly consecrate one of their number as a Conservative Evangelical bishop, under whose episcopal care they would then place themselves.

Well, neither of them happened. Instead, both Catholics and Evangelicals adopted a ‘wait and see’ policy. Unsurprisingly, what they saw was that those who disliked them intensely and didn’t care a fig about them remaining in the Church of England or leaving, carried on with the same ‘take no prisoners’ policies.

The last few months of procedural delay, when it looked like a ‘deal’ might be possible (to howls of ‘we’ve been betrayed, Synod promised’ from the betrayers), have proved to be a mirage of hope. We are now back where we were committed to be in July 2008, with the prospect that women bishops will arrive as early as 2012. (As an aside, we may note that despite their being possible in other parts of the Anglican Communion, there are in fact very few women in episcopal office. This being England, however, where bishops are appointed by committee, we may guarantee that the pressure will immediately be on to ‘balance’ the bench of Bishops with as many women as there are men, making England unlike any other part of the Communion in this regard —but that is by the by.)

In one important respect, however, we have moved on from 2008. I refer, of course, to the Pope’s offer of the Anglican Ordinariate. Like it or not, traditionalist Anglo-Catholics are faced with the choice whether to go or stay. The offer is tempting, but to the earlier paralysis it has now added a certain confusion. Nevertheless, it seems likely that some, at least, will go —and possibly some of the most vigorous.

That leaves a rump of Catholics and the Conservative Evangelicals. So what do the latter propose? Well, on a first reading of the letter from the 50, they propose leaving the Church of England and taking their ball with them.

Now at this point, I am curiously reminded of the incident in Mel Brooks’ film Blazing Saddles, where Bart, the black sheriff played by Cleavon Little, is confronted by the Johnson gang. Suddenly, in a stroke of genius, he wraps one arm round his own neck, pulls out his gun and, pointing it at his head, says in a low voice, “Hold it! Next man makes a move, the nigger gets it!”

“Hold it, men,” says Olson Johnson, “He’s not bluffing.” But the difference with Reform is that Sheriff Bart knew he was. What if Synod takes no notice? Who’re you going to shoot?

The Reform letter speaks about paying in £22 million to diocesan funds over ten years. That’s £2.2 million per year. That’s about five vicarages a year the Church of England needs to sell to cover the loss.

And they have contributed 180 ordinands — 18 a year, compared with the hundreds coming in from other sources.

OK, it’s a contribution. It may even, for those congregations, be a sacrificial level of giving. But will the Church of England miss them? More specifically, will those currently driving the agenda on women bishops be alarmed at the prospect of those most opposed leaving the Church of England in whatever is the opposite of droves to take their unwelcome views elsewhere?

Go ahead. Shoot.

Of course, there is another way —which goes back to plan A, above.

Several years ago, I was at the infamous Reform annual conference where the Revd Phillip Jensen spoke, in his usual robust terms, about spiritual prostitution in the Church of England. Later, in the question time, I made the suggestion that Reform churches ought to pass the so-called ‘Resolution C’, petitioning for episcopal ministry under the Act of Synod 1993. Phillip backed this up by saying to the assembly that they ought all to do it immediately, not least (as I recall him saying), “to make it clear you do not want women bishops.”

And here we are again, several years down the track, with very few Evangelical Resolution C parishes, women bishops hoving into view, and Reform threatening to shoot itself (as far as membership of the Church of England goes). Nice plan.

And the reason we haven’t got these Resolution C parishes is that, apparently, ‘half a cake is worse than none’ and ‘you’d have to have an Anglo-Catholic bishop’ (which is actually not true —read the words of the Act).

But there is still —just —time, if Reform have the guts for the solution, which is this: get an English bishop consecrated for the Conservative Evangelicals, and signal that, should the time come, it is his episcopal ministry, and his only, that you will accept. Stop all the talk about leaving and setting up your own alternative. Stay and fight.

Now some will say it would be illegal. Go and read the history of Anglo-Catholicism! Of course it is illegal. Anglo-Catholics went to prison for what they believed, put there by the prosecutions brought by those who wanted to keep the Church of England from their influence. They won. And they won because they had a coherent understanding of the Church and they were prepared to go to the wire for what they believed.

The current problem with Conservative Evangelicals is that, when it comes to their place in the Church of England, they have neither of the latter qualities.

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?” (Lk 14:31, NIV)

The first requirement for a good plan —is that you should have a good chance of winning. And as we know, it is who dares wins. Will we dare? We might still lose, but at least it won’t be as painful as shooting ourselves in the process.

Revd John Richardson
10 February 2010

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What should atheist aid look like?

(You have to know about the atheist bus campaign to get this.)

A few days ago, Professor Richard Dawkins published a swingeing attack on Christians for their attitude towards disasters in general and the Haitian earthquake in particular. At the end of his article, he added a link to a website for “Non-Believers Giving Aid”, a coalition for “freethought groups or associates, to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations”.

As something of a thought experiment, I decided to see if, from (as far as possible) an entirely atheist perspective, this was actually itself a strictly rational response to the situation. In it, I suggested that there is a degree of unwarranted ‘anthropomorphising’ in Professor Dawkins’ language and a strong element of anthropocentrism in his world view.

This continues not only in his article, but in his appeal for aid:

Earthquakes and tsunamis are caused not by ‘sin’ but by tectonic plate movements, and tectonic plates, like everything else in the physical world, are supremely indifferent to human affairs and sadly indifferent to human suffering.

To say that an earthquake is ‘indifferent’ to human suffering, however, is to ascribe to it a quality which, in actuality, it does not possess. It sounds as though we have said something, when in fact we have said nothing. Or rather, we have simply used emotive language to subvert a viewpoint with which we disagree (that there are some potentially ‘sympathetic’ forces behind natural events). However, if we know that such forces do not exist, we cannot then go on to say that an earthquake is ‘indifferent’ about us —much less “supremely indifferent”, as if it had its nose emphatically in the air! It is rather like saying it is ‘humourless’ (or “completely humourless”). It is simply a non-statement within an atheist frame of reference.

As to earthquakes being “sadly indifferent to human suffering”, this rather presumes that human suffering matters. Now of course, human beings find human suffering ‘sad’, but then that is because we are programmed to. Professor Dawkins writes,

Those of us who understand this reality [that the human suffering caused by earthquakes is just the result of natural phenomena] are sometimes accused of being indifferent to that suffering ourselves.

And indeed people do sometimes falsely accuse atheists of lacking feeling, but of course, being human, atheists will have the full range of human feelings. That is not to be denied. However, atheists also claim to have something which they believe not all other human beings have, which is a proper understanding of the world in general and human nature in particular.

In Richard Dawkins’ case, I have suggested this includes three specific convictions: first, that there are no ‘gods’, secondly, that the material realm is all that there is, and thirdly that the evolutionary perspective he advocates is correct.

What he derives from that evolutionary perspective is what he calls “four good Darwinian reasons for individuals to be altruistic, generous or ‘moral’ [sic] towards each other” (The God Delusion, p251):

1. Genetic kinship (thus promoting the group genes).

2. ‘Tit for Tat’ reciprocation of favours.

3. Acquiring a reputation for ‘goodness’

4. Advertising onself through conspicuous generosity.

These are the raw ‘Darwinian’ principles behind moral behaviour. But, as Professor Dawkins argues, what arose from evolutionary pressures now finds itself in a new context: in the modern era, we no longer face those same pressures and, moreover, although “even now full understanding is confined to a minority of scientific specialists” (Ibid, p252), we can understand cognitively that we are being driven by natural (might one say “supremely indifferent”?) inclinations which no longer strictly apply:

In ancestral times, we had the opportunity to be altruistic only towards close kin and potential reciprocators. Nowadays that restriction is no longer there, but the rule of thumb [i.e. the natural instinct] persists. Why would it not? It is just like sexual desire. We can no more help ourselves feeling pity when we see a weeping unfortunate (who is unrelated and unable to reciprocate) than we can help ourselves feeling lust for a member of the opposite sex (who may be infertile or otherwise unable to reproduce). (Ibid, p253)

Of course atheists feel for the sufferings of the Haitians. We cannot help it! But at least the atheist understands that these feelings are what Dawkins calls ‘misfirings’ of an evolutionary mechanism. In that respect, our response to seeing suffering Haitian children on the television is no different from the feelings evoked by seeing a beautiful naked woman or man on the same screen. The sorrow and the erection are essentially the same. The question for the atheists is this: knowing what is actually going on in themselves what should they do? As Professor Dawkins says on his website,

... we do not hide behind the notion that earthly suffering will be rewarded in a heavenly paradise, nor do we expect a heavenly reward for our generosity ...

Quite so — but more than that, the atheist knows that the Haitian he sees on the television is not going to reciprocate when he himself is off work with ’flu. Professor Dawkins clearly thinks that we should, nevertheless, be motivated to relieve the circumstances of the Haitian:

... the understanding that this is the only life any of us have makes the need to alleviate suffering even more urgent.

But as we are increasingly being made aware, the ultimate way to put an end to suffering is through death. If we are to alleviate suffering in the short term, we must think through why, and what we are to do. The question is, knowing our true circumstances — that we are being moved by our instincts to have inappropriate feelings about strangers with whom we have no relationship and who will never themselves be in a position to reciprocate — how, rationally, should we respond?

The best answer, based on Professor Dawkins’ four criteria for moral behaviour, would seem to be to consider the effect of our response on our collective, national, status in the world. It is as a nation that we are likely to receive reciprocal benefits, and it is as a nation that we can enhance our reputation. As it happens, President Obama has recently given a speech (full of unfortunate religious references) part of which (whether deliberately or not) illustrates exactly this principle:

Last month, God’s grace, God’s mercy, seemed far away from our neighbors in Haiti. And yet I believe that grace was not absent in the midst of tragedy. ... It was felt in the presence of relief workers and medics; translators; servicemen and women, bringing water and food and aid to the injured.

One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world —Navy Corpsman Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: “Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,” she said, “I will pray for that country.” And in Creole, Corpsman Brossard responded, “Etazini.” The United States of America.

The atheist will rightly scoff at the President’s theology. And the atheist may not be too impressed by the reciprocity on offer —we send you our navy with medicines, you give us your (meaningless) prayers. Nevertheless, as President Obama’s words hint, the useful thing is to have a high profile for your country:

God’s grace, and the compassion and decency of the American people is expressed through the men and women like Corpsman Brossard. It’s expressed through the efforts of our Armed Forces, through the efforts of our entire government, through similar efforts from Spain and other countries around the world.

Here we have something like a rational reason for aid, though it is not the reason put forward on Professor Dawkins’ website. His own suggested motivations are rather less clear and rather more mixed:

Non-Believers Giving Aid is ... an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, whilst simultaneously giving the lie to the canard that you need God to be good.

The question this begs, of course, is what we mean by ‘being good’. The atheist knows it is not what the religious believe —misled as they are by their ignorance at many levels. That being the case, however, the important thing is to make clear what we do mean, and how it is expressed through what we do. Atheist aid, I suggest, should look like this:

John Richardson
6 February 2010

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Is Richard Dawkins really rational?

In the following blog post I am attempting something quite difficult for me, namely to critique a position with which I disagree from a viewpoint I do not accept. I remember CS Lewis saying how hard it was in this respect writing The Screwtape Letters. Nevertheless, I believe the attempt is worth the effort. Indeed, I am to some extent using the approach adopted by a key proponent of that position, namely to seek to probe the weaknesses of the opposition’s case rather than to advocate positively the strengths of my own.

I was started on this line of thought (via the Cranmer blog) by an article in The Times by Professor Richard Dawkins, commenting on Christian responses to the Haitian earthquake. However, for the purposes of this exercise I intend to accept Professor Dawkins’ position. I will assume therefore that he is right in three essential respects: first, that there are no ‘gods’, secondly, that the material realm is all that there is, and thirdly that the evolutionary perspective he advocates is correct.

I will therefore completely ignore Professor Dawkins’ religious arguments. In effect, I am saying, “You win. Let us henceforth be atheists and try to look at things entirely and only from that point of view.”

What I will seek to show, however, is that, far from being the ‘rationalist’ he claims, Professor Dawkins is nowhere near rational enough. But I am not going to use religion as a counter-argument. Thus, although I hope others will feel free to contribute their comments, I will be inclined to delete anything (even from the good Professor himself) which attempts to refute what I am saying by attacking religion. Let us try to clear our minds (difficult thought that is) and, in agreement with Professor Dawkins’ presuppositions, consider what he has actually said.

An anthropomorphic description
The first difficulty with the Professor’s original article is the anthropomorphic language in the opening paragraph:

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, unpremeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery. (Emphasis added)

What, we might ask, is the meaning or purpose of the words I have highlighted in italics? It is absolutely true to say that the Haitian earthquake was caused by the movement of tectonic plates. It is, thus, ‘a force of nature’. But forces of nature are not ‘indifferent’, or ‘unconcerned’. They are forces —nothing less and nothing more.

Professor Dawkins doubtless uses the language of morals and intentions here because he is about to attack the views of those who (mistakenly) do indeed see a ‘moral’ element behind natural forces. However, we must not allow the error of seeing moral significance where there is none to create an equally false antithesis between the lack of moral significance and the presence of moral indifference.

For example, I may say that a falling roof tile “mercifully missed my head”. My language might suggest there was a moral element to the outcome, but in fact as such there was no ‘mercy’ involved at all. What I am referring to as ‘merciful’ is simply a particular configuration of natural forces and objects. Neither the tile, nor anything else, ‘had mercy’ on me. 

Had the tile hit me, however, it would have been equally misleading to say that it was ‘merciless’. Unfortunately, Professor Dawkins’ use of  just such language suggests to our (highly suggestible) minds something about nature which is actually untrue. Similarly, writing on evolution he describes the Universe as having “no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference” (quoted from River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, emphasis added). But the fact that a thing cannot ‘see’ does not make it blind. Nor is a thing incapable of pity thereby ‘pitiless’. I might just as well describe my car as ‘blind and pitiless’. Of course, I may feel that about my car if it rolls over my foot, but the car neither possesses (nor can it be dispossessed of) such qualities. I am speaking anthropomorphically, but I am also in danger of speaking carelessly, or even misleadingly.

An anthropocentric perspective
We may wonder whether Professor Dawkins uses (unwarranted) emotionally-loaded language because he wants to make an (equally unwarranted) emotionally-loaded point: the Universe is ‘pitiless’, an earthquake is ‘unconcerned’, and that is ‘reality’. But actually it is not. Reality is far more prosaic than that.

Let us reconsider the Haitian earthquake itself. Professor Dawkins is quite right when he says it was caused by “the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature”. But almost everything he says subsequently in his article is an expression of emotionalism, not reason.

To begin with, what is the real result of that ‘bumping and grinding’? Professor Dawkins refers to it as “Haiti’s tragedy”. But that is an emotional assessment based on an anthropocentric perspective. From a physical point of view, what Professor Dawkins describes as beginning with ‘a force of nature’ simply leads on to the deployment of other ‘natural forces’ —specifically the transference of energy. When that energy met with weakened trees, it doubtless caused them to topple, releasing more energy, when it was transferred to unstable boulders it may have caused them to roll, again releasing their energy, and when it impacted on poorly-constructed buildings it caused them to collapse and to transfer some of their energy to their human occupants.

Though it is admittedly limited, as a description of the physical events of the Haiti earthquake, the above is certainly accurate. We may wish, instinctively, to apply the word ‘tragedy’ to the human outcomes, but there is absolutely no difference regarding the physics between the toppling (and subsequent death) of a tree and the crushing (and subsequent death) of a human being. Indeed, there is ultimately no physical difference between these events and the collapse of building — they are all disruptions which result from the same forces and which are equally expressions of changes in energy states.

What we may need to remind ourselves is that, from Professor Dawkins’ perspective, this is the fundamental reality. We may question his use of anthropomorphic language concerning the earthquake, but he is quite right to deny that the initiating events involved anything other than physical forces. What we are pointing out here is that we do not move to a different ‘plane’ of events when a collapse resulting from the earthquake involves a human body rather than a house or a hill. Whatever we may feel about it, as a physical event it is just physics.

Privileging the personal
And here we encounter further problems with what Professor Dawkins has written, which is his tendency to ‘privilege the personal’. By this, we mean both that he gives priority to the impact of events on human beings above all else, and that he measures the appropriateness of our response to those events by the personal feelings they and we may have about them. Yet neither of these attitudes is warranted on the basis of our reasoning about reality.

To appreciate this, however, we have to remind ourselves of the radical challenge posed by the discoveries of the last hundred and fifty years to what had previously been assumed. In particular, we need to remember that ‘common sense’ has sometimes turned out to be an obstacle, rather than an aid, to understanding reality.

Common sense, for example, told our forebears that the sun and the planets moved around the earth. It was surely not religion that first led people to this conclusion but their own (apparently valid) experience — the heavenly bodies observably ‘move’, the earth feels to be fixed and immovable. And yet we now know that this experience was misleading.

The same, however, is now known to be true of our place in the world. ‘Common sense’ tells us that human beings are different from ‘animals’. But this also is false. On the contrary, we are animals, and the qualities that we regard as distinguishing ‘us’ from ‘them’ are differences of degree, not kind. We are drawn from exactly the same stock as the rest of the animal kingdom, and our ‘special place’ is only really special in terms of the impact we have increasingly been able to have on the environment.

One outcome of this realization is a changing attitude to those other animals that we have hitherto seen as being somehow at our disposal. At the very least, we no longer assume an automatic right to treat them carelessly or to kill or eat them. Indeed, some of us appreciate that we can no longer justify privileging human beings as somehow ‘above’ the other animals. One of the philosophers to see this most clearly is the Australian Peter Singer, who observes that our objection to sexual acts between humans and other animals is basically an irrational reaction, sustained largely by the Judaeo-Christian heritage.

This being the case, however, we surely ought to assess the Haitian earthquake, and indeed other ‘natural disasters’, in terms of their overall impact on all life, not just, or even primarily, in terms of their consequences for humans. To view the earthquake as simply a ‘human tragedy’ is to persist in a view of human beings which we now know to be unjustified.

Yet, despite the fact that we know human beings are just a part of the animal population of the planet, there will be those who will say we ought to have a special regard for them, especially when their lives are threatened. Professor Dawkins certainly seems to be one such. Thus, at the end of his article in The Times is a link to a website he has set up for ‘Non-Believers Giving Aid’, where Professor Dawkins speaks of the “urgent” need to alleviate the suffering of the Haitian human population.

But why should we have any regard for this? An earlier, pre-Darwinian, generation would have spoken of moral imperatives, based on a high regard for human life and, furthermore, on a view that sympathy for others was itself an expression of ‘higher values’ — the very things which set us apart from animals.

As we have observed, however, we now know there is no difference in kind between us and the other animals impacted by the earthquake. More than that, though, we know that our instinctive feelings of sympathy for the sufferings of others are just that: instincts.

A misplaced response
Professor Dawkins has himself argued, as do many others, that what we have traditionally regarded as ‘higher values’ actually find their origin in evolutionary forces which have selected the genes which lead to the instincts which drive the behaviour which we hitherto called ‘virtues’.

The fundamental source of this is evolutionary altruism —behaviour which superficially appears to run counter to the survival of the gene-bearing individual by giving preference to others, but which actually ensures the survival of the gene-bearing pool and hence is preserved by natural selection and is passed on to the next generation. In this sense, it is just as ‘selfish’ (though of course in a non-personal sense) as all other elements which preserve the ‘selfish gene’. Strictly speaking, the appearance of ‘selflessness’ is just that.

When, therefore, we see someone suffering, we will tend to want to help them —that is good for the survival of the group. But our instinct to help is proportional to our proximity, both genetically and physically, to the person concerned. Thus we will feel a stronger affinity to family than to a stranger, or to a fellow citizen than to a foreigner. When we read ‘Dozens die in air crash’, we are shocked. When we read ‘Britons die in air crash’ we are involved.

The problem is, the advent of modern media presents the distant disaster as though it were a present danger. None of us in England actually felt the Haitian earthquake. Had it happened in 1810, virtually no one in this country would ever have known it had taken place. As it is, it is of almost no direct relevance to any of us. Why, then, do we feel inclined to donate to aid-giving charities? The answer (as we now know) is an instinctive response, actually brought about by factors favouring the survival of our group, but which can be evoked by presenting us with the necessary stimulus —in this case, news about and images of injured and suffering people.

As we have seen, our instinct is to offer help —and indeed to urge others to help. But is that actually rational? The truth is, there are undoubtedly dozens, if not hundreds, of people, every single day, who are injured or killed by the forces of nature. We care nothing about them because we hear nothing about them. We do not offer them help, nor do we seek them out. Yet we do not feel guilty about this, nor (for the most part) do we feel inspired to act any differently —and why should we? Their non-survival is no threat to us, and their survival is of no benefit. Our feelings may tell us otherwise, should this happen to get on the news, but the realities of genetics will eventually tell against them.

The inadequacy of ‘aid’
Moreover, even if we do succumb to our feelings and proffer ‘help’, what help should we give and what should be its aim? Professor Dawkins presumes it should be in the form of a financial donation, but how much is reasonable, how much is effective? Ten pounds may seem generous, but it is hardly a drop in the ocean of Haiti’s human need. A hundred pounds might make a measurable difference, but for how long? And if a hundred pounds really helps, why not give a thousand, or ten thousand?

Yet the fact is that most of the people who were going to die as a direct result of the earthquake are dead, and the injured have mostly been treated. What, then, are those who make donations trying to do with their aid and why?

Actually, if you read Professor Dawkins’ website, at least half the motivation would appear to be to make themselves feel morally superior to the religious:

Non-believers ... have no church through which to give collectively, no church to rack up statistics of competitive generosity. Non-Believers Giving Aid ... [provides] an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, whilst simultaneously giving the lie to the canard that you need God to be good.

Well, of course you don’t. But there surely needs to be a better reason to part with our cash than making ourselves look good compared with others.

So what will be the impact of this aid in Haiti? The superficially obvious answer is that it will improve the lives of the recipients. As Professor Dawkins’ website puts it, “the understanding that this is the only life any of us have makes the need to alleviate suffering even more urgent”. But if improving the quality of life is the motivation for parting with this money, why not spend it on oneself, or one’s family, and improve the quality of those lives?

Of course, Professor Dawkins is not just talking about improving life, he says he is also seeking to ‘relieve suffering’. But as Terry Pratchett has cogently argued, there is another, and far surer, way to relieve suffering, and that is sitting on the lawn, brandy in hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod, ready to “shake hands with Death.”

Indeed, for an atheist, this is the supremely ‘rational’ solution. As Sir Terry is quoted as saying, “the problem with the God argument [against euthanasia] is that it works only if you believe in God”. For those who do not believe in God, death is the ultimate salvation from suffering. We would thus be entirely justified in saying that the truly lucky people in Haiti were those who died instantly and were therefore spared more suffering. For many of those who survived, life is going to be a miserable business, however much longer or shorter it may be —and they are going to die anyway.

Why should we seek to relieve suffering by prolonging life —especially the lives of people with whom we have no connection? Our instincts may urge us to this, but as we have seen, our instincts are, in this case, largely misplaced. What about ‘higher values’? Again, as we have seen, this is also a misjudgement. There are no ‘higher values’ because there is nothing higher than this, material, physical, world. There is no ‘god’, and ‘good’ behaviour finds it origin in elementary evolutionary pressures.

Some will, undoubtedly, still want to say that we can ‘rise above’ instinct and even ‘evolution’ —that by choosing to help the Haitians we are creating a value system which has its own worth. But this is itself questionable. For one thing, how do we know that we are actually operating in a way detached from instinct? Earlier generations thought that the virtues reflected just such an independent system of value. We now know they derive from forces which are entirely based in the physical and material realm —that realm which Professor Dawkins describes as ‘blind and pitiless’.

If we choose to ignore our instincts by showing no pity ourselves, we are thus arguably operating in a way which corresponds more to reality than do those who, knowing that ‘pity’ is entirely a human construct, nevertheless act as if it could make demands on their choices.

The imperative of survival
And what about the final appeal, to evolutionary survival itself? Is not aiding the Haitians to live a way of contributing to the overall human gene-pool and therefore to our perpetuation as a species?

Perhaps, but we must first remember that this survival mechanism applies to other animals, not just to us. The fact that we behave altruistically does not in any way imply that we ‘ought’ to survive, any more than it implies that whales or elephants (which are also altruistic) ought to survive.

Indeed, when we look at the development of the human race, it can be argued that, rather like a parasite that kills its host and therefore brings about its own death, there is something about our mode of existence which could, without too much imagination, conceivably be improved.

For the problem is that we simply place too many demands on our ecosystem for it to sustain us. And one of the reasons for this is that we are too ‘successful’ at reproducing. We are like a population of predators that outstrips the supply of food. Inevitably, there must come a point at which we must die back to a level of sustainability. Otherwise, there is a serious danger of creating such pressure on the environment that we tip over into catastrophic collapse or even extinction.

In short, our survival would arguably be aided by there being rather fewer of us. And therefore just as our instinct to reproduce could usefully be restricted so as to reduce the population, so too our instinct to ‘help’ could be re-examined so that we are less prone always to seek to maximise the human lifespan. Far from aiding the Haitians, therefore, we might actually be thankful for the earthquake and the fact that it has not only reduced the number of humans on the planet, but has also, in all likelihood, reduced somewhat our future reproductive over-capacity. (Of course, we may equally be thankful it was them, and not us, but please let us not make the mistake of thanking God for this!)

The fact is, however, we still live with the legacy of our ‘common sense’ perspective on life. Despite what we know, we still feel as if human beings are ‘special’. We still feel we must ‘help’, even though we are generally not helping very much at all, and are certainly making no ultimate difference by prolonging a life in the face of one instance of suffering, only for it to meet another, and ultimately fatal, instance further down the track.

We know that morality is a human construct, having no basis in the physical nature of the universe, but we still moralize. We know that sympathy arises out of the natural and automatic selection of those genes which favour the survival of our immediate group, but we still sympathize with the plight of distant strangers when the artifices of technology display them before our eyes. We may, of course, choose to go along with this and, for better or for worse, ‘enjoy the ride’. But we may just as reasonably choose not to.

John Richardson
4 February 2010

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