While I was away ...

I've just returned from a brilliant ten days in Cornwall - with no Wi-fi and therefore neither e-mail nor blogging, which is good for everyone, I suspect.

While I was away, however, Paul Helm wrote a (depressingly) perceptive piece on the immediate future of the Church of England. So in the absence of any posts by myself, I suggest you read this:

[...] The Church of England is these days vestigially Erastian. She no longer has to please the king, but she still has to please Parliament when legislation affecting that church is required in order to legalise any proposed changes. A generation or so ago the Church could count on the membership of the Commons having a soft centre of loyal Anglicans, but this has largely disappeared. Furthermore, out in the constituencies there is nothing that can be identified as ‘The Church of England vote’. In political terms, there is nothing to be gained by siding with ‘the traditionalists’. Given its present make up, Parliament is not going to tolerate what it sees as the marginalisation or women in the Church of England, whatever the theological arguments. And similarly with gay bishops or archbishops. Sooner or later , probably sooner, there will an openly homosexual bishop. Over the issue of women bishops, it is not beyond the wit of man to devise another set of compromises aimed at easing the consciences of the ‘traditionalists’, which would succeed in getting through Convocation. But in ensuring the success of such a compromise, no amount of fulmination in the name of the Apostle Paul is going to count. Eventually, the cliffhanger will be decided by the operation ofthe secular ratchet. The changes will be made in one direction only. There won’t be any more re-runs, and no more compromises.

[...]

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Evangelicalism - not division but dilution?

I'm taking a break from the blog until the end of the month (OK it’s like giving up nicotine, but I’ll try).

However, to keep the interest alive, I want to mention a thought in relation to my earlier post on Evangelical unity, prompted by an e-mail someone sent me.

I’ll quote him in full:

In the late 19th century, Catholics were a rather small and persecuted group, although there were certainly differences over tactics and minor points, they were united in the essentials. Between the wars and immediately afterwards, as it was the most successful thing going in the church, it attracted, er, fellow-travellers. Until the 1950s and 1960s, if you saw a priest wearing vestments and reserving the Blessed Sacrament, that meant [a] certain view and certain teaching. As time has gone on, things have got diluted, Eucharistic vestments are worn by people who think they look nice but do not believe in the doctrine that goes with their use, and Affirming Catholicism has split off, not to mention other groupings..

When Evangelicals were united in the 60s and 70s, they were a powerful force, but when the movement grew and attracted fellow-travellers ………

I remember much the same happening to the Charismatic Movement. In the ’60s and early ’70s, it was a fringe movement with distinctive doctrines which you had to accept in order to belong. By the late ’70s we were all ‘Charismatics’. At the same time, the ‘second blessing’ doctrine and the virtual requirement of speaking in tongues had been toned down.

Alpha threatens no-one (well, almost no-one) and the Alpha ‘movement’ is mainstream. But the theologians now willing to associate with it include Rowan and Jane Williams and Jürgen Moltmann — people I suspect wouldn’t be insisting (as the Alpha course material does) that being filled with the Spirit is distinct from being a Christian who merely ‘has’ the Spirit. Hence Alpha charismatic theology has diluted and will dilute further — watch the St Mellitus* space.

Perhaps the reality is that as Evangelicalism became more acceptable, so more people were willing to self-identify with the movement who would not previously have done so, but whose theology was not that of the earlier, rigorous, Evangelicals.

Thus what took place amongst Evangelicals was not division but dilution.

Discuss (and I’ll try not to join in).

John Richardson
19 July 2010

*  Several key values mark out the training offered at St Mellitus: UNITY IN DIVERSITY: We work with all kinds of Christians and denominations within a generous orthodoxy, drawing on the great tradition of Christian theology through the centuries.

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When Evangelicals were united

In amongst researching something else today, I came across an online copy of Third Way from 1979.

The past is indeed another country, as they say. Thus several of the articles and many of the letters in the correspondence columns were taken up with the issue of trade unions, strikes and wage claims.

In an even more unfamiliar twist, the Nationwide Festival of Light was holding an evening rally at All Souls, Langham Place, looking at “What does the Bible say to the International Year of the Child?” (speakers Harry Sutton, Eddie Stride, Raymond Johnston and Bob Holman).

There is also an article by one John Gladwin (with a very fetching ’70s haircut) questioning the morality of granting an 8.8% pay rise to workers in the public sector — on the basis that it is possibly too small, not too big!

In another article, Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for West Lothian, writes of the forthcoming devolution vote: “We in the Labour Vote No Campaign contend that the proposal for a ‘Yes’ vote for the Scotland Act comes four-square in the category of false prophecy.”

What most strikes me, however, is the co-existence of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ evangelical strands alongside one another. Of course, the emphasis is on politics and social action, but that was Third Way’s subject-matter. But the theological discourse is conducted in a language which the Evangelical constituency held in common.

The same search also took me to Randle Manwaring’s From Controversy to Coexistence: Evangelicals in the Church of England, 1914-1980, written in 1985, when the Evangelical constituency was still just about holding together, and Manwaring could write of “the decay of the old liberalism”.

If I am being nostalgic, I would argue that is not necessarily a bad thing. The Church of England prays constantly that we may be ‘united in the truth’. Perhaps back then we were also united in our ignorance. We knew next to nothing about the ‘new perspective’ on Paul, or that we could divide over our views on women’s ordination. On the contrary, the Nottingham Statement had declared as ‘the’ Evangelical Anglican position that,

Leadership in the church should be plural and mixed, ultimate responsibility normally singular and male.

Were we wrong on other matters as well as this? Obviously, many Evangelicals today would say ‘yes’. Yet I think my question to the constituency would be whether the gospel as we are preaching it today is the gospel as it was preached by the generation that produced the evangelical leaders of the ’70s and ’80s — many of whom were converted through the Billy Graham crusades at Harringay and Wembley. Manwaring writes,

... there can be little doubt that the work of Billy Graham had lasting effects throughout Anglicanism, its benefits by far outweighing its disadvantages. (112)

To put it another way, would the ‘you’ you are today be interested in, and capable of, being instrumental in the conversion experienced by the ‘you’ you were when you became a Christian? I very much hope the answer is yes, but I very much fear that the answer for my own generation is often no.

Certainly the ‘new perspective’ is much more important in this regard than women’s ordination, on which even relative conservatives take different views. But I hazard a guess that our disunity in other areas reflects our confusion at a more fundamental level. The shared good news that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to die for our sins, so that whosever trusts in him should not be judged eternally by that same God, but have eternal life, seems to have given way in some areas to the assertion that ‘God loves and therefore anything which seems to be ‘loving’ is of God’.

Of course God loves, but as Don Carson has pointed out, the love of God is a difficult doctrine to handle correctly. I must agree with him when he says,

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

Evangelicals can, in the end, be united only by the evangel — the gospel they proclaim. And that gospel itself depends on who the God is revealed in Christ. Carson quotes Marsha G Witten:

The relatively weak notion of God’s fearsome capabilities regarding judgment is underscored by an almost complete lack of discursive construction of anxiety around one’s future state.

 Our generation of Evangelicals is indeed anxious about many things, and urges that anxiety — along with the possible palliatives — on others. But there is little anxiety about eternity. And that may be our downfall.

John Richardson
18 July 2010

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Paul Helm on fashion in philosophy and theology

I link to Paul Helm's blog anyway, but in a quiet moment you could do much worse than read his latest blog post :

[...] Even the fact that logical positivists are well-nigh extinct on the planet – and this is what it took me a long time to see – is not due only to the pressure of argument, and perhaps not due mainly to that pressure, but rather to the working of the Athenian factor. This is the fact that it is typical of philosophers, and not only of philosophers, but of proponents of other academic disciplines too, and of human nature more generally, to look, beyond the arguments, for something new. There is academic tiredness. Positions become well worn, and then worn out. There is nothing more to say: no papers to write, no seminars to be arranged, the topic, or issue, or person is played out, exhausted. Here’s the paradox. While the Oxford trio are passé, historical figures, philosophers such as Leibniz, say, or Thomas Reid, or Thomas Aquinas, dismissed by the trio, are now actively read and discussed.

People make their careers, as they make their fortunes, by being, accidentally at the right place at the right time, with their thesis topics and their book proposals. It’s that that has taken me some time to realise.

As I say, fashion affects us Christians, not only in academic life, but more generally. There’s much more that could be said. In all facets of life we are all prone to the influence of pressures of all kinds, and among these is the working of the Athenian factor. To become aware of this, sensitised to it, is, I believe, to win half the battle to limit its effects. But how, besides this, should we deal with it? I’m afraid that that must be a topic for another time.

Read more 

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EastEnders: anti-Atheist bias

An e-mail I received this morning has drawn my attention to complaints of an ‘anti-Christian’ bias in the BBC ‘soap’ EastEnders.

My reaction, as someone who remembers when this long-running drama first reached our screens is, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

If there is any ‘religious’ bias in EastEnders, it is clearly directed almost entirely against atheists and agnostics.

Anyone watching the programme would realize it is meant to portray the lives of the ordinary unbelieving and half-believing folk of inner London. Yet even allowing for dramatic license, what we see is a deeply unattractive presentation of these people’s lives.

Almost no-one is every nice to anyone. Nobody smiles. Everybody seems to hate somebody. Their lives are a litany (if that is the right word) of destructive behaviours, punctuated by adultery, unfaithfulness and even murder.

It is almost as if the writers are saying, “This is how people behave when there’s nothing to live for and no moral anchor to prevent such outrageous actions.”

As such, this surely is a caricature of the ‘unbelieving’ life — and it has to be said, this is not least because no-one ever just sits in front of the telly watching EastEnders.

John Richardson
17 July 2010

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Why "Rev" isn't funny

I’ve been trying to work out why I don’t find Rev, the new BBC sitcom about an inner-city parish priest in the Church of England, at all funny.

There’s a serious reason for this, which is that I’ve been hoping it isn’t just because it’s about the Church of England and the hero is a ‘Liberal’, whilst at least some of the villains so far have been ‘Evangelicals’. In other words, I hope it’s not because it’s poking fun at me and my kind.

However, I watched episode 3 last night, without an ‘Evangelical’ in sight, and still found it flat and dull. The one thing I could point out that was just plain irritating was the abundance of stereotypes — the sensible, faithful, and not-at-all-fanatical Muslim woman who wanted to use the church for her Qur’an class (and was quite happy to speak to a strange man on her own in the church), the ‘nice’ church-going family whose father turned up later in a lap-dancing club, the vicar’s wife who is not-at-all-like-a-vicar’s-wife, the slightly creepy archdeacon (actually, that one ...), dumb lay-reader, and so.

But I still felt that couldn’t quite be the problem. After all, Dad’s Army or Father Ted are equally full of stereotypes — but there they are funny.

Then sometime between getting into bed and going to sleep, I realized what it was.

Comedy (indeed, any work of literature) is a production of the mind of the writer. What you see on stage or screen is really their fantasy-creation, and therefore it is an insight into their own thoughts.

Father Ted is the product of people who grew up in an Ireland another comedy writer described as “such a mad country that satire [was] the only way you [could] challenge the madness”, and it reflects the minds of those who found that madness a source of hilarity.

Rev is equally clearly the product of a certain kind of mind. Actually, I suspect it is a mind not at all unlike those of the ‘nice middle-class’ couple in an early episode who are basically attending church to get their child into the church school. And that, I’ve decided, is the problem.

Rev gives us (I am guessing) the perspective of a liberal, white, youngish, urban middle-class mind on the world of Anglican religion. The trouble is, the way that mind sees that particular world is utterly predictable, and therefore not funny.

This review, from someone who does like Rev, says it all:

The other reason I love Rev ... is that ... it cherishes [the Church of England’s] beating liberal heart. [...]

As Canon Lucy Winkett, formerly at St Paul’s Cathedral, once told me, it’s not about expecting people to believe (and I don’t); it’s about being a place where people can bring, should they choose to, the stuff of their lives. It’s about flexibility, inclusiveness and charity, in the best sense of that word.

It was Robert Burns who wrote, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!” Rev is the world of religion seen by the unbelieving white middle-class, telling it like the writer thinks it ought to be. They have a view on this world, but they can’t get ‘inside’ it. Put yourself in their place, however, and you could write the jokes yourself.

Rev is not funny because it written by people who find the subject matter not a source of hilarity but of earnestness. Ironically, as I have said before, Rev is, in the end, a sermon of its own, but it is preaching to the converted. It is BBC England reassuring itself about the strange world of the ‘God-botherers’. There may be a few fanatics — especially on the Christian ‘Right’, but the good guys are firmly in the middle of the road, and they are normal, having sexual feelings and smoking a crafty fag outside the ‘office’ just like you and me.

And if God isn’t too fussed about them, he can’t be too fussed about us, either. Can he?

John Richardson
16 July 2010

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"Rev" - 3 down and still not funny

Well, maybe it is funny for some people, but it certainly isn't making me laugh. I just watched episode 3 all the way through on the BBC i-player trying to work out why it is at best just occasionally vaguely amusing, and I think the problem is there are absolutely no surprises. Instead, we have a series of stereotypes behaving stereotypically. Even the expressions of belief or doubt are stereotypical - and the ending, where the strip club is to be built opposite the church, not the school, was obvious as soon as you saw the big bus in the way and heard Colin's character speaking about a victory seeing off the 'powers of evil', or some such (sorry for the spoiler).

I honestly found myself thinking I could write something about religion funnier than this. That probably isn't true, by the way, but it's a measure of how bad I think it is.

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Anglican Orthodoxy: the ‘Top Five’ questions?

In the light of recent developments, and further to my own suggestions on this blog, I have been wondering how one might reasonably and responsibly examine the orthodoxy of Anglican ministers or candidates for ministry.

In the spirit of the lists compiled by Rob Fleming, the hero of Nick Hornsby’s High Fidelity, I have come up with my ‘top five’ issues, all taken from the Thirty-nine Articles.

This is a completely serious suggestion, by the way. When our Benefice was recently interviewing for a new vicar, although I was (rightly) not allowed a vote in the final decision, I was allowed to question the candidates and to give my reflections. Amongst other things, therefore, I asked each of them for their take on Article VII, ‘Of the Old Testament’.

Rather than looking for ‘yes or no’ answers (“Do you believe in the resurrection?”, “Duh, yeah!”), it is better to allow people to show their ability in handling theological issues, so I would give an opportunity to respond to a statement, not simply to say whether they agreed with it or not. It is also important to have a limited list, and therefore it is impossible to cover every topic.

Nevertheless, I offer the following as Anglican statements of doctrine with which it would be perfectly reasonable to expect Anglican ministers to show some familiarity and conformity. You may wish to suggest alternatives. The only requirement is that if you add one in you must take one out.

So here are my ‘Top Five’ questions to establish Anglican orthodoxy. Try them yourself, or try them on your vicar (or bishop!).

Give your response to the following statements (adapted from the 39 Articles):

1.         “Christ ... truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of people.”

2.         “Original Sin ... is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man ... whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil ... and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.”

3.         “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine.”

4.         “Holy Scripture doth set out to us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.”

5.         “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.”

What one would be looking for in the answers would be, amongst other things, an absence of ‘nuancing’. The Declaration attached to the Articles in the Book of Common Prayer says that,

... no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.

Obviously they were wise to people ‘hedging’ their responses even in those days!

The more, therefore, someone’s answers show that they are, as we now say, ‘comfortable’ with the Article, the more we can be similarly ‘comfortable’ with them — and, I suggest, vice versa.

 John Richardson
13 July 2010

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When it comes to strategy, faithfulness, not femaleness is the conservative Evangelical agenda

I was brought up in an Anglo-Catholic church (St Luke’s, Charlton), became a server there around the age of eleven and was for several years the crucifer (though I really wanted to be the thurifer — frustrated ecclesiastical ambition has dogged me ever since). Today, I have numerous Anglo-Catholic friends in the Church of England, and for a long time I was on the editorial board of New Directions, so I have considerable sympathy with the Anglo-Catholic position on women priests and bishops.

At the same time, however, I have to acknowledge the unavoidable fact that whilst conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics may have something of a common cause in this regard, they do not share not a common case.

At the risk of over-simplifying, the Anglo-Catholic takes the view that a woman could not be a priest or a bishop, whereas the conservative Evangelical holds more broadly that a woman should not be a priest or a bishop.

Underlying this is a difference over whether being ordained confers a change of condition — often referred to as ‘character’ — or essentially an authority to exercise a public ministry (compare Article XXIII, ‘Of ministering in the congregation’). The Anglo-Catholic would hold to the former, whilst the Evangelical Anglican would generally adhere to the latter.

The consecration of women bishops is a particular problem for the Anglo-Catholic since it means that in the course of time there will be increasing uncertainty as to the validity of orders, and therefore of the sacraments, even amongst male Anglican clergy, for if the latter have been ‘ordained’ by a woman who is not (by definition) a bishop, then they also are not priests.

The Evangelical, on the other hand, would not have quite the same problem — any more than there would be a problem over, say, the orders (rather than the authority) of a free church minister from a denomination which cannot claim to stand in the succession of the historic episcopate.

It may be painful to have this spelled out, but it is a reality which has to be faced. It does, however, mean that conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics can (and in some cases must) adopt different strategies in response to what is currently happening in the Church of England. This need not mean going in entirely different directions, but it may well mean taking different paths.

The conservative Evangelical Anglican understanding of orders and ministry means that the debate concerning women priests and bishops is not ultimately about gender but about faithfulness to Scripture.

The conservative Evangelical may thus apply Article XXVI in a way that the Anglo-Catholic cannot, for what the Article says about ‘unworthy’ ministers, the Evangelical may also be willing to apply in principle to women priests and bishops:

... forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by His commission and authority, we may use their ministry both in hearing the Word of God and in the receiving of the sacraments.

(The application of ‘Christ’s commission and authority’, incidentally, must be to the office and nature of the ministry of word and sacrament, not to the person of the minister, since this Article explicitly concerns those who really ought to be deposed.)

The conservative Evangelical would therefore not automatically deny the validity of Holy Communion celebrated by a woman priest, nor maintain that nothing useful could ever be learned from a woman’s teaching. (Indeed, the crucial objection in 1 Timothy 2:12 that a woman should not ‘teach or exercise authority over a man’ rather presumes that a man could, nevertheless, learn in such circumstances.) Equally, the conservative Evangelical need not have a problem with a man ordained by a woman bishop, since the prescriptions of Article XXIII have arguably been met:

... those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men [in the old, ‘generic’, sense] who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.

Since, under any new legislation, a woman bishop would be in receipt of that ‘public authority’, she could lawfully call and send ministers.

Indeed, no less an evangelical than Broughton Knox once wrote,

There is no objection to a woman consecrating a bishop, ordaining clergy, confirming young people, baptizing infants or reading the service of Holy Communion, when these actions are considered in themselves, that is, religious acts apart from the context of the congregation. (‘The Ordination of Women’ in Selected Works, Volume 2: Church and Ministry, Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2003, 205 — though the observation regarding the congregation is crucial to his overall position.)

It might be presumed that all this ought to make things easier for conservative Evangelicals. Indeed, there will be some reading this who will be asking if this is the case what all the fuss is about. Why don’t conservative Evangelicals just accept women priests and bishops and get on with their own ministries? And indeed, in the ‘extremis’ position for themselves resulting from decisions currently being taken by the Church of England, conservative Evangelicals may decide that a certain amount of such leeway is necessary. Knox, again, writes,

The New Testament does not consider the anomaly when Christian men are incompetent, ill-prepared or unwilling to discharge the teaching ministry. In this anomalous situation it may well be that what is normal must give place to what is beneficial! (‘Ministry of Women’, ibid, 245)

He would presumably also have said that the New Testament made no allowance for the ‘anomaly’ of a denomination having legally ordained women clergy. But perhaps he may nevertheless have suggested that, on the same principle, what is beneficial must sometimes give place to what it legal.

All this is not to say, however, that conservative Evangelicals should be indifferent to the issue of women bishops. But because the ultimate issue is not gender but faithfulness, it is on faithfulness that we can and should focus.

Indeed, because it is an issue of faithfulness, we can even have fellowship with those with whom we to an extent disagree. Some people will, for example, quite reasonably ask how, if our convictions are so different, conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics can find any common cause whatsoever. My answer is that we can do so because we share a common Anglican heritage, so long as we take seriously those things we affirm in the Declaration of Assent — the Scriptures as supreme, along with the Creeds, the Prayer Book, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Ordinal.

Others may observe that this surely creates problems for the Anglo-Catholic when it comes to conformity to the Anglican ‘formularies’. And no doubt it does. But that is for them to resolve, and whilst they are willing to work on it, I would be personally willing to work with them.

Yet others, though, may ask why the same cannot apply to Liberals, to which my reply is basically the same. Provided they take the Declaration of Assent seriously, we have something in common from which we can begin to work. My home church of St Luke’s also gave me an early taste of Liberal theology — nice enough people, shame about the faith. However, where Liberalism is seen as providing a theological carte blanche, and the Declaration of Assent is cynically regarded as a mere nod to the past rather than a commitment in the present, then Liberalism becomes a ‘cuckoo in the nest’ which is not only an imposter itself, but which will push out the other inhabitants.

This is largely because if this particular form of Liberalism is tolerated then it introduces into the Church a fundamental ethos of dishonesty. And, unfortunately, in the Church of England we have indeed (and somewhat bizarrely) cultivated an ethos of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ where it matters most for a community of faith, namely what we actually believe! If anyone thinks the Church of England is ‘two-faced’ in its institutional attitude to homosexuality, they would be horrified when it comes to the basics of doctrine. By all means let a Liberal say, “That I can’t believe!” But dishonesty in the church, as in business or in politics, introduces a corruption which spreads through the whole and influences everyone.

The question conservative Evangelicals need to confront, however, is this: “If you had your own way, and were running the Church of England, what would you do that would transform it from what it is to what you think it ought to be?” And the answer cannot be (to put it extremely crudely), ‘get rid of the women and the gays’.

We may need to remind ourselves that the Church of England had no women priests before 1993, yet it wasn’t exactly thriving back then. What it lacked was not men, but faithfulness to the gospel and integrity regarding its own outward standards of faith and practice.

By the same token then, and according to the arguments I have advanced above, the advent of women bishops need not be the ‘end of the world’ that some are gloomily predicting. It is possible to be ‘salt and light’ even in a Church where, as Article XXVI puts it, “the evil have chief authority in the ministration of the word and sacraments.” And even the Church of England is not there yet!

It will, however, require faithfulness of its own, as well as courage, fortitude, imagination, dedication and a willingness to suffer for the sake of the gospel.

What we must look for from our evangelical leaders in the next few weeks is not threats (or, as our opponents would regard them, offers) to depart, but coherent and practical proposals to achieve what our bishops are called to do in the Ordinal, namely, “to teach and exhort with wholesome Doctrine, and to withstand and convince the gainsayers” and “with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the same.” And this applies, of course, not just to the ordination of women or other ‘hot button’ issues, but to the ‘whole counsel of God’.

We face an uphill struggle, but whoever said it would be easy?

John P Richardson
12 July 2010

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The 'Curmudgeon' nails it on women bishops

There is an important post on the Anglican Curmudgeon blog which exactly identifies one of the problems over trying to find a way out of the current impasse on women bishops:

It is instructive to delve beneath the bare numbers. At stake is proposed legislation that would enable women to be ordained as bishops for the first time in the Church of England, while the Synod passed in 1992 changes which allowed the ordination of women as priests. It was the latter change which made it possible for the clergy order to defeat the Archbishops' compromise measure, since there are now a significant number of women clergy delegates to Synod as a result of the changes enacted in 1992. The number so elected to Synod easily exceeds the plurality of 5 by which the Archbishops' measure went down to defeat among the clergy.

In short, the women priests in Synod combined with a sufficient number of male priests to ensure, by a bare minimum, that the wisdom of the other orders in the Church of England would not be put into practice. And in that description of the result is all the data that anyone needs to conclude that the admission of women to the priesthood in the Church of England was just the first step in a widening gyre. There will be no turning back: after the approval of the ordination of women to the episcopate, the numbers will so change in the Church of England's House of Bishops, and in the lay delegates as well, as to make inevitable the ordination of LGBT's to the episcopate. And at that point, the Church of England -- in whatever form it then remains -- will be indistinguishable from ECUSA.

Actually, given the composition of the House of Clergy in Synod, it is somewhat surprising that the vote came as close as it did. Nevertheless, it is surely the case that as the number of female clergy has increased, so the possibility of electing clergy who are opposed to the ordination of women has decreased, resulting in a disproportionate absence of their number from the Synod.

In short, there is an inevitable but 'systemic' gerrymandering in the electoral system, just as there has clearly been deliberate 'political' gerrymandering in this respect in the appointment of bishops.

John Richardson
12 July 2010

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On the strategic possibilities of pulpit exchanges

What are conservative Evangelicals to do about the new shape of the Church of England which is likely to emerge from the current debate on women bishops? That, it seems to me, is an increasingly urgent question, and yet it is one to which very few practical answers have been offered.

We could battle on through the Synodical process, but the problem with this tactic is that it relies too much on other people doing what we want. We could leave (or threaten to), but the problem there is that we would be doing exactly what other people want from us. Yet we cannot afford simply to carry on as we are.

I want to suggest that an important course of action presents itself when we consider the nature of episcopal ministry itself. What bishops can do, amongst other things, is give local congregations a sense of belonging to a larger and coordinated whole — a network of congregations which care about one another and which are mutually supportive.

Unfortunately, such networks are entirely lacking amongst conservative Evangelicals, with the result that our people are often unaware of the wider issues in the Church, whilst the clergy are battling on isolated and unaided.

Yet if we had the kind of bishops we would prefer, this is surely one of the impacts we would want them to have — strengthening the bonds of fellowship between congregations and encouraging ministers in their local work.

This is not, of course, how our existing bishops currently operate, but it is, I would suggest, part of the nature of ‘episcopal’ ministry. And although there is increasingly little chance of conservative Evangelicals being appointed to the bench of bishops, there is no reason at all why they should not develop networks of mutual support which supply what is lacking in the current situation.

One of our problems, for example, is that we do not have networks of congregations. Ministers get together. They join various organizations and see one another at conferences and so on, but our people have almost no awareness of this. For them, the parish boundary, or the local congregational membership, is the limit of their entire world.

Why not, therefore, invite those we know from our clergy networks to preach in our own pulpits? That way, our people would become aware of these other clergy and their congregations. They might hear some of the news from these far-off places and they might, incidentally, begin to appreciate that the doctrines preached by their own ministers are not just personal eccentricities.

This might be particularly important with respect to the larger churches. I have heard it suggested that ‘when the time comes’, conservative Evangelicals ought to create new episcopal structures centred around the senior ministers who staff these ‘flagship’ congregations.

That may or may not be the best approach, but it is worth reminding ourselves that episcopal ministry ought, first and foremost, to be a teaching ministry. Therefore, if these senior ministers are to exercise an ‘episcopal’ role, they ought to be released from their local pulpit to go and preach in other congregations in order to create and sustain the necessary networks.

At the same time, it would be very good if some of the ministers in the smaller congregations were invited to speak from the ‘flagship’ pulpits. It would be a great encouragement to them, and it would also be a great opportunity for those larger churches to be less insular and inward-looking than they often currently are.

It has been observed more than once that trying to organize conservative Evangelicals is like trying to herd cats. The ethos amongst the clergy is summed up in the words of the old song: “You in your small corner, and I in mine.” And that is how we often prefer things, not least because we are protective and defensive. (It reminds me of the person who jokingly said, “There’s only me and Dick Lucas left, and I’m worried about Dick.”)

The pulpit exchange could be a very powerful force for the good of our constituency, if only we will make the effort to start organizing along these lines. In particular, it has the advantage of being based in what we claim to value most, namely the ministry of the word. It would not ‘solve’ all our problems — nothing ever will. But it would certainly address our isolationism and, not least, our sheer unfamiliarity with the idea that there is a wider church out there.

So who is up for it?

John Richardson
11 July 2010

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After women bishops, what next?

I've not had time to follow the Synod debate on women bishop's much less to comment. However, I was having a discussion with some of our own folks on Thursday night, where I observed that the introduction of women bishops is by no means the end of the line, for there are explicit indications amongst the chief supporters of the consecration of women that our theology and liturgy are also in line for changes.

Just to give an idea of what this entails, I have simply cut and pasted the following from a paper on the WATCH website:

2. Language and theological issues:

God, Christology and the Church

The constant and uninterrupted use of language which is exclusive and used repeatedly can be intimidating or even aggressive: Almighty God, Lord of Power and Might, Everlasting Father, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. Intimidation and aggression do not give life to the people of God called to grow in wisdom and understanding. We need to use the full range of biblical images for God, the tender and nurturing as well as the powerful. Yet we must recognise that our growing includes encouraging fresh expressions of language for each new generation. The gospel always has a reforming, reinterpreting edge to it. “Almost all of the language used in the Bible to refer to God is metaphor, with the possible exception of holy...There is no point in pontificating what metaphors like “God as father” ought to mean. If God metaphors become problematic for a significant group of people, it is pointless and patronising to tell them they ought to understand differently”. (What Language Shall I Borrow” by Brian Wren). God reveals the Godself to us throughout the scriptures as mother, father, friend, love, wind, fire. And for some God is more than static noun: God becomes dynamic verb. We may leave words behind entirely: “The more I walk with God, the less words about God will do” (John Spong). The best God metaphors are those that move us deeply and enable us to encounter and be encountered by the dynamic dance of incandescent love that Christian experience names as Trinity. 

Interesting to see a quote there from John Spong, someone whom no less a personage than Jeffrey John has dismissed as lacking any Christian credibility.

Now it would be wrong to suggest - and I am not suggesting - that all supporters of women bishops think this way. But the point is that some do, and that they have clearly signalled their intentions, and that therefore this is the next big area with which the Church will have to deal, alongside (of course) homosexuality.

As they say, "Discuss".

John P Richardson
11 July 2010



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Jeffrey John: now you see him ...?

According to the latest ‘scoop’ from the Daily Telegraph, Dr Jeffrey John has now been “blocked” from becoming the next Bishop of Southwark — a report which suggests either that the current sessions of the Crown Nominations Commission include their own ‘Deep Cantor’ or that someone is, to use the vernacular, ‘having a laugh’ feeding stories to the press.

In this regard, a couple of points need to be made.

First, I am not aware — though I am open to correction — that either the Commission or “senior Church figures” can ‘block’ the appointment of someone as a bishop, since this lies directly in the gift of the Crown.

It is worth remembering that the protocol regarding episcopal appointments, whereby the Commission puts forward preferred names for consideration, was brought into existence in 1976 on the personal initiative of the then-Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan. Prior to that, the final choice of bishops was made by the Prime Minister alone, acting on the advice of his Appointments Secretary. The background can be read in Colin Buchanan’s Cut the Connection, whilst the Church Times website carries from September 1960 an entire letter from David Stephens, the Appointments Secretary to Harold MacMillan, which gives a fascinating insight into how these things used to work.

The recommendations of the Nominations Commission are, therefore, just that, and it is strongly rumoured that past Prime Ministers (including — it is said — both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair) have indeed rejected names that were put forward. By the same token (though it might now cause a constitutional crisis of its own), I imagine it is theoretically possible that the Prime Minister could revert to the old system and simply nominate a candidate of his own choice.

All this is simply by way of saying that speculation seems to be abounding not merely about names but about processes.

The second point is that the proceedings of the Commission are (supposedly) confidential. There is therefore no way of really knowing what has been said — if anything at all. Even if someone has been speaking to journalists, these stories presumably cannot reliably be cross-checked. There is no doubt that there has been considerable speculation. There is at least a chance that there has also been deliberate manipulation. The best policy from this point forward regarding specific names is doubtless a studied silence: “Hear a rumour, squash a rumour.”

What this does raise, however, is a serious question about how so-called ‘preferment’ operates in the Church of England. Wikipedia is not wrong when it describes the appointment of bishops as “a somewhat convoluted process, reflecting the church’s traditional tendency towards compromise and ad hoc solutions, traditional ambiguity between hierarchy and democracy, and traditional role as a semi-autonomous state church.”

As is often the case in the Church of England, it is also a process which maintains the appearance of quiet dignity whilst concealing the political shenanigans which are inevitably involved. Despite the election of some members of the Commission, disproportionate influence is repeatedly wielded by the same individuals, and whilst confidentiality is meant to avoid just the sort of brouhaha we have seen in the past few days, it means the final choice is somewhat foisted on dioceses, rather than being given their due consideration in advance.

One result is a stream of rather ‘clone-ish’ candidates. Given that Anglican clergy tend to have a similar personality type anyway, I am sure this is even more so for bishops. Even my wife (not given to ecclesio-political enthusiasm) burst out once, “Why are they all the same?”

Perhaps, given the choice, Southwark generally would have gone for Jeffrey John, and perhaps this would have been an unwise decision. Given the current state of the Church of England, however, I cannot say when it comes to the appointments process this is a case of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It would be a good outcome, in my view, if what all this actually led to was a review of the ‘appointers’, rather than the just ‘appointees’.

John P Richardson
8 July 2010

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Additions to the blogroll

The world of Christian blogging has recently lost two significant contributors. Ruth Gledhill is still alive, but locked behind the Times's new 'paywall' - which seems pretty self-defeating for a blog and I'll bet Ruth is chewing her knuckles in frustration. (I wonder if she's allowed to post 'yes' or 'no' on other people's blogs?) The other loss - far more mysterious - is the religio-political commentator known only as Cranmer (a kind of 'Stig of the Church'). Nothing has been posted on his blog for three weeks, following the appearance of a genuinely ominous painting of a martyrdom.

To keep things interesting, I've (temporarily, I hope) added two replacement blogs to my blogroll. One is The Llandaffchester Chronicles - I have no idea what is going on there, but the latest video clip is hilarious. The other is Bad Vestments. It speaks for itself (as, indeed, do they for themselves). Enjoy.

John Richardson


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The ghastly Rev

Just watching the utterly ghastly "Rev" on BBC. It says on the blurb it is "entertainment" and "comedy". I've a feeling it could be done under the Trade Descriptions Act for that.

Tempted to throw a shoe at the telly, but would much rather throw a BBC scriptwriter out of a stained glass window.

I'd sum it up as the Vicar of Dibley does (church) politics with a bloke.

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Be very careful before you object to Dr John

A couple of different sources have e-mailed me this evening the story from the Daily Telegraph that Dr Jeffrey John is the short-listed favourite to become the next Bishop of Southwark.

My guess is that whilst a lot of people would greet this news with rejoicing, others will respond angrily and will be prompted to threaten all sorts of reprisals.

I cannot speak for those who would support the appointment, but I want to urge those who might oppose it to think very carefully before they object, for the situation is nothing like as straightforward as might be assumed.

First, we ought not to condemn Dr John because he is, in the words of the Telegraph article, ‘openly homosexual’. I have said many times, including on this blog, that we ought to have far more ‘openly homosexual’ people in the Church. Indeed, one of the clergy I most admire is ‘openly homosexual’ — at least, he has openly told me his is ‘gay’ — and I would have no problems whatsoever attending his church or working with him in any capacity.

We would not be in half the mess we are in today if the Church, during the years in which homosexuality was almost universally regarded as perverse, had acted as a haven for real sinners, rather than a rather choosy hostel for the outwardly saintly. We ought to remember the words of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Secondly, it would be difficult to condemn Dr John’s appointment on the grounds that he is in a relationship with someone of the same sex. The Church of England accepts the existence of civil partnered clergy, and although some (including myself) may think this is a mistake, the House of Bishops has made it clear that this acceptance is based on the provision of assurances that such relationships are sexually celibate. Moreover, Dr John has (as I recall) declared that this is the case for his own relationship.

There are therefore no current grounds within the Church of England’s teaching and practice regarding Dr John’s domestic arrangements for condemning his appointment as a bishop.

In fact, the only grounds I can see for objecting to Dr John’s appointment in principle lies in his teaching about human sexuality.

Some years ago, Dr John famously wrote a short book called Permanent, Faithful, Stable in which he advocated the acceptance of homosexual relationships, including non-celibate relationships, which showed those three features. I have reviewed this elsewhere, and detailed the difficulties I have with his approach, and I believe it would be entirely proper to object to Dr John’s appointment on the grounds of the position he adopts in this book.

However, if that is the basis on which an objection is to be made, it must be realized that the same would apply — as I have pointed out already — to a number of other existing Anglican bishops.

In other words, if Dr John’s appointment is seen as a potential casus belli, it needs to be appreciated that we are potentially at that point in more than one other diocese. Personally, I do not think this has been understood, and I am not at all sure that the implications have been considered as they ought to have by those who might think this is an ‘open and shut’ case.

Before any fierce objection is voiced to the mooting of Dr John, therefore, it needs to be asked, “Why him? Why now?” And if the objections are, nevertheless, made and actions do in fact follow, then for consistency’s sake this should not just apply to Dr John’s appointment, which may, in any case, never happen.

John P Richardson
3 July 2010

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Wanted: 'worship songs' for men

This morning I was tackling another task I find particularly difficult, namely putting together an order of service for Sunday night. Others might find this easy: pick a few hymns, add some suitable prayers, top and tail with an introduction and closing blessing and that’s it.

Unfortunately, I usually get stuck at step one. When it comes to picking the hymns and songs, I go completely blank. This may, however, be connected with the fact that I find so much of what we sing fairly dire, and in particular I think much of it is totally unsuitable for men.

I was especially struck by this with regard to a new song we are going to learn for Sunday night. The author is well-known and well-liked, so I will spare his blushes, but to be honest, the lyrics read like a ‘rush job’ and the tune isn’t much better.

Now the next bit is very naughty, so if you might be offended look away now, but the following was actually generated by a computer script (with a tiny bit of tweaking by me):

God of Israel, I never told you how I truly feel
You mean to me a great deal
You are my eternal sunshine
When I first met you I knew it was a sign

God of Israel, you are unbelievably beautiful
You deserve the world’s largest jewel
Words from me cannot express
How you have captured my heart with success

God of Israel, you mean so much to me
I never knew that this could be
Eternal bliss is where I’m bound
In your loving arms is where it’s found

My life is yours, I hope you will like it
Because loving you, I will never quit
Until soon, when we meet again
In your heart is where I will remain.

The scary thing is, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to modern ‘worship songs’. All it needs is suitably uplifting music, and you’d be there.

It would also be just the sort of thing men would dread singing. Most men are quite capable in this regard. The problem is finding the right combination of words and music.

Indeed, music is crucial because it determines the impact of the song as a whole. Try listening to ‘O Thou who camest from above’ to this tune sung by Maddy Prior (via YouTube), and compare it with the usual ‘Hereford’. The latter is somewhat ‘woozy’, the former (in my view) rather more ‘robust’. And it is robustness that I think men need when it comes to public singing.

Far too many of our contemporary songs are set to ‘sentimental’ (or overly-complicated) tunes. Perhaps this is because the modern ‘worship group’ uses instruments which suit a style which doesn’t translate well into ‘congregational’, collective, singing. (Compare the modern group with the church ‘gallery band’ in the picture at the beginning of the Maddy Prior clip.) Yet for most of us, congregational singing is the only way we are going to let our voices be heard (or at least, ought to).

But do men want to sing? My view is they will, if they are given the right material. Try listening to this, from the repertoire of the French Foreign Legion. The song is J’avais un Camarade, and to my mind there is something almost monastic about the effect. Even the words would adapt — at least as readily as my computer-generated piece above — to express a Christian sentiment:

I had a friend
None better than he
In peace and in war
We were like two brothers
Marching in step.

I rather fancy the idea of someone writing truly Christian lyrics to fit the same tune. And when they’ve tried that, perhaps they’d like to try the Kepi Blanc — though one wouldn’t want the Legion getting upset over copyright.

Amongst John Wesley’s ‘Directions for Singing’ was the following:

Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.

Perhaps we could adapt the words of Winston Churchill as a plea for the writers of modern Christian music to think about the men in the congregation: “Give us the songs and we’ll sing the praise.”

John P Richardson
2 July 2010

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