Readings
Food for Thought
The following readings are editorials from Churchman, the international journal of Anglican Theology published by Church Society. For other articles and other issues visit the website at www.churchsociety.org. Church Society exists to promote a biblical faith which shapes both the Church of England and the society in which we live for the sake of Christ. Such a faith is carefully expressed in the 39 Articles of Religion and in the Protestant liturgy entrusted to us after the reformation.
Church Society works through publishing, supporting churches, campaigning and the administration of charitable trusts and properties.
by Professor Gerald Bray, Professor of Anglican Theology at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama
On 23rd July 2002 Prime Minister Tony Blair revealed what had, by then,
become one of the worst-kept secrets in recent British history, when he
announced that the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Rowan Williams, would succeed Dr
George Carey at Canterbury and thus become the presiding bishop, not only of the
Church of England, but of the entire Anglican Communion. Six months of arduous
(and at times malodorous) campaigning had landed Dr Williams the ‘top job’,
thereby fulfilling what had evidently been an old (if perhaps not lifelong)
ambition of his. To be fair to Dr Williams, he said not a word during this
process, but the critical observer cannot help but wonder just how innocent this
silence really was. In January 2002 it was rumoured that Dr Michael Nazir-Ali,
the bishop of Rochester, was a leading candidate for the post, whereupon he was
viciously attacked in the press for sins and failings of which he was not
guilty. In defending himself, Dr Nazir-Ali mentioned that the appointment to
Canterbury was not a competition, and that there were many in the church who
were far worthier than he was to occupy that see. When it became clear, as it
very soon did, that the attacks on Dr Nazir-Ali were designed to clear the way
for Dr Williams, the latter could surely have issued a similar statement,
disclaiming any unseemly ambition which might see him benefit from the
misfortunes of others, but not a word emerged from that quarter.
In the following months, Dr Williams’ fan club went to extraordinary lengths,
both to praise him to the skies and to dismiss the claims of any potential
rivals. We were told that he stands head and shoulders above any other bishop in
the church, that he has a brilliant intellect, that he is deeply spiritual, that
he alone will turn the church around in the direction which it now needs to go.
Mention of the Bishop of London on the other hand, solicited the remark that if
he were to be appointed, there would be a mass exodus from General Synod,
something which (it was assumed) would be a tragedy for the church! When even
Desmond Tutu was seconded to sing Dr Williams’ praises on Newsnight, it must
have been obvious to all but the most naive that there was a highly organised
campaign going on, which would stop at nothing to get its man elected. Dr
Williams cannot have been unaware of this, and could easily have disavowed the
claims of his more ardent supporters, but again he said nothing, and when the
announcement was finally made, it was obvious from his response that he regarded
himself as fully able and ready to do the job to which he had been appointed.
Not all pride takes the form of boasting, and Dr Williams demonstrated only too
clearly how clever a tactic his own very public silence had been.
When it dawned on the general public that the inevitable was about to happen, a
group of leading Evangelicals wrote to the Prime Minister, pleading for a
last-minute intervention on his part which would stop the bandwagon in its
tracks. To no-one’s surprise, the tactic failed, though they did succeed in
showing everyone where the main opposition to Dr Williams is likely to come from
in the next few years. Between Evangelicals and Dr Williams there is a great
gulf fixed, which will not be bridged by any conciliatory remarks on his part
(none of which have been forthcoming so far, incidentally), nor even by the
usual wobbling on the left wing of the Evangelical constituency, which has
already manifested itself in some quarters. The nature of this gulf is
theological, but it is also intellectual, psychological, temperamental and
cultural. However one looks at it, there is almost no point of contact between
Dr Williams and the Evangelical world, and he shows no sign of any desire to
establish the kinds of links which would be needed to gain Evangelical trust and
support. When interviewed recently in The Times (shortly before the official
announcement of his appointment), Dr Williams described Evangelicals as people
who bang tambourines and sing Blessed Assurance, and let it be known that every
once in a while he too feels the urge to join in! One would like to know
precisely when he last felt that urge, and even more, where he went to satisfy
it, since there are precious few Evangelical churches which match his
description of them, but the tone of thinly-veiled contempt which lies behind
such remarks comes across loud and clear.
Evangelicals who may have been dismayed by Dr Williams’ remarks to the press
need to realise that they were mild indeed, compared to what he has published
elsewhere. Those who want to familiarise themselves with his overall theological
outlook need go no further than the collection of essays which he recently
published under the title On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell,
2000). There it emerges that Dr Williams’ chief guide to things evangelical is
none other than James Barr, whose notoriously inaccurate and bitter
fundamentalism, Dr Williams seems to take as an obvious statement of fact. Had
the evangelical letter-writers mentioned above read this collection of essays
beforehand, they would have found Dr Williams’ reply to their approach clearly
stated on p 58:
...so far from the literal or historical sense [of Scripture] being a resource
of problem-solving clarity, as it might appear to be for the fundamentalist, an
area of simple truthfulness over against the dangerously sophisticated pluralism
of a disobedient Church, it may rather encourage us to take historical
responsibility for arguing and exploring how the gospel is going to be heard in
our day.
In other words, what the Bible says is not authoritative for us today. Rather,
what the ancient text does is provide a locus of theological conversation, a
challenge to our minds to work out how we can and should experience the divine
in our own historical context.
Readers familiar with the development of academic theology since the
Enlightenment will see that this is a clear, indeed forceful, statement of the
most deeply secular theology imaginable. In traditionalist terms, it is
justified on the basis of the incarnation of Christ, a belief which states that
the divine is fully involved with, and revealed in, the everyday life of the
world. Of course it is necessary now, as it was then, to penetrate beyond
superficial details and discover the essential heart of the mystery. Those who
call themselves Christians continue to believe that Jesus is the most helpful
guide in this respect-the fullest expression (so far at least) of what it means
to be truly human. Nevertheless, Christians must always be open to hear the
voice of those who are unable to find the deepest meaning of life in the person
and work of Jesus, and to proclaim their solidarity with all who are trying to
make sense of their universe, as long as they display the appropriate degree of
intellectual maturity and integrity in doing so. From this perspective, Iris
Murdoch and John Hick are fellow travellers in search of the meaning of life,
while John Stott or Jim Packer are not even on the radar screen.
In Dr Williams’ world, Evangelicals simply do not measure up to his criteria of
what a theologian is. They are not mature, because they turn the Bible into an
idol and worship it, instead of using its resources to plumb the spiritual
depths of the human heart. They are not intellectual, because they are always
trying to simplify things for general consumption, instead of creating sentences
of labyrinthine complexity which tread a fine line between subtlety and
obfuscation, and which may (in the end) not say anything at all. Worse still,
Evangelicals lack integrity, because although they have been fully exposed to
the bright lights of modern social, psychological and philosophical theories,
they have chosen to ignore them. Opinions which were acceptable for an
Athanasius or a Thomas Aquinas, who lived before the age of Enlightenment, are
impossible for a modern person, and Evangelicals who persist in thinking
otherwise are flying in the face of known facts-proof (if any were needed) of
their lack of integrity. A community which thinks of John Stott and Jim Packer
as spiritual guides, while ignoring or disparaging the likes of Iris Murdoch and
John Hick, is not a fellowship in which Dr Williams is likely to feel at home,
and we must not be surprised if he stays away from it as much as possible.
Dr Williams’ appointment to Canterbury is nothing less than a wake-up call to
Evangelicals in the Church of England. For a generation, we have fondly imagined
that increasing numbers would mean greater influence, and that over time the
Church would move in our direction. Instead, what we see is an institution which
has fallen into the hands of pressure groups whose interests lie about as far
from Evangelical concerns as it is possible to get. There should be no
misunderstanding about this; Dr Williams’ fan club is heavily infiltrated by
feminist and gay activists, who have a very clear agenda for the kind of change
in the Church which they wish to bring about. In the normal course of events, Dr
Williams may be with us until 2020, long enough to see a number of women bishops
in post, and long enough for the opposition to the ministry of practising
homosexuals to have withered away. Dr Williams is known to favour both these
causes (doubters, please read p 289 of the above-mentioned book) and although
the first will require a painful process of legislation which may be interrupted
by the insensitivities of off-message traditionalists, the second will easily
emerge by stealth. Bishops who are prepared to ordain practising homosexuals are
now free to do so, since it is inconceivable that Dr Williams will try to
discipline someone who will be doing no more than what he himself has already
done. A critical mass of such people will quickly build up, and without a word
being said by anyone, the climate of opinion in General Synod will have changed
beyond recognition before the wider public has even noticed. The Crown
Appointments Commission already has a gay activist in its ranks, and it is not
hard to imagine what the next round of episcopal appointments will look like.
The ideal candidate, in fact, will be an ‘open’ Evangelical who can claim to
represent that wing of the church while at the same time bending to the gods and
goddesses of political correctness on everything that really matters. Two days
after Dr Williams’ appointment was announced, Bishop Gavin Reid (a well-known
‘open’ Evangelical and formerly suffragan bishop of Maidstone in the Canterbury
diocese) was writing to The Times saying that Dr Williams’ move to Canterbury
may be a sign that it is time for us to rethink our position on homosexual
practice! If Bishop Reid were thirty years younger, he would be a leading
diocesan in no time, and there will certainly be enough men of his calibre to
fill the depleting episcopal ranks over the next five to ten years. Evangelicals
must wake up. Whether we like it or not, the battle for the Church of England’s
soul will be fought out in General Synod, not least in the 2005 elections, where
Dr Williams’ troops will be out in force. Will we develop a counter strategy to
defeat this, or will we simply bury our heads in the sand yet again, and let the
forces of post-modernity subvert and destroy what is left of the Christian faith
revealed to us in God’s holy Word? This is the stark choice which we face, and
we may perhaps be grateful to Dr Williams and his supporters for making us face
it as clearly as we now must.
Gerald Bray
For better or for worse, it appears that the
homosexual issue will dominate the opening months, if not years, of Archbishop
Williams’ primacy. Evangelicals have taken the credit (or the blame) for this,
because of their open opposition to the archbishop’s stated views on the
subject, but in fairness to all concerned, it ought to be recorded that neither
Evangelicals nor other conservatives in the Church of England who agree with
them on this matter, have the most at stake in the discussion. Rather, this
honour belongs to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, which as long ago as
1989 invited the then Professor Williams to deliver the tenth Michael Harding
Memorial Address, which he called The body’s grace. After languishing in
relative obscurity for thirteen years, this address has now been reprinted by
the LGCM as a reminder to us all that, as the quote on the back cover from
Eugene F. Rogers (editor of Theology and sexuality, classic and contemporary
readings) says, it is ‘the best lecture about sexuality in the twentieth
century. Williams aims to show how committed same-sex relationships fit well
with what Christians have said about the purpose of marriage, celibacy and the
Christian life.’ Mr Rogers might have added that it also provides us with a
classic example of Dr Williams’ method of debating an issue, which makes reading
it a matter of some importance for all those who want to disagree with him on
this, or on any other subject.
Dr Williams’ method is to start by advancing a thesis - in this case, that
sexual intercourse was intended by God to give pleasure to those who engage in
it. This thesis is not supported by any evidence, other than what can be derived
from Paul Scott’s Raj quartet, a series of novels whose canonical status (in
either the religious or the literary sphere) is at best unknown. Dr Williams
then proceeds to put forward an alternative position, viz., that sexual
intercourse was designed primarily to ensure the reproduction of the human race,
a view which has supposedly dominated Christian thinking to the point that any
other dimension has been ignored or condemned as immoral. He then goes on to
demolish this second assumption, discrediting traditional Christian teaching in
the process. Once this is accomplished, the pleasure principle is left to
dominate the field, and homosexuality comes into its own.
For Dr Williams goes on to claim that homosexual activity is by definition a
radical rejection of the idea that reproduction is the chief end of sexual
intercourse, and therefore a witness to the primacy of the pleasure principle,
assuming that homosexuals engage in sexual acts primarily for that reason. If
that is the case, and pleasure is the main object of sexual activity, then far
from being pariahs, homosexuals are significant witnesses to the God-given
nature of human sexuality. In the modern church, they may even be prophets,
denouncing the false idolatries of the past and opening up new dimensions of
both personal satisfaction and divine worship. It all follows logically - once
we accept Dr Williams’ premisses. Those who disagree with his conclusions are
liable to find that they have been painted into a corner, since to condemn
homosexual practice is to say that there is no joy in sexual intercourse, which
in turn is a denial of the purposes of the Creator! Obviously we do not want to
say that, so we are left, as Dr Williams would claim, holding an inconsistent
position (based on a mixture of tradition and prejudice) which has to be
dissolved and refashioned by the healing art of reason.
If we ever hope to answer him, it is necessary to go back to the basic
assumptions on which his argument is built, and show that they are by no means
as solid or as obvious as he would like to think. To say that sexual intercourse
is meant to be pleasurable for those who engage in it is one thing; to imply
that pleasure is its primary purpose or justification is quite another. The
Bible does not say that, nor does it say that the reproduction of the human race
is the only reason why sexual intercourse exists. In other words, Dr Williams’
thesis and its alternative are both wrong. The Genesis account and the rest of
Scripture make it quite clear that the purpose of sexual intercourse is to bind
one man and one woman together, so that the two may become ‘one flesh’. In many
(and probably most) cases this will result in offspring, but that is by no means
inevitable, nor does reproduction determine whether the union is valid or not.
The Christian church has always maintained that an unconsummated marriage can be
dissolved, but not a childless one, because it is sexual intercourse and not the
production of children which creates the one-flesh bond. When sexual intercourse
is used for some other purpose, it is abused, as the Apostle Paul pointed out to
the Corinthians when he warned them against sleeping with prostitutes. Those who
did so were establishing a fleshly union which involved no commitment, and
therefore served only to devalue the whole activity. It is no surprise that in
our modern society, when this principle has been widely rejected, the result has
been a general devaluation of marriage and the resultant break-up of families
which has created a whole new form of social instability.
The idea that pleasure is an end in itself is another notion which has no
support, either from Scripture or from common sense. Those who have been to
Cambridge may recall having seen, just off the market square, a bronze plaque
containing a nineteenth-century Ode to tobacco. The pleasures of the weed are
celebrated in verse and publicised for all to read. But would anyone seriously
argue that the pleasure derived from smoking is sufficient justification for
making it a socially acceptable practice? Like homosexual intercourse, smoking
serves no utilitarian purpose and can only be justified on the basis of the
pleasure it gives to those who do it, but are there not serious reasons for
suggesting that this pleasure is a form of abuse? The same thing applies to
drugs, of course, and may even be extended to paedophilia or mass murder. Some
people enjoy these activities, but is the pleasure derived from them
justification for allowing them to indulge their desires without restraint?
The conclusion must be that pleasure cannot be an end worth pursuing in itself,
regardless of other considerations. The Bible tells us that true pleasure comes
from obeying God’s Word (cf. Psalm 19:8 etc.). If we do that, then we shall
derive pleasure from whatever we do. In sexual intercourse, true pleasure will
come when it is practised according to God’s Word - in lifelong, heterosexual
monogamy - and not otherwise. Of course, homosexuals may dispute this (they have
a vested interest in doing so), but it is extremely doubtful whether the
evidence available can supports their claim. Anyone who goes to a homosexual
support group will soon notice that it is remarkably like Alcoholics Anonymous,
full of people scarred by life and burnt out by having indulged their desires to
excess. The use of the word ‘gay’ bears this out - it is a total and quite
deliberate inversion of the truth, intended to conceal the unpleasant reality by
using a more acceptable euphemism.
To return to Dr Williams and his argument, the most fundamental difference
between him and Evangelicals lies in the realm of authority. For Dr Williams,
there really is no authority as such; what he is looking for is an acceptable
consensus based on observations, experiences and interpretations of the
contemporary world, which then have to be related to something we might call
Christian. The Church’s traditional teaching will inevitably come off badly in
this exercise, because it was not developed along those lines to begin with.
What we believe and teach has been given to us in Scripture by a God who spoke
at particular historical moments, yes, but with implications which are valid for
all time. We do not pretend that it is always easy to apply the teaching of the
Bible to current realities, and Christians have often differed over the details.
Where we are united though, is in our basic approach to the problem. We take the
Bible as God’s Word written, and ask how it can best be applied to our current
circumstances, whatever they may be. We do not seek to rewrite the text (still
less to ignore it) if it does not lend itself to modern perceptions and desires.
To put it another way, we judge Paul Scott’s Raj quartet (and other works of
modern literature) by the Word of God, not the other way round! We pass judgment
on the unbelieving world, however unpleasant that may sometimes be, and do not
let that world pass judgment on us. If this sounds arrogant, then all we can say
is that we pass judgment on ourselves first of all - we are the least of all
saints, unfit for our calling except by the grace of God at work in our lives.
His grace is a transforming power which gives us pleasure, but only because it
conforms us to obedience to his holy Word. It is not a quality inherent in the
body, or in anything else; rather, it is the free gift of God, given to turn
sinners to the way of righteousness and truth.
Anything else is false, and will eventually be revealed as such. The difference
between Rowan Williams’ beliefs and Evangelical faith is the difference between
natural and revealed religion. We start in different places, think along
different lines and end up with different conclusions. Unless and until we grasp
this fundamental fact, we shall neither understand one another. We shall never
agree, of course, but at least we shall know why, and perhaps engage in a real
discussion of the fundamental issues at stake, rather than get caught up with
details which, however interesting and important they may be, fail to address
the essential point.
Gerald Bray
(C)opyright Church Society; material may be used for
non-profit purposes provided that the source is acknowledged and the text is not
altered.