Heresy exposed
Alfred Gilbey
When will ye be Wise?
The State of the Church of England General Editor: Anthony Kilmister (Blond & Briggs £12.95)
This book should never have been sent to a Catholic priest to review. But, since it has been so sent, what can he do in the in- terest of Truth but seek, in all Charity, to review it.
When will ye be Wise? is a series of 14 essays of varying length, quality and character by devoted members of the Church of England (six are in Holy Orders) who are all profoundly critical of the Church of England and uneasy about its present policy and tendencies. The Church of England is suffering from that characteristically modern disease, 'loss of identity'. Though there is an admirable essay by Canon Jacques, 'How would Hooker view Anglicanism today?', none of the essayists address themselves to an historic consideration of its origins, without which it is difficult to understand its present position. T.E. Utley alone in his contribu- tion, 'The Church in Politics', states simp- ly: 'the Church of England came into being as a national church'.
It was a recurrent experience in my long years at Cambridge to have to try to answer the enquiry of a foreign visitor, bewildered by the variety of doctrine and worship he encountered: 'Expliquez-moi, done, l'Eglise Anglicaine'. Eventually I evolved the reply, that the first thing he had to grasp, if he wanted to understand the Church of England was that its inspiration was not a point of theology but a matter of ecclesiastical policy. The point of departure
for Lutheranism or Calvinism was theological, but not so with the Church of England. Her origin — after the breach with Rome, though it did not follow im- mediately — was the attempt to establish a presentation of Christianity co-terminous with the nation, from which only those were excluded who excluded themselves stiff-necked Papists on one side and stiff- necked Independents on the other. Conse- quently, the Church of England, I would explain, had no characteristic theology but allowed wide diversity within its fold. The enquirer found it hard to believe that such s thing was possible and continued bewildered.
It must not be thought that I write this in any frivolous or unkindly spirit, being well aware and personally familiar with the uni- quely attractive type of holiness which flourishes within that garden. Nor is the concept of a national church an ignoble one. We are so accustomed in the West, after four centuries, to the concept of 'private judgment' in matters theological, that we find it difficult to view religion as a political or geographical commitment, ig- noring the fact that it has been so for the overwhelming majority of mankind for the greater part of human history.
Now the Church of England in its origin is the perfect example of the nation-state, in its religious aspect. After the breach with Rome, the Authority of the Crown took the place of the Authority of the Pope and, in its organisation, the Church of England continued to be the most mediaeval thing in Christendom, until 1840, when the Church Commission got to work. Whatever had been the strength of Dissent in the previous century, it was the age of Reform and the Oxford Movement that began to undermine the rather splendid image of the National Church. It was a bad day for the Establish- ed Church when parsons started to take down the Royal Arms from above the chancel arch in their churches.
This must appear a long way round to the book under review, but it seems at first glance that what unites the contributors is a nostalgia for such a concept of a National Church as I have painted and a poignant regret that it does not correspond to current reality . 'We have lost', writes Bishop Stephen Neill, 'the village people'. His la- ment, 'When I was a boy, Anglican Even- song was reputed to be the most popular service in the Christian world', strikes a chord in the heart of a priest like myself who remembers the cosy atmosphere of 'Rosary, Sermon and Benediction at 6.30'. In fact every essay in the book calls for sym- pathy from me and to some I shall certainly return for refreshment and support.
The tendencies the essayists deplore are, alas, not peculiar to the Church of England. There was probably never a time when Christianity was so tainted by the spirit of this world — and so unaware of the contagion. Worldliness is to be found not only among the Renaissance cardinals or Whig bishops. It it to be found whenever Christians adopt the criteria of this world
and think of Christianity, not primarily as the means whereby they achieve their sanc- tification and salvation, but as the means whereby the world may be rightly ordered. This current heresy is vigorously and brilliantly exposed by the contributors, each from his own angle, so that it is seen that much more than nostalgia unites them. They are united in profound faith in Chris- tianity as a revealed religion and in defence of traditional Christian morality.
Where all are stimulating, and some especially penetrating and acute, it might seem invidious to distinguish between them. I wonder whether some might reach a wider Public as a pamphlet rather than — in these days of high prices — in a book. Because of their immediate topicality, I should like to see Dr Eric Mascall's 'Whither Anglican Theology?' in the hands of every Anglican, and 0. Raymond Johnston's 'Christian Morality and the Church of England' in the hands of every man who wishes to arrest the moral landslide in which we are living.
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