LETTERS Adulterated Church
Sir: The inclusiveness of the Church of England has always been one of its most cherished qualities. Where other Christ- ians have dogmatically insisted on 'either . . . or', Anglicans have happily accepted 'both. . . and'. They have seemed, by this method, to muddle through.
But, so far in its history, the majority of these 'both . . . and' instances of toleration have been matters of comparatively trivial significance. It is a church where ministers both do and don't wear eucharistic vest- ments, both do and don't make the sign of the cross, both do and don't reverence the Protestant martyrs of the Reformation. In its official pronouncements, however, — in the 39 Articles, in the canons, and in the formal pronouncements of the Lambeth Conferences and Convocation, — it has never been a 'both . . . and' church on questions of fundamental Christian doc- trine. However woolly it has allowed its individual members to be, it has always officially believed in the Catholic councils and creeds of Christendom. That is, it has accepted the belief that God became man, and that the words of the Incarnate are enshrined in the Gospels.
This is an 'either . . . or' matter. Either Jesus was the Incarnate Word or he was not. There is no way of knowing or proving whether he was or he wasn't; it is purely a matter of faith, as enshrined in the creeds of the Church.
Beyond this great central question— was Jesus the person whom the creeds say he was? — there is a second question, about which Anglicans have always been vaguer. It is this. Did Jesus found the Church? Did he institute the body which we now know as the Orthodox Church or Catholic Church which constituted the great body of Christendom until the Great Schism? Did he intend to create an order of bishops, priests and deacons?
Neither of these two questions — 'Was Jesus God?' and 'Did he found a Church?' — are easy ones for an individual to answer on his own. The obvious, commonsense answer to both questions would appear to be 'no'. The majority of New Testament scholars in this century have doubted even whether the claim that Jesus was God is to be found in the New Testament. And they have pointed out that, if Jesus founded the Catholic Church in anything like its present form, it is very surprising to discover, in the Acts of the Apostles, that St Peter, the first Pope, knew nothing about it. There, after the Resurrection, we find Peter, still attending the Jewish Temple and going along with the idea that any Catholic must, before joining the new sect, undergo the Jewish rite of initiation: circumcision. But the argument is not all on the side of the unbelievers. There are many grey areas such as the probably ancient institution of the eucharist, going back to Jesus himself or to very few years after his departure from the scene; and the existence of elders and deacons who appear to have consti- tuted some sort of Catholic church order.
Furthermore, Orthodox and Catholics have already placed great emphasis on the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, guiding it, transforming it, and leading it into all truth. For them, therefore, it would not necessarily matter that the whole truth was not revealed at once to the first generation of Christians. They would argue that it took centuries for the full truth about Christ to be revealed.
Until very lately, the Church of England lined up with the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox on these questions. Whatever its individual members thought or believed, and whatever its theologians and bishops said on television, the Church of England claimed to believe (a) that Jesus was God (b) that he founded a church and (c) that the Anglican Communion had some claim, historic or otherwise, to belong to this divinely founded society.
The General Synod of the Church of England has now made this last belief impossible to sustain. If there is one thing about which the four gospels are unambi- guous it is the necessity of monogamy. They tell us that John the Baptist was martyred for preaching monogamy and that it was this martyrdom which precipi- tated Jesus's own earthly ministry. In the synoptic gospels we are told that Jesus taught his disciples that anyone who di- vorces their spouse and marries again commits adultery. In the fourth gospel, the same message is reiterated, with the story of Jesus and the woman at Jacob's well. `The man whom thou now hast is not thy husband,' he says to the much-married stranger.
While the press was getting excited about the question of whether the Church could or should ordain women to the priesthood, the Synod cheerfully voted to allow the ordination of divorced men to the priesthood. About the question of women, I am prepared to keep an open mind, and I am not entirely convinced by all the arguments by the Bishop of London and his supporters about the exclusive male- ness of the priesthood. But over this question of divorced men, there cannot be any doubt. He whom the creeds say was God forbad divorce. So we are told in the documents which the canons of the Church claim to be inspired.
It follows that a church which authorises the ordination of divorced men must be one of two things. It is either a hellish sect which believes in Christ's divinity but defies his recorded instructions. Or it is a group of people who do not believe in the words of Christ. In that case, they cannot believe him to have been divine. And in that case, the question whether he founded a church or not becomes irrelevant.
One is therefore forced into a decision, by this question of divorced men, which is every bit as urgent as the Bishop of London's decision over the ordination of women. If the Church is what the creeds say it is — a divinely founded body in union with Christ through the Holy Spirit — then the body which denies Christ's words cannot belong to the Church. Any- one who believes in the Church as defined by the 39 Articles or by the canons of the Church of England would be compelled, in conscience, to leave it.
If, on the other hand, Jesus was merely a very remarkable Jewish teacher, whose words we can accept or discard as we like, and if the gospels are no more than very patchily put together literary puzzles (as the majority of scholars believe), then our only motive for remaining in the Church of England must be because we like the music, the architecture or the people. Most of those who stay, after the inevitable schism or defections which are to come, will do so for aesthetic reasons. Serious Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, will be compelled to get out. So too will honest doubters, who share the general agnosticism of the General Synod but who, looking about at the bishops and deaconesses who constitute the modern church, do not much like their company. A. N. Wilson
16 Richmond Road, Oxford
Previous page
