What can I expect from an Anglican Church?

"Living the Faith" was a little booklet that I produced for the church bookstall in 1999. Selling at £1 or £1.50, it contained some notes on the basics of Christian belief, a catechism, the text of the creeds, a list of the books of the Bible, a list of the provinces in the world-wide Anglican Communion, and two lists - one headed "What can I expect from an Anglican Church?" and the other "What would an Anglican Church expect of me?"

I am now revising the text for a new edition. I don't recall the origin of the list headed "What can I expect from an Anglican Church?" As with so much that I use, it probably began with someone else's list, perhaps an article in Episcopal Life, and I reworked and developed it. What interests me is whether it should still carry this title. I know that this is what you can expect at St Bartholomew the Great. I'm sure that you shouldn't expect it at either St Helen's, Bishopsgate, or St Michael's, Cornhill. Here is the list anyway:

1. A local Anglican Church will be a community of believers which accepts others as they are and does not attempt to force them into a pre-determined mould or model.

2. It accepts and tolerates a wide range of beliefs and attitudes both inside and outside the Church.

3. What is authoritative for Anglicans is discerned from within the church, taking account of Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and the use of reason. Authority does not come from outside, from an infallible book or an infallible teacher.

4. The focus of the Church is liturgical forms of worship which celebrate and express the faith of the believing community and facilitate God’s action within it, rather than dogmatic teaching.

5. Anglican teaching has more to say about the goodness of God’s creation than about the sinfulness of humankind. Rejoicing in the creating and saving work of God, it takes sin seriously without becoming neurotic or despairing.

6. Anglicans are, usually, able to laugh at themselves, at their traditions and at the pomp and trappings of church life, while being serious about the need for God and the way in which the Church brings us closer to God.

7. Doubting and questioning are legitimate and acceptable parts of being Anglican.

8. Belief in God and love and concern for neighbour go hand in hand and are equally important.

Bishops and Pheasants

How should one address the Bishop of London? Sydney Smith (1774-1845), who was a canon of St Paul's from 1831, wrote to Bishop Blomfield in 1837; he said this:

My dear Lord,
I hope there was no incivility in my last letter. I certainly did not mean that there should be any; your situation in life perhaps, accustoms you to a tone of submission & inferiority from your Correspondents, which neither you, nor any man living will ever experience from me.

I wish I had found this letter earlier. It is not in the comprehensive Letters of Sydney Smith, published in 1953, but in the appendix to the volume St Paul's in its Glory by G.L. Prestige (bought in the very well stocked second-hand bookhop in Great Malvern). Incidentally Smith concludes his letter with words I could use myself:

I remain my dear Lord with respect, your obedt. Servt., Sydney Smith

There were huge numbers of dead pheasants on the roads of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, suggesting a large living population, and many pubs carried the name The Pheasant. Smith wrote to someone in 1841 to acknowledge a friendly gift of pheasants:

Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is the roast pheasant and bread sauce - barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the real churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk - the pheasant, the pheasant!
Ever yours,
Sydney Smith

How lonely sits the City

Every Good Friday the Butterworth Charity service takes place in the churchyard of St Bartholomew the Great. This is what I said this year:

“How lonely sits the City that was full of people!” laments Jeremiah, “How like a widow she has become, she who was great among the nations. She who was a princess has become a slave.”

Jeremiah has much to say about Jerusalem that can equally be said of the City of London, the City financial, in these troubled days. And those who first administered this Butterworth Charity knew what was involved in being a widow at a time when women, especially women of the middle classes, were not, and could not be, financially independent. To be a widow meant being dependent on others, on more distant members of one’s own family, if they had anything to spare, on the Church, on the parish, on the overseers of the poor.

The Prayer Book litany easily identifies those at risk, those in need of prayer and charity — all women labouring of child, all sick persons, and young children, the fatherless children, and widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed. The poverty addressed by the parish charities was absolute, in the absence of all state aid. As the state increasingly provided resources, the parish charities lost their immediate reason for existing. A number of them were amalgamated and formed into a new body called the City Parochial Foundation. Its offices are in this parish, just along Cloth Fair, into Middle Street. What is its purpose? This is what the website says: “The City Parochial Foundation aims to enable and empower the poor of London to tackle poverty and its root causes, and ensure that our funds reach those most in need.”

But like so many endowed charities — for it received the endowments of the countless small and large parochial charities — it is suffering in the financial crisis. Its resources are diminished. Its ability to aid the poor reduced. And 150 years after the overseers of the poor had to be make difficult decisions here in this poor and populous parish, outside the City walls, the trustees of CPF — and I am one of them — recognise the truth of Jesus’ own words “The poor you have always with you.”

The responsibility in the end comes back to us. In her “History of Jerusalem”, Karen Armstrong explains that religion must have an ethical dimension and the test of true spirituality is practical compassion. “This,” she says, “also applies to the spirituality of a holy place. Crucial to the cult of Jerusalem from the very first was the importance of practical charity and social justice. The city cannot be holy unless it is also just and compassionate to the weak and vulnerable.”

Jeremiah thought that Jerusalem had fallen to her enemies because she had forsaken God and done it in a most practical way — denying justice, subverting lawsuits, crushing the prisoner under foot, shedding the blood of the righteous. And he puts forward a requirement and a challenge to us all on the day of the Lord’s atoning death: “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!”

An Easter message?

Oliver Ross, the new Area Dean of the City of London Deanery, has contributed the front page article to the April edition of the publication now managed by the Friends of the City Churches, called “City Events”, available in hard copy and online. It purports to be an Easter message; it is nothing of the sort. The text of his message is given in italics and indented with my commentary in regular type.

The great cry of the Bible and of the Christian Faith is that Jesus is Lord. There is no halfway house or equal division between good and evil. While there is no denying the reality of suffering, difficulties and wickedness, the Bible proclaims that in the end Christ is all, in all and through all and will embrace a creation renewed. No magic wand but a steady reclamation.

What was the first Christian profession of faith? In Acts 2, it concerns Jesus “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” crucified and killed, whom God “raised up”. Peter says that he and the other disciples are witnesses of this. “This Jesus whom you crucified,” Peter declares, “God has made both Lord and Christ.” The Gospel involves death, resurrection and the definitive action of God. When Philip the Deacon encounters the Ethiopian eunuch, the question of faith is raised in relation to baptism. “Is there any reason why I should not be baptised?” Philip is asked and some manuscripts have him say “If you believe with all your heart you may.” The eunuch responds “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Paul will subsequently stress a different basic statement that, as Mr Ross, says “Jesus is Lord”. This is based on his humility, his emptying himself being “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” So Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose from the dead is Lord “to the glory of God the Father.” It is not “the great cry” — that Christ is risen from the dead is the great cry and it follows from his saving death.

And what of “suffering, difficulties and wickedness”? Between Christ’s death and resurrection and the fulfilment of his promises at the “end time”, when history passes into eternity, we are in the “mean time”. The victory is won but its working out is not yet accomplished. It is in some ways a halfway house, just as the Church, the community of the redeemed, contains wheat and tares, saints and sinners. We have not yet reached the harvest time. There is no equal division, indeed at times it looks as if there is a profound inequality, with Christian believers a misunderstood and persecuted minority, a remnant awaiting rescue. But Christianity is eschatological, focussed on the end time and the moment of completion when Christ will, at last, be all in all. The whole creation groans in travail, as Paul says. There is no magic in Christ’s saving work but neither is there “steady reclamation” — quite the opposite, the world must be lost before heaven is found.

Mr Ross cannot resist a reference to the financial crisis, even though Christianity has no concern with earthly treasures.

At this time of financial difficulty it is easy to feel that we are the prey of forces far greater than we can control. But however deep the recession, however low the stock market goes, however high the price of gold rises, the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. And Jesus is still Lord. No magic wand but a steady reclamation.

What can this mean? Finance, recession, stock market, the price of gold — none of these have any relevance to the work of salvation. “How the gold has grown dim,” laments Jeremiah, “how the pure gold is changed!” His is a vision of the lonely city that was once full of people; the city that was a princess has become a slave. Jesus is Lord and part of his lordship is that he will come again in glory “to be our judge”. We need only think of his references to Jonah preaching in Nineveh, and bringing about conversion, or to the comparison between the cities of his day and Sodom and Gomorrah, to the clear advantage of the latter. Judgement is the clear teaching of Scripture; not “steady reclamation” but the possibility of condemnation.

What is the root of our confidence? We believe that Christ rose from the dead. We hold that this is a historical fact: no less mysterious for its being historical and no less historical for its being mysterious. This was no “conjuring trick with bones”. The evidence of the Bible points to the shattering surprise that it was to the disciples, with the confusing element that Jesus made his resurrection appearances.

Mr Ross now turns to the root of our confidence (though it is not clear how confidence in the future of the financial City can be based on Christian faith). We believe, he affirms, that Christ rose from the dead. It is an historical fact, though mysterious, and he quotes the line of Bishop David Jenkins who held that the resurrection was a powerful myth, a story laden with meaning, but definitely not a conjuring trick with bones. We can certainly argue over the possible proof of the resurrection, indeed over whether proof is necessary, when Jesus blessed those who, not seeing the evidence (as Thomas did), would believe in him. The original ending of Mark’s Gospel, using the words “alarmed”, “trembling”, “astonishment”, “afraid”, and with the women who “said nothing to anyone” about the empty tomb, demonstrates the real amazement that Jesus had risen.

Paul writing in the first Letter to the Corinthians (15: 6 ) states that “Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” If those to whom the letter is addressed found it difficult to believe they could find a number of that 500 who were still alive and question them.

A theory for the disappearance of Christ’s body from the tomb is that there were grave robbers; very foolish grave robbers taking the worthless body and leaving the valuable spices behind? Another is that the disciples stole the body; a small group of scared disciples overpowered a well-trained military unit set to guard the tomb against such an event? The disciples were good Jews. As good Jews they would have upheld the three main tenets of Jewish life at the time – the food laws, circumcision and the Sabbath. It must have been something of cataclysmic cosmic proportions that made them change the Lord’s Day from the Sabbath/Saturday to Sunday, the day of Jesus’ rising.

An argument always looks weak when it has to be bolstered and buttressed. First the 500 are called as witnesses. Then a theory for the theft of the body is put forward, grave robbers or the disciples themselves. The suggestion of grave robbers is a new one to me, though I see it is dealt with in similar terms online in the Wikiversity without references, and in a more scholarly manner, not lacking in humour, in http://www.tektonics.org/gk/graverob.html. The argument of theft by the disciples was dealt with in Matthew 28:11-15 long ago. The emergence of Sunday is not a strong argument for the resurrection but for the need for the new community of Jews and Gentiles, soon to be called Christians, to have a distinctive identity based on non-Jewish practices. None of these so-called proofs are likely to persuade anyone of the reality of Christ’s resurrection.

In the City of London we have our own testimony to the fact that there is more, whatever circumstances may throw at us. In 1666 the Great Fire consumed all but eight of the churches. From the ashes the new St Paul’s arose; Resurgam was the message upon the stone that Sir Christopher Wren found. Out of the ashes across the City many churches arose. The glories of mediaeval London were destroyed but the life of London moved forward, the church of London moved onwards, and the Gospel was passed from generation to generation down to ourselves.

Mr Ross now executes the “City turn” as a way out of a failing argument and on this we need to be quite clear. The rebuilding of the City of London after the great fire of 1666 has no theological significance. It does not indicate definitively that there is a more of some sort. It may illustrate the rule that people, of every religion and none, rebuild their cities after destruction if they can, and abandon them if they can’t. Neither post-fire nor post-war rebuilding contributes to the religious or theological argument. The resurrection of Christ is, in religious terms, a defining moment for humankind and must not be reduced or trivialised by analogy to any other resurrection-like event. The Great Fire might be an argument for belief in the phoenix and what it represents, a human belief, pre-dating Christianity, in regeneration, for belief in after-life of some sort clearly exists in other religions.

We as Christians within the City are Trustees of our Christian heritage within the church buildings, be they mediaeval or from the hand of Christopher Wren or Hawksmoor. More importantly we are the trustees of a Gospel that is older than the buildings, and when the buildings turn to dust and ashes the Gospel still goes on. The Gospel proclaims that Christ is risen.

This is, of course, the publication of the Friends of the City Churches and that may justify a reference to the buildings, but the buildings themselves are only significant in a religious sense if they witness to the faith that inspired their construction or assist in the presentation of that faith to visitors and pilgrims. If a church building has become a concert hall, if its bells ring out to delight bell-ringers but not to call to prayer, if it becomes merely a heritage site, then it may be a counter-sign. At last Mr Ross comes near the real point. We are, he says “trustees” of a Gospel — a curious expression suggesting conservation rather than proclamation. We are, more accurately, ministers of the Gospel and stewards of the mysteries of God. The gospel is the good news and as such it is to be proclaimed. The gospel does not proclaim that Christ is risen; the gospel is the saving death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Christ is risen though recession may come. Christ is risen though we may face traumatic difficulties in finance and family. Christ is risen and so there is more, not only to the story and not only to our lives here on earth: with Him we also shall rise. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it and, like Job (19: 25), “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last He shall stand upon the earth”.

That Christ is risen is a basic Christian statement of faith. No event or experience changes that, but that is true of objective historical events of any sort. Caesar was assassinated, William of Normandy was crowned King of England, Napoleon died on St Helena — all these remain true despite recession and traumatic difficulties, but they also have a “so what?” factor, whereas the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ impinges on the lives and expectations of Christians with regard neither to wealth nor family — both these aspects of living come under Christ’s censure — but with regard to matters of ultimate concern. Why cite Job at this point when Paul says it all? “Christ is risen from the dead : and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death : by a man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die : even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Odium theologicum

Peter Mullen, Cornhill's sage, said this in a recent sermon:

Augustine lived at the time of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire when the debauched people were entertained and consoled by the bread and circuses, the gladiatorial contests, public displays of great cruelty and lewdness. Today we inhabit the techno-digital version of something very similar. The nauseating voyeurism of Big Brother and the mindless culture of celebs. The narcissistic obsession with the mobile phone. Facebook and Twitter. A people shall speak drivel unto a people from generation to generation. The head-banging sub-culture of binge-drinking. It is as if aimless people with nothing in their lives are saying, I’m a nobody: get me out of here.

One wouldn't mind this sort of outburst, indeed we expect it of the man who proposed that gays should be tatooed, and it might be viewed as entertaining, until you remember that Dr Mullen made his comments about gays on his blog, that he puts many of his sermons up on St Michael's website, that he constantly writes to the newspapers, and was only yesterday sounding off in the Northern Echo (and still claiming to be the Chaplain of the Stock Exchange, who swiftly disowned him and his comments last October) about the Labour Goverment: "Labour is always ideological, doctrinaire and bureaucratic with a penchant for the politics of envy." It seems to be Dr Mullen who uses the very media he is so ready to criticize to set out his thoughts on many subjects - and most of his thoughts are dark and critcal of anyone except Peter Mullen and what he stands for (I am not exaggerating; just go and read his sermons on the St Michael's Cornhill website) - on the basis that he does not speak and write drivel and is not narcissistic. Peter Mullen also lacks humour which made his defence that his comments about gays were humorous and satirical particularly absurd.

So why should I bother about him? Because I find that he reads the same books and starts often from the same position that I would adopt, we go along together for a bit, with me agreeing with what he says, and then we diverge dramatically. Of course, on some issues we don't come anywhere near each other right from the outset. And I use this blog, and Facebook, and Twitter, and BarbicanTalk, and much of what I write is undoubtedly trivial. But we can look at it another way. Answering Facebook's question "What's on your mind?" or Twitter's "What are you doing?" requires a degree of reflection. My answer to the latter might often be "Wasting my time"; if I seriously considered the answer to the former I would have to write a long piece. As it is I send electronic postcards rather than letters and I have begun to think of the blog as a form of letter-writing.

The postcards keep me in touch with acquaintances, new friends, people I don't see very often. They show that the communication channel is open; it is ready for something more important. The letters involve more serious thought. During Lent I have read quite a few letters by Petrarch and Erasmus. Both used letters as a means of expressing important ideas. Petrarch even wrote letters to famous figures of the past and when he found gaps in his letter collection he wrote an extra one to fill the space and continue the train of thought. Erasmus wrote and wrote and wrote, letters, dialogues, major works of theology and literature. Now I don't think I come anywhere near the intellectual strength, capacity and ability of those two great figures, though I have discovered that I share a number of their weaknesses, but I don't think that I speak and write drivel. I enjoy dialogue and I don't mind being corrected when I'm wrong - but I'm never wrong, so correction is never necessary. (I wrote it before you thought it!) I value a more public forum where ideas can be set out and I don't see why others shouldn't use it too for less serious thoughts. We don't have to read what they write, look at their pictures, watch Celebrity Television. We are free to ignore them. It is too easy to say that this is a time of decline and fall equal to that of the declining Roman Empire. It isn't. It is as unlike it as it is possible to be. And when I look at my two sons - one 20, the product of St John's, Leatherhead, Birmingham University and the Royal Military Academy, and the other 14, nearly 15, and at the City of London Academy (Southwark) - when I look at them and their friends, I am not disheaterned and I do not see impending disaster.