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Against establishment - an Anglican polemicC of E without the E?AGAINST ESTABLISHMENT The Church of England is the 'established' church of this country, linked to the state with the monarch as its 'supreme head' and the Prime Minister having the final say in ecclesiastical appointments. In the vision of the patriarch of Anglicanism, Richard Hooker, the Church was simply the nation in its spiritual aspect, the nation at prayer. Every English born person was a member, unless they specifically opted out. It went hand in hand with the idea of infant baptism. This book, penned by a broad church theological liberal, offers a penetrating critique of what the author sees as this increasingly indefensible connection. 'Here is the nub of it: this Church is locked in a terrible, terminal dilemma. It has always depended on establishment for its unity, its coherence, its order, its identity. But establishment is gradually draining it of vitality, of credibility.' He says that it is increasingly obvious that, with changes in society and the very idea of the monarchy increasingly obsolete in the contemporary world, the traditional national ideal is at best irrelevant, and at worst inimical, to the real business of Christianity. (Though what the author thinks is the real business of Christianity is indeterminate.) Historical perspectivesThree chapters form the substance of this polemic. The first, takes us through the ups and downs of State/Church relations since the Queen's coronation in 1953. The anachronism of establishment is perhaps most pitifully described here by the way it affected the life of Princess Margaret in the matter of her liaison with Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorcee. 'In 1955 feverish speculation surrounded the Princess's love life. On October 31, under some degree of pressure from (Archbishop) Fisher, she issued a statement in which she declared herself 'mindful of the Church's teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth'. Some people wondered why a divorced prime minister should be allowed to appoint archbishops, yet a princess, highly unlikely to succeed to the throne, should not be allowed to marry her divorced lover. The second chapter, takes us more deeply into the past with a historical tour of 'the Anglican centuries' from Henry VIII through to Winston Churchill. The pragmatism behind much establishment thinking is here further exposed. The author declares it, 'theologically indefensible'. 'To advocate a form of Christianity because it is politically useful is to make the gospel subservient to a secular end. Tory Anglicanism is constantly in danger of committing this very serious heresy.' Dismissing the defencesThe last main chapter offers 11 brief appraisals of mostly recent defences of establishment. These include the writings of people like T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, and Alec Vidler (with whom the author seems most at home). David Holloway's book, Church and State in the New Millennium, is attacked. Here he says that evangelicals are keen to base their ecclesiology on the New Testament, which presents a problem in relation to the establishment problem (as the Scriptures do not seem to teach it). He says David Holloway's exegesis of 1 Timothy 2.2 'verges on dishonesty, for it does not admit the problem of the Pauline church's non-established situation'. We are eventually brought to the 'thinking' of Rowan Williams, which is at best unclear, and Hobson indicates seems to change according to when and to whom he is speaking. This may be a disappointment to Tony Blair as Williams may well have been chosen as Archbishop precisely because he was thought to be sympathetic to disestablishement. As to the future, stridently pro disestablishment, the author points us to a leap of faith towards 'Post-Anglicanism', a term void of hard definition but critical of both the Protestant and Catholic sides of the C of E. Of course, the author gives virtually no interaction with Scripture, and people like myself, anti-establishment dissenters, are superciliously dismissed as belonging to 'a sect'. 'We do not like the idea of the Church as the congregation of the individually saved.' Well, I do. And many of us believe it is what the New Testament teaches and makes more and more sense in a changing world. Further, surely what 1 Timothy 2.2 does teach us is how to be delivered from a sectarian spirit. The congregation is made up of believers who do have a praying heart for the world and yearn for the good of society at large especially through the triumph of the gospel. JEBJohn Benton© Evangelicals Now - February 2004 |