T
he Bishop of Winchester
The Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt
Wolvesey, Winchester SO23 9ND
Telephone: 01962 854050 Facsimile: 01962 897088
Email: michael.scott-joynt@dsl.pipex.com
Does the Future have a Church of England?
School of Theology in Jersey March 4th 2009
If I were to dignify this Lecture with an “Executive Summary”, its answer to the question proposed by the title, that Paul Brooks offered me and that I accepted, might run as follows:
Yes, I believe so; but as the Lecture notes threats and risks of sufficient significance at least to justify the Question, so there could also be developments, and indeed decisions by the Church of England, which could put that “yes” in question.
So in this Lecture, which it is a great privilege to be asked to give, I intend first to set in a historical context our present, in significant ways controverted, situation perceptions of which have led to the posing of this question today; and then to examine in turn, both separately and in their inter-relationships, what I take to be the main issues, questions and threats that stand against The Future having a Church of England.
I shall not be speaking as if that “Yes” was a “Yes, of course”. The Church of England, both across England and in this Island and its sisters, is “hard-wired” into the very landscape and into the development of the English language; the title “Ecclesia Anglicana” has been used since the 12th century, and with its present meaning since well before 1600; there have been Bishops of Winchester since the 7th century and before there was an English monarchy; but we are living through years in which mighty banks, great corporations and institutions, household names, are failing. Nor, I think, and more to the point, did the ancient and powerful churches of Asia Minor and North Africa foresee in the 7th century their radical diminution by, and quickly their subjection to, Islam.
But though I recognise that we have not yet seen the full extent of the present financial and political upheavals and of their effects on the Church of England, I do not at present see these as comparable to the turmoil of the 16th century – think of being a churchwarden between, say, 1540 and 1565! Or of my predecessor John White, buried in the Lady Chapel of our Cathedral, who preached at the Requiem of Mary Tudor a root and branch denunciation of the new regime, never emerged from custody, and died, deposed, in 1560.
Or think of the 17th century – the executions of Archbishop Laud and of King Charles I, the substantial suppression of the 16th century “Anglican Settlement” after 1652 and then its re-instatement and consolidation after 1660.
Or think of the middle years of the 19th century – Roman Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bills, and the (Irish) Church Temporalities Bill of 1833 which was the immediate provocation for John Keble’s Assize Sermon and so for the Oxford Movement, the Ecclesiastical Commission – in the context of which, I think, Bishop Blomfield of London said, “The Church of England as it now stands no human power can save”.
And by later in that century something perhaps even more serious had developed than upheaval, riots, bitter disagreements, secessions – and something with a more modern ring. Here is the Cambridge philosopher, theologian and New Testament scholar FJA Hort in a letter to Archbishop Benson of Canterbury in 1882: “The convulsions of our English Church itself, grievous as they are, seem to be nothing beside the danger of its calm and unobtrusive alienation in thought and spirit from the great silent multitude of Englishmen, and again of alienation from fact and love of fact; mutual alienations both.”
Yet reflect too on what has been given by God, in and through the Church of England, in the nearly 130 years since then, and still richly today……..
We need to think, too, in working on tonight’s question, what we think might render the Church of England not the Church of England any longer. If it ceased, for instance, to offer ministry to pretty well every square inch of England as it has claimed to do since soon after the end of the 7th century and Archbishop Theodore (and here in Jersey, I think, since rather later?)?
So in the main body of this Lecture to which I’m now moving, the underlying question is something like this: “what would so cut the hitherto-recognisable, defining continuities of the Church of England’s life, as to make people think that what they were seeing, the body of which they were part and within which they worshipped, the body which they were experiencing in their town or village or city, or of which they were hearing about in the media, was no longer “The Church of England”? We shall be asking what might make “The Church of England” difficult if not impossible to sustain in a recognisable continuity with what had gone before.
I am now going to examine some of the specific questions, challenges, realities in the life of the Church of England today which, I think, may be causing people to ask the question that is the title of this Lecture – or at least to think that such a title is worth offering to me, and I to think it worth accepting! I could have arranged them in more than one order; the order that I have chosen is only sometimes that of the importance that I see them having, the level of threat that I see them posing!
Disestablishment
Secularisation of politics and public life
Women and the Episcopate
Same-sex sexual behaviour,
Decline from orthodox teaching
Division of the Anglican Communion
Islam
Ecumenical developments
Financial Pressures
Absorption in, distraction by, these!
I am going to begin with the recurring question of the Establishment of the Church of England, a matter of more fascination to the media and to some Parliamentarians than, I think, to most members of the Church of England or indeed, today, of other Churches – with the magnificent exception of Bp. Colin Buchanan!
Just now the most popular means of raising the question, of the relations of the Church of England with the Crown and with Parliament, seems to be the Act of Settlement of 1701 – whether on the apparently straightforward issue of its clear discrimination against Roman Catholics in the succession to the Throne, or as a proxy for any, some or all of Republicanism, Secularism, Scottish Independence or Disestablishment itself! Its repeal would have implications for the Acts of Union, and so for the Union itself between Scotland and England – so, I think, the engagement with the issue of the present First Minister of Scotland! And implications, too, much wider than generally admitted or perhaps even intended: could any legislation, that started from an anti-discrimination platform, restrict the heir to the throne from marrying an adherent of a non-Christian Faith, or the throne to communicant Christians, or indeed to believers of any kind? But is a British Monarchy conceivable that had no Christian reference or responsibility?
But to stay with the specific, and undeniable, question of the Act of Settlement’s discrimination against Roman Catholics (in early 18th century British eyes, and experience, the Taliban of their day). A Roman Catholic marriage would be likely to produce, a generation on, a Roman Catholic monarch who could not, as things are, formally recognise the Church of Scotland, or the Church of England, as Churches, or their clergy and bishops, or their sacraments, as true ministers and true sacraments; nor could the Archbishop of Canterbury crown such a monarch (until the re-union of the Western Church has been given to us) – still less a Muslim or any other person unable to “joyn in Communion with the Church of England” (the requirement of the Act of Settlement). There would be a cutting of the mutual commitment of Church and Crown – and so in time the governance of the UK would cease to be by “the Crown in Parliament under God”.
We cannot know what may prove to be the effects, on all this, of the eventual Accession to the Throne of Charles III, in whatever political situation that takes place.
Of course – and as Archbishop Rowan put it a few weeks ago, unguardedly granted how journalists misrepresented his meaning - it would not be “the end of the world” if somehow the Church of England was “disestablished” (“somehow”, because it is far from clear how it could be effected, let alone whether any Government is ever going to take the time to find out, let alone then to effect it!). Nor is it clear what disestablishment might mean, in what order and over what period. With the Archbishop, I should much regret any such development; and I should see it as a very much more significant loss to the State, than to the Church of England. For the latter, perhaps there would in time come to be some diminution of commitment to service of the community, to engagement with the politics and culture of the time, in the name of Jesus Christ, alongside worship and evangelism; there might be a growth in some parts of the Church of a kind of “quietism”? For the State, there would be a loss on a grand scale, and over time, of resources for personal and communal living, and of influence upon the country’s values and on political decisions; but it would take a generation or so for this to be felt – and in many places and on many levels whatever “Disestablishment” proved to mean might well not be acted upon!?
I’m in no doubt that any significant level of “Disestablishment” would weaken, rather than strengthen, the effective witness in this society of the other Christian Churches – and indeed of the other Faiths; because in present circumstances any such move would be a triumph above all for those who are pushing for the Secularisation of politics and public life in the UK (did you know, by the way, that the British Humanist Association has around 5000 members, and the National Secular Society about 3000?).
There is, I think, plenty of evidence that “non-faith” is fast becoming the assumed, the fashionable, the “default” position, de facto the “established” religion, of English culture and English politics. Think no further that Alistair Campbell’s “We don’t do God”; and Tony Blair’s more recent admission that people think a politician is a “nutter” if he talks about his Faith. And reflect on the implications of the dominant doctrine of “multi-culturalism” which, as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has been bravely pointing out (bravely, because it is unfashionable, “politically incorrect” to do so), disadvantages in practice every Faith, not just Christianity, in its assumption that there is no governing Faith-story running through British culture. The continuing existence, the thriving, of the various communities of Faith seems a surprise and an embarrassment to politicians brought up in the ‘60s and 70’; we are difficult to understand, and we constitute for them more a set of problems to be managed, than a rich set of contributors to the societies in which we are set. Politicians local and national, but especially national, are tempted to placate with favours those “faith-groups” that are most noisy or obvious or (apparently) threatening, and to sideline (in case they may be accused of discrimination!) those longest present and deepest rooted. Often they fail to understand that good relations between the Faiths arise especially when these are sufficiently confident to be engaged with each other, respecting and valuing each other; and that this mutual engagement and respect is in England very often facilitated not by Government or by the Police but by the Churches and especially by the Church of England.
I have noted how this prevailing “non-faith” is among the “drivers” of moves towards the disestablishment of the Church of England, because of the position and opportunities that we still hold in this society. It is also, of course, a cause of the saturation of our culture with sexual imagery and language, with the assumption that accompanies it that any kind of sexual behaviour, that is adult, consensual and not abusive, is owed approval, support and defence.
So it is now a critical question for the Church of England particularly, that we stand and speak in the face of these pressures at every level and in every place, and that we are prepared for and serious about public discipleship and witness to Christ. If we fail to do so, and so collude with a kind of creeping, informal disestablishment of the Christian Faith from its position as the reference point for Government in the UK, the effects on the character of this country will be far-reaching (as the Jewish commentator Melanie Philip’s has recently been saying trenchantly); the effects will be profound, too, on our own character and morale as a Church.
So may also be the effects of the years of toil, to which the Church of England is now committed, around the necessary issue of Women and the Episcopate (I say “necessary”, because I do not think that we can indefinitely stop where we reached on this set of issues in 1992-4 with the ordination of women as priests). The General Synod has sent a draft Measure and a draft Canon to a Revision Committee in the hope that it will have the results of that Committee’s work before it again in July next year; the Synod could then agree to send revised drafts to every Diocese, an eighteen-month process – and there will be a newly-elected Synod in and after November 2010; the earliest the Synod could come to a decision is therefore the summer or autumn of 2012 – and the earliest ordinations of women as bishops could take place is
therefore 2014. The worst of all possible worlds would be a failure of the proposals to gain the necessary two-thirds majorities in each House of the Synod at the point of Final Approval, after so public and drawn-out a process..
It is very difficult to foresee what may be the effects on the Church of England, on morale in the Church and on its finances, and on public opinion, of all this. The signs at the moment are not, I judge, encouraging. The Synod was unable to do anything, last month, to undo the clear message that it gave, last July, to those opposed to or unconvinced about Women as Bishops that it was unwilling to make an assured space for them in the Church; with the result that they feel unwanted, un-Churched. Some of them, and some of their Episcopal leaders, are saying that the Church of England has already been torn apart by those pressing for the ordination of women as bishops at any cost. It is impossible at the moment to know for how long, and in what state of morale and relationships with the rest of the Church, a number both of Catholic and Evangelical opponents will remain; though most of those in these positions who are stipendiary clergy would find it very hard indeed to leave without financial provision, which is not available as it was in 1992 – and would not in any case be made available until after the Legislation was in place.
For the purposes of tonight’s Question, would we be the Church of England without a substantial proportion of our “traditional Catholics” and “conservative Evangelicals”? And what might be the financial effects, on many Dioceses, of their going, and before that of their sense that they are marginalised, disposable?
And what might be the effects of the loss, or of the demoralisation, of either or both of these “constituencies”, on the Church of England’s stamina in the face of the very strong pressures in society, and also within the Church, to regard same-sex sexual behaviour, or indeed “LGBT”, as an acceptable, permissible alternative to heterosexual behaviour, and “committed” LGT sexual relationships to be as equally acceptable as Marriage?
On February 28th 2007 the General Synod staged two successive debates on sexual behaviour. A number of speakers advocated, some indeed vaunted, sexual behaviour contrary to the teaching of the Church of England and indeed to that of the Church as a whole, that “Sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively”; and they received widespread support and encouragement from many of the rest of those called to speak. With many others I read this as a sign of the strength, confidence and conviction of those who are working for change in the Church’s teaching; but I do not expect them explicitly to seek the Synod’s agreement for such change until they are confident that their cause has been won generally in the Church.
Of course the Church of England is not discussing these issues in a vacuum. They are “live” in other Churches too, including within the Roman Catholic Church; they represent now the prevailing doctrine of the political and media – and so of the legislative – culture of the day; and the “fabric” of the Anglican Communion has been “torn” by them for many years and especially since the election and ordination as Bishop of New Hampshire of Gene Robinson in 2003. Very sadly, I agree with Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria that the differences of conviction, on these matters, within the Communion are irreconcilable, and therefore enormously damaging and wearying; so last summer, after the Lambeth Conference, with great regret I advised “orderly separation” as less wounding than endless argument or, still worse, a pretence that somehow all would be well and that these opposed convictions could fruitfully co-exist within one church. But the Anglican Communion Covenant, which I support and which might provide a process for resolving the membership of the Communion, will not be in place for at least another four to five years………
What might be the effects upon the Church of England, upon the cohesion of the House of Bishops and of Dioceses, upon our finances, if the divisions within the Church of England, and in the Anglican Communion, become more acute and more public? What of our ecumenical relationships? What of the credibility of our witness to Christ in this country, if the Church of England were to become increasingly accepting of LGT sexual behaviour, including among the clergy? And of course those on different sides of this division of conviction will answer this last question differently.
The ecumenical implications are complex too. The Methodist and United Reformed Churches are already much further down the road to “Inclusivity”, and by resolution of their Conference and Assembly, than is the CofE. But for the Church of England to follow them would be a much more serious blow to relations with the Roman Catholic Church, and with the Churches of the Evangelical Alliance, than would the Ordination of Women as Bishops; and I suspect that many more of our clergy and church members would feel bound to leave the Church of England, if it made such a change in its teaching and practice, than might do so on account of ordaining women to the Episcopate.
If the trajectory of The Episcopal Church USA is any guide, to move in its direction in accepting same-sex sexual relationships would draw the Church of England very much further down the road, than it has begun to travel so far, towards a lessening of its commitment to “Christian orthodoxy” with regard to the content of the historic Creeds, and to the Sacraments, as well as in matters of sexual – and other - behaviour. Any such development would also have its effects with regard to morale, money and the loyalty, to the Church of England, of lay people and of clergy, to our ecumenical relationships and – critically – to our evangelistic energy and effectiveness.
I have already noted the threats, that are well-known to exist, to the future of the Anglican Communion. From a careful reading of the Communiqué following the recent meeting in Alexandria of the Primates of the Communion, and on the basis of what some of them have written and said since, it would be foolishly optimistic to imagine that the existing difficulties were on the point of being overcome. One commentator seems to me to have summed up the situation well when he wrote: “(the communiqué) seemed to mark the acceptance, finally, of the unbridgeability of the Communion’s divide over sexuality and biblical authority, while leaving the outworking of this conclusion still undetermined”.
It may well be the case that only a proportion even of “active” members of the Church of England are much concerned about the Anglican Communion. But even those less concerned would, I think, be faced with questions both within their churches, and from their friends and in the Media, if the Communion were explicitly, by decisions of responsible bodies, to divide. This too would suggest that things were not as they had been – and the more so, if there came (as I think that there would quickly come) pressures upon the General Synod, or upon individual Dioceses, to make choices between the (by then) divided parts of the Anglican Communion.
Many fewer people, I think, are aware of the growing head of steam, in the “Global South” and more accurately among the “GAFCON” elements of the Communion, for a early Review of the processes for the appointment, and of the role, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, on account of the post-holder’s responsibilities as the senior Primate of the Anglican Communion, and as one (arguably, and certainly at present, the most significant and effective) of its four “Instruments of Communion”. Specifically, should these roles and responsibilities in and for the contemporary Anglican Communion be located in the See of Canterbury, whose occupant is an appointee of the British Crown (and to date a Briton though today not an Englishman), rather than in an (Arch)bishop elected, like every other Primate, by his peers.
Here are complex questions (explored already in the Hurd Commission’s Review of the See of Canterbury published in 2001): of the relationships of the Provinces of the Communion, and so of Anglicanism itself, to the See, and to the Cathedral, of Canterbury; of the future of the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury (and so of other English Bishops) by the Crown; and of the possibility of an Archbishop of Canterbury who was not British – but could such a person fulfil the roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the life of England and of the Church of England? (Could we imagine an English bishop today as Archbishop of Nigeria, or of Australia?) These questions have the potential to cause a good deal of unsettled-ness in the Church of England, and to divert a good deal of energy, if the Global South presses them as I believe that it will.
People quite often suggest to me that the presence and growth in England of Islam should be a major concern for the Church of England, as if the presence of Muslim people was the main threat, even the main opposition, to the Christian Faith in this country – can Islam bear not to be the dominant religion in the State? Will not England and the UK in the 21st century go the way of North Africa in the 8th and following centuries?
My own sense – though I recognise that I am far from expert in these questions – is that Islam in this country is much more a puzzle and a challenge to itself (a very recent survey, for instance, found that 95% of the UK’s Imams were born and educated abroad), and to the Government’s understanding both of Islam itself and of the place of “faith communities”, and especially of the Church of England, in English society, than it is to the Church of England. I continue to see “non-Faith” as by far the most insistent challenge to Christian Faith in this country, and so to the Church of England as its most pervasive representative; and to believe that if the Church of England fulfils its calling to faithful and imaginative engagement with “non-Faith” in all its forms, it will respond appropriately and confidently to Islam too, both by Presence and Service, and by Engagement and Evangelism
The most significant Ecumenical Development of recent years, I should say, is the extent to which in villages and small towns across England, and often in suburbs and cities too, almost all Church of England Churches are de facto ecumenical churches – and not only in their membership but in their (lay) leadership. This is a strength, an access of energy and commitment, which we need to find ways of building upon, and of recognising it more explicitly.
More generally, there is almost everywhere a level of friendship, mutual understanding and support among the leaders of the still divided Churches greater even than a decade or so ago, which is not so far damaged by the lack of progress towards the “Reunion” of the Western Church. The Ecumenical Canons B43 and B44 make possible almost everything almost anyone might want to do in the way of ecumenical life and ministry.
And if, when, we are given to reach some structural re-alignment of the Churches, some degree of “Organic, Visible Union” that involves the Church of England, then I will have become part of a larger Church, carrying (I pray) the best of its character and calling forward into that Body.
The present Recession will surely present the Church of England with significant financial pressures. Though the Church Commissioners and the Pensions Boards are likely to weather the dramatic falls in share prices and dividends better than most comparators, they can hardly emerge un-scathed; so still greater demands will fall upon dioceses, and perhaps especially on those dioceses (mainly in the south of the country) which do not at present receive support from the Church Commissioners. Dioceses, in turn, are likely to find levels of Giving affected by the recession; and any loss of morale and confidence, and still more any loss of members, caused by one or more of the issues about which I have been speaking, will add to these pressures, and could throw further into question the ability of the Church of England fully to maintain a parochial ministry - though this will also depend on our ability to mobilise, and to gain support in the Church for, lay and voluntary leadership on a still greater scale than we have yet seen.
If The Future is to have a Church of England, it is imperative that at every level the Church of England does not let any or all of these questions absorb its energies, so as to divert our attention away from the Church’s primary calling, opportunity and responsibility to our Lord. The questions cannot be ducked; and failure to be faithful with regard to three of them in particular – withstanding the “secularisation” agenda, upholding the Church’s teaching on Marriage and on sexual behaviour, and assuring by Measure those opposed to the ordination of women as presbyters and bishops that they have a continuing place in the Church of England – Failure to be faithful around these matters would in my judgement render questionable the continuance in recognisable form of the Church of England. But we must find ways of working at these agenda without providing both “the public” and the media with grounds for saying that we are interested only in these – or in yet other! – arguments and controversies!
I spoke just now of the Church of England’s “primary calling, opportunity and responsibility”. This is to faithful Worship, attractive Discipleship, brave Witness, and informed Evangelism among people of all ages and communities of every kind, and of all Faiths and none, and in the public and political life of the UK, by an ever greater proportion of the parishes, and by the individual members, of the CofE. So to foster these must continue to be the explicit priority of every parish and of all those called to leadership of the Church; and we know that where this is the case, churches grow in numbers, and receive the financial support that they need. I should say that the proportion of our parishes that are pretty healthy, judged by these standards, is much greater than it was, say, 30 years ago; and that every Diocese, too, is becoming much more clearly focussed on assisting parishes and their leaders, lay as well ordained, to devote themselves to these priorities, and on holding them accountable for doing so.
I am wholly confident that in God’s mind The Future has a Church of England; I pray and trust, and I am wholly committed to doing all I can to ensure, that the Church of England does not, especially in the three ways that I have highlighted, disobey God’s calling to remain faithful and obedient, so as to undertake its full part in the conversion of England.
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