Archbishop of Armagh calls for a return to the heart of Anglicanism to
resolve contemporary issues
Transcript of Archbishop's address:
Holy Scripture and the Law of God in Contemporary Anglicanism in the
Light of Richard Hooker's "Lawes"
By the Most Revd AET Harper, OBE
Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
There can be very few who would resist the view that Richard Hooker is
even more formative of Anglican Theology and the Anglican theological
method than was Thomas Cranmer of Anglican liturgy. Furthermore, the
16th century debate within which Hooker made his most significant
contribution was one with striking similarities to the debate underlying
the troubled state of the Anglican Communion today.
Hooker was appointed Master of the Temple in 1585, supplanting his
cousin by marriage Walter Travers, who had exercised a very influential
"readership" or "lectureship" there, obtained for him by his patron Lord
Burghley in 1581. Indeed, Burghley was urging the Queen to appoint
Travers to the vacant position of Master, most of the role and
prerogatives of which Travers had assumed during the illness of the then
incumbent, Richard Alvey.
Travers, however was a radical Calvinist and had earlier quit a
brilliant career at Trinity College, Cambridge for Geneva and
subsequently Antwerp. Archbishop Whitgift, in advising the queen on an
appointment to the Temple, and being fully aware of the extent to which
Presbyterianism threatened not only the Queen's episcopal church polity
but also, ultimately, her authority as ruler of church and state,
proposed first Dr Nicholas Bond but then, the queen judging Bond's
health to be unequal to the task, Richard Hooker.
Whitgift's case against Travers was not based primarily upon Travers
advocacy of a Presbyterian polity, not least because of the power
wielded by influential figures of a radical turn of mind like Burghley
at the centre of political life. However, a non-ideological impediment
existed: Travers could not be Master of the Temple, or indeed incumbent
of any other cure in the realm, because he had never been properly
ordained. Part of the reason he quit Cambridge in 1571 had been that he
denied the efficacy of episcopal ordination. He was later ordained in
Presbyterian fashion in Antwerp, but this required only selection by
elders and approval by the congregation. In a private letter to the
queen, Whitgift expounded all the reasons why the appointment of Travers
would be a disaster for the Church and the realm, whilst in a letter to
Burghley, the queen's chief minister, he explained why, with his
defective ordination and his resistance to episcopal ordination, Travers
could not be appointed to this or any other incumbency in the Church of
England. In such highly charged circumstances Hooker entered upon his
ministry as Master of the Temple. During that incumbency he would debate
Travers publicly and with great vigour, laying the foundations for the
theological understanding and method that has underpinned Anglicanism
ever since.
Largely because of the centrality of sacramental theology to the debates
of the last two centuries in Anglicanism, attention has been almost
exclusively focussed upon Book V of "The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity"
to the neglect of the Preface and the other seven books. This is
unfortunate and a matter that requires swiftly to be remedied,
especially in respect of the manner in which Hooker dealt with Holy
Scripture, how is to be esteemed and how it may be interpreted: an issue
central to ou contemporary concerns. In particular, the crucial
distinctions that Hooker makes between the whole body of scripture and
what may be identified as the Law of God needs swiftly to be recovered.
It seems, on the face of it, that such essential distinctions, which are
central to the theological understanding of all things Anglican, have
been allowed to disappear from view in the current ferment. Those
distinctions were crucial in securing the Anglican position during the
Presbyterian attacks of the 16th and 17th centuries specifically because
those attacks were couched in terms of the biblical inappropriateness of
the basis of Anglican polity. The arguments and understandings developed
by Hooker in his day remain essential now to exploration of the
scriptural dimensions of the current disputes amongst Anglicans.
It is no exaggeration to say that the debate within Anglicanism on the
place of homosexuality in human society and the relationship of
homosexual acts to the Law of God has become deeply visceral and that
the quality of debate has suffered as a result. Furthermore, this
specific issue has become the battleground upon which the authority and
the interpretation of scripture within the Anglican tradition is being
re-fought. Regrettably, most of the discussion appears to be taking
place in ignorance of the earlier controversy and its outcome. However,
the nature and the urgency of these matters are not dissimilar to those
of the 16th and 17th century debate which gave rise to Richard Hooker's
magisterial treatise.
Sadly, the most vocal protagonists on both sides of the current debate,
in so far as they speak from within the Commonwealth of Anglicanism,
have paid scant heed to the Anglican principles established by Hooker.
Whether this is by accident or design is not for this writer to judge.
Certain it is that everyone engaged in this debate would do well to
recall Hooker's overarching admonition, issued in the Preface to his
"Lawes", namely that:
There will come a time when three words uttered with charity and
meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand
volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit.
[Note: that the spellings of Hooker's text have been modernized but the
grammar and sentence construction remains unaltered. All quotations may
be found in the Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker]
As I have indicated, the controversy with which Richard Hooker was
engaged focussed on issues to do with the form and governance of the
Church and the sources of authority for that form and governance. Those
who advocated a Presbyterian system claimed, in essence, that such a
system was the only one consonant with scripture and church government
in primitive Christianity. They also pleaded that the only authority
that might be referred to or relied upon was Holy Scripture.
Hooker's defence of the polity of the Church of England, as it had
emerged under Elizabeth I, was that it could be entirely reconciled with
the evidence of scripture as we have it, taking account of legitimate
developments of tradition and the appropriate application of human
reason. It is this three-fold cord of Scripture, Tradition and Reason
that provide the essential components of the Anglican method. It is two
of these three strands that are particularly applicable to the context
and the issues of the current debate, namely Scripture and Reason.
It is necessary first to appreciate the reverence with which Hooker
approaches Holy Scripture and the weight he attaches to it. Let the
following two passages from Book II Chapter 7 stand as testimony:
Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God, that for
which we have probable, yea, that which we have necessary reason for,
yea, that which we see with our eyes is not thought so sure as that
which the scripture of God teaches; because we hold that his speech
reveals there what he himself sees, and therefore the strongest proof of
all, and the most necessarily assented to by us (which do thus receive
the scripture) is the scripture.
I grant that proof derived from the authority of man's judgment is not
able to work that assurance which grows by a stronger proof, and
therefore although ten thousand general Councils would set down one and
the same definitive sentence concerning any point of religion
whatsoever; yet one demonstrative reason alleged, or one manifest
testimony cited from the mouth of God himself to the contrary, could not
choose but overweigh them all; in as much as for them to have been
deceived it is not impossible, it is that demonstrative reason or
testimony divine should deceive.
Thereafter, however, in Book II Chapter 8, Hooker goes on to articulate
what has become a foundational insight in Anglican understanding. There
he contrasts two extreme opinions:
Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of holy
Scripture, each extremely opposite unto the other, and both repugnant
unto truth. The Schools of Rome teach scripture to be so insufficient,
as if, except traditions were added, it did not contain all revealed and
supernatural truth, which absolutely is necessary for the children of
men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved. Others
justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity,
as if scripture did not only contain all things in that kind necessary,
but all things simply, and in such sort that to do anything according to
any other law were not only unnecessary, but even opposite unto
salvation, unlawful and sinful. Whatsoever is spoken of God otherwise
than as the truth is; though it seem an honour, it is an injury. And as
incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit
of their deserved commendation; so we must likewise take great heed,
lest in attributing to Scripture more than it can have, the
incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it has
most abundantly to be less reverently esteemed .
In Book III Hooker goes on to address the character and authority of
scripture and he identifies varieties of scriptural material. In
particular, Hooker contrasts and distinguishes between what he calls
"The Law of God" and "the Word of the Lord". He is concerned to address
the position of those who argue most vehemently that it is to add to the
law of God and the words of the Lord when that which the Church has come
to incorporate into its polity cannot be found specified directly in
Holy Scripture:
True it is concerning the Word of God, whether it be by misconstruction
of the sense or by falsification of the words, wittingly to endeavour
that any thing may seem divine which is not, or any thing not seem which
is, were plainly to abuse and even to falsify divine evidence, which
injury offered but unto men, is most worthily counted heinous. Which
point I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar
than to plead in these causes, "The Law of God, The Word of the Lord;"
who notwithstanding when they come to allege what Word and what Law they
mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some
historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written
in most exact form of Law. What is to add to the Law of God if this be
not? When that which the Word of God does but deliver historically, we
conster (understand) without any warrant as if it were legally meant,
and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended, do we not
add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are?
[Book iii Chapter 5]
The point that Hooker is making very clearly here is this: adjudications
found in that type of Holy Scripture that is essentially narrative in
character have application in the circumstances, situation and
historical context in which they originally arose but are not, without
additional and compelling warrant, to be assumed to have subsequent
universal application. Rulings that may have applied and been deemed
valid at one time and in one specific circumstance need not necessarily
retain that applicability and validity at another.
Thereafter, in Book III, Hooker goes on to assert the necessity of the
application of Reason. He counters six positions advanced by those who
oppose the application of human reason to the discernment of the Law of
God and who take the view that the application of reason undermines the
power and authority of the Word of God as set forth in Scripture:
By these and the like disputes an opinion has spread itself very far in
the world, he writes, as if the way to be ripe in faith were to be raw
in wit and judgment; as if reason were an enemy unto religion, childish
simplicity the mother of ghostly and divine wisdom. [Chapter 8.5]
Such a position cannot even be sustained from scripture itself, Hooker
points out. He, therefore, goes on to distinguish between those things
which may be accessible through reason and those accessible only through
the operation of grace:
Howbeit for all men's plainer and fuller satisfaction, first concerning
the inability of reason to search out and to judge of things divine, if
they be such as those properties of God and those duties of men towards
him, which may be conceived by attentive consideration of heaven and
earth, we know that of mere natural men the Apostle testifies how they
"knew both God, and the law of God". Other things there are, which are
neither so found, nor though they be shown, can ever be approved without
the special operation of God's good grace and spirit. [Book III Chapter
8.6]
Hooker adds, in the context of the use of reason by those advocating
heretical beliefs, that, of course, reason can be wrongly used and
improperly applied but Heresy prevails only by a counterfeit show of
reason; whereby notwithstanding it becomes invincible, unless it is
convicted of fraud by manifest remonstrance clearly true and unable to
be withstood. When therefore the Apostle requires ability to convict
Heretics, can we think it a thing unlawful, and not rather needful to
use the principal instrument of their conviction, the light of reason?
It may not be denied but that in the Fathers' writings there are sundry
sharp invectives against Heretics, even for their very philosophical
reasonings. [Book III Chapter 8.8]
Having established the necessity of the application of reason, and
having also demonstrated that Paul and the Fathers in their writings
frequently employed reason and deployed it in defence of Christian
truth, Hooker goes on to examine the issue of truth and knowledge.
There is in the world no kind of knowledge, whereby any part of the
truth is seen, but we justly account it precious, yea that principal
truth, in comparison whereof all other knowledge is vile, may receive
from it some kind of light. [Book III Chapter 8.9]
That "principal truth" of which Hooker writes is the truth of the Gospel
itself: that indeed God was in Christ justifying the world to himself.
By comparison with such understanding all other knowledge is both feeble
and unlovely, yet even that which by comparison is feeble and unlovely
can add something, can indeed shed additional light on the truth of
revelation and lead to deeper and more complete understanding.
No man comes to God to offer him sacrifice, to pour out supplications
and prayers before him, or to do him any service, which does not first
believe him both to be, and to be a rewarder of them, who in some sort
seek unto him. Let men be taught this either by revelation from heaven
or by instruction upon earth, by labour study and meditation, or by the
only [unique] secret inspiration of the holy Ghost; whatsoever the means
be they know it by, if knowledge thereof were possible without discourse
of natural reason, why should none be found capable thereof but only
men, nor men til such time as they came unto ripe and full ability to
work by reasonable understanding? The whole drift of the scripture of
God what is it but to teach Theology? Theology what is it but the
science of things divine? What science can be attained to without the
help of natural discourse and reason? "Judge you of that which I speak,"
says the Apostle. In vain it were to speak anything of God, but that by
reason men are able somewhat to judge of that they hear, and by
discourse to discern how consonant it is to truth. Scripture indeed
teaches things above nature, things which our reason by itself could not
reach unto. But those things also we believe, knowing by reason that
scripture is the word of God. [Book III Chapter 8.11,12]
Hooker's advocacy of reason continues:
Exclude the use of natural reasoning about the sense of holy scripture
concerning the articles of our faith, and then that the scripture does
concern the articles of our faith who can assure us? That which by right
exposition builds up Christian faith, being misconstrued breeds error:
between true and false construction, the difference reason must show.
Can Christian men perform that which Peter requires at their hands; is
it possible they should both believe and be able, without the use of
reason, to render a reason of their belief, a reason sound and
sufficient to answer them that demand it, be they of the same with us
oor enemies thereunto? May we cause our faith without reason to appear
reasonable in the eyes of men? This being required even of learners in
the School of Christ, the duty of their teachers in bringing them unto
such ripeness must needs be somewhat more than only to read the sentence
of scripture, and then paraphrastically [periphrastically?] to school
them, to vary them with sundry forms of speech, without arguing or
disputing about anything which they contain. This method of teaching may
commend itself to the world by that easiness and facility which is in
it: but a law or a pattern it is not, as some do imagine, for all men to
follow that will do good in the Church of Christ. Our Lord and Saviour
himself did hope by disputation to do some good, yea by disputation not
only of but against the truth, albeit with purpose for the truth...
there is as yet no way known how to dispute or determine things disputed
without the use of natural reason... The light therefore, which the star
of natural reason and wisdom casts, is too bright to be obscured by the
mist of a word or two uttered to diminish that opinion which justly has
been received concerning the force and virtue thereof, even in matters
that touch most nearly the principal duties of men and the glory of the
eternal God. [Book III Chapter 8.16,17]
It remains for Hooker to add one final qualification to his advocacy of
the necessity of the deployment of human reason. That qualification is
as follows:
In all which hitherto has been spoken touching the force and use of
man's reason in things divine, I must crave that I be not so understood
or construed, as if any such thing by virtue thereof could be done
without the aid and assistance of God's most blessed spirit... For this
cause therefore we have endeavoured to make it appear how in the nature
of reason itself there is no impediment, but that the self-same spirit,
which reveals the things that god has set down in his law, may also be
thought to aid and direct men in finding out by the light of reason what
laws are expedient to be made for the guiding of his Church, over and
besides them that are in scripture. Herein therefore we agree with those
men by whom human laws are defined to be ordinances, which such as have
lawful authority given them for that purpose, do probably draw from the
laws of nature and God, by discourse of reason, aided with the influence
of divine grace. And for that cause it is not said amiss touching
Ecclesiastical canons, that by "instinct of the holy Ghost they have
been made, and consecrated by the reverend acceptation of all the
world." [Book III Chapter 8.18; quotation Violatores 25.q.1]
It is appropriate now to consider the implications of Hooker's analysis
and method for contemporary Anglicanism and to begin with Scripture,
Reason and the Law of God.
Hooker makes an important distinction between material in Holy Scripture
that can be determined as being the direct oracles of God and that which
may be, or may have been, derived from what he calls "by-speeches in
some historical narration or other." Hooker specifically criticizes the
use of such "by-speeches" by those who "urge them as if they were
written in the most exact form of law." He goes on, "What is to add to
the Law of God if this is not?" Therefore, in seeking to identify those
scriptural elements that possess universal application as the Law of God
it is necessary to exclude all that may be accounted "by-speeches"
associated with some form of mere narration and to refrain from
interpreting them in any sense as "the most exact form of law."
Self evidently, to distinguish between direct oracles and "by-speeches"
requires the application of reason to the study of scripture. Reason
cannot be excluded from the appropriation of the word of God in
scripture. Indeed, Paul himself, as well as the Fathers, applied reason
to the interpretation of scripture. In Paul's case it was the
interpretation of Old Testament scripture. In the case of the Fathers it
was both Old Testament and the New. This being the case, it is
inappropriate to exclude the application of reason to the writings of
Paul, especially in respect of those sections in which Paul specifically
exercises his own faculty of reason.
Turning briefly to the issue of Truth and Knowledge, it is clear that
nowhere does Hooker exalt human knowledge to a position which might be
said to rival the primacy of "that principal truth" to be found in
scripture. He does insist, however, that knowledge enhances what may be
known of the truth, indeed it is "precious". Knowledge and understanding
of the measure and mechanisms of the created order offer a deepening of
insight into the mind, purpose and action of the creator. Knowledge,
therefore, is valuable in itself.
Equally, where the various witnesses of scripture refer to that which
comes to them as knowledge of the universe and the whole created order,
it will be the responsibility of succeeding generations to assent to the
truth of that knowledge only if that understanding as exhibited in the
scriptures is accurate, but also to demur if, in the fuller light of
contemporary knowledge, such an understanding may no longer be affirmed.
To what extent, then, may it be possible to say that the Patriarchs, the
Prophets and witnesses such as St Paul may from time to time be
mistaken? Not, surely, when they are declaring the oracles of God
conformable with the Gospel of Christ; but, perhaps, where it may be
said that they are defective in fact or in reasoned extrapolation,
deduction or assertion based upon false premises. Such are tests we need
to apply in all cases of scriptural interpretation as it may be applied
to faith, truth, morality, and the Law of God. The scriptural evidence
as it relates to issues of homosexuality and homosexual acts supplies
such a case in point. Key texts therefore require to be analysed to
discover their nature and status.
I draw attention, therefore, to one of the texts central to the current
debate, namely Romans 1.18-27
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what
can be known about God is plain to them, for God has shown it to them.
Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine
nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through
the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew
God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they
became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were
darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools; and they exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or
birds or four footed animals or reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to
the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged
the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature and
not the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women
exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also
the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with
passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and
received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. [NRSV]
Some preliminary observations are in order.
First, the passage deals directly with denial or suppression of the
truth. The truth in question has to do with the nature and the worship
of God. Whether Paul has in mind pagan devotees or apostate former
Christians (and it seems most likely to be the latter,) in either case
what can be known about God - which itself is something plain to be seen
in the creation (In Paul's words, "understood and seen through the
things he has made",) has been deliberately set aside in favour of the
worship of idols represented by images drawn from the created order.
Paul, then is very clearly referring to a grave contemporary issue for
the Church in Rome.
Second, it is entirely clear that for Paul the created order is
identified as of substance and significance in understanding the nature
of God - "his power and his divine nature have been understood and seen
through the things that he has made."(v20) Here Paul applies the force
of human reason to establish the position he is concerned to advocate.
Refining and developing an increasingly deeper understanding of the
things that God has made, therefore can only further expose us to a
fuller encounter with the power and divine nature of God. The more we
know and the better we understand the mechanisms of creation the better
our insight into the power and divine nature of God through the things
he has made.
Third, Paul declares as part of the narrative of events that "the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of
those who by their wickedness suppress the truth."(v18) The wrath of God
is against the suppression of truth. The truth suppressed is about the
power and nature of God clearly revealed in creation. Punishment,
therefore is visited by God on those who are complicit in the
suppression of the truth and that punishment is that they are given up
by God "in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the degrading of
their bodies among themselves."(v24) "Degrading passions" (v26),
therefore, are the punishment of God visited upon those who "exchanged
the truth about God for a lie."(v25)
Fourth, those "degrading passions" (v26), are identified as acts of
homosexual intercourse: "Their women exchanged natural intercourse for
unnatural and in the same way also the men, giving up natural
intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another."
(vv26, 27) Two things are notable about this passage. The first is the
implication that, having once been persons whose natural expression of
their sexuality was to seek intercourse with the opposite sex, now (as a
punishment of God) they have "exchanged" what was natural to them to
that which is unnatural i.e. they are now defying their natural sexual
orientation and doing so as a direct result of the operation of the
power of God. The second point is this. Paul's assumptions about what is
"natural" and what "unnatural" are based upon the knowledge and
understandings of the time, relying to a degree on the presuppositions
of the Old Testament. If, on the basis of additional knowledge and the
application of human reason, such assumptions and presuppositions are
shown to be inadequate it will become an absolute requirement to
re-visit the definition of what in this area may be described as
"natural" and "unnatural". Indeed, such an outcome would actually be
consistent with the witness of Paul in Romans 1, for he is describing
the suppression of what was natural and the substitution of what, in the
case of those being punished, was unnatural.
Thus, in the case of the passage under discussion, the essentially
narrative character of the account rendered by Paul, dealing with a
particular situation involving what Paul interprets as the deliberate
punishment of God on persons who defy and renounce the truth about Him,
and featuring the application of reason and the contemporary knowledge
of the time to the activities of persons who appear radically and
wilfully to have changed their normal sexual orientation to embrace an
orientation that was not originally normal for them, it cannot be held
that what is unquestionably Holy Scripture is also a declaration of the
Law of God. The only aspect that can be placed in the category of "Law"
is the requirement to recognize the truth about God and not to exchange
such acknowledgment of truth and the worship that goes with it, for the
lie that anything other than the God revealed in scripture and through
the created order is worthy of recognition and worship.
Indeed, this is the key, not only to the situation confronted by Paul
but also to the situation confronted by the contemporary Church. The
issue that confronted Paul and confronts us now is how to get across the
damaging futility that will be encountered by those - they are a great
majority throughout the world - who defy and deny the truth about God.
Paul saw in the depravity of his contemporaries the punishment of God
not on account of their depravity (which, Paul says was their punishment
not their crime!) but on account of their denial and defiance, which was
the sin that counted.
Romans 1, therefore, provides no declaration of the Law of God in
respect of homosexuality and homosexual acts. Reference to such acts is
what Hooker might call "by-speeches" in the context of an historical
narrative and, as such, not a declaration of God's Law. Furthermore,
Paul, in his treatment of the issues, employs reason based upon the
knowledge and presuppositions accessible to him in his day. These may be
challenged if the knowledge base changes definitively. It is therefore
inappropriate on the basis of Romans 1.18-17 and ff to judge or
anathematize persons on the basis of sexual orientation. It will be
necessary to scrutinize other sections of scripture in a similar way to
discover whether elsewhere there may be established evidence of the Law
of God in this matter and I have not attempted to do that in this essay.
I remain committed to the view, however, that the tools of analysis
which Hooker articulated are essential to our contemporary purpose and
are especially relevant for the purpose of distilling the Law of God
from the total corpus of Holy Scripture.
Finally, let us be clear on this: it has not yet been conclusively shown
that for some males and some females homosexuality and homosexual acts
are natural rather than unnatural. If such comes to be shown, it will be
necessary to acknowledge the full implications of that new aspect of the
truth, and that insight applied to establish and acknowledge what may be
a new status for homosexual relationships within the life of the Church.
Ends
Item from: The Church of Ireland
The following article appeared in TheWashington Post as an anonymous letter to the editor on July 4, 1976.
What am I?
I am a free man -- a good and decent man -- a man of compassion, generosity, and understanding -- a true friend, a steadfast ally, and a bitter foe.
I owe my allegiance to a government founded in the belief that among the rights of man are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, I would acknowledge no other. I can redress my government for injury; not satisfied with redress, I can elect a new one. I have watched my government function smoothly during periods of transfer of power caused by re-election, assassination, and resignation.
While other nations have a distinct race, religion, and/or geographic denominator, I live among people of my home without fear of intrusion by anyone -- citizen or government designee -- unless they have my personal invitation or a duly authorized search warrant.
I have a press to keep me informed -- a press free to write, without inhibition, the truth as they see it. A press that needs fear no repression, no retaliation, no censorship so long as it prints the truth.
I live under a system of justice, merciful and fairly administered, where I am assumed innocent until proven guilty -- a system which provides me appellate privilege while denying it to the power of the state.
I am free to go anywhere I want, earn my living in any way that suits me and, based on that freedom, I have created a standard of living unequalled in the history of man and envied the world over.
I have suffered in humility at the consequences of my mistakes -- economic deprivation, social injustice, unequal opportunity and racial prejudice to name a few -- but, once aware of these mistakes, I have set out to right the wrongs they created.
I have faced challenges to my way of life. I have fought and died countless times from Lexington and Concord to Vietnam. I was humbled at Valley Forge, Pearl Harbor, Corregidor and Malmady. But these experiences gave me the character I needed to go to Yorktown, Gettysburg, Midway and Normandy. I cherish my freedom above all else -- I bow to no tyrant.
I am two hundred years old today. I have never been so proud of my ancient heritage, so grateful for my present situation, and so confident of the future. Today, I reaffirm my allegiance to, faith in, and love of my country. To the proposition that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, I do humbly pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.
I am an American.
]]>The Gafcon rebels are unrepresentative ultras – and I, for one, am glad Rowan Williams has lost patience with them.
I was once a university chaplain when the students' union leaders were committed Marxists. I observed a process. The union would make demands, which the university authorities resisted. The union then took direct action, with students boycotting lectures and picketing symbolic buildings. After several days, there would be negotiations and the university authorities would come up with a compromise. Everybody went back to work.
Within a few weeks, there would be another demand from the union and around we went again and more compromises would be agreed, except that the union never moved its position at all, whereas the university authorities, with every compromise, moved ever closer to an ideological core which had little to do with intellectual excellence or academic freedom.
Later, on a larger canvas, the Labour party came under the same pressure from the Militant tendency, until it realised that attempting to compromise with those with a tight ideology is a hopeless business; standing firm is what is required.
The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have come to the same realisation in the face of the manifesto emerging from the Gafcon conference of militant fundamentalist evangelical Anglicans. Indeed, the manifesto reads precisely like a student union document from earlier times. The claims are equally inflated and polarised.
It is maintained that there is a North/South division. This is nonsense. The African primates attending Gafcon came from a narrow tropical belt. The majority of African primates were not there and the language of the manifesto would be anathema to other influential African church figures such as Desmond Tutu. Reading the manifesto, you would form the impression that the other Anglicans had moved away from the core beliefs of the Church, grounded in scripture. This, too, is nonsense.
What the Gafcon group seems unable to understand is that it is possible to take scripture seriously but not, in the 21st century, to interpret it precisely the same way as previous generations. Thoughtful holiness has been the hallmark of Anglicanism and we don't leave our brains, our newspapers or our prayers behind when we open our bibles.
Reading the manifesto, you would think that western Anglicans have capitulated totally to their culture. This, again, is nonsense. We are trying to relate the Christian gospel with its grace and challenge to the culture in which we are set. At an earlier Lambeth conference, when polygamy was a divisive issue, the conclusion was that we would trust the African bishops to tackle the issue in their own way, for they were best placed to do so. The cultures of east coast America or south London are not the same as in Nigeria. The Gafcon leaders should have the humility to trust church leaders ministering in very different environments to their own to know what they are doing.
Apparently, some of the authors of the manifesto are now coming to Britain to attempt to recruit English parishes and clergy to their movement. All I can say is that it was good, thoughtful, hardworking clergy from the evangelical tradition who, a couple of years ago, demanded that I took action against militant tendency evangelicals destructively planting congregations in their parishes. I cannot see them rushing to join such a global movement themselves.
It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided that enough is enough. In the face of hectoring unreason, he writes in the traditional Anglican language of thoughtful holiness: "The Gafcon proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks involved."
I think that he is saying, "Don't go down this destructive path."
]]>Peering Past Lambeth
The Rt Revd Pierre W. Whalon, D.D.
While the Anglican Communion watches and wonders what its bishops will be doing this summer, most at the Lambeth Conference, some at the GAFCON conference, and one in New Hampshire, it is interesting to try to peer past these events and see what the future might look like.
This writer claims no prophetic charism—none of these events will decide anything. The outline of the questions facing Anglicans around the world will probably look the same. What will have changed—and this is a prediction—is that the bishops at Lambeth will begin seriously to examine together what it will take to move the Communion forward, so that these questions can be faced.
While the presenting issues seem to be sexuality and territorial invasions creating new non-geographical jurisdictions like the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the real issue is ecclesiology. The broader challenge facing Anglicans around the world is to re-commit to and live out in new ways the distinctive Anglican ecclesiology—what makes us Church.
Ecclesiology is a church’s thinking and speaking about itself. It involves reflection upon several sources: the New Testament images of the Church, the history of the Church in general and that of the particular church within it,[i] specific ecclesial images in the individual church, various credal and confessional formulations, the structure of authority, the witness of saints, and the thought of various theologians. As part of systematic theology—reflections upon the faith organized around particular images—ecclesiology cannot be kept apart from a theology’s explanations of grace, salvation, the Spirit’s action, sacraments, church governance, and moral reflection. How we conceive of the Church invariably influences to a large extent how we speak about God, Christ, the Spirit, and ourselves in God’s economy.
An ecclesiology is often an unspoken organizing principle, whose existence can only be inferred from recurring manners of speech. This elusive quality of an ecclesiology is due to a number of factors. The first is that it is difficult to be objective about oneself or one’s community, especially the church. We who are participants in our church know it only through the lens of our personal participation and relationships within it, what some call intersubjectivity. It is therefore easier to understand another church’s ecclesiology than one’s own.
A second reason for the elusiveness of ecclesiology is that the doctrine of the Church is inextricably intertwined with the other great themes of systematic theology. A theology of grace, for example, has direct consequences for a notion of what constitutes the Church. Yet this is often not immediately apparent to theologians as they build their systems.
A third reason is ideology. Simply put, a doctrine of the Church may not be a genuine teaching that helps grasp the mystery of redemption within a community formed by grace, but rather an ideology that cannot be questioned. In other words, an ecclesiology may be a cover for group bias. One example is those churches that exclude all but their own members from salvation in Christ. A similar example (odd as it may sound) would be a church that proclaims itself to be absolutely inclusive of all people.
Finally, the indirectness by which a church’s ecclesiology must be grasped is that the Church is, like all of God’s works, a mystery (cf. Eph.5: 32). This word, used in its New Testament sense, refers to the inability of the human mind ever to grasp more than dimly the action of God in Christ, uniting the divine and the human.
A number of scholars recently have been focusing on the question, is there, in fact, an ecclesiology proper to Anglicans? We have never defined one, per se. But in fact, I would argue that we do in fact have a distinct ecclesiology of our own.[ii] The conundrum that Anglicans have had to face since the first intimations of the break with Rome is how to be the One Church when unity is no longer available. Of the four “notes” of the Church, “one, holy, catholic and apostolic,” unity is first. “Is Christ divided?” Paul sarcastically asked the Corinthians (I Cor. 1:13). That would be obviously absurd. Yet unity has been broken. The Reformed way of solving this conundrum—that the true Church had disappeared for centuries and has now only re-appeared—did not convince the first Anglicans.[iii] The Roman Catholic solution, submitting everything to the papacy—was of course not acceptable to them. They were the Catholic Church in England. They knew in their bones that their church was no sect.
How to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic when unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are not immediately evident is the problem that all Christian communions must solve with their ecclesiology. The Church of England’s solution was unique.
The Church of England is a part of the Catholic Church, the first Anglicans reasoned, correctly. As such it is the visible society, membership in which effects salvation in Christ through participation in the supernatural society of the communion of saints. Its pedigree from antiquity is secure. Its pastors are legitimate heirs of the apostles, preaching from the Scriptures, praying the Creeds, faithfully administering the sacraments. But to remedy the deficiencies of the Roman model that the first reformers decried—its lack of a scriptural base, its tendency to demand conformity, and its overweening clericalism—Anglicans adopted a number of structural changes inspired by notions from the continental Reformation. The most important point about this process is that it arose to face the question of how to be Catholic Christians in a peculiar national and ecclesiastical situation. This process has some permanent features that all Anglican churches around the world replicate in one form or another.
The most basic feature is that Anglicans feel very deeply the absurdity of being a fragment of the whole Church, one shard of the mirror, as it were, shattered by Christian disunity. Anglicans as Catholics blame the papacy for the shattering of Christian unity.[iv] Thus we have always felt (with the significant exception of the Tractarians and their descendants) a certain sympathy with other non–Roman Christians. For all churches who have had “no choice” but to go their own way, Anglicans feel some sense of kinship. Not for nothing is it that the oldest formal ecumenical relationship is between the Church of England and the Orthodox Churches.
From this has come the yearning for unity expressed in the ecumenical movement, in which Anglicans have historically played a leading role. Anglicans have attempted many conversations over the centuries with Roman Catholics to overcome the two communions’ mutual estrangement. The results of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Consultation has borne remarkable fruit over the past forty years, fruit which will become irrelevant if the Anglican Communion truly splits. In particular, the Consultations have developed a theology of koinonia (Greek for communion, common life). The central point of this koinonia ecclesiology is that the relationships among Christians in a given church as well as the Church reflect the relations of the Three Persons of the Trinity. The Eucharist is the sign of koinonia and the oversight of the clergy is in its service. This koinonia ecclesiology should become an integral part in the years to come of any statement of a distinctive Anglican ecclesiology.
A second enduring feature of the Anglican ecclesiological process is comprehensiveness, a willingness to accept some variation of doctrine. While this may have been at times merely tolerance for the sake of a false peace, at heart it is a true recognition of the appropriate epistemology for a fragment of the Catholic Church, indeed, for any church that sees itself as a pilgrim band on the move. The 1948 Lambeth Report on Authority, with its famous assertion that authority in Anglicanism is dispersed among several sources, is but a recent attempt to explain and defend this perennial aspect of Anglicanism.[v]
This comprehensiveness has many facets. First, there needs to be room for individual Christians to realize their vocation as adopted children of God, baptized in the Holy Spirit. To “equip the saints for ministry,” they need unfettered access to the Scriptures, the primary tradition, so as to be formed by the mind of the Trinity. The people need to be able to pray in a way that will mold them more and more into the image of Christ—to become holy people. The laity need to have their share in the governance of the Church. Only together do we possess the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:16) and therefore only together will the Holy Spirit lead us into all truth. Paradoxically, that requires a great deal of individual freedom. This is the heart of the English Reformation, of the reformed character of Anglicanism.
The notion that there are some doctrines upon which Christians may reasonably disagree entered the Church of England through the work of John Frith, who was burned at the stake for it in 1533. While this notion of adiaphora, that there are secondary doctrines upon which people may disagree, derives from the thought of Lutherans like Philip Melancthon and Œcolampadius, its only ecclesial application in the 16th century was in the English Church. The question then arises, which doctrines must be held as essential and which are adiaphora?
Answering this question requires patience, some allowance for people to express their minds. Thus the Sixth Article of Religion draws a hermeneutical circle around the Scriptures, saying that they “contain all things necessary to salvation” without spelling out what, in fact, those “things” are. Furthermore, the Article draws another circle around each individual Christian, that no ecclesiastical power can force anyone to believe what Scripture does not contain or what can be clearly and convincingly proven therein. As this Article forms the basis for the Oath of Conformity that all Anglican clergy must make at ordination, its relevance to contemporary Anglicans, as opposed to other Articles, is clear. One example of how this works is in Richard Hooker’s discussion how the eucharistic bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. He clearly accepts that people have different theories about it. But their arguments about it preempt the faithful reception of the Eucharist, and have no priority over fulfilling Jesus’ command to “take and eat.”[vi]
Another critically important aspect of this comprehensiveness is that faith seeking understanding relies not on certainty, but on probability. Faith, after all, is confidence in God, not certainty about God. This has become a permanent undercurrent in Anglican thought. Jesus Christ as the Truth is the asymptote toward which our formulations of truth must tend, but can never reach. Therefore the Church is not infallible. But because the truth of its doctrine points however dimly to Christ, God will not let the Church fall into fatal error. This so–called “indefectibility” gives theological grounds for confidence in the ideal of comprehensiveness.
A third perennial feature is to locate the doctrine to which all must subscribe (the boundaries of comprehensiveness) in the way the church worships, rather than in strictly confessional documents like the Westminster Confession. This principle, lex orandi lex credendi, preserves both the church’s formal need for foundational doctrine and the freedom of individuals to interpret it. It has the backing of antiquity, and it leads away from arguments about doctrine to disputes about right worship. Moreover, since the Scottish Book of Common Prayer appeared in 1637 alongside the 1558 Book, there has been growing latitude in the forms of worship, a trend that has accelerated immensely in the past several decades as the Anglican Communion has grown exponentially.
A fourth permanent feature is to appeal at the same time to the example of the early church and to current scholarship. John Jewel, for instance, points out that since modern scholarship (of his day, that is) has made the Scriptures available to all, along with other ancient Christian writings, Rome’s charges of heresy and schism against the Church of England may be easily disproven. (In fact, he argued that these prove that Rome is itself the source of heresy and schism.[vii])
A fifth perennial feature of Anglicanism is its view of itself as the church of the nation. While the Church of England is still the established church, that sentiment has carried over into younger Anglican Provinces. What other American church would make a gift to its nation of a “house of prayer for all people” like the Washington National Cathedral? The answer is an Anglican church that sees itself in some sense as a national church, despite its disestablishment after the American Revolution. Similarly, Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda, shortly before his martyrdom at the hands of Idi Amin in 1977, expressed his conviction that were he to be martyred, it would be for Uganda as well as for Jesus. Anglicans consider not only the Scriptures, the tradition of the early church, and current scholarship, but also the pastoral needs of their particular nations and cultures. The Lambeth 1988 Resolution 26 to allow African polygamists to keep, as a matter of justice, their several wives after conversion to Christianity is a good example of this.
These perennial features of Anglican ecclesiology arguably result from the attempts of Anglicans to wrestle with the absurdity of being a fragment of the Church that should be a whole and yet is not. It could be said that the overarching biblical metaphor for the way Anglicans live this is found in the parable of the wheat and the tares.
These various elements of the Anglican ecclesiology are being sorely tried today. People from all sides, driven by their own agendas, want to prematurely separate the wheat from the weeds. The future work of the Communion, hopefully enabled by a consensus of bishops at Lambeth, will be to re-commit to, re-assert, re-work, re-define this Anglican ecclesiology in their own contexts. The Covenant process begun by the Lambeth Commission is one early attempt to resolve neatly—far too neatly in my opinion—this work. While some common written agreement, or some harmonization of the canon laws of the provinces of the Communion might help along the way, what we will need to do is to re-discover in our multiplicity of cultural contexts how the Anglican ecclesiology is at work, and re-affirm it globally.
Some American readers may object that the bishops of The Episcopal Church are not decision-makers for the whole church. That is correct, and it is important to recognize that shared governance with the laity is a basic principle of Anglican ecclesiology throughout the Communion, and not just in our own polity. There is however a difference between leadership and government. The office of bishop is primarily that of leader—specifically, to serve the local church and the whole Church in continuing to point the way forward in the accomplishment of the Church’s mission, and pastorally enable it to be carried out. It is essential that informal links and relationships continue to form among these leaders if the whole Communion is to emerge from our present deadlock. God willing, this will be the principal result of Lambeth 2008. We bishops need to be supported by prayer and good will, not suspicion.
Lately there has been a lot of rhetoric in certain quarters about a baptismal ecclesiology, that Baptism is really the critical sacrament. “The Baptized,” therefore, are the only real ministers in this view. People holding to this view seem especially suspicious of the office of bishop: “we can’t let the bishops have too much power.” However, the Eucharist is the central act of the worshipping church. “Baptism is Eucharist begun; Eucharist is Baptism completed,” in George Worgul's succinct formula.[viii] The president of the Eucharist—normally the Bishop, or else the Priest serving as the Bishop's delegate—can tend to become the sole focus, as certainly happened in the West by the 15th century. “Hierarchy is natural,” as Ed Friedman said, and in the world, there are the great and the small, the first and everyone else. However, where God reigns, hierarchy is not abolished but set right--the greatest is least and the first last. Therefore the laos, the People of God, is the critical element, not the president of the liturgy, for the three offices of the ordained serve to embody and empower the royal priesthood which is the laos. No People, no clergy.
However, "the Baptized" without bishops, priests and deacons are what, exactly? Baptism, normally done by a priest, does signify and enact the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, of a life. I will not be admitted into heaven because I am a bishop, but by virtue of both the grace given to me at my baptism and how God's "upward call" has worked itself out in my life.
The ordained are here precisely for this metaxu, this in-between, already/not yet of every human life, to serve the People of God as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” and as our salvation works itself out in us. On a desert island, alone, one does not need a priest, never mind a bishop: one needs a ship! But in human society, the Church is the locus wherein the outworking of the Spirit's call and gifts is begun, continued and ended. And the central act of the Church gathered is the Eucharist, to which Baptism is the admission. Austin Farrer, the great twentieth-century English theologian, even claimed that to miss Divine Service voluntarily was to “maim” the Body of Christ.
It is worth noting that all Christians believe in Christ thanks to the faith and witness of the first disciples of Jesus, who met Jesus risen from the dead and upon whom the Holy Spirit first came. It is their witness, crystallized in the New Testament which interprets the Old Testament, upon which all Christians place our trust. The witness and work of the original disciples, therefore, form the instrument for the mediation of salvation by grace through faith to all succeeding generations. There is no question among Anglicans of the fundamental role that the Scriptures play in this. As the original disciples began to die off, the succeeding generation began the process that ultimately created the New Testament, starting from the oral tradition of the original witnesses to the canon recognized in its present form in the fourth century. The apostles also appointed people of this next generation to represent them in local churches. The Pauline school called them “bishops,” the Petrine school called them “presbyters.” Within two more generations, this had become the threefold ministry, with bishops in charge of the local church, appointing presbyters to represent them in particular congregations, aided by deacons. Thus Ignatius of Antioch, writing ca.110 C.E., could write that the Church is the bishop celebrating the Eucharist in the midst of the people.[ix] The development of the Scriptures, the sacramental life of the church, and the episcopate are therefore parallel. A distinctively Anglican ecclesiology should present a theology of this parallel development, under the rubric of the action of the Holy Spirit.
This requires revisiting the role of the succession of bishops. There have been all kinds of theories of the episcopate.[x] Anglicans remain committed to the historic episcopate as part of the plene esse, the fullness of the Church. We need to marshal our arguments why this should be so, beyond Richard Hooker’s assertions of its practicality and antiquity.[xi]
The distinctive Anglican ecclesiology that must become clearer in the years to come will therefore affirm and subsume features of various baptismal and eucharistic theologies of the Church. It will affirm a polity of episcopal leadership in synodical government of the evangelistic and sacramental life of the Church, without nullifying the essential validity of non–episcopal churches. It must also explicate and defend the comprehensiveness that a pilgrim Church needs in order to continue the journey. It will support the other perennial features of Anglican ecclesiology outlined above, adding rich new insights from the experience of the young churches of the developing world.[xii] It will engage creatively and generously our ecumenical partners. Doing the hard work necessary to achieve this in all our provinces around the world, covering 163 nations, is what lies past Lambeth 2008. And Lambeth 2018. And 2028…
And one day, God willing, the distinctiveness of Anglicanism which this doctrine of the Church expresses will be subsumed into a larger, even richer whole, to the glory of God the Holy Trinity, in whom all people “live and move and have their being.”
[i] Avery Dulles distinguishes between “the Church,” an idealized concept of the community founded by Christ and the apostles, and “the churches,” concrete historical Christian communities which hold various ideals of the Church. The present writer finds this distinction useful, because it allows for precision in distinguishing between concept of an ideal community and the real people who hold a version of that concept.
[ii] I make this argument in an unpublished MS, “Toward a distinctive Anglican doctrine of the Church,” available upon request by writing to bppwhalon@aol.com. This column contains some condensed materials from this article.
[iii] Of course, they were not called Anglicans. I date the emergence of Anglicanism as we know it from the reign of Elizabeth I.
[iv] This is, e.g., John Jewel’s rhetorical device in his Apology for the Church of England. He turns all the Roman accusations around, convicting the papacy of the very offenses they charge the Church of England with.
[v] “… distributed among Scripture, Tradition, Creeds, the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments, the witness of saints, and the consensus fidelium, which is the continuing experience of the Holy Spirit through His faithful people in the Church.” An important critical appraisal of the Report is Joseph Britton’s “Dispersed Authority,” Sewanee Theological Review 42.3 Pentecost 1999, pp. 311–331.
[vii] John Jewel, An Apology of the Church of England (Charlottesville, VA: The University Press of Virginia, 1963), p. 18ff.
[viii] George Worgul, From Magic to Metaphor: A Validation of Christian Sacraments (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985 ), p. 188
[ix] “To the Magnesians” 6:1; “To the Philadelphians” 4:1.
[x] See Women Bishops in the Church of England?(The Rochester Report) accessed at www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/womenbishops.pdf; pp.33-41.
[xi] Though in Laws 7.24.3, Hooker intimates that he himself is persuaded that God requires him to obey his bishop, whom God has placed in authority over him.
[xii] As Emmanuel Orobator, a Roman Catholic African theologian, points out, there has been little work in African ecclesiology. The basic themes of African communal life—the primacy of community over individual, the honoring of the extended family, and the need to venerate ancestors—seem to be emerging in African church life as well. Jesus becomes the prototypical ancestor, the One who gives life. See “Perspectives and Trends in Contemporary African Ecclesiology,” Studia Missionalia 45: 1996, pp. 267–287.
Bishop Whalon welcomes comments or questions about this article. You can write to him at bppwhalon@aol.com.
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Thanks to Debra Spaulding and helpers for a wonderful Sunday morning in Lacy Park!
Photos thanks to Michael Harrigian and Claire McKenzie
A CELEBRATION OF COMMUNITY, FRIENDSHIP, AND THE MAGIC OF CHILDHOOD
ST EDMUND'S 50TH ANNIVERSAY GALA!
Friday, May 16th, 2008
Many thanks to Claire Maher for leading this effort, and to Eric & Rebecca Reed for hosting!