Even though I’m not sending Christmas cards this year ”“ ran out of time ”“ you are not going to escape my seasonal circular letter. It is filled not with the record of my many achievements, holidays taken, operations survived and the GCSE results of my imaginary children, but instead has a few tidings of great joy, because you seem to need them at the moment.
You sounded a bit down the other day when you were talking to the Daily Telegraph, complaining that our government assumes “that religion is a problem, an eccentricity practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities”. Well, the government is often right about that, so if I were you I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’d be more worried if the government didn’t think religion was a problem.
The Telegraph came up with more why-oh-why material last week, publishing the results of a survey indicating that only half those questioned in this country called themselves Christian. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that either. God will no doubt cope. Let me draw on the words of the Blessed Ian Dury and give you some reasons to be cheerful: one, two, three.
Diarmaid MacCulloch’s somewhat self-serving, not to say disingenuous, Christmas Cracker offering to Archbishop Rowan Williams in effect endorses a more than implicitly deconstructive approach to Anglicanism’s classic, hierarchical triad of authority, not as explicated by Richard Hooker but rather: Scripture as reflecting religious insight in particular times and places, albeit (perhaps!) most definitively, for Christians, in the gospel accounts of Jesus; Reason understood to be an historically conditioned but progressive exercise of post-Kantian epistemology as the sole basis of human knowledge; and Tradition as the cumulative yet more or less infinitely self-transcending and self-regenerating expression of “orthodoxy†in and for the church. If this is at all what the academic and ecclesiastical leadership of “first world†Anglicanism accepts as its Christmas Wish for A.D. 2009 and beyond, then I’m with Flannery O’Connor: “To hell with it!†In the meantime, my own Advent Hope is for Professor MacCulloch’s former student Ashley Null to respond with a Cracker of his own!
how funny!…oh? he was being serious? pull the other one!
So someone who isn’t a Christian any longer is giving advice on how to run the church? Well thanks, but no thanks.
“So American Anglicans have decided that enough is enough: that they should just get on with being Anglicans…â€
Oh now that begs the question. What does it mean to be an Anglican? There are many and sundry answers, and I will be the first “conservative†to admit that some “liberals†give reasonably decent answers grounded in history. However, it is irresponsible and unbecoming a scholar like Prof. MacCulloch to simply throw out the unreflective statement “just get on with being Anglicans.â€
In short, if being an Anglican has anything to do with global relationships and making decisions not rashly like many Protestants but with slow, deliberate, and careful thought, then I think perhaps the members of the LA Diocese are not in fact getting on with being Anglicans.
More troubling is this irresponsible jab: “Perhaps they have come to the conclusion that it would be a strange sort of supreme being who cared that much for a particular configuration of genitalia in her servants.â€
Well, sure, if we ground our understanding of God in our sensibilities, it is does seem strange. Sure, if we ground our understanding of God first and foremost in what we experience, it does seem strange. But hang on a minute… is that how we do theology?
Dean McKeachie is right. One of the most troubling elements in this “letter” is MacCulloch’s epistemology. MacCulloch seems to ignore one of the most basic elements of Christian theology, that is, our understanding of who God is and who we are is not foremost grounded in our experiences, but in revelation. Prof. MacCulloch clearly detaches Anglican Christianity from this very basic principle. Is there any reason for his reordering of things? Is there any sense of this framework of knowledge about God and about God’s will in the 1549, 1552, 1559, or 1662 prayer books? How about in the 39 Articles? The Homilies?
In short, this jabbing and half-formed line about what God really cares about also begs a question. What is your source of information about God and about God’s will? While I would venture that what we know about God from scripture does coincide with our communal experience, that sort of knowledge is always secondary to revealed knowledge.
But then again, those of us who’ve read MacCulloch know that he has a very low regard for Augustine – so we shouldn’t be surprised that he places a high commodity on the human capacity to know God unaided by revelation and unhindered by the Fall.
Yes I see it now! That’s why we all love one another naturally. That’s why there are no wars about. Maybe that’s why none of us experiences pain and suffering. Yes, there is an abundance of compassion the world over – all quite naturally. Perhaps we should just get on with things… everything is great!
Sure… there wasn’t a Fall and we can know God by just thinking “Her†out…. tell me another one.
MacCulloch is a distinguished historian of the Reformation period. He was previously an Anglican deacon but was declined priesting because of his same-sex partnership. He now no longer describes himself as a Christian. His expertise is in 16th century history, not principally in theology or Scripture. His opinions on the Bible, Christ and God should be treated accordingly.
Professor MacCulloch’s “Christmas Letter” seems to be a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek mixture of good sense and twaddle. What he says about the bumbling, meandering ways of the Church of England is by and large fair comment by someone who has known her funny-ness since childhood. What he says about the Episcopal Church is evidence that he hardly knows nor understands it, which isn’t surprising: the church seems these days to be innoculating itself against being grown up rather than demonstrating signs of maturity.