The increasingly evident problem within Anglican-ism, detached from the moorings of Establishment * and the surviving restraints of theological, historical and liturgical memory, is that its strong internal impulses to conform to the social and intellectual norms of the bien-pensant ̩lite Рwhatever those norms may be Рhave led it to become an almost uniformly middle-class, liberal-left, spiritual pressure group. It has neither the central magisterium of the West or the unbreakably strong, quasi-mystical, role of the living tradition of the East to be able to withstand the insidiously conformist pressures of our secularised western culture and philosophical world-view. When society itself still ahered to broadly traditional Christian beliefs and values, the real problem was not so evident, even if we were living off the riches of the past; but when, as now, that situation no longer applies, the inadequacy of our ecclesiology has become glaringly apparent.
I heartily agree with Michael Gollop’s main thesis, although I disagree with one of his key premisses (his opposition to WO). In particular, I wholeheartedly concur with the line highlighted in bold here, the major sea change in the UK and western civilization in general to a [b]post-Christendom[/b] culture changes everything, and various flaws in classical Anglicanism, including our “ecclesiology,” have been brought out in a glaring and disturbing way. That’s why I continue to contend that mere church renewal is not enough, and that nothing less than a full-fledged New Reformation will do. The old wineskins of the famous Elizabethan Settlement have become obsolete and counter-productive, so that merely trying to patch the old wineskins is futile.
Unfortunately, however, Gollop’s screed is too brief and vague to be very helpful. Even were the CoE to be suddenly dis-established, as the (Anglican) Church of Wales and Church of Ireland have been, that wouldn’t, by itself, take care of the deeper problem of our Anglican proclivity toward worldliness, or as Gollop puts it, our “[i]strong internal impulses to conform to the social and intellectual norms of the bien-pensant elite.[/i]” For way too long, we’ve been desperate to win back the fickle favor and good opinions of Christianity’s “cultured despisers” (Schliermacher’s phrase), because they were “our kind” of people. That has been just as true in America since our independence was achieved as it has been in England, and possibly it’s been even worse on our side of the Pond.
David handy+