What actually happened in the 1990s is that the church’s official teaching (no sex outside marriage) was tightened. So what the liberals actually want is a break with the entire tradition of the church in respect of its teaching on sexual morality. This amounts to a revolution, for churches have always issued moral rules about sex. To say the church should withdraw from sexual moralism is to jeopardise its entire claim to authority. However, the liberal Anglicans cannot admit that this is what is going on.
The liberal Anglican priest (let’s call him Father Giles) is bitterly critical of the church’s collusion in homophobia. But he fully believes in the authority of the church, and his own authority. He affirms the right of the church to define orthodoxy: the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is decided by the corporate mind of the church. Likewise a true sacrament is something authorised by the institution. He claims to have authority by virtue of having been ordained into the church. Christianity is not a subjective free-for-all, he insists: it is a communal, traditional thing, with rules.
Yet when the church claims authority to rule on sexual morality his tune changes. This aspect of its teaching is mistaken, he says, and amounts to a betrayal of the Gospel. The problem is that this tradition of sexual moralism is part of the traditional authority of the church, which Father Giles claims to affirm. In other words, he accepts the authority of the church when it suits him and rejects it when it does not.
In my opinion, the gay crisis shakes the foundations of ecclesiology.
Cole Porter, who was himself a man of the viscious sensuality, said it clearly “Anything Goes”.
Mr Hobson describes the problem precisely.
But then it looks like he completely goes off the rails in the last paragraph in the linked article. It Fr Giles actually Hobson himself? I am reading this right? If so, he needs to re-think Who Jesus Christ is, and what His Church is.
God has a sense of humour. Hobson has simply repeated Newman’s critique of Protestantism with the one huge difference. Newman was committed to orthodox theology. Thus when he came to this conslusion he resolved to join a church in which its ecclesiology did not undermine its claim to be truthful. I suggest Hobson is already not committed to the truthfulness of orthodox Trinitiarianism. So he is declaring ecclesiastical Year Zero. The church must start again – except it must make no claims about truth and have no authority over anything, even its own beliefs. In this he is surely wrong. The community he wants already exists. They are called Unitarian Universalists.
Liberal Anglicanism is finished? It should be perhaps, since a denial of the authority of Scripture cuts the liberal adrift without an anchor.
But it is not yet imminent.
And sadly its death is going to be neither quiet nor painless for true Biblical Anglican faith.
The signs of its impending death are seen all around us in the slow but steady demise of congregations all over the Western world whose decline is irreversible (but for a gracious miraculous work of God of course!).
Yet to suggest that the 2008 Lambeth Conference is going to be the decisive step to finish the liberal position is very premature indeed.
There is not a lot that is certain in Anglicanism these days.
To know more about Theo Hobson go to Wikipedia.
He is in favour of dismantling/disestablishing the Church of England. Has a very provocative attitude to ++RW.
‘Fr Giles’ is a none too subtle reference to rent a quote Giles Fraser. an English blowhard whose access to free publicity (via the BBC etc) is inversely propoprtionate to the amount of theology he knows and the amount of sense he speaks, IOW, a natural for Tec.
Theo Hobson, a liberal Anglican, in this very significant article in The Guardian today, seems to be responding to the Advent Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It is well worth the leadership of GAFCON, Anglican Mainstream and Common Cause Partnership considering this article in depth, when they reflect on the importance of attendence at the Lambeth Conference 2008.
It may also be worth them considering this [url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200801100026] article [/url] about the resignation of Richard Kirker from LGCM after nearly 30 years of leadership, ‘The Church’s true colours’, by Simon Edge, ‘The New Statesman’, 10 January 2008.
Both articles are very important indeed.
Being theologically bankrupt does not translate into being finished as a religious institution – certainly not in today’s climate of superficial thinking and easy virtue.