The Church of England is a timid, visionless mess of an institution. It lacks the courage to reform itself. Or rather, it lacks the courage to stick with necessary reforms, to see them through. It cannot reform itself without simultaneously pandering to the reactionaries who don’t want reform. The result, of course, is not reform, but division.
In 1992, it decided to ordain women as priests. A clear, bold decision, you might think, without much scope for equivocation. Not quite. For it also voted to protect the rights of those who disagreed with the decision to women as priests. They were allowed to form a church-within-the-church; to keep their jobs, to teach that women priests were illegitimate. (They like calling them “priestesses” because it sounds a bit dark and pagan.)
The church defended its toleration of these dissenters with warm words like “broadness” and “inclusion”. Really, of course, it is cowardice to tolerate those who refuse to go along with reform. Imagine if Parliament had voted for female suffrage, but also allowed conservatives who disagreed with the development to form a parallel parliament untainted by women’s votes.
This laughable cowardice is now being repeated, in relation to women bishops….
RE:”…The fact is that the feminist movement is ecclesiastically subversive – and the gay rights movement, too. For they both expose the fact that church authority has a different logic to secular liberal principles…”
We would certainly hope so! The author seems to think this a new concept. If I’m reading the piece correctly, the solution is to
throw out the “outmoded” church! This would be the logical conclusion to the “progress” of the “progessive” church.
[blockquote] It cannot reform itself without simultaneously pandering to the reactionaries who don’t want reform. The result, of course, is not reform, but division. [/blockquote]
Since his whole idea of ‘reform’ is getting rid of the reactionaries, and their reactionary ideas, I find it hard to comprehend why the author thinks division would be a bad thing. Division should in this case [i]equate[/i] to reform. Unless of course he realizes that there aren’t enough ‘non-reactionaries’ to make up a church. If this is the case, he knows that ‘division’ means the progressives get divided from the money. I can see why he would think that is a bad outcome.
[blockquote] Could it be that there is a fundamental incompatibility between ecclesiastical authority and modernity? [/blockquote]
No, but it just might be that there is a fundamental incompatibility between an anthrocentric “modern” worldview, and a theocentric “pre-modern” worldview.
[blockquote]The two big ecclesiastical debates of our day, over the priesting of women and homosexuals, have led me to feel that the very concepts of the priesthood, and the institutional church, are unreformable, and that Christianity must reinvent itself away from them.[/blockquote]
A cash prize should be offered to anyone who can explain the process through which the disembodied entity the author calls Christianity would ‘reinvent itself,’ let alone why it should wish to ‘reinvent itself’ simply because the author would prefer it to happen. The ‘reactionaries’ who actually inhabit the institution don’t seem agreeable to the reform he postulates. So who exactly does the author think is going to accomplish this ‘re-inventing?’
carl
“Hobson’s choice” indeed. The Church of England experienced Hobson’s kind of reformation between 1645 when Archbishop Laud was executed by order of Parliament and 1660 when the Restoration of King Charles II renewed the Church. The result was schism and non-conformity. We are seeing in the Episcopal Church the consequences of majority rule. God save the Church of England from such.
Carl, I’ll put up the first tupenny bit of the cash prize.
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
“I accuse these progressive people of taking the soft part of a Church’es duties and leaving the hard part.”
G. K. Chesterton
Mr. Hobson is onto something important, it seems to me, but he is going in the wrong direction with it. As opposed to so many of those on the revisionist side of things, he actually sees “inclusiveness” as the ultimate impossibility that it is, and calls for decisive leadership in the Church of England. This would work beautifully — for the orthodox. His own logic finally leads him to suggest that “the very concepts of the priesthood, and the institutional church, are unreformable, and that Christianity must reinvent itself away from them.” That is to say, the only solution is to abolish the Church of England itself. Not especially helpful or constructive, to my mind.
Christianity is what it is and cannot be “reinvented” along whatever lines Mr. Hobson and his sympathizers think best. What’s at issue is whether the Church of England is being faithful to her Christian calling — if she is not, then true reform and strong leadership in the right direction (without undue influence by the false idol of “inclusiveness”) are indeed called for.
One wonders whether Mr Hobson is an Anglican and if he is how he has managed in a church which has sought at its best to include all sorts and conditions of people. The price of such comprehension has always been that unwritten agreement not to legislate anything which crucially alienates the collective conscience of a constituent part of the church.
There have been moments such as the years leading up and during the English Civil War and the reaction contained in the Acts adopted between 1662-65 or clumsy anti-ritualist laws and actions in the 19th Century, when the compact has broken down and division weakened our part of the church.
A similar mood seems to be abroad today oddly reflected by both extremes but most dangerously espoused by those who in this country enjoy the power to act. always in pursuit of “justice” and the protection of patrimony, or whatever the correct word is for “turf” nowadays. Tragically a reaction of anger, hurt and bitterness often feeds into the same illiberal temperament and the church’s essential mission obscured in partisan rivalry.
It is quite instructive to read Mr Hobson’s [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/theo_hobson/profile.html]biog [/url] linked in the article. It includes the following:
[blockquote]Theo Hobson announced that he was a post-Anglican. He explained that this meant he cannot feel at ease in his native tradition, while it is so steeped in nostalgia – yet can see no better form of church to which to move.[/blockquote]
I am not entirely sure what a post-Anglican is although its sounds clever but what is clear is that along with Wassisname who wrote ‘Dark Forces’ some grounding in the CofE both founds part of the identity and comfort of these individuals in the CofE and yet gives rise to them venting their frustration by denying or subverting it.
Quite a paradox.
I think this is good clear logic from the liberal viewpoint. He’s right. Decide this day whom you will serve. The only thing I don’t understand is why he would think this is a time for liberals to leave. From the intro under the title: “for liberal Anglicans, it’s time to go”.
If only! It’s the “reactionaries” that are leaving. What’s he got to worry about? Does he really think any ground is going to be held in the long run by reasserters?
This is the problem with an established church– it is too readily perceived as a representational body rather than a prophetic and priestly body. The Tractarians saw this problem quite clearly and sought to see the particularity of the Church re-emphasized. How much more necessary is this when the society which the Church is supposed to represent is in a state of apostasy? God essentially becomes redefined in terms of the collective consciousness of the culture itself.
“Inclusiveness” is the shibboleth of the outsider – include ME! – but seldom of those in power. Those in power are more concerned with Truth. Let’s skip over the cynical consideration that concern for truth is sublimated self-interest as one protects one’s own power. Of course, sometimes that’s the case, but we shouldn’t discount true belief. It’s a powerful thing.
Mr. Hobson should be commended for standing up and shouting that the church should be solid and single-minded about Truth. We need not respect the incoherence or intolerance of his belief, or consider his truth to be related to Anglicanism, much less Christianity. But we can respect his concern for his truth.
I won’t take your money, but I will refer you to the Unitarian-Universalists, or even some Baptists. Both groups are descendants of the radical reformers who took the work of Luther, Calvin, et. al. to “the next level” or, if you prefer, “over the top”. Though they are theological opposites, both reject a ministerial priesthood or any authority other than the individual. As a Baptist friend once put it: the church has no right to tell you what to do. That neglects an important part of his own heritage, but it’s consistent with other strains of Baptist ecclesiology.
Of course, in practice, many groups are quite controlling; Mr. Hobson has made it quite clear his new religion will ordain women and gays; same-sex marriage will be practiced, and so on. One suspects dissent from these verities will not be tolerated. In reality, Mr. Hobson’s religion has a very limited appeal, that mostly being to white, middle-to-upper middle class elitists. There is certainly a body of “pew potatoes” who fit that description, and they form a large percentage of the Anglican religion in the west. But they are sedentary folk who inherited the religion, or chose Anglicanism for it’s gentility. Will they chose the sort of radical religion Mr. Hobson proposes?
Please, people, t his essay does not deserve anyone’s attention. It is merely agenda driven, the sort of thing we have seen too often to find it more than tiresome and repetitive. He has equated “change” – those elements of his agenda he wishes to push – with progress and improvement, as if Christianity were the employer of an advertising firm who must, to earn its money, find the fashionable appetite which the new ads will exploit. Larry
Ah, poor Theo! Consider the travails of an ecclesiastic Robespierre wannabe with no power and no guillotine. Think of the swift, sharp clarity Theo would bring. If given a chance.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant Theo! I am sorry but once again WO is treated from a worldly political viewpoint and not a theological one. Reform is seen as revoloutionary and vital – flying in the face of a faith that values tradition and looks BACK to the time of Jesus. And once more it is assumed that synod passed a motion it did not – when in fact it only agreed to a period of reception in which to discern IF WO was right.
Besides which those nasty party poopers that Hobson so deplores- could eqaully be seen as sincere people with deeply held convictions who have every right to beleive what they do because it is consistent with two thousand years of Christian tradition and with 90% of Christian thinking today.
To all who think like Hobson- I have a question. Why are you so intent on hijacking this church? Why not just start your own and be done with it- you might be happier after all you deplore everything we ever were- from priestly authority to Godly patriarchal tradition….or is it that you love the find buildings and pension schemes and year for the power you can draw from the established body?
I confess I only got as far as the title. I just couldn’t stop laughing long enough to move on to the body of the article.
Christ is risen!
John