The State We’re In !
The good old C of E, the Church of England is at present beset by difficulties. Most recently we have had the rather distasteful spectacle of the Pope making overtures to traditionalists, particularly conservative Anglo-Catholics.
What he is offering them is the chance to retain elements of Anglicanism within the Roman Catholic Church. This may have very far-reaching consequences. Many priests and indeed whole congregations may opt to make the move. Even bishops are considering it. And some are threatening to make a bid to take their property, their churches and parsonages, with them. We could be in for quite a scrap!
The biggest worry about this development, however, is that it may diminish the Church of England by making us less of a broad church than we have been historically. The Church is already becoming increasingly evangelical and the potential disappearance of a swathe of anglo-catholics will only narrow it further. The Pope is not offering unity, rather he is offering a specious uniformity which says there is only one way to be a real Christian, my way!
At the same time, in a bid to appease some of the traditionalists, a senior committee, tasked with the job of implementing the decision to ordain women as bishops, has twisted itself into knots. To begin with it recommended, in effect, that when this happens there should be two classes of bishop. It proposed that if people don’t like the idea of having a woman bishop they should have the right by statute to be served by a male bishop. This idea is clearly discriminatory, is it not? It would have meant that powers would have been taken out of the hands of women bishops (and potentially some male bishops too) whether they wished it or not, while others who are considered to be kosher would have hung on to all of theirs. It is a matter of some shame, in my view, that the Church even countenanced such an idea and it makes one grateful that we remain an established church. For there is no way that legislation of this kind would have been passed by Parliament. Some women priests were understandably so incensed that they threatened a strike! No wonder!
In reality, the main consequence would have been to delay the implementation of the decision to consecrate women bishops; something which already has taken far too long and makes the Church look simply ridiculous in contemporary society. In the end the protests of many of us made caused the committee to volte face in short order and the proposal has been dropped. What will take its place is still hard to predict but previously we had agreed that if a person or a church cannot accept the ministry of a female bishop, such a bishop would ask one of her male colleagues to serve this person or church. This retains the traditional rights of the bishop.
If women bishops are the main cause behind the first two crises hitting the Church, the third is sexuality. The Church remains divided over this issue. Many of you know my personal convictions. Some of you agree with me, some of you don’t. That is how it should be. We should be a Church in which people can co-exist with varying opinions on different subjects. But there is a strong body of opinion in the worldwide Anglican communion, backed particularly by American fundamentalists and their money, who want to make this issue what is rather unfortunately called a “communion busting issue”. In other words what you believe and do about sexuality may come to define you as a first class or second class Anglican or not even a proper Anglican at all. To achieve this it is proposed that we should sign up to a so-called covenant which will set out the parameters of Anglican belief. It is also planned to strengthen the structures of the communion to give more control to the centre.
Now what’s wrong with that? Well I believe it strikes at the very heart of what it is to be C of E. Our Church is not what we call a ‘confessional church’ with a worked out set of specific beliefs, other than those believed in by all orthodox Christians. Lutherans are like that and some other Protestant Churches. So too in a way are Roman Catholics. I have nothing against those churches, but we operate differently. We are more loosely bound together, we are a broad church, we don’t get bogged down in the detail of Anglican doctrine. What defines us is a common life of prayer, a sense of belonging together in spite of our differences, held together by our bishops in our dioceses. We have a weak centre and are strong in our parishes. Our bishops help us to be strong where it counts – in our parochial life. We don’t want a strong controlling centre. We respect the Archbishop of Canterbury but we don’t want him to be an Anglican pope.
It is to my mind remarkable that differences over sexuality have led us to the point of sacrificing something distinctive about our Church. When you put church and sex together you get a very neurotic situation! A recent Church Times job advert highlights this. It stated that applicants had to abide by certain moral laws in the sphere of sexuality. But why just single out sexuality?! It said nothing about lying or theft or murder. Nothing about hypocrisy. Jesus spoke about greed 20 times more often than he spoke of sexuality. We are obsessed, obsessed with this one sphere of morality and this obsession is laying waste to the essential genius of our Church.
So the Church faces some stiff challenges. No doubt it will survive, but we must work to ensure that it is a church which is broad and inclusive, that it is not discriminatory and that it does not withdraw into a narrow ghetto where only the like-minded are welcome.
Richard Franklin
13 December 2009