The Odd Couple - Faith and Disorder

by Charles Raven
http://www.anglicanspread.org/
May 21st 2009

History was made in the UK this week when Michael Martin became the first Speaker of the House of Commons to be forced to resign for some 300 years, a casualty of the expenses scandal which is engulfing the British Parliament.

He is a former sheet metal worker who cut his political teeth in the hard school of Glasgow machine politics and the Scottish Labour Party, inhabiting a very different world from Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, once described by one of his friends as 'mainly monk' and whose ministry has been profoundly shaped by the academic culture of Oxford and Cambridge. Yet they have this in common, that both Speaker and Archbishop preside (only until 21st June in Michael Martin's case) over ancient institutions - the British House of Commons and the Church of England respectively.

Sadly, the similarity goes further, not only are these institutions ancient, they are also manifestly failing and the political crisis over expenses, exposed in all its excruciatingly embarrassing detail by the press (public money used for an astonishing array of claims, from make-overs to moats, pornography to property portfolios) helps shed light on that usually more sedate but nonetheless serious spiritual crisis which is overtaking the Church of England and threatens the wider Communion.

The core of the case against Speaker Martin was that he had presided over a 'gentlemen's club' culture when the members were no longer behaving as gentlemen. Privileges had become a pretext for systematic and widespread abuse, but rather than reforming the system he had sought to protect it from scrutiny. It is clear that a kind of self deception had taken root in the thinking of many MP's who were pushing claims to the limit, unable - as some still are - to see that while something might be procedurally lawful, it could nonetheless be morally unacceptable.

I do not want to imply in any way that the bishops and clergy of the Church of England are abusing their positions financially. The parallel lies elsewhere, not with money, but with truth. Just as for many MP's the ideal of public service had become so marginal that they exploited expense claims to the limit of legality almost as a right, so the call to preach the gospel and discern truth from error tends to be faintly embarrassing to much of the Church of England's leadership, especially when that call goes against the grain of its natural instinct to accommodate with the surrounding culture and thereby preserve its privileged status as the established church.

Examples are manifold, but two of the most outstanding come from the Church of England's own 'gentleman's' club', the House of Bishops. Its report 'Issues in Human Sexuality' of 1991 was widely interpreted as sanctioning active homosexual relationships for the laity, although not the clergy, and the House of Bishops (with a few honourable exceptions) supported the UK's Civil Partnerships legislation of 2005 which gave specifically homosexual relationships a status in law mimicking marriage.

A further illuminating similarity between Michael Martin and Rowan Williams is that both appointments were widely perceived as partisan. Whereas precedent would have indicated that the successor to the former speaker would have been drawn from the Conservative benches, Labour broke that pattern with Martin's election in 2000, leaving a legacy of mistrust. The partisan nature of Dr Williams' appointment was recognised by commentators at the time. The Roman Catholic writer Damian Thompson described it as ' in some respects, a very English coup. Using the instrument of the Crown Appointments Commission, the establishment has squashed the ambitions of an evangelical lobby which reflects the prejudices of the developing worked, not cosmopolitan London.'(Rowans Rule' Rupert Shortt, p241)

Rowan Williams own comments would have supported this perception. Only twelve months previously, on 22 July 2001, the London Sunday Telegraph, in a report entitled 'Archbishop hits out at ban on gay clergy' Dr Williams, then Archbishop of Wales, claimed that the 1991 'Issues in Human Sexuality' report's bar on the ordination of active homosexuals was incoherent and "this unwillingness to come clean can't last. It is a contradiction."

However, on his translation to the See of Canterbury, Williams' enthusiasm for 'coming clean' seemed to be much dampened. He minimised his commitments to the gay lobby and wrote to reassure the Anglican Primates, saying 'I have to distinguish plainly between personal theories and interpretations and the majority conviction of my Church.'. He has continued to emphasise this distinction between his personal (and in fact widely disseminated) views on the one hand and his official responsibility on the other. Superficially, this may seem generous, even sacrificial, but the consequences for the Church's commitment to truth are serious. As Gerald Bray has observed, 'Not to believe the teachings he is expected to defend is not a sign of superior holiness, as some have alleged, but the very opposite - it is deceitfulness taken to a higher level of deception.' (Churchman Vol.122 No.4 2008 p293)

This 'higher level of deception' is serious because, as a principle, it has the potential to downgrade Christian truth across the board. If the Archbishop of Canterbury himself can publicly treat the upholding of the plain teaching of Scripture as a formal duty rather than a personal commitment, the door is open to a kind of institutionalised hypocrisy in which it is acceptable to observe the formalities of orthodoxy while at the same time dissolving the substance of orthodoxy by conceding its provisionality. It is not difficult to see where this is leading; for instance Richard Holloway, former Primus (Primate) of Scotland cheerfully described himself in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald as an agnostic and yet can see no reason why he should stop ministering in the Scottish Episcopal Church.

And this is why the Anglican Covenant will not work. Its minimal doctrine and diluted disciplinary provisions are simply inadequate in a Communion where we can no longer be certain what people mean by the words they use and whether they believe the words they use. Dr Williams by no means bears sole responsibility for this culture, but he presides over it and has lent it respectability.

It is said that the partisan nature of his appointment contained the seeds of Speaker Martin's downfall and this week he has suffered the sudden death of his political career. The partisan nature of Dr Williams' appointment also contains the seeds of his downfall, but his is likely to be a slow death as the confusion he has sown theologically gradually manifests itself in practice, as most recently in Jamaica. And in this light, we can see that GAFCON's great contribution to the Anglican Communion has been to begin the process of restoring confessional confidence so that, as one body, Anglicans can speak of God and the gospel truthfully and clearly.

----The Rev. Charles Raven is Senior Minister of Christ Church Wyre Forest which is an independent Anglican congregation but located within Worcester Diocese