MetaCatholic

I have been reading Darwin’s Angel by John Cornwell.(ISBN 978 1 84668 048 9). Unlike a great many responses to Dawkins, and especially to The God Delusion, this is not a blunderbuss of a logical argument, but a series of ripostes and questions. Cornwell assembles them all under the conceit of writing as Darwin’s guardian angel, now assigned to Dawkins. This conceit allows him both to address Richard Dawkins directly, and by a device so at odds with Dawkins’ rigourous scientism, leave a sense of gentle teasing permanently in the background.

Sometimes this background whimsy spills over into more overt teasing – “You quote yourself (who else?)” (p113). Or after quoting one of Dawkins’ anecdotes about receiving a round of applause for suggesting a religious upbringing is worse than child abuse:

You should not be carried away by the effect of your own charisma and eloquence. A Dublin audience will clap enthusiastically in an effort to bring the most delightful evening to an end so as to make it to the bar before closing time. (p100)

In this spirit his put-downs are also gentle, but nonetheless devastating: “Your book is as innocent of heavy scholarship as it is free of false modesty.” (p29) But, together with a number of more penetrating criticisms of Dawkins on questions of good, evil and ethical behaviour, these wry observations also move in the direction of suggesting Dawkins is actually rather naive, and innocent of any real acquaintance with what suffering and misery are like. The picture of the comfortable ivory-tower academic more at home in a word of ideas than reality is only sketched in lightly, but is there nonetheless.

This almost satirical style does not get in the way of some quite rigorously logical probings at specific ideas in Dawkins’ writing. He is particularly forceful on philosophy, and imagination and the arts (picking Dawkins’ uses of Dostoevsky and Yeats apart) as well as having a more than sufficient grasp of the science to interact both positively and negatively with the arguments. Above all, he hammers home Dawkins’ misconstruction of the purposes and nature of religious discourse, and is absolutely clear that God is not another existent being, but the underlying reason for any and all existent being.  Many of his chapters cover the same ground as other answers to Dawkins, but here they are put as short sharp points, questions to ponder rather than knock-down arguments, and elegantly expressed. This style, of overt respect for Dawkins’ achievements and sincerity, combined with subtle undermining of his logic, is more devastating than the more weighty tomes.

One area of his critique that was new to me has just become more topical, the idea that Dawkins lays himself open to charges of anti-Semitism. Quite a few people have already picked up on this quotation from the Guardian:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.

This probably shows a certain political naivety about the “Jewish world conspiracy” stuff more than any defined anti-Semitism, but there’s just enough to be worrying. As Cornwall points out, in dismissing the whole of the Bible, Dawkins relies on a single article, and takes him to task for this dependence on a single source.

If you had set an essay on, say, the independent evolution of eyes, and a student had turned in an essay based on a single source, claiming that the theory of the independent evolution of eyes was wrong, [NB this is a common so-called Intelligent Design trope] would you not be astonished? Would you not send the student back to the library to make a wider survey of the literature? (p78)

But the problem comes from the source of this single article, John Hartung’s essay “Love thy neighbour.”

The Bible is a blueprint of in-group morality, complete with instructions for genocide, enslavement of out-groups, and world domination. But the Bible is not evil by virtue of its objectives or even its glorification of murder, cruelty, and rape. Many ancient works do that-The Iliad, the Icelandic Sagas, the tales of the ancient Syrians and the inscriptions of the ancient Mayans, for example. But no one is selling the Iliad as a foundation for morality. Therein lies the problem. The Bible is sold, and bought, as a guide to how people should live their lives. And it is, by far, the world’s all-time best seller. [my emphasis]

One might be wary just from the setting of this article on this website which seems committed to a scientific rationale for perpetuating racial distinctions in political life, and calling it free-thinking. In another essay review on the same site Hartung argues that anti-Semitism is an inevitable response to Jewish competitiveness for power. Cornwell, as a former journalist, actually investigates sources, and Dawkins’ source (and its anti-Semitism) should be enough to disturb him, so Cornwell writes

I find it strange that you should have been so reliant on this single source for what forms such an important charge against Judaism and Christianity in your book. (p84)

In connection with this Cornwell at his most serious also points out the potential historical analogy between Dawkins’ regular descriptions of religion as a virus and the rhetoric of Nazi blood-purity. The problem with the language of viral infection is that it entails language of quarantine and eradication programmes. Again, addressing Dawkins directly, he says:

I am not suggesting that you would have anything but contempt and loathing for the “bio-political” ideas that arose in Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 1930s; but I want to impress on you the far-reaching potential consequences of likening believers, or any group of people in society, to disease carriers. (p143)

The point is well-taken, and I hope it convinces Dawkins, not necessarily to change his mind, but to moderate his rhetoric. But this may be a serious problem for Dawkins: if you believe all religion equally bad, how do you deal with a race whose identity is rooted in a religious and scriptural story, without also being racist? The Oxford professor seems strangely naive about the company he is keeping, and strangely out of touch with the real world implications and effects of ideas, despite the fact that he lambasts the ideas of believers for inflicting every kind of evil on the world. Cornwell’s examples indeed suggest that you can do worse things in life than bring children up in their parents’ religion.

All in all this book brings something new to the over-full table of Dawkins and his antagonists, and should be welcomed as a delightful read, and a penetrating riposte.

(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)

After a rather brief diversion into Purgatory, the articles return in number 23 to the organisation and ministry of the Church of England. (Of course, the present Archbishop may currently be feeling that Purgatory is precisely where such questions lead.)

XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation
It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of publick preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have publick authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.

This takes a stand asserting episcopē over charismatic authority. It is not sufficient for someone to feel they have a calling: that calling must be discerned, validated, and echoed by those who have authority. There does appear to have been some ambiguities in practice with the recognition of those ordained in non-episcopal churches on the Continent, and it is hard to know how much these represented particular theological positions, and how much practical ecumenical generosity borne out of a sense of common cause against the papacy. But, as far as I can ascertain, the preface to the Ordinal remained essentially the same (in this point, at least) in 1549 and 1552, despite the more Calvinist tone of the latter. In what follows I indicate the changes between 1552 and 1662.

It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which Offices were evermore had in such reverend Estimation, that no man [1552 adds by his own private authority] might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by publick Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were [1552 omits were] approved and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority [1552 omits by lawful Authority]. And therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed in the [1552 reads this] Church of England,* it is requisite that no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said Functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal Consecration, or Ordination.
[*1552 reads for this last section: (not being at this present Bishop, Priest nor Deacon) shall execute any of them, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following]

In one sense, again, this shows the weakness of Cranmer’s earlier article on the visible Church. There is no easy way to relate what he says there to what is said between article and ordinal here. Here the universal Church stretches back in visible documented history that is “evident to all men” to the time of the Apostles, and the writing of the Scriptures. Here also Cranmer makes clear that he intends that “these Orders may be continued” and so stakes a claim for the Church of England to be a visible expression of this catholic Church in this realm.

Cranmer is reforming the church, not refounding it, and the visible organisation and transmission of authority through episcopal orders is intended to trump any claim to immediate authority granted solely through an individual sense of being called by the Spirit, having the true meaning of the Scriptures, or being authorised by a congregation.

One of the questions that taking this seriously throws up for today’s Church is the appropriate level of authorization for particular lay ministries. In theory, and in most places, the ministry of lay preaching is carried out under a similar pattern of diocesan discernment, training and episcopal licensing through the order of Readers. The ministry of assisting at the Eucharist and taking Communion to the sick is carried out through parochial discernment and training, and episcopal licensing. Those congregations that see fit to organize their own recognition of these ministries are not only going against article and ordinal, but have simply failed to take due note of these as ministries of the whole Church.

But there are a great many other ministries, some of which are still rare or patchy, such as evangelist, lay pastor /pastoral assistant, or those who share collaboratively in the leading of worship. Here there is no coherence in discerning vocations, offering training, or authorizing these ministries from diocese to diocese, which is a strange way to honour either people’s vocations or the bishops’ responsibility for oversight. Not all (or even perhaps the majority of ) ministries need episcopal licensing, some do. Others require perhaps a corporate assent, which would include the bishop’s general consent, and then specific and more local developments.

There are the widespread and common ministries of reading the scriptures in public worship and leading people in prayer, where, to be frank, parishes rarely seem to exercise much discernment about whether people have a calling to do this (and I suggest both these ministries are more important than we treat them) or are trained to do it. And obviously, one could add a great many more, but the principle of appropriate discernment, training and commissioning enshrined in this article for ordained ministry, is one that could profitably be extended, and made coherent for all — not least for the benefit of all those who have been on the receiving end of an incomprehensible reading, or a homily masquerading as prayers of intercession.

It is also at least arguable that the clash between this article on a legitimately authorised ministry, the earlier emphasis on the visible church in a congregation that proclaims the word and ministers the sacraments, and the always hidden but ever-present reality of a national church, is in large part to blame for the incoherence currently affecting the Anglican Communion. The confusion in Cranmer’s ecclesiology is at least as much to blame as new readings (or misreadings – take your pick) of scripture for the current situation where some priests feel they can choose their own bishop, and some bishops feel they can exercise authority in whichever diocese they want to. (Not that I would minimise the problems of American cultural isolationism and internal culture wars, nor the ambitions and egos of those who are competing for the role of first Anglican Pope, and feel that a humble archbishop is weak one.)

It is a stunningly awful practical illustration of the inability Anglicans have had to make a workable theological system out of Cranmer’s inconsistency, and an indictment of the Church of England’s inability to do what, I think, I have repeatedly demonstrated was necessary: to revise these articles coherently with fresh readings of scripture, and due attention to traditional ones. Relying on the British Empire and a form of common prayer in Tudor English to disguise major fault-lines has proved to be no substitute for a coherent ecclesiology.