MetaCatholic

Allow me to end the year by stirring things up a little. In a recent comment Stephen appealed to the separation of church and state in the way that many people do: as though it was (almost) self-evident. It’s an obvious mantra of much American political life, and it has often made its way across the pond, as though it was quite normal. I don’t myself have any strongly held views on this topic, but let me offer a few observations and questions to suggest that it’s not quite as straightforward as it seems. I also note, that faced with the Religious Right in the US, I’d personally repeat the mantra as an apotropaic incantation every day.

• The original move towards the separation of Church and State came from those who objected to the English Anglican hegemony. It was as at least as much a religious intention for freedom as a political one, and in its beginnings, ironically, theology and politics were conjoined at the hip.
• In its developed form, it depends on the Enlightenment myth of objectivity. Somehow the state is meant to be religiously neutral. However, as we have come to reject the myth of objective neutrality in every other sphere of knowledge, we have ignored its pretensions in politics. A better justification for the separation of church and state needs to be found if the idea of separation is going to commend itself.
• It is not an obviously successful idea. Despite its privileged role in American political mythology, it is almost impossible for an American politician to describe themselves as an atheist if they wish to get elected. By contrast, in the UK, where there is an established religion enshrined in law and omnipresent at least ceremonially on state occasions, it can be regarded as the death-knell of a politician to be regarded as religious. “We don’t do God” as Tony Blair’s press spokesman Alistair Campbell famously said. The established Church of England seems to do rather better in the UK at creating a multi-faith and no-faith public sphere than the formal separation of church and state does in the US.
• Theologically, there is also an interesting case to be asked about God. Where does the legitimacy of the State come from? There are various answers to that, which can be expressed in philosophical, moral, legal, political and theological terms. Traditionally, however, while by no means excluding philosophical, moral, legal and political analyses, Christian theology has wanted to answer the question with reference to God as the undergirding legitimate authority of everything, including the state. Neither State nor Law are absolute providers of the judgements by which society is organised and maintained, but themselves stand under judgement for what they do. Obviously that can be worked out in practice in very different ways. But the theory that government is to be measured by the kingdom of God, and judged by God is, I think, for the Christian one possible way of distinguishing between democracy on the one hand and ochlocracy or demagoguery on the other. Majorities may deliver power, they do not always confer legitimate authority. Is it theologically possible for Christians to conceive a State that is unrelated to God? If the answer is no, how do Christians think they can conceive a state that is unrelated to God’s people?

These are questions I have no answer to. But like my posts on the fag-end of the 39 articles, they leave me convinced that political theology is an area where we simply have to do better.

written by doug

I note that the humour site Holy Observer has collected a range of the Christmas messages displayed on Church signs around the USA. (HT Parableman)

If you are easily offended, I suggest you go and look at another page instead.

written by doug

I offer you a final round up of search terms used during this closing segment of the year. Again, I have to profess myself baffled either by what people were looking for, or else by how they ended up here.

There were a cluster of IT related ones. I cannot for the life of me think how this first one ever got here, since I’ve never written about scripting at all, but even if Google erred (who doesn’t) this blog must have been about the gazillionth result and someone has far too much time on their hands:

• In javascript define the term argument

Then, I know that people often describe the Mac versus PC wars as religious but this is daft:

• mac vs. pc catholic
• mac os x catholic bible

There was this little known biblical incident :

• jesus’ baptism by john heard

And a request for an unlikely theologian:

• Jean Paul Sartre on Virgin Birth

Apparently I should be starting a new agony aunt slot (so much for sex education in school):

• can a virgin uses tampon

Then a term that must have returned a few million rants (surely not one of mine ):

• couldn’t manage a pissup in a brewery

Finally, there were a couple that completely baffled me (any ideas?)

• my tongue art
• my liz tongue

What were they looking for? It’s that “my” that especially confuses me.

written by doug

Well, the answer, of course, is who knows? I asked that question in a sermon this morning, followed immediately by asking whether anyone thought the question was offensive or sacrilegious.

One of the odd features of today’s lectionary readings was that we got the flight into Egypt. (Have you heard of the little boy who drew an aeroplane with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and Pontius the Pilot?) Next Sunday we will have the arrival of the Magi. Hmm. But the lectionary, like the gospels themselves rush us through the story to get to the baptism. Even Luke, with more detail, is hardly interested in the baby or child before he becomes the man. And fair enough, they’re not writing modern biography, with all our contemporary interest in childhood.

It seems to me, however, that asking the very basic questions such as the one in the title of this post is something that drives home the incomprehensible mystery of what we mean by the incarnation. Taking time to ponder the infant God (and babies are as basic a food-processing machine as we get) is – or perhaps ought to be – shocking and disturbing. Is this what we’re really saying? Yes, I think it is. Maybe we should spend a little more time at the crib than lectionaries allow.

written by doug

One of the features of the current Anglican shenanigans is that obfuscation rules the day. The web simply spreads that obfuscation, and places self-starter pressure groups of every shade on a par with long established organisations. Most of these groups seem short on explaining their governance, or whether they are simply self-selecting.

I thought I might get somewhere with at least one of them when I saw that Anglican Mainstream (according to their FAQ page) was a registered charity in the UK. It says so: No 290112. So there ought, I thought, to be some official information available. Silly me. According to the Charity Commission, when I plugged this number into their search, this is registered charity number of The Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS), which has as its charitable objects “To advance education, training and research for the public benefit in Christian mission, theology and related areas.”

The last filed set of accounts of OCMS makes no mention of Anglican Mainstream that I could see as a particular activity of the organisation. So I am confused. What is the legal status of one organisation operating under the charity number, and (presumably therefore) the charitable status of another? What exactly is going on here?

written by doug

Little rest in Canterbury
With eager enemies restless about us,
Rebellious bishops

Thomas Becket in Murder in the Cathedral ¹

1. The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S.Eliot Faber & Faber 1969, p245-6 [↩]

written by doug

In one of the last posts on the thirty-nine articles, I referred briefly to ideas of the just war. The very concept tends to stir up all sorts of sloppy thinking, and I want to clarify my own thoughts a little bit. I’ve also been prompted a bit by this post from John Hobbins. I should start by saying that I don’t regard this as a “theory” despite most everyone’s tendency to refer to “just war theory” and more a set of pragmatic theological ways of thinking about war, justice and the conduct of nations.

At one level, there is very little in the scriptures that offers a secure footing for Christian thinking. One can, however, appeal indirectly to the prophetic witness which sees increasingly sees the wars against Israel of Assyria and Babylon as punishment for the lack of justice in the land. One can also appeal to the passing reference in Romans to the role of the state as promoting virtue and preventing vice. Taken together these suggest with a range of other scattered references, one can see a role of the governing authority as one of establishing justice. (From that point of view, it is less any particular action in Iraq that provides the basis for criticising the current Iraq war, but the blatant and manifest injustice of Guantanamo, where the US government has abrogated the basic tenets of justice.) Behind and beyond this is a constant summons to, and promise of, God’s gift of perfect peace and justice going hand in hand in the eschatological era. The human longing for both (which often seem incompatible in the present) is legitimated and undergirded by God’s promise. But this promise also challenges any perception that peace means an absence of war, achieved by conniving in the turning of a blind eye to injustice.

In many respects the just war tradition begins with Augustine:

Think, then, of this first of all, when you are arming for the battle, that even your bodily strength is a gift of God; for, considering this, you will not employ the gift of God against God. For, when faith is pledged, it is to be kept even with the enemy against whom the war is waged, how much more with the friend for whom the battle is fought! Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity, and waged only that God may by it deliver men from the necessity and preserve them in peace. For peace is not sought in order to the kindling of war, but war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace; for our Lord says:”Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) If, however, peace among men be so sweet as procuring temporal safety, how much sweeter is that peace with God which procures for men the eternal felicity of the angels! Let necessity, therefore, and not your will, slay the enemy who fights against you. As violence is used towards him who rebels and resists, so mercy is due to the vanquished or the captive, especially in the case in which future troubling of the peace is not to be feared. (Letter 189, to Boniface)

What is particularly notable is that Augustine begins this letter with a reminder of the commandment to love ones neighbour as oneself. War, as a necessity, is to be governed, strange as it may seem, by the commandment to love. That is to say, it is more Christian when it is directed to the aid of another, than when it is exercised only in self-defence. It is about righting injustice, and obtaining peace for the other, not for aggrandizing oneself and one’s cause. This must then govern not only the reason for, and goal of, any war; it must also govern the conduct of the war, and the way in which the enemy is treated.

From these roots arose a tradition of thinking about war, concerned as much with how the human tendency to violence is to be restrained in war as with the reasons for going to war in the first place. It has had various characteristics, which are unfortunately often understood as a series of boxes to be ticked, but are better seen as practical considerations arising out of this overall consideration of how one loves a neighbour, both in rescuing the oppressed neighbour, and in putting right the unjust one. I propose briefly to enumerate and reflect on some of the most important of these practical considerations.

War must be declared by a legitimate authority. This has traditionally been understood to mean a government of some shape or form, since it is to governments that the task of establishing and maintaining justice is given. (One can see that in terms of the kind of divine  ordering Paul talks about in Romans 13, or in less theological terms as the moral purpose and legitimation of government generally.) Then war is the temporary and extraordinary extension into the international arena of that permanent and ordinary role of establishing justice within the national one. In the mediaeval period the papacy in theory could sometimes play the role of a supranational authority and judge, and in the modern world the United Nations has by treaty a somewhat similar role. Unfortunately, in practice both the mediaeval papacy and the modern UN have been hamstrung by the political realities and disputes which often made and make them appear ineffectual, biased and unable to exercise such a role. It might well be desirable to work for, and then with, a more effective UN, but the lessons of history are not entirely encouraging.

The legitimate authority must have a just cause and a good intention. That is, the waging of war must be seen, ultimately as provoked by a particular injustice (the genocide of a whole ethnic group, for example) and the desire to save the victims from that injustice. It has to be seen, even if extraordinary, as a proper extension of the ordinary work of government in promoting justice, and passing judgement on the wrong-doer for the sake of the common good. It is quite easy to see how, in theory at least, just causes can provide excuses for imperialistic and economic intentions. It is less easy to see in practice, how the self-interests of nations can be entirely disengaged from the moral calculus.

It should be a last resort, and have a good chance of success. I bracket these together, because they are where the moral and the practical, the theological and political, judgements become hopelessly entangled. What does a last resort actually mean? Does it mean when there is no other option, which is what many have taken it to mean, or when other reasonable options seem unlikely to meet with success? Those who take the former route make much of “sanctions” but year upon year of sanctions are in fact a war of attrition against a civilian population, carried out by non-military means. “Sanctions” often seem to me to have become a moral vacuum, punishing the innocent citizen to avoid attacking the guilty leader, a substitute for war rather than a last warning before it. Again, when do negotiations become a fruitless option, used by the “enemy” as a means of delaying things until they have placed their forces or their material logistics in a more favourable position to engage in combat? “Last resort” is a hard-headed military and political judgement, and not simply the moral declaration of an armchair theologian.

It might be said that almost the reverse is true of a “good chance of success”. It sounds like a purely pragmatic judgement, but in fact is again rooted in the theological perception of war as love of neighbour, and the establishment of justice. If the drastic means of war, which is always be known to have a serious moral downside in death and destruction is to be in any way seen as promoting justice and righting wrong, government has to be able to be reasonably certain that the result of going to war will in the end be better than that of not going to war. The moral and the pragmatic are inseparable here, which is why the ideas of “just war” can’t be seen as a theory legitimating war, but only as a way of thinking about it that brings some ethical considerations to bear on hard-headed pragmatic judgements.

Finally, there are reflections on the means of waging war, that they should be proportionate and discriminate. The latter of these takes its shape from the act of judgement that is the calling of government. If the purpose of war is fundamentally to prosecute the guilty and liberate the innocent, then it must be carried out in a way that serves that end, as far as lies within the power of the government to do so. The former follows from reflecting on the need to serve justice. A disproportionate response will never be a just one. In both these aims we find ourselves in the odd situation that it is both theoretically possible to be more disproportionate than ever before (the moral problem with any weapon of mass destruction) and pragmatically possible to be more discriminate than ever before (with laser-targeted and satellite-guided weaponry). One of the lesser noted facts of the last two Gulf Wars (whatever their other rights and wrongs) has been the way in which judgements about discrimination and targeting have become part of the ordinary public discourse and strategic prosecution of war.

The just war tradition is far from offering a perfect solution, or even comprehensive guidance to those who have to consider the options of war. It does, however, offer some ways of thinking morally about what governments do that are rooted in the moral and theological discourse about justice, and the human obligation to love the neighbour. As such, I still think it is the best we’ve got, for all its imperfections, if we want to live in the real world.

written by doug

The Anglican Communion is clearly in a parlous state at present, and there are a variety of current reasons for that. However, blogging my way through the 39 articles has brought home to me some of the ways in which today’s problems have their roots in the past. There are two particular aspects I want to note by way of concluding the series, before ending with some positive affirmations.

The first is that except for the fairly light revisions reducing Cranmer’s forty-two articles in 1552 to thirty-nine by 1571, the articles have been largely stranded in the past. Cranmer’s original work represented the high-water-mark of Calvinism in the Church of England (though Cranmer was never a five-point Calvinist), which somehow managed to live with most of his 1552 Prayer Book and the greater part of his formulation of the articles, long after the tide had receded to a far more moderate Calvinist position. In various ways the retention of episcopacy, the battle against the Puritans, the survival of the cathedral tradition, the routine of a daily liturgy of set prayers that also incorporated readings from the deutero-canonical books, and very noticeably the trauma of the Interregnum all combined to offset that Calvinism with something much more self-conscious about its (small-c) catholicity. In some ways the articles were always out of date, fighting the battles of a very particular period in history, and yet never updated.

In legal terms, the articles are now downgraded to historic formularies (although it took a long time to so) and clearly one among others. This is the preface to the declaration of assent required of all clergy:

[The Church of England] professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

In practical terms, most lay Anglicans are fairly unaware of them. If asked about what statements of faith are used by Anglicans, most would be more likely to answer in terms of the catholic creeds. The articles themselves, of course, strongly suggest their own reformability by the place they give to scripture, and the statements they make about the possibility of error even in ecumenical councils. Unfortunately, no-one found a way to reform them in practice, however needed or desirable such reform might have been. One thing I believe I have shown in my examination is that there is no group currently in the Church of England that really upholds the articles in their entirety, however much some small conservative evangelical groups like Church Society claim to do.

This lack of an agreed mechanism for, or possibility of, reforming the articles (and perhaps thereby making them a useful set of boundary markers for the contemporary church’s thinking and practice) leads into the second problem that seems to occur again and again. There is no really coherent ecclesiology in the articles, whether that be working out the relationship between congregations and the catholic church, or the eschatological nature of a divine society in human and historical institutional form. The Holy Spirit gets short shrift in the articles. Assertions about a national church are hardly well-grounded theologically, and depend on a mix of misapplied Old Testament typology and a pragmatic obedience to the monarch as the only alternative to papal authority.

The role ascribed to the Crown-in-Parliament becomes in practice a fig-leaf for covering diversity and calling it comprehensiveness. But once Parliament admitted first Dissenters and then Roman Catholics, its role as a lay assembly of the church gathered round the chief lay minister of the Realm could no longer be upheld with any integrity even by the most romantic, Erastian or imaginative Anglican. The question of where authority resided had always had an inadequate answer, but now even that inadequate answer was exposed as a fiction.

Furthermore, this model was not fully capable of export, although it appeared to function within the British empire about as well as it functioned at home. But in the USA, with its democratic traditions, lay votes were far more powerful than anywhere else, and its polity was far less episcopal than its name suggested. And in the newly formed post-imperial cultures of Africa, even among evangelicals, bishops attained a power and authority that would embarrass many a European Catholic. (That confusion worse confounds the dialogue of the deaf between many Anglican bishops today.) It seems clear to me that what Anglicanism needs most is a vast amount of ecclesiological work, that actually tries to address some of these many inherited problems.

Having said all that, you may be wondering whether there’s any point to being an Anglican after such an indictment. But if my trawl through the articles has revealed what I see as significant problems, it has also helped me clarify where I think the strengths lie.

• Its doctrinal statements exist in the context of a worshipping church, and more of what it believes can be found in its liturgy than in abstracted arguments.
• It shows a commitment to rooting itself in the scriptures guided by the scriptural reasoning of the patristic era especially, but also tradition more generally.
• It tends to distrust absolute commitments to inerrant truth and absolute authority, even if it achieves this both through and at the cost of muddle and mess.
• It is necessarily particular, and if that has proved to be a real problem in its concept of monarch and national church, it is nonetheless essentially committed to inculturation.
• The now outdated model of Crown-on-Parliament still bears witness to an essential role for lay people in the governance of the church, which is always balanced by its commitment to episcopacy.
• Wherever possible, it is a both-and church, and not an either-or one, however confused and confusing that con sometimes be.

I’m still reasonably convinced I’m in the right place.

written by doug

Some bits and pieces by way of a reflection on the last year.

First a round-up of ten (more-or-less) posts, series or interactions that I have found particularly illuminating or interesting. They come in no particular order, and the only rule I gave myself was not to select any single blog for more than one of the ten entries. Apologies to all those many blogs I read that I haven’t mentioned. But in one way or another these posts represent reasons why I’m glad I’ve taken up blogging this year.

• Chris Tilling’s examination of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, a book about which I must confess to feeling extremely ambivalent.
• This (unusually lengthy for him) thought-provoking post by AKMA on hermeneutics which takes Rowan Williams’ lecture on reading scripture as its starting point.
• John Hobbins’ excellent and stimulating series on the Canon, which begins here. All the posts in the series are linked to in his left-hand sidebar around halfway down.
• I found Tony Chartrand-Burke’s two posts listing his top ten faulty arguments in anti-apocrypha apologetics particularly helpful material to ponder.
• I liked Mark Goodacre’s recent series on the Mark-Q overlaps. One of the great things about Mark’s blogging is the way he sometimes uses his blog to try out ideas when he’s working towards a paper. I can’t help thinking this is a better approach than the trade-secret approach to ideas.
• Some atheist blogs provide thoughtful interactions, others are just rants. In the former category comes Duane Smith, and this particular post is a good example.
• On a related note, James McGrath offered a particularly stimulating post on the methodological differences between cosmologists and biologists.
• Among the many interesting contributions from April DeConick were these three posts touching on the question of historicity and the Acts of the Apostles. This is a subject that often tends to produce wildly extreme statements, and while I suspect I’m more conservative on this question the April, these provided a nicely balanced approach to the question.
• One of the many enjoyable blogabout disagreements of the year came between Michael Bird (here and here) and Loren Rosson (here and here) on the “I” of Romans 7. I have to say I like a friendly spat.
• Finally, I select what in retrospect is my own personal favourite post from this blog.

I’ve now been blogging here since the beginning of May, so am still a few months short of a full year. This is the first time my attempts to blog haven’t petered out once an initial burst of enthusiasm was over. Looking back, I see that, in order, the three most popular posts have been:

• Photos of the Droitwich floods this summer: the first time I was aware of getting the top spot for a Google “I’m feeling lucky” search.
• My totally unofficial Biblical Studies Carnivalette (which seems to have put some kind of curse on the real thing).
• My post John Hobbins – fundamentalist, Calvinist, inerrantist. It wasn’t intended as an insult, but it seems to have sounded enough like one for people to come flocking to it. There’s nothing like the hint of a fight to draw a crowd.

written by doug

The last time I did a doctrinal quiz, I came out as Orthodox. At that point I bemoaned the fact that there was no Anglican option among the answers. This time, in another quiz (again, I found myself not liking some of the questions) there is neither an Anglican nor an Orthodox option. Nor am I entirely sure what the author(s) mean by neo-orthodox, which could cover a multitude of sins.

What’s your theological worldview?

You scored as a Roman Catholic

You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.

Roman Catholic 86%
Neo orthodox 79%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 68%
Emergent/Postmodern 68%
Modern Liberal 39%
Classical Liberal 39%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 32%
Reformed Evangelical 7%
Fundamentalist 0%

Note to my detractors: I’m only 86% RC and not 100% anything but Anglican (although that wasn’t an option. Mind you, I guess one reason I got only 86% RC because I disagreed that the Pope was the head of the church! But more importantly I’m very proud of that “Fundamentalist 0%”. Sweet.

written by doug