Tim Wyatt The Critical Friend Made in Sheffield
Also in this week’s newsletter is a piece on the Church in Wales and its new archbishop: Cleaning House
Theo Hobson What do liberal Anglicans want?
Ian Gomersall A Retired Rector’s Reflections Division at ordination
David Torrance House of Commons Library The relationship between church and state in the United Kingdom
A briefing paper on the relationship between church and state in the United Kingdom
The question ‘What do liberal Anglicans want?’ has the same answer as the question ‘What do conservative Anglicans want?’ – there is and never will be a definitive answer as every single person has our own point of view. We always have and we always will. Many who attend evangelical churches do so for reasons other than agreeing with their theology, as with many who are members of traditional churches. Those who believe that the love of God shown and taught by Jesus means embracing everybody where they are regardless of their life choices will always be at odds with… Read more »
Thank you Julie for expressing this so clearly and carefully. I found myself very confused and a bit concerned by Theo Hobson’s article. It seems to be wanting some dualism between conservative and liberal and that just doesn’t exist. There is a wide and generous spectrum. Surely liberal Anglicans want inclusivity, and that means an openness to change but also an openness to those who can not, in all conscience, vote for that change now, and maybe never. Yet liberal Anglicans want what I think the vast majority of Christians throughout the world want – an openness to scripture which… Read more »
The NOS is best described as an experimental alternative ‘church’, and has no connection with the charismatic movement or HTB, which was established in the 1970’s. Hopefully the lessons from NOS have and are being learned, along with the dangers of spreading any conspiracy that might grab attention.
Since NOS began at St Thomas’s Sheffield – then a large evangelical charismatic church in Sheffield – it is clearly not true that it had ‘no connection with the charismatic movement’.
NOS split from St Thomas’ Church and the charismatic evangelical movement around 1991, which is around the time when the first concerns were first raised. The diocese failed to act on these concerns and this is where lessons can and should be learnt. Abuse of power and the failure of those in power to act is a common theme across the C of E, but does not amount to a conspiracy.
It certainly developed out of St Thomas’s Sheffield but became very critical of the charismatic movement; I remember reading an article in the Church Times by Chris Brain attacking charismatic churches for the harm he saw them as doing to some attenders, so he clearly understood irony. The theology NOS came to espouse (if it was ever as coherent as that) had some influence from Juergen Moltmann, at least in the memes they used (‘Planetary Mass’), but I don’t know if this featured in Brain’s sermons. A theology graduate at NOS said he wrote some of Brain’s assignments for the… Read more »
That is certainly how it began. It then evolved into something quite different. Brain seems to have used a lot of Juergen Moltmann memes (e.g. calling their service ‘Planetary Mass’) but how far he actually understood much theology is another question.
He was also strongly influenced by Matthew Fox’s “creation spirituality” with a strong “green” agenda that some thought verged into neopaganism.
Yes, I think there was more Fox than Moltmann. NOS was indeed a reaction to / against charismatic Christianity but the relationship is complicated…
My experience from going along to NOS in the 1980s was that it was like a charismatic evangelical church, but with music/ambience/creativity from a nightclub/Depeche Mode gig, rather than a 1960s folk concert. The talks were straight from a bible passage.
Fox’s thinking is basically paganism cloaked in Christian language. It’s notable how much time in his books he spends redefining Christian theological and liturgical language to mean something completely different. It’s not Christian in any recognisable sense, apart from the fact that it pretends to be. Part of Brain’s strategy for keeping the rest of the CofE – and scrutiny – at arms length was to create a sense that NOS were the only people who knew what they were doing, and anyone who didn’t like it was an ill-informed amateur who didn’t know what they were talking about. Creation… Read more »
I am pretty much in agreement with what David Keen says here. Matthew Fox did indeed come to exert a great deal of influence on NOS. Fox was himself thrown out of the Catholic Church for heresy but was immediately accepted as an Episcopal priest by Bill Swing of California. The description of Brain’s arm’s length strategy and opinion of outsiders is also correct. I recall an article Brain wrote for the Church Times around 1992 and it was appalling in its hubris. He claimed that the charismatic churches had burned and hurt people and NOS was “healing” them, also… Read more »
Nothing to see here. Move along.
One of the most interesting comments in the NOS article is the recorded comment from one of Mr Brain’s theological college tutors who said she was unwilling to sign him off for ordination but was overruled by the then Bishop of Sheffield. That resonated very loudly indeed with my experience working in theological education. We had several candidates over the years I was there who, for one reason or another, we, as a staff team, did not wish to sign off as ready for ordination. Some were quietly ditched by their Diocese, whilst others continued on as though we had… Read more »
I also worked in theological education for a number of years – several institutions. In my experience the decision by Bishop to overrule is not frequent. I have known times it has been vindicated and other times it has gone badly wrong. I would never advise it. I have also known times when colleges/courses have strongly recommended candidates who crashed in their curacy. Other students struggled with the training but somehow got through and flourished once ordained – vindicating what the sponsoring diocese had seen in them but which the college/course life had left hidden. It is not a science.… Read more »
I’m very glad you haven’t, David. Perhaps it was just the particular dioceses we worked with under the Bishops who were in post at that time. I have heard it from colleagues in several other TEIs, though.
Thinking of the recent Bangor debacle, wasn’t Sion Rhys Evans pushed forward for ordination by Bishop Andy John over the heads of those charged for assessing him?
It depends on the bishop – bishops retain the right to ordain whomever they wish. I know of (and could name but won’t) those who always go with the recommendation of the TEI and those who sometimes don’t. I have never seen a churchpersonship issue at play here.
Absolutely Charles. To be fair, the ones we had tended to fall more into backing whatever was new and shiny than church tradition per se. But because back then pretty much everything new and shiny came from different expressions of evangelicalism there was a consequential tradition bias. Then alongside that we had a disproportionate number of cases where specific personal characteristics of individuals formed something of a pattern when the issue of willingness to act on problems was looked at on a bigger picture level. That one depended solely on each Bishop’s commitment to particular priorities. My view was always… Read more »
I can’t and won’t comment on the Brain situation because I simply don’t know. But what an insight into the world of theological training. It was very clear to me at college that I (and others) belonged to the “face doesn’t fit ‘ category. In our case it seemed to be determined by not having the right glint in the eye when we prayed or not knowing the correct ‘lingo’. In another place (I guess) it had to do with whatever sherry was in the decanter on top of the filing cabinet. How anyone fitted this category seemed to be… Read more »
Pull the other one, it has bells on.
There’s a lot of bell ringing going on!
It isn’t only liberals who are confused: Theo Hobson claims that same-sex blessings open the door to gay marriage, while also stating (rightly) that gay marriage hasn’t a chance of getting through Synod. I suspect that people will also see through his sly conflation of same-sex marriage with sex before marriage. Confusion is no sin (and may even be a virtue if the alternative is mulish certainty), but deception might be.
Re Hobson
It sounded to me like he was saying, go full on liberal and leave off any vestiges of traditional understandings of marriage; and that short of that, liberals look muddled where conservatives don’t.
Happy to have my reading skills interrogated. That’s what I read.
Oh I have no doubt he was trying to say that. But that is to seriously misunderstand what liberalism is all about. There is not one simple catch all issue that defines what is liberal and what is conservative. And Theo’s mistake is to try and make things binary. Conservatives look very muddled to many of us and live with all kinds of denial in the area of human sexuality. (And I don’t mean self denial.) And I’m sure liberals do as well. But that’s the human condition. In response to Theo I want to say: Liberals look nuanced, whilst… Read more »
Good luck in your efforts. I’m content not to be involved.
“I’m content not to be involved.”
Christopher your frequency of comment suggests otherwise but as you wish. We shall no doubt see.
I have no view on the complexion of the tribes of liberalism and conservatism — rough and ready terms — inside the CofE. I do not understand them and have no connection to English party strife. That is your back yard. Good luck.
Are all the comments, and some of the articles, basically about sex and sexual misdemeanours? Are we perpetuating the sin = sex myth?
I think we can be fairly sure that some of the NOS sins did not involve sex. Maybe.
True, but the in the case of NOS the CofE didn’t act on any of the other misdemeanours.
It’s well worth reading ‘The rise and fall of the nine o’clock service‘. Perhaps the most preposterous bit describes the organisation of a commune that reached out to night-clubbers. It was decided this would best be done by vibrant people who were not weighed down by having to earn money. And so the commune was apparently split into those whose job it was to go clubbing, and those who did actual jobs to pay for them.
Re-reading the book, the split might more accurately be described as between people who belonged to a band and those who did jobs to pay for them.
And at an early stage the group from which the NOS emerged was influenced by David Watson and John Wimber, both charismatic leaders with close ties to HTB.
A lot of churches were influenced by David Watson and John Wimber – following the split NOS chose to follow other influences.
Meanwhile the trial of Mr Brain has hit the BBC website today. He is of course denying all charges , saying his sexual relationships were all consensual etc etc… but it is not a good look and was clearly glossed over at the time .
The recent history of the C of E seems littered with new initiatives which have gone horribly wrong. Cue more handwringing and hang on for the next one…..
I think most outsiders think the Church of England is far too obsessed with sex when there are far more important matters in the Church to consider. To consider a parable – far too much time is spent debating the Trial of Oscar Wilde when the Ballad of Reading Gaol should receive far more attention. The notion that there are non-overlapping domains of liberal and conservative Anglicans is also overtly simplistic. Going back many years, the contributors to “The Myth of God Incarnate” had very different views (and sometimes at odds with each other) and the rejoinder “the Truth of… Read more »
Perhaps they were right, and the misstep we have made around divorce was the first move down a slippery slope towards the abandonment of classic Christian ethics around marriage, which Hobson et all now want to take yet further?
The very traditionalist high anglican bishop of Fulham would seem not to agree with you as in 2013/14 he divorced & fairly swiftly remarried. Not quite sure how his Society colleagues squared this with their avowed position on marriage, but needs must.
This is bewildering!
Perhaps they do so with care and compassion to all involved in a marital breakdown.Just a thought Francis.
Care & compassion only for Society bishops, not for the lay plebs.
And your evidence for that is?
The problem with not permitting divorce and remarriage was that it forced people (especially women) into living in abusive and unhealthy relationships.
Surely the first step down the slippery slope was made by Paul, who, turning his back on Jesus’ wholesale rejection of family values and ‘blessed are those who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom’ (Mt 19), suggested that Christians might marry at all (if they really, really had to). In the Pastorals, he even assumes that ‘presiding elders’ will be married! (Such revisionist thinking is surely the greatest piece of evidence that the Pastorals are not authentic members of the Pauline corpus.) The limp, lefty liberal Guardianista suggestion that maybe during the first century the Church was ‘evolving’ (which like… Read more »
Not sure that ‘wholesale rejection’ is accurate. Jesus seems more nuanced to me. Affirming of the Genesis model of permanent, faithful heterosexual marriage as God’s gift and plan in creation, if I understand Mark Ch 10. Yes, the family gets reframed in the Kingdom dispensation (Mk 3.31ff, Jn 19.25ff), but that doesn’t overturn the divinely granted place of marriage.
I think you have put an extra i into homoousios.
homoouisios certainly isn’t scriptural, or anything else really.
Oops – apologies for the typo. Perhaps I was sliding into being a bit Cappadocian (who, I think, had a bit of sympathy at one point for ‘homoiousios’?) But is dispensationalism (if I understand your post correctly) really a viable way of reading Scripture? And the marriage patterns of Genesis (concubinage, polygamy, and so on) are a bit more varied than Adam and Eve, aren’t they?
After the fall things fall apart, inevitably. Genesis and subsequent OT books describe the fallen world as it is, polygamy and concubinage included. The divine marriage ideal of creation, reaffirmed by Jesus, seems clear to me.
It seems equally clear that we need to be aware of which stage of the drama of salvation we are exploring – Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, Church, Consummation – when we seek to interpret and apply texts relating to these stages.
I always groan inwardly when I hear at a church wedding “Our Lord Jesus Christ was himself a guest at a wedding”, wondering if that is really the most convincing support for marriage to be found in the NT.
John 2.1-11 centres on water into wine; suggesting the story is more eucharistic than nuptial. Yet we rely on it to support the sacramental character of all marriages. But we would, wouldn’t we, given (i) that baptism admits to the sacramental economy and (ii) that we marry baptized and unbaptized alike?
In this we are an outlier among most Anglican churches where the canonical norm is that both parties must be baptized. I’ve always liked the idea of a pastoral ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ church; but it does require some ecclesiological sleight of hand.
Mark 10 and Ephesians 5?
I don’t find either to be natural sources of support. In Mark, I understand Jesus is siding with the rigorist tradition within a contemporary debate in Judaism, especially between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, IIRC. I don’t think it says a lot about the place of marriage in ‘the new Israel’. As for Ephesians, this seems pretty flimsy support, more a use of an illustration from social mores to develop a theology of the Church (though I realise it’s a precious text for those who espouse the male headship thing). All in all, if that’s the best we can… Read more »
NT Wright The New Testament and the People of God Chapter 5 puts things far better than I ever will!
Israel is God’s people, the Church is God’s people. There is continuity, and discontinuity, once the Gentiles are brought in through Jesus who is the new Israel.
‘Social mores’!!! The contrast between the vision for Christian marriage in Ephesians 5 and the version of marriage that the ‘social mores’ of the pagan society around took as normative is vast. And the vision and grace enabling this transformation of marriage into a relationship which reflects and manifests the life of the kingdom is nothing less than the love of Christ for his church, which took him to the cross. ‘Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church’ is as far away from ‘social mores’ as one could imagine. It’s a kingdom reframing of marriage, which, far from… Read more »
We are not free to rewrite the words of Christ to suit the spirit of the age.”(Rev Canon David Banting) But which words? There are two versions recorded in the Gospels. This highlights the problems some conservatives have with questions of women in leadership and with issues around sexuality – the Bible says a variety of things. It is perfectly possible to hold to Biblical inspiration and handle this diversity. What you can’t do is pretend it’s not there. “The Church must not be seen to condone the breaking of solemn vows made before God.” (Bishop of Chester, Peter Forster)… Read more »
I agree with your first para certainly, and it is what i was also trying to say. But what are these ‘far more important matters’ for the church to consider? poverty (basic needs)poverty (spiritually)lonelinesscharitypersonal salvationIt’s a long list, I only outlined a start. I have a sense that in the UK there are issues about society which are more entrenched than in previous generations, but others here are much better placed than I to identify them. It is too vague to talk about loss of ‘community’, but there may be some specifics under that heading which need focus by the… Read more »
Given what has occured after NOS I am pretty confident that no lessons were learned from it. CofE leadership still seems too taken by the too good to be true schemes that seem to attract lots of people but are run by morally dubious individuals fast tracked for ordination.
Wow! Can you give some examples please?
So many cases spring to mind that I am concerned that anyone could remain unaware of that it was an issue.
Soul Survivor.
A breathtakingly close parallel- and the ‘lessons learned’ would seem to be that if the organisation spends a vast sum of money on a tightly prescribed barrister’s report to ignore respectability is maintained and we can all move on … and if anyone does succeed in taking legal action against the Rev. Mike P it will be so far down the line that most of the senior clergy involved will be far away with their pensions.
I was commenting on the statement “ CofE leadership still seems too taken by the too good to be true schemes that seem to attract lots of people but are run by morally dubious individuals fast tracked for ordination.“ I am very well aware of past cases coming to light, but I would interested current “ too good to be true schemes” and in “ morally dubious individuals fast tracked for ordination”. Can you please provide any further information? Thank you.
Venessa Pinto probably most recent
‘Whatsoever things are good, commendable, worthy of praise – think of these things.’ While no one can accuse Paul of not robustly addressing the problems in an imperfect church, he is surely offering a spiritual health warning against relentlessly focusing on the negatives. There are good stories, faithful ministry and much to commend in the midst of the challenges facing the church. But they are rarely celebrated here.
David I’ve never read that passage of St Paul in quite this light- the ultimate get out of jail free card?? I had a similar conversation recently at the place where I volunteer. The problem unfortunately when so many members of different groups are abused and then treated so badly ( look how long it took Brain’s ‘nun’s to recover enough to pressure the police into action) it drowns out the good stories. Maybe the non- apologies and non lessons learned stem from an institutional perception that the good done outweighs the bad so there is nothing to be sorry… Read more »
It would help me to understand your response to my comment if you could say how are you understand that passage in Paul? I do not understand how you hear it as a let off wrong doers? (but I may have misunderstood your monopoly reference). Why do you think Paul attaches such importance to ‘holding fast to what is good’ in the world like this? Was is the consequence of not doing so?
Thank you for your volunteer work among the hurting by the way.
David, my tiny all girls state grammar school was run by an Anglo Catholic/ High Anglican Head Mistress ( NOT teacher!) of the variety instantly recognisable to Rose Macaulay or Barbara Pym. She used to despatch all her ‘gals’ into the world at the last assembly of the summer term with those words- initially King James Version but then NEB -to keep us on the straight and narrow until September. I may have misunderstood your post but I thought you were offering them as a means of shutting down enquiries into where the organisation has gone wrong and not even… Read more »
Thank you for clarifying. But yes, you have completely misunderstood me. I am not wanting to shut down anything. The suggestion is actually quite distressing to be honest. Holding fast to what is good is the only basis for resisting evil and overcoming despair in a way that offers a future and hope.
I agree that good stories of faithful ministry, of numbers being baptised as adults, of growing congregations full of 20’s/30’s, young families and children very rarely appear on this blog, and when they do their theology is criticised.
That may be true, but telling people to focus on the positives when everyone is commenting on articles published that are specifically about abuse in the church reads as tone deaf to the problems. People who are traumatized by abuse in the church don’t have the luxury of only looking at the positives.
It seems to be very difficult to suggest sharing the stories of encouragement, healing and hope in the church here on TA without being accused of being insensitive to the pain of others or that my motives for wanting ‘good’ stories told is to shut out and silence the ‘bad’ stories. I want ‘both and’ not ‘either or’. I am nowhere ‘telling people’ to ‘only looking at the positives’. Please read me with more care. In an earlier post I tried to summarise what I am seeking and why. “‘Holding fast to what is good’ is the only basis for resisting evil… Read more »
An interesting dynamic here. In my pre retirement life I would have been questioning mirroring behaviour . David maybe you have reached out and accidentally touched the garment of those victims and survivors who are not heard?
The bishops’ behaviour at the Manchester ordination, to which Ian Gomersall, refers seems very unwise, and ill thought out. But as it has happened they have set a precedent. What is their rationale? I suspect we will never know, as the usual tradition of bishops in the Church of England when challenged is to go silent. I suspect from the account the bishops themselves didn’t know what they were doing, but what a door to open! Now, following the Bishop of Manchester’s precedent all those ordinands against gay blessings can ask for a bishop of their outlook to ordain them.… Read more »
If it is the bishop’s service —- and an ordination service conducted by the bishop certainly is —- then it is the bishop who determines the service. The dean may be consulted but the bishop has the final say.
But not an official precedent thankfully. I hope other bishops will not be so unwise. I remember a situation in the London Diocese when I was a DDO when two ordinands asked for an assurance from +London that he was sound on the “gay issue”. He pointed out that he had made the Declaration of Assent etc and that was what was required of him, not special assurances to two ordinands for the diaconate. Although their names were in the service sheet they were not ordained then. Though they were ordained a year later ( when special arrangements were made,… Read more »
I obviously can’t speak for liberal CofE members. But on the basis of the experience of the Episcopal Church, may I recommend: All the sacraments for all the baptized.
It’s clear, it’s simple, it’s holy . . . it works!