Jurassic Park and the Bench of Bishops

Shortly after the film was released, the question emerged: ‘What’s the difference between Jurassic Park and bench of bishops?’ ‘One is a group of dangerous creatures charging around doing vast amounts of damage, and the other is a Hollywood film’. On the whole Anglicans don’t have a great deal of respect for their bishops – because they don’t deserve it.

Until 50 years ago bishops were largely invisible. Parishes were self supporting; their parochial endowments paid for their clergy and the role of the bishops was, like the monarch in the political realm, to provide the dignified bits of the Church of England – to look worthy on state occasions, to produce largely anodyne speeches on occasions where they had to say something, and on the whole not to be much involved in the real operation of the Church. Parishes got on with the real work, and the wider structures of the CofE only really got involved when something went horribly wrong. Each group within the church had its own parishes, protected by patronage, ministered to by clergy who were ordinands from those parishes who were trained in the group’s own theological colleges. Most significantly, parishes had their own endowments, which paid clergy at rates that differed between parishes. Once a clergyman had the living, he was almost impossible to remove, but therefore free to innovate in any way that appealed. However in practice, most did what was required of them, parishioners didn’t expect much, people felt a social obligation to come to church, but didn’t have to offer much in the collection because the endowment provided most of the income.

Bishops emerged from discussions between Downing Street and the hierarchy. They were mostly academics with limited pastoral experience. Their watchword was ‘oversight’ rather than leadership or management – they largely left things alone in the parishes because they had remarkably little power over their priests; they couldn’t move them, and they couldn’t sack them except with GREAT difficulty.

The economic, social and religious changes of the past 50 years made much of this model unsustainable. Economically, the post war inflation, allowed by the government to run down the National Debt, hit the church hard because much of its income was in fixed income sources; ground rents, permanent bonds and the like; this meant that many incumbents were unable to realistically survive on their salary  and ‘something had to be done’. So most endowments were centralised into the control of the Church Commissioners, who were able to maximise the income and capital growth and provided, for some decades, significant financial support for paying the clergy. Meanwhile, the remaining gap was addressed by expecting parishes to pay into a diocesan pot to support ministry in other parishes. Over the decades, as the value of the Church Commissioners’ income only grew steadily but demands on it, particularly for pensions, exploded, with the result that the transfers to dioceses faded out; in effect the parishes of England had been expropriated of their assets.

Social change meant that the church could no longer expect people to come along regardless. The peak attendance at the Church of England was in the 1950s, and the trend has been steadily downwards ever since. In each generation, many local churches tended to fail the ‘teenager test’, with young people giving up on boring services as soon as they could bully their parents into letting them do so. Of course this actually revealed that the faith of parents was probably limited, and the next generation were now, as a result of the growing emphasis on individualism, willing to tell the emperor that he had no clothes. This has the virtue of honesty, but it forces the Emperor to respond.

So the bishops, slowly, began to think that ought to become a part of the efficient part of the church. As ever with such shifts, the process began slowly, with dioceses managing the necessary reorganisation of parishes as buildings became beyond repair and populations moved away. Thus Manchester’s city centre was largely stripped of its parish churches as the population moved out – in contrast to London and Norwich where the far older church buildings have survived. And elsewhere the creation of the diocese of Manchester had led to the provision of parishes to the burgeoning population of the suburbs. Sometimes they got it right; the creation of the united benefice of St James and Emmanuel in Didsbury brought together the reasonably healthy church of St James with the nearly dead Emmanuel. Under its first joint Rector, what was in effect a church plant from St James into Emmanuel initiated the rapid growth of a new congregation to the point where Emmanuel was bulging at the seams on a Sunday morning; the important thing here was that the Emmanuel congregation surrendered entirely to what was happening, and so there was the freedom to do something very different. But elsewhere the same strategy – bring two churches of somewhat different parties together under a single Rector – has tended to result in continued genteel decline; the separate parishes are constrained by a leader who is not fully in tune with them, whilst the incumbent has to try to keep everyone happy. A specific problem will be that developments that might make sense and be welcome in one of the parishes are seen as weird and unacceptable in the other; if the incumbent endorses them, they lose status in the disaffected parish, whilst the proposing parish feels put upon if they are blocked. However the solution of ‘doing nothing’ has the benefit of keeping the show on the road for a little bit longer, and, if the incumbent is lucky, they can retire or move on before their cowardice bears its fruit.

Meanwhile – back at the diocese

What were the diocescan structures doing? The growth of diocescan quota (a term which bishops hate and try to avoid) meant that parishes started to ask what they were getting for their money. Specifically a new generation of bishops with pastoral experience were appointed – so that they could provide meaningful leadership and input to their clergy; these bishops had a sense of responsibility for what was going on their diocese that a previous generation did not. But because the dioceses are so large, that was unrealistic, so a whole panoply of new diocescan officers emerged to provide help with communications, youth work, ecumenical issues, interfaith relationships, post ordination training, even evangelism. These posts came to be largely dominated by liberals; evangelicals, despite the odds, were more often seeing real fruit from their endeavours at the coal face, whilst liberals were looking for an escape from the desolate scenes that they experienced. Similar effects marked the operation of the democratic structures of the church; if you are a busy incumbent, seeing people become Christians and growing in the faith, the idea of time on synods is an anathema… In many ways these diocescan officers replicated services historically provided by partisan groups, which meant that Evangelicals disdained diocescan provision, and the provision did not take the Evangelical agendas seriously…

Over the years the scale of the crisis in attendance at the church of England finally sank in to even the most resistant head: ‘I had no idea congregations were so sparse’, it is alleged one bishop commented after retirement when visiting parishes as an ordinary punter; he, of course, had seen them when people turned out for the special event he was ministering at. So naturally the bishops began to think they ‘really ought to do something’. So they tried. At this point the problems begin. Noone knows what the Church of England believes any more; if you are an incumbent and admit from the pulpit that you are an atheist, you may, possibly, get eased out, and if you baptise as an adult a person who was baptised as a child, your marching orders will be in the post. But otherwise? Effective evangelism requires a clear message; ‘if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle’? Yet much of what passes for Christianity today in the CofE is well summarised as ‘ is just being nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbours’ – as Terry Pratchett painfully describes it. Yet if you try to put much content into a diocescan initiative, someone will sulk – and we can’t have that. So much sound, too often signifying nothing, is too often the order of the day.

There are areas of hope; a reform in canon law has introduced the concept of ‘Bishop’s mission orders’. Historically parishes felt constrained not to do anything across a parish boundary; at one stage even house groups hosted in a neighbouring parish were a no-no, let alone church plants. Such crassitude has been described as a condom on church growth; however in recent years bishops have been given the power to authorise such invasions of your neighbour’s patch over local opposition. Of course the effect is that they are seldom needed – if you know you can be overruled, you’re more likely to accept the proposal than kick up a fuss. And the CofE has got the concept of church planting; churches such as Holy Trinity Brompton have done major plants in a number of cities around England, whilst local parishes have been eyeing up opportunities where their congregations are in a position to support such developments. Despite these flecks of light however, the general experience is of continuing decline, and a demographic timebomb – the youngest generation in too many churches is in the process of dying off of old age – means that the expectation is of precipitate numerical decline over the next few years.

And there is one dark spot; there are several groups pounding on the doors of the church desperate to get in. One which has long been accepted is the divorced and remarried; although the CofE in theory held out for many years against such marriages, in the past two decades the temptation to ‘welcome these into the fold’ has proved too strong. Of course given that both Prince Charles and Princess Ann are in such irregular relationships, it is problematic for the church to pretend to too hard a line.

Another group currently looking to beat the door down are members of the homosexual community in gay relationships. It’s an open secret that the church has been hospitable to many in such relationships over the years in many parishes, and there can be no doubt many would welcome such a move. For homosexual people, the church’s endorsement of value because it helps them to bury their awareness that gay sex is WRONG. Yet Jesus calls to live by His standards, and, sadly, for our gay brothers and sisters, that means living celibately unless you are in a heterosexual marriage. Of course it’s nice to be nice – but if we thereby betray our core duty to call all ‘to OBEY all that I have COMMANDED you’ (Mt 28), we’re not in a good place. Do we fear God enough to preach His truth?

Which brings us back to the core of the problem: the CofE doesn’t know what it believes about far too many things, given that it doesn’t any diocescan project is almost inevitably an unhappy compromise. Whilst there may be a role for them in enabling plants and growing churches to grow more by providing additional staffing, and encouraging dying churches to admit their need to stop pretending that it’s worthwhile to go on for another year, on the whole they should aim to keep out of the way. There is a useful – but very boring – role for dioceses in providing administrative functions – payroll, circulating jobs, legal support, balancing the need to change building with the demands of conservationist, and safeguarding. But line management? Appraisals? Stop it. Now.

A specific demonstration of the fatuousness of the present system is the number of hoops that ordination candidates have to go through these days. Once upon a time, when bishops knew their people, they would have chosen for themselves. This is impossible once dioceses become too big, so ‘examining chaplains’ emerged. Then there came into being ‘Diocescan Directors of Ordinands’. Add in a committee interviewing candidates at a residential stay, and voting on party lines who to recommend, and you have the recipe for the present clergy of the CofE. Yes, the Rolls Royce approach of 3 years residential training followed by 3 years as a curate and then a period as a ‘team vicar’ is a very good training. At least in theory. Looking at the products? Probably not.

Our God is gracious and works at times despite our attempts to stop him. Sadly most bishops think they have a useful role – and they don’t. George Carey’s teaching missions in Bath and Wells before his translation to Canterbury were perhaps one of the few useful things that a bishop has done recently. Otherwise – please revert to your traditional role of being part of the dignified church, not pretending you can be part of the efficient.

Monocultural churches

A recent article in The Economist highlights the problem of transfer growth from ‘stuffy’ churches to the new plants. This reflects two tensions in the church growth we are seeing at the moment – that of ‘transfer growth’, where there’s no actual conversions happening, and the issue of differing styles of worship being attractive to different people. This blog addresses the second issue.

Because it is what we have grown up with, it is hard for us to appreciate the radical shift in culture that has occurred in our society over the past 70 years. This is visible in all sorts of ways: from clothing and hair style, via drinking habits and sexual ‘liberation’ to music. And it music that is the most visible marker of ‘up to date’ churches, in contrast to those whose music remains drawn from ‘Hymns Ancient and More Ancient’, as Hymns Ancient and Modern deserves to be titled.

I am a veteran of the resulting culture wars. I was bought up in a church where most of music was of the most traditional type; my school choir even sang the responses of the Book of Common Prayer using music dating from Tudor England, and I hope that my funeral will feature ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended’. However my later Christian formation was in environments where ‘contemporary music’ was the norm, and I would be very unhappy in an environment where only the old forms prevailed. For this culture is alien to those not exposed to it at a young age, creating a barrier that excludes many from accessing the church; theologically one must question whether such a presention of God’s truth does not constitute a denial of the incarnation. And yet for those who ARE bought up in it, it remains the means through which God speaks to them; the question becomes one of how long do we enable that tradition to be maintained, and at what cost to the rest of the community whose access to God is blocked because it is expressed in such archaic forms; it is perhaps refugees from churches abandoning traditional styles of worship that provide the additional congregants that cathedrals are reporting.

The Anglican ideal was to be the parish church of all of the community; in practice this became the rallying cry of those seeking to resist the addition of contemporary music to the mix! And too often the reality was that the parish church actually only attracted a certain segment of the community; if no changes occurred to make it accessible to those whose culture was ever more alien, it is no surprise that most CofE churches are facing a demographic disaster.

And yet church history and present practice offers an interesting commentary on all this. The Council of Nicaea – the first ecumenical council – ruled that there should only be one bishop for any one city. And yet to this day both Orthodoxy and Rome endorse – or at least tolerate – overlapping jurisdictions. Orthodoxy at least has the grace to be embarrassed about it – for them it usually derives from immigrant populations remaining members of their home church; for Rome it is a matter of policy.

Rome’s most extreme example is the Patriarchate of Antioch – as there is currently a Melkite bishop, a Maronite bishop and Syrian Catholic bishop, with provision for a Latin Rite holder, though that post had long been titular, and has been empty since 1953. Elsewhere in East Europe – and where Greek Catholics have migrated – a similar overlap occurs between Latin and Greek rite bishops.

So what can we conclude? The Anglican ideal of offering a soggy compromise of a parish church service has little to commend it – as demonstrated in the failure of such institutions to grow. Instead we need to plan for diversity of style, recognising that the culture of today is NOT that of the past, and allowing this has a better basis in traditional practice than traditionalists assert!

Feminist theology

There are a number of Christian beliefs which I wish I didn’t hold: I wish I could be a universalist; I wish I could give equal legitimacy to gay relationships; I wish divorce and remarriage wasn’t such a no-no. And I wish I could buy the claim that men and women are not inherently distinguished; instead I  would argue that men are tasked with leadership and authority roles which it isn’t right for women to exercise.

This is a minefield. Over the centuries the church has got it badly wrong, suppressing the gifts of women to an unhealthy extent. Actually that wasn’t restricted to women; the ability of most to develop their gifts to any significant extent wasn’t really an option. But the failure to offer women the education that was available no doubt left us deprived of their gifts. This can be over stressed; the church did better than the cultures from which it was emerged, and the New Testament hints at women having a significant role in the early church, though one that faded subsequently.

The issue is, of course, about how we interpret the bible. For the purposes of this discussion I’m taking Genesis as authoritative, which given that Jesus did so in his condemnation of divorce, seems appropriate. So what does this give us?

Genesis 2 offers us the story of the creation of woman. She is bought to Adam, and he NAMES her. This matches his relationship to the animals, whom he has named and has authority over. We name what we have authority over; even in our culture, the parents’ naming of their children reflects our authority over them. And this occurs BEFORE the fall; it’s not after it. Thus suggesting ‘Had God wanted demonstrate that woman is less fit to rule, he would not have given them the same calling to take dominion’ misses the significance of being a queen; a queen shares the king’s authority in reality, though ultimately under his authority.

It’s also important to recognise the words used in the Hebrew for rulership. The type of rule that the man is described as exercising over the woman as a result of the curse of the fall is מְשָׁל ‘mashal’ – the sort of rule exercised over a foreign land, rather than the rule of the king of Israel over Israel, which is the word מְּלֹךְ ‘malak’ which has the concept of taking counsel in it. So the fall results in a collapse of the relationship between man and wife from consultative and healthy to domination and unbalanced – as the phrase about ‘Your desire will be for your husband’ also suggests.

Turning to the New Testament, and its use of the creation story, we have 1 Tim 2:

‘8 Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. 9 I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.’

The point here is that women, after conversion, are still limited in what they should do. If we are to take this passage seriously, we have to provide an interpretation that engages with the reference to the events in the Garden. My own preference is to see this as a ban on church leadership for women; a policy that remains in place in theory in most of Christendom, though the drift towards Catholic parishes being headed by a woman religious because of the shortage of priests is a reality that is unhealthy. A particular problem relates to what is meant by ‘teaching’: it may well relate to the specific laying down of what the church believes on a topic that is distinct from week by week preaching. If so, this provides space for a woman to be the one who brings the sermon on a Sunday; however this leaves open the question of when ‘teaching’ IS occurring in the church. Not a topic I want to open up now.

A detail to bear in mind any discussion of this issue is way in which the punishment that lands on Adam and Eve persists to this day. Men still till the ground with great difficulty, and women suffer pain in child birth. Any attempt to minimise the truth and implications of the rulership of men over women should be able to point to these other effects being removed before claiming that women are to be released from the rulership. So when Christians by miraculous means are painlessly producing babies and our jobs don’t require the ‘painful toil’ and ‘the sweat of the brow’, then the rest of the package is defunct. Until then, we should resist trying to avoid what does seem clearly taught as part of the reality of living – though this is NOT an excuse for men being gratuitously dominant over women.

Finally we must recognise that the existence of what seems to be a gift from God doesn’t create the right for the possessor to use it. This is most clearly seen in presently celibate people; such individuals are gifted to be parents and sexually active, both good gifts from God. But just because they have that gift doesn’t mean they have the right to exercise it. So the fact that a woman appears well equipped to be a church leader doesn’t constitute evidence that she is fulfil that role.

Conclusion

‘Had God intended for man to rule over woman, he would have stated it more clearly when creating her. Instead he speaks it out as a consequence of her sin, and by doing so he relays the pain it is inflicting on both humanity and creation, but also, to the heart of God… It is time to set Eve free.’

I hope I’ve challenged the logic of this rhetoric. We are called to be faithful to the God who is revealed in the bible, even when He requires us to go against the fashionable views of the world that have come to dominate large parts of the institutional church.

Finally – to shoot us at men; the reason why women end up doing the jobs which the bible seems to indicate should be reserved for women is because we duck our responsibilities. We sit back and let them do the sharing, the leading and the praying. We may be sitting back in church because we have over committed ourselves at work – making our career the centre of our lives instead of finding God’s balance for it.

Recommended reading:

David Pawson Leadership is Male

John and Paula Sandford Restoring the Christian Family

A minefield we need to cross

Comparing homosexuality and paedophilia!!

One of the more obnoxious forms of homophobia over the years has been the confusion in many minds of homosexuality and paedophilia. The response of many church leaders to an admission of being same sex attracted is to ban the person from any involvement in youth work. This tendency is one of many mistakes that the ignorant have made in an attempt to avoid criticism, and is wholly unacceptable; indeed in the present climate of confusion, the model of a single person working out their celibate lifestyle would be helpful to any members of a youth group struggling with the issue.

However the result of this pastoral abomination is that it has become unacceptable to even mention the two issue within the same context. As a result the insight into the gay issue that paedophilia brings are lost, to the benefit of the liberal cause. Let me repeat – at the risk of getting boring – that drawing the parallel is not intended to suggest that a homosexual person is more likely to be guilty of child abuse, and it is very wrong to make any such assumption. However the two issue do illuminate each other.

Both homosexuality, paedophilia and heterosexuality constitute ‘sexual orientations’ in the strict sense; they are labels for the sexual preference that most individuals experience. That is a fact, in the same way that blue, green and brown are labels for the eye colours of humans. History reveals that the church led the delegitimation of the homosexuality in the Roman Empire, an attitude which Western European culture inherited, though in the past 50 years that delegitimation has been substantially reversed. Paedophilia experienced a similar rejection, but one that has not been reversed.

Modern ethics tries to draw a sharp distinction between the two, on the basis that paedophilic behaviour is always damaging to the child, but a sexualised gay relationship is not. This claim is held as a matter of faith, and those challenging it are seldom welcome in polite company. Yet from a Christian perspective – where we seek to obey what God commands and not merely conform to what the current fashion is – such a basis for decision making is not acceptable. Jesus’ condemnation of the remarriage of divorcees as adultery exemplifies this; that much of the modern church is unwilling to obey his command on the matter merely evidences the same attitude in another area.

So what has this exercise shown us? Getting through the minefield allows us to challenge the widespread piece of ‘theology’ such as this:

‘[Gays] are simply human beings, with every possible mixture of good and bad, who happen to be (as it were) differently wired as regards sexuality. The most recent statistic I’ve read says that roughly 10% of the human population is homosexual. I cannot believe that God made 10% of his human children gay and now hates them for it–or wants the other 90% to hate them. it doesn’t make sense. Is God so sex-obsessed that he (or she!) judges humans primarily on sexual behavior, and not on things like kindness, generosity, creativity, or any other positive quality?’

http://thurible.net/2015/12/12/the-next-questions-the-archbishop-needs-to-be-asked/#comment-44876

There are of course two mistakes here – the assumption that the deeply flawed position of Westboro Baptist represents mainstream Christian belief that ‘God hates gays’. It’s sad that there are a few still at that place – and I deeply regret their attitude. However the mainstream attitude is that a temptation to homosexual activity is a temptation to do wrong – not any worse than any other temptation.

https://b66423.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/articulating-the-four-christian-responses-to-homosexuality/

is my extended discussion of the matter.

The second is that the point that this article is attempting to show; the claim that God made gay people gay offers any legitimacy to claims that they are free to have a sexualised relationship. The existence of people whom ‘God made paedophiles’ makes this problematic. The argument therefore comes down to WHY certain relationships are legitimate and others aren’t; the attempt to short circuit the process by this appeal is flawed.

Let me repeat again that I’m not trying to tar the gay community with the paedophile tag. This is an unfair allegation, and they have every right to object if such a connection is made. But we do have the right to challenge those who want to try to use a theological argument to add to their justification of gay relationships when it simply won’t fly. Yes, of course there are others, and I’m NOT trying to claim that this destroys the pro-gay position. I’m just trying to nail one of the arguments that is commonly thrown around. That it has taken over 800 words to do so is a measure of the sensitivity of the matter. But nail it we should.

For those wanting a fuller discussion of the issue of homosexuality and the church, Ed Shaw’s book

‘The Plausibility Problem’, written by a Church of England minister who is himself ‘Same Sex Attracted’ – a term he prefers over ‘gay’ for reasons that he explains in the book – is an excellent challenge to the prevailing ‘missteps’ that have led to the present confusion.

Blind guides?

Apparently I’ve upset a priest of the church of England over my comments on the gay issue. Well, whoopie do. As a representative of that messed up institution, the person deserves to be upset – because the CofE is demonstrating that it really hasn’t got a clue. And because it doesn’t have a clue about this, it’s irrational to take it seriously about anything else.

The church has taught since the beginning that gay sexual relationships are to be avoided by Christians. This requires those who are same sex attracted who want to be faithful to Jesus to live celibately. This is not an easy choice – yet the church has taught it as mandatory. No alternatives; burn or burn as one might say…

And many have followed that teaching – at immense personal cost; years of painful loneliness. Struggling watching those in families are having a great time – or so it seems – and they are left outside. Yet it was done for God, out of obedience to Him, and the church taught this.

But now the opinion of the world has changed. Whereas once homosexuality was a dreadful practice – the ‘love that dare not speak its name’ – it’s now become acceptable to many. And the CofE has got all confused, doesn’t know what it believes, and is being torn between the way of the world including its rapidly declining but wealthy American franchisee, and the beliefs of Tradition and its growing plantings in the ‘South’. So it’s given permission – de facto – for its congregations to start to act how they like on this issue.

For some this has meant that they have been forced out of the church which they have attended for decades. Having once been supportive of their struggle to remain faithful to God, the leadership have now stabbed them in the back and told them they’ve been deceived. DECEIVED. Let’s be clear – that’s what it’s about. Someone here is a victim of deception. It’s either those who’ve been faithfully celibate over the years – or the next generation who are being told it’s fine to have a gay relationship. And our church leaders are either now deceiving or were deceiving. Yet they claim to speak for God…

And if the church can’t be trusted on this issue, why on earth should it be taken seriously on any issue. “We think poverty is a dreadful thing” But bishop, how can we believe you on this when you don’t know what you think about the gay issue? “When you die you go to a better place”. Really bishop? You sure? We’re supposed to believe you about this when you don’t know God’s will about the gay issue? And you get paid to be confused?

Didn’t Someone once warn about blind guides? And someone else propose that the proponents of all Christians getting circumcised should go the whole way and cut their penises off. Of course he’s the one who then wrote the wonderful hymn to love…

No people, we can’t agree to disagree nicely about this. One side or other is getting it howlingly wrong. One side or the other is hearing God wrongly. One side or the other are false prophets. One side or the other can no longer be trusted as faithful preachers of God’s word. And there’s no escape by claiming not to know the answer: that proves you don’t know God’s will, so can’t be taken seriously on anything. [Click the link for a biblical explanation of why neutrality and leadership won’t mix]

So, church leaders, this is your chance to prove that you’re obedient to the Word. Be clear about this; lead your people. And if this splits your church? That’s God’s problem, and He will look after you. Or you can demonstrate that you are merely a hireling. And remember; you’re calling the members of your congregation who are gay to lifelong celibacy, you’re merely being asked to risk your job. And don’t sulk when people take exception to your being unclear…

Christian leaders must lead – or else stop pretending to be leaders

From a recent Facebook discussion:

‘What my friends encountered was that their church had some members really willing to move forward with things like gay marriage, and others threatening to leave if this happened. The church leader expressed despair at the position, because they understood a vital part of their work to be keeping the church community together, and so were stuck between a rock and a hard place.’

Mt 23:

‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you”’

Mt 21:

‘Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’

When you stick these two passages together we have a problem: Jesus tells his followers to do something – but has refused to do it Himself. So is Jesus a hypocrite? That seems unlikely – but we do need to provide an alternative answer. My solution has some rather radical implications – and I don’t think church leaders are going to like it.

Jesus has commanded us to ‘do everything they tell you’ because ‘sit in Moses’ seat’. Yet he refuses to do what some who apparently sits in Moses’ seat tells him to do. Therefore in Jesus’ eyes the people asking the question don’t sit in Moses’ seat. How does Jesus demonstrate that? By getting them to duck a politically charged question about John’s ministry. On the basis of that refusal, Jesus refuses to obey their instruction to tell them ‘By what authority…’. Therefore their refusal to answer is a resignation of their status; they are no longer sitting in Moses’ seat and therefore their instructions may be ignored.

The implication seems clear: if a church leader is unwilling to express their opinion of a hot topic of the day, then that person may be safely ignored as a church leader. They deserve only pity – because they have set themselves up to be ‘judged more severely’ and demonstrably failed in their responsibilities. So when your church leader ducks your question on the gay issue, or merely shows by their inaction that they don’t have a view, your reason for leaving that church is now established; be very sure that you should stay if you do.

Give anything to the Church of England as is? Just say NO

I am a cradle Anglican – actually being BORN in the vicarage of my father. He was of the conservative Evangelical party – I still have his copy of anti-Anglo Catholic diatribe questioning why clergy should wear clothing suggesting they believe things that the Church of England’s foundation occurred to reject. Over the years ‘Evangelical’ has been, as in the early days of last century, stretched to include far more than those who take seriously doctrines of the Reformers; watching as yet another parish gets fooled by its diocese into appointing someone who’s being passed off as ‘Evangelical’ serves to demonstrate the point.

Yet it is important to realise that the Evangelicals are not the only worthwhile part of the Church of England; the Charismatic movement helped me see the treasures hidden within the Catholic tradition. I have far less sympathy for the liberal establishment; although at its best it has forced us to address real questions, on the whole it has turned to the traditions of the church with the mindset of the world, and then found itself cutting off the branch on which it is sitting. Sadly however, rather than have the honesty to admit that they have ceased to be Christians in any meaningful sense and go off and do the social work job for which they might be suitable, they’ve spent the subsequent years of their career crossing their fingers when the creed is said and confusing their parishioners. And in a desperate effort to prove that they are ‘with it’, they endorse the latest worthy left wing political campaign – but never actually see anyone become a Christian.

Whilst historically this was sustainable, the present situation of the CofE renders its functioning ever less so, whilst its centralising tendencies make us all complicit in its failures. Once upon a time – until about 50 years ago – each parish had its own endowment from which its priest’s stipend was paid. Whilst this was deeply inequitable, it reflected the fact that the different parts of the CofE didn’t really trust each other; they got on with their own ministry, merely resorting to the bishops to ordain their party’s candidate when presented by the party’s patrons, having raised him in a church of their party and educated him at their own theological college. Noone had to work hard to raise money for the church – but we could all get along…

With the nationalisation of the endowments and their loss of value as a result of the inflation of the 70s and 80s, this stable situation was destroyed. More and more the dioceses had to get parishes to pay for their own ministry, and as the shekels rolled into the centre, the temptation to provide finance for the latest fashion, be it the ‘Board of Social Responsibility’, ‘Industrial Chaplaincy’ or even ‘Missioners’ grew. Meanwhile the declining congregations, and, thankfully, vocations,¹ meant that the diocese did need to re-establish its strategic role. Add in the growing perception that clergy are employees of the diocese – they never were, they were self employed by the parish – you have a recipe for dioceses taking a far more active role.

On the whole dioceses have muffed it. Because the average diocesan officer is a priest whose own ministry was going nowhere in their parish – so they chose to avoid the persistent reminders of their failure by doing something else – their expectation is that all parishes would be like that, and their job should be to manage the decline gracefully. Refusing to accept that it is only clearly partisan parishes that actually go anywhere, they’ve stuck contrasting parishes together under one priest, producing a lowest common denominator to the detriment of all. Failing to think strategically, they’ve demanded ever more ‘tax’ from parishes doing well – to enable the failures to limp on for a few more decades – as well as preventing those growing parishes to invest towards the future. They’ve spread clergy thinly – into parishes which do offer no hope – and then are surprised when they report being depressed, whilst the parishes where growth could be enabled by additional clergy are allocated ever less. Of course the bishops responsible for this feel no shame – the outcome is what they were expecting, so it’s obviously not their fault. That one or two dioceses are doing better is put down to special circumstances…

So – what is the answer?

Giving parishes need to decide whether they should be continuing to support the system. If the value of your parish share, which IS voluntary, is more than the value of the clergy you are provided with, then you need to determine whether this is the right thing for your church to be giving to. It’s part of your church’s giving – is it justified compared with the other things you give to?

Receiving parishes should have the subsidy they are receiving spelt out. Instead of the nice thank you from the diocese for their contribution, the response should be: ‘You are presently receiving a subsidy of £14,000; thank you that you have not forced other parishes to give more this year by paying your contribution in full.’ Or ‘We note with concern that you have forced the diocese to seek a further increase the parish share on other parishes because you have not made up the amount required to ensure your subsidy of £14,000 is not further increased. Do you believe you deserve further subsidies as compared with the other calls on the finances of the church?’

The point of course is that many of the gatherings that occur on Sundays in consecrated buildings owned by the CofE up and down the country are worse than useless; creating an impression that the body of Christ is decrepit and confused, or at best harmless, it’s no surprise that ordinary people are staying away in droves. Unfortunately most bishops don’t want to be remembered as the one who closed lots of churches, so the show, threadbare and repellent, carries on, and on, and on, until noone can pretend any more. And this deprives the growing churches, both here and around the world, of the resources they need to make a positive difference.

Crucially, synodical government means that parishes have the power to do something about the situation, and are therefore complicit when they fail to do so. Whilst a total return to more disengaged dioceses may be impossible – congregational decline does need to be managed – the abolition of ALL central ministry posts other than part time Archdeacons (who should also be parish priests so they are reminded of the realities) would be a good start. Similarly bishops should be drawn from healthy parishes, ideally being priests who’ve turned around a dying church, or at least seen steady growth. On designation they should attend the diocesan synod and be questioned by members, after which a secret ballot should occur as to their acceptability; failure to gain 2/3 support should be seen as a reason to withdraw their candidacy unless EXPLICITLY supported by the archbishop of the province, for reasons that they must give publicly.

Can I carry on in the church of England? This diatribe is probably irrelevant to that debate. Will I put another penny into the collection in the present circumstances? Not a chance…

1The present crisis in the CofE would be far worse if we had sustained the level of vocations of the past.