Decline is Not Inevitable

In an address to the London Press Club last year the Archbishop of York mocked the illogical use of statistics by those who say the Church of England will disappear in the medium term by paralleling newspaper readership and church attendance. Apparently, according to recent statistics, decline in readership of newspapers in Britain due to the internet can be extrapolated to point to the extinction of printed news by 2043. It is a false extrapolation of the statistics, ignoring the likely response newspapers will make to the decline. Furthermore, the extremely high readership of newspapers of a few years ago might always have indicated a ‘correction’ would occur at some time. As he said, “Such doomsday statistics, as I believe they are, highlight that tendency to extrapolate the worst case scenario from the most celebratory of times.”

And so it is with those who look at the statistics of decline in the Anglican Church of Australia. Extrapolations from the halcyon days of the 1950s to our extinction in 40 years time from now ignore the range of responses churches are making to the decline, and forget that the 1950s was always going to result in decline at some point as the demographics of our church shifted against the demographics of society. (That is, we aged quicker than society in general.)

The important point is that continuing decline is not inevitable. Indeed, for those churches willing to face the facts and respond with trust and courage splashed with a little intelligence, there is a good prognosis for a flourishing life of faith. Now you won’t get that from The Advertiser with its penchant for headlines and simplistic analysis. But let us not be distracted by the lack of sensible analysis in the popular media. We have a real opportunity because there are many people who want Christian faith, and a Christian faith that has depth and a sense of reality and proportion about it. And that is our (middle-Anglican) natural ground. Moreover, there are many people around us who know virtually nothing about Christian faith, and who would respond to the gospel if given a chance.

Morality and the Art of Sacramentality (or Donatists, Donatists Everywhere)

A Church which insisted that its members - or even its clergy - had to be spotless would be an empty Church, or else a dishonest Church." B. Quash, in Quash and Ward, eds, Heresies and How to Avoid Them. See pp. 81-90.

In his book Grace and Necessity Rowan Williams makes the point (from Maritain) that artists who might be considered immoral make good art, breaking any perceived absolute nexus between the morality of the artist and the work of art itself. This is not to make art amoral, because the 'immoral' artist is in the "precarious" (p. 39) position where their self-focus spills over into their art, rendering it unattractive. The judgement here is whether the art is good art, and is not about the morality of the artist.

There is a parallel here with the sacraments of the church and its ministers who administer them. I'm thinking here of the modern day donatists. Unfortunately, donatism is alive and well in the Anglican Church. Donatism was a schismatic movement that cut the church in North Africa, and remained alive and well until the rise ond military victories of Islam. It was a movement of moralists (compounded by politics and economics). The Donatists were hard-liners, expecting a high level of discipline among its members, especially its clergy. They refused the sacraments of the catholic church, and went so far as not recognising the ordination of clergy ordained by bishops who were morally suspect. (In this case the immorality in particular was failure to stand up to persecution and receive martyrdom.) Ben Quash says that a key passage in the dispute between the schismatics and the catholics was the interpretation of the parable of the wheat and weeds. (Matt 13:30) In the Donatist schema the field is the world, for the catholics the field is the church. For the Donatists good and bad co-exist in he world, but not in the church. For the catholics good and bad co-exist in the church. (Anyway, notice that in the parable it is God who does the judging - that's the point of the parable. Rene Girard is good on this.) The catholic tradition, particularly through Augustine, is the tradition which 'won', although donatism was never entirely purged. The result of the catholic victory is what we recognise as authentically the gospel of grace and redemption: God is good to us, sending the rain and sun on the good and bad alike. The efficacy of the sacraments does not depend on the personal holiness of the minister. What is important is the goodness of God toward us. The minister acts as a member of the whole people of God, graced by the presence of Christ, who is, after all, the chief minister of the church's sacraments.

This is not to make sacramentality utterly amoral. I think Maritain's observation about the artist and art is helpful here. The self-focussed priest can be the minister of an efficacious sacrament. But that priest is in a precarious position. The danger is that while minimally efficacious, the sacramental expression will be unattractive, even tending toward repellent. Efficacious or not, this kind of sacramental practice will be less effective in the world because no one will come!

I recognise the orders of Sydney evangelicals and the hard catholic right of our church. It appears that some of them struggle to do so to other canonically ordained ministers within our church on the basis of personal morality of the priest or their ordaining bishop. I recognise the orders of Sydney evangelicals who hold to the bizarre heresy that while in being the Father and Son are equal, the Son is subordinate personally to the Father. (My summary of that bizarre 'doctrine commission (?)' report from the Diocese of Sydney a few years ago.) Too bad the donatists can't reciprocate.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to be a natural response in most of us. Of course, we can take things for granted, and thanksgiving dribbles away to virtually nothing. And sometimes despair can overwhelm our sense of thanksgiving and gratitude for the good things in our lives and our future. And some are turned away from thanksgiving through the ideology of scientism - the ideology that universalizes the scientific method into a philosophy of everything - and whatever does not fit this universal method of knowing, well, it is deemed not to exist or doesn't matter. Under this ideology thanksgiving makes no sense. Because if we give thanks we are giving thanks to something/someone. And scientism can't accept this.

Thanksgiving, because it points to something/someone beyond ourselves and tells us that we are not the centre of the universe, is humbling. We are not the source of the goodness for which we give thanks. The sourceof the goodness lies beyond us. This humbling of human egoism is spiritually necessary, and thanksgiving is the easiest and least painful method of stepping off the stage of human hubris.

Thanksgiving also moves us out of ourselves, in response to the who or what we are acknowledging (no matter how inchoately). a residue of the Trinity.

Christianity believes that Jesus is the human face of this something/someone, and that we have a genuine and true encounter with this something/someone in Jesus and the Spirit. This someone/something is not ultimately a meaningless void upon which we apply a thin veneer of human meaning. It is not a random or arbitrary fortune, and is not utterly opaque to human scrutiny. The crucified-risen Jesus is a true revelation of this someone or something. Indeed, Jesus does more than just reveal the true nature of this someone or something, but gives us the opportunity to be included into its goodness in the deepest and most profound way.

Transcendence Enables Intimacy

It is common amongst those who have studied theology in a more progressive theological institution to be deeply suspicious of or even reject the transcendence of God. They do so believing that by rejecting transcendence intimacy takes its rightful place in Christian theology unimpeded by the distant God of cold, bossy and controlling religion. Now, it is of course true that the distant and cold god is presented to the faithful in terms of transcendence. A god of a great gap between himself and us, and who is the heavenly image of an unemotionally involved father. And it is true that this betrays Jesus and the one he named 'Abba', and the specifically Christian doctrine of God (the Trinity). The god of coldness and control (predicated on distance) is not Christian, and let us affirm our atheism in respect to that god. But this is nothing more than a pale imitation of real transcendence when applied to God. It is precisely because God is transcendent that the deepest intimacy with God is possible. Transcendence and intimacy are correlates not enemies. This God is free because of God's transcendence to be vulnerable and to mould our response into God's own life.

The ontological chasm between us and God (wrong language actually because it makes it sound like God is just ontologically different from us, but still a 'something' like us, but anyway ...) is the ground upon which intimacy stands, rather than a philosophical affirmation we wheel out occasionally. It is this insight that was the subtext of the christological and trinitarian debates of the early church. I would not be overstating the case by much if I said that the God-world relationship is the most important theological doctrine to get right: everything else will be conditioned by it.

I can't resist putting in one final paragraph. It is because transcendence and intimacy are correlates that the dual nature of Christ is not a nonsense: human and divine in Christ are not competitiors because of the transcendence of God. (This is why many of those from progressive theological colleges reject the doctrine of the Incarnation: they don't have a truly transcendent God.) Correctly understood, the transcendence of God (that is, God is not just a more transcendent version of us) is also the underlying theological principle of grace. It is because of the transcendence of God that human action adds nothing to what God does for us on our behalf. However, it is also because of God's transcendence that there can be a synergy between human and divine, and why, when correctly understood, it is possible to talk about us as co-creators with God.

The Road to Emmaus

Some points on Lk 24:13-35:

1. The Two disciples are leaving Jerusalem, reversing the determined journey of Jesus to Jerusalem and his death and glorification. (9:51) Their retreat from jerusalem is a symbol of their lack of understanding of the events that have just occurred and the unravelling of their discipleship of the crucified-risen Jesus.
   
   
2. They are disappointed, for they had thought that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel (24:21). Jesus has not met their expectations and hopes. A crucified messiah, in their minds, is not the messiah. (See 1Cor 1:18-25)
   
   
3. They can recite the events of the past few days to the stranger in an almost creed like fashion. (Compare Acts 2:22-24; 10:38) Creed like knowledge of the events is not faith.
   
   
4. And they even know about the resurrection of Jesus. But a crucified-risen messiah does not fit their expectations, and so they are going home.
   
   
5. Jesus' response is twofold. First he teaches them the necessity of his death and glorification, and provides them with a christological reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. (24:26-27) This is more than proof-texting, but a new way of reading and understanding the mission and hope of Israel in the light of the crucified-risen Lord.
   
   
6. The two disciples show the stranger hospitality. In this they follow the example of Jesus, who was hospitable around the table. (7:36-50; 9:12-17)
   
   
7. And then Jesus makes his second response to their misunderstanding of who he is and his mission by breaking the bread. They remember the hospitable Jesus who gave the breaking of the bread added meaning with the words 'This is my body.' (See 22:14-23) Imbued with new meaning, the breaking of the bread proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sure arrival of the kingdom.
   
   
8. After having their eyes opened to the Scriptures and practicing the hospitality of Jesus, and then witnessing the breaking of the bread symbolic of his death and the coming of God's kingdom, they finally understand. Word and sacrament come together, mutually reinforcing one another. (After witnessing the breaking of the bread and Jesus vanishes, they say, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" [24:32])
   
   
9. They return to Jerusalem, retracing their steps and the way of Jesus himself on his way to his death and resurrection. Arriving in jerusalem they hear the proclamation, once again, of the resurrection of Jesus. And this time, knowing the nature of his messiahship, they join by relating how they have come to recognise the crucified-risen Jesus. (24:35)
   
   

What the Trinity Is

• The Trinity is, at its heart, a love story. When you read the words 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' this is their simple meaning.
• We are included in this story of love by sheer grace. That is, God does not need us, but loves us.
• To be included in this love story is to be included into the very life of God because God is love. That is, to be loved by God is to receive God because God is love. God is not a shadowy figure behind God's love; God is love.

• The Trinity is revelation and salvation.

• The Trinity reorders our self-understanding and vision. (E.g. personhood, society, church, and salvation)
• The different areas of theology (e.g. sacraments, Christology, grace, etc.) are just different ways of talking about the Trinity.

• The Trinity is sensitive to contemporary interest in ecology, intimacy, justice, freedom, and respect for 'the other', etc.

However abstract trinitarian theology may have become in its doctrinal mode, there is, at its heart, the simplicity and complexity of a love-story. It tells of how God, out of love, gave what is most intimate to himself, his Son and Spirit, to be involved with this human world as saviour and redeemer. (Tony Kelly)

What the Trinity is Not

• The Trinity is not a mathematical conundrum where 1=3. The oneness in trinitarian thought relates to union not singularity.
  
  
• The usual images of the Trinity like the three pronged leaf don't take us to the heart of the doctrine. The Trinity is about the dynamism of love and relationship.
  
  
• The 'three' in the Trinity are not three masks with the same single God behind all three. To use traditional language, God is Father, Son and Spirit simultaneously. (If it were not so God would remain a shadowy figure behind the three.)
  
  
• God is three persons in one being. The being of God is not a fourth 'thing' beside the three persons. Apart from the persons there is no being of God to be examined and theologised about.
  

Gospel Happiness

Happiness is high on the agenda of most of us. We would like to have a stress free life: financially, relationally, and emotionally, to enable us to enjoy the good things around us. We would like satisfaction in our work and in our homes. We would like our lives to be interesting, colourful, active and engaging. With good health and the minimum of suffering we can get away with. And part of our happiness is linked to the happiness of others, those close to us, as well as those we don’t know personally.

But there is something else that I desire even more than this happiness. It includes happiness as I have described it above, but it is deeper than happiness. Partly I seek something deeper because I know that the pursuit of happiness as I have described it is never fulfilled completely. (Indeed, it might not be entirely desirable for us to have the stress free existence we might dream of!) Jesus too knows that happiness alone is not enough. Much of what Jesus says is in direct contradiction to what we usually think of as a happy life. He says that the happy are those who are poor in spirit, the peacemakers, those who mourn, and those who weep. (Matt 5:1-12) He is suspicious of being well thought of by others (Luke 6:22-26), and seems utterly unconcerned with security and longevity. (Matt 6:19-21; 6:25-33; Mark 8:34-38) If we define happiness in the usual terms then Jesus should have been deeply unhappy to die on the cross. But he did not define happiness exactly as we usually do. And that is why, despite the grief and despair of Jesus on the cross (See Matt 27:45-50), the Gospels portray something else going on within Jesus on the cross. (For example Luke 23:46; John 19:28-30; and Mark 8:31-33) St Paul suggests to his readers that true happiness is to be found in following Jesus, where through our love of God and others (often involving sacrifice and even suffering) the life of Jesus (and the love of God) is made explicit to the world around. (2Corinthians 4:7-12)

Romans 8 (again by St Paul) is a classic expression of this deeper desire. It is a complex piece of writing, but Paul here is saying that our deepest happiness is to be found in being united with Christ in his (Christ’s) relationship with God, that is, to be a child of God just like Jesus. ( Rom 8:14-17; see also John 14:1-10) To know ourselves deeply loved just as Jesus did (Mark 1:11), and in that truth of our existence offer ourselves as agents within God’s great plan of redemption for all of creation. (Rom 12:1-2, (3-8), 9-21; 2Cor 5:16-21)

I find so much happiness in my life. It is difficult to admit that what I think constitutes happiness might, according to Jesus, ultimately fail me, and is at times in direct contradiction with what Jesus says is true happiness. I am now firmly in the second half of my life, and I see that the task set before me is to be happy, yes, but to enjoy a gospel happiness. And in striving for the happiness offered by the gospel be willing to give up some of my usual and 'natural' hopes for happiness. This is not easy, and requires the support offered by a community of faith striving to live by the same gospel.

The Word Became Flesh

John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us;" referring to Jesus, the Word of God. (On 'The Word' read the first few verses of John's Gospel.) This is one of the key passages for what is called the Doctrine of the Incarnation, the belief that God became human in Jesus. But what could this mean? Was the 'God bit' in Jesus surrounded by a suit of flesh? Or perhaps he had no soul, but instead God took up that 'soul-space'? Or perhaps he was a man who attained the dizzying height of perfect humanity and who was rewarded by being 'adopted' by God? All of these have been suggested in the past as ways of understanding the relationship between God and Jesus, and all have been found wanting. The key to understanding the Doctrine of the Incarnation is this question (I read it first from William Temple, I think, a past Archbishop of Canterbury): if you took the Word out of Jesus, what would be left?

Many people, knowing the teaching of the church about the two natures of Christ - that he had both a human and divine nature - say that if the Word (the God bit, so to speak) were removed from Jesus his humanity would be left. And that would be wrong. If the Word were removed from Jesus nothing would be left. If it were not so, then it would not be true that the Word became flesh. The Doctrine of the Incarnation is asserting that Jesus is God in the flesh, the human face of God. This has enormous theological significance, not to mention practical significance for the world and the lives of his disciples. God can become human and remain God.

Eternally Father

The traditional faith of the church says that God is eternally Father. For some this is just patriarchal mumbo-jumbo, but despite the masculine language it says something very important. This is clearer if we look first at the alternative propounded by the heretics long ago. If God is not eternally Father, then there must have been a time when God was not Father. That is, there was a time when God was 'alone'. The Son is not, then, of the same calibre of divinity as God the Father, because the Son comes into existence and only then does God become Father. If we follow this through the whole Christian gospel begins to unravel to the point that there is virtually nothing left discernibly Christian. The Son is no longer the revelation of the Father, but God remains the shadowy figure behind the Son. A prophet perhaps, but not God in the flesh, and therefore not the human face of God. It also means that in the case of God relationship is 'added on' to God at the creation of the Son, and is not integral to divinity.And as we are made in the image of God, this would mean that we are at root individuals before we are persons in relationship. How very lonely, like the God who is alone.

But if God is eternally Father then there must be an eternal 'child', and in the traditional language we have inherited, this means an eternal Son. Relationship then lies at the heart of what it means to be divine. (And remember, this is important because we are made in the image of God.) And if this Son has become human, actually human, then this Jesus is the human face of God. God is not now a shadowy figure behind Jesus, but in Jesus we have a real and true encounter with the living God, and this encounter in the flesh.

God is not Alone

God is not alone. Within God there is a life of love we name Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If God were a lonely individual, God would not be love. And if that were the case, God would then create (something) to love in order to complete God's desire to love. By creating us, for example, God could then progress from the desire to love to actually loving something. God could then realistically be named as loving but not love. Follow this through and the result is a God who needs us to become complete. Without us/creation, God can only want to love, but not actually love. So, in a real sense, God would only become a God of love when we arrive on the scene to love! I suspect that this, or a variant of it, is preferred by many people. They like the idea of a God who, to be complete, needs us. Indeed, put like that, it almost sounds plausible. But not quite. Here are a few thoughts as to why, all of which will need further development.

• If you have ever been loved by someone who needed you excessively, you will understand why the idea of a God who creates out of need is not a God who is perfect love. Or to put it more succinctly, a God who creates out of need (albeit to be able to love that which is created), is not a God who is love.
• A God who creates out of need is not a God of freedom, and therefore not a God of love. God's love is free, or it is nothing.
• The God of need is not, by definition, love. The trinitarian God is, by definition, love. The God of need stands behind God's love of us.
• When loved by the God of need we would not be receiving God's very self when we receive God's love. The doctrine of the Trinity is, quite simply, trying to tell us that because God is love, we receive God when we are loved by God.
• This God of need remains a shadowy figure behind God's love. The revelation of God's love in Jesus would be a revelation of God's love of us, but not of God.
• To be loved by the God who needs us means that we will always remain exterior to God. (To be a little crass about it: There is God over there, the God who loves us, and here we are. Modelled on the way we love each other.) However, the doctrine of the Trinity speaks of a more profound and fulfilling destiny: we will be included in God's own life of love, because to be loved by the God who is love is to join God's own life (of love). How could it be anything else?

A Thumbnail Trinitarian Apologetics

It is peculiar that so many people reject (or neglect) the Christian view of God and yet know love to be the greatest of all. It was the unique view of God revealed to the church in Jesus that brought us to the point of acknowledging love to be the centre that must not be subordinated to anything. 'God is love' was neither a universal affirmation nor an obvious one. 'God is love' is a specifically Christian affirmation. In Christian theology 'God is love' does not mean that God desires to love, as though needing us to love. That would leave God wanting to love, not love. Love would be between God and us, not God. God would remain the shadowy figure behind God's love of us. That is, love would be external to God in some way. And if we were to continue to affirm that 'God is love', God would then be incomplete without us (to love). This is not the Christian understanding of God. Christianity affirms that God is love, meaning that love is not an add-on to God. God is not the shadowy figure lying behind love. God is love.