Fasten your seatbelts, say the Anglicans …
September 1st, 2011 § 4 Comments
… this may be a bumpy ride. That’s what it says in the newsletter for Anglicans Online, which uses a review of ‘Is God Still An Englishman?’ to consider the way things are. It’s an enthusiastic review, which welcomes the challenges in the book. “Moreton’s book, with wit and bite and devastating clarity, examines just where in the world the Church of England is in the 21st century.” You can read the rest here
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Interesting bedfellows you’re keeping these days, Mr Moreton…
I think we all aspire to have and to be interesting bedfellows, don’t we Derek?
I found this a deeply troubling book, one that I found myself in profound conflict with at many stages.
There were passages that to me were breathtakingly naive and over simplistic (for example the sweeping assertion that Jesus did not say anything about homosexuality therefore it is blasphemous to put words in his mouth!) Without naming them, Jesus did not say anything about other individual sexual practices either but it is accepted wisdom to consider them “wrong”.
Equally there were passages of breathtaking sadness, such as the authors struggle through IVF. Interestingly my wife and I had that self same struggle and it took us closer to God not further away. It is never always a one way street.
Again there were intensely humerous passages that left one to think hopefully that the mistakes of the past might be rectified in the future.
Overall, for me this book fell into two unfortunate traps.
1. That the current era sets a linear pattern of development for the future and history teaches us that this is not the case at all. The church in the 18th Century was in a bigger mess than today. An Archbishop of the time even predicted its demise within a generation! It is still here and may well still be here in another 1000 years. The future is by its very nature unpredictable and we cannot know how society will change in the future (look at china, russia etc today who would have thought?)
2. That the church should be in tune with the accepted wisdom of public opinion today. Nonsense! Public opinion is notoriously transient and following it is a journey to nowhere. Faiths have belief and their job is to expound those beliefs. They may fall outof fashion but that does not make them wrong. Fashions change, truths don’t!
I hope the church picks up the challenge of this book. I certainly will.
Thank you Gary. I don’t agree with you that the book is naive or simplistic, obviously. In the example that you quote, it’s not just that words are put into the mouth of Jesus, it is that the life those created words condemn is then elevated as a sin above all others, to be the defining issue, the line in the sand, the seemingly unforgivable. I do believe that elevation is blasphemous.
As for point 1) well, giving that impression is one of the problems of writing a book that seeks to tell a linear story, from the Eighties to the present day. But as it happens, in general terms, I agree with you – and I would actually argue that the book does too.
Now, point 2). I struggle with those who claim to know the absolute truth. I do agree that fashions change but certain things don’t … as I believe the final chapter makes absolutely clear. That aside, I would suggest that you are falling into a trap yourself, and one that is common for members of the Church, in assuming that I wrote this book because I have answers. I don’t. It’s not my place to tell the Church what to do now, or how to respond. All I am able to do is lay out where we are, and how I think we got there. The rest is up to those who care enough to respond. I’m glad that you cared enough to respond about the book, and I thank you for it.