Spiritually Homeless Again

 In my now-very-intermittent blog, the last place described finding a resting place at the University Church (St Mary's, SMV) in Oxford. Now, I find myself restless again.

Two things have made me feel less at home at SMV.  One is that the pandemic was rather an eye-opener on how little connection I had really made with the congregation.  Early in the pandemic I joined some zoom sessions in lieu of coffee after church, and it was good to stay in touch.  After these waned, I felt quite disconnected: I was quite unwell at various stages (the dreaded  'long covid' seemingly) and for most of the time joined the service only via YouTube. No one got in touch for most of the two years (but, equally, nor did I).

And SMV also seems to have an increasingly political outlook.  The biblical themes of care for the poor, care for the environment, care for refugees, and so on, seem to find a particular kind of expression very strongly aligned with one side of politics.  This, I confess, is not to my taste, nor my conviction.  One of the last straws was the (temporary) installation of a massive art piece --- a model of the globe, invoking the spirit of Gaia --- central to the church, in the crossing.  The symbolism, and the potential for idolartry, seemed a little too great.

So, aside from dropping in on a variety of other services thanks to YouTube, I have begun to explore again.  Quite a number of Sundays have found me at Oxford Cathedral.  There, I found a style of worship not dissimilar to SMV, and so quite familiar by now.  To the micro-fine observer of Anglican ritual there are points slightly higher on the candle, and others maybe slightly lower, but it's around the same place.  I've not been so very connected, the service being a bit later and so post-service coffee being too late to stay for, but I began to hope that I might find a new spiritual home there.

Then, on Sunday, the Cathedral celebrated the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Now, I have a bit of a reformed soul, but I've sung "Ave Maria" (the words of the angel, after all) often enough without bursting into flames. I am not, I would say, overly dogmatic, but I wondred what the service would bring.  The sermon brought plenty to chew on.   It was explained that whilst Christians have "direct access" to the Almighty, it was good and expedeient to ask Mary to pray for us, as one might ask a friend to do so.  This theme continuned for a while.  Once I was satisfied that the line was not a rhetorical device but a genuine exhortation, I walked out, ostentatiously down the nave.   I regret not shouting "Heresy!" as I went.

Maybe a discussion of the necromancy overtones of asking the saints (and Mary in particualr) to pray for us should be the subject of another blog post.  But as far as I know this is not in any sense Anglican doctrine.  It is at best a marginal dogma, then: and in my quest for a Christianity without the mediaeval metaphysicas, it cannot possibly have a part to play.  Maybe I should try to engage with the Dean and Chapter, but the preacher was a Canon, so my inclination is just to avoid the place.  

So, once again, I find myself not sure what to do next.  Maybe I'll go back to SMV sometimes, and see how it goes.  But it's hard to see it as full of fellow-travellers.   Maybe I'm in a small category; maybe I'm not really going to find like-minded people.  Maybe I'm wrong, and need to revisit my thinking.   This could take some time.  

Not dead, only sleeping

Not dead, only sleeping

Well, several years have elapsed since the last post.  I guess this is the pattern with many blogs.  This blog was always in large part just about setting down some of my thoughts, regardless of how many people (if any) might read it.  If you, dear reader, are reading this then I guess either you have found it more-or-less at random, or maybe you have long had my blog in your list of feeds.  In the latter case particularly, thank you for reading!   Will I blog regularly now?  I’m not sure.    It would be nice to think so, but I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep.

First, then, a personal update.  My previous blog posts were written while I belonged to – as a leader and regular congregant – a small (and shrinking) free Evangelical church in Oxford.  Since Trinity Sunday in 2014, I have been worshipping fairly regularly at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.  A church with a somewhat pivotal role at certain points in the history of  the English Church (almost two centuries ago, Newman preached some of his most influential sermons there; a few centuries earlier, the church saw the trial of Cranmer for heresy: stoneworks to facilitate this are still visible) today it adopts the label “liberal catholic”. 

That label has assumed particular significance lately: the incumbent of the last thirty years, Brian Moutford (he took up the post just before I arrived in Oxford as an undergraduate: to my mind he has always been the vicar) retired just after Easter this year, and the church has been seeking a new vicar.  The parish profile is a certain work of art – describing in code the particular brand of Anglicanism preferred by the present congregation.   It was, of course, Mountford's writing that attracted me to St Mary's.

The church’s role – as a University church, and as a parish church covering much of the city centre (and hence, predominantly, the University) – surely shapes this outlook.  Here I find a Christianity that doesn’t need to be embarrassed when faced with the learning of the modern university.  I find a way of believing that isn’t dogmatic or unthinking. I find an inclusiveness that is in keeping with the openness of the University – in contrast with the welcome announced by some churches, which are apparently open to all, but some are much more welcome than others.

And yet, it’s also a very (though not exclusively) middle-class church, as you might expect: and I could believe that that would be alienating to plenty of others.  Also potentially alienating is the form of the worship: not the ‘highest’ of Anglican churchmanship, but high enough to have incense on a number of festivals, careful liturgical dress, a robed choir which frequently sings the communion setting in latin, and a rather demoralising commitment to the New English Hymnal, with its apparently-ecclectic-but-actually-dominated-by-the-nineteenth-century poetry and music.  In a University that seems to love dressing up and holding seemingly archaic ceremonies, this doesn’t seem out of place: but it’s decidedly detached from what we might otherwise call the Real World.

This, then, is where I’m at.  I’m the guy who sits at the back, in the gallery, and doesn’t get too involved.  That’s quite a turn-around: I’ve spent the last 30 years being at the front in church, leading, preaching, and making music.  It’s instructive to do none of these for a while: I’ll write more on this, and many other things, later.

Shocking: What straight Christians really think about gay people!

Instructive analysis

review: Evangelical and Evolving

Evangelical and Evolving

Colin Craston 

A friend lent me this book, in the context of an ongoing discussion about what it means to be Evangelical - and whether that's a helpful thing to be.  It's a good contribution to that discussion.

The book comes from a decidedly Anglican perspective - and is now more than half a decade old.  Nevertheless it presents - at least in that context - a good working description of the notion of an open evangelical position.  This is the more noteworthy from the fact that the author was at the time far into his retirement - not the usual location to find radical thought.

Is the book radical? Some of a Conservative Evangelical perspective would find it so, even today.  Others might just say "meh?" and wonder at the rivalries of nuance that can exist only among a certain kind of people of faith.  The question, for example, of whether the celebrant at the eucharist should stand at the north, or the east, or the west, of the communion table (aka altar) really isn't one that has caused me many seconds of lost sleep.

The open Evangelical position is an honourable one, I think - and something I would have identified with before I became the late emerger.  Reading Craston's book made me almost nostalgic for debates about which I really find it difficult to care today.  He begins with chapters on the bible and on interpretation - good Evangelical starting points. These are the strongest chapters of the book, I would say: principled without being dogmatic.  The discussion turns to the church and the ministry: here the author's deeply-imbued Anglicanism is most evident, and evangelicals of other traditions would find the line of reasoning quite alien - not to say, mistaken.  The writing is intensely personal in places - we learn the author's opinion, without particular reference to other authorities apart from his own (extensive) experience.  Further chapters discuss the sacraments, ministry, and other topics about which evangelicals might gently disagree among each other.  

The final chapter asks "Still Evangelical?" and surveys whether the position advanced in the book still deserves that label.  My answer would be a decided "yes", but I am on the far side of the possible tension: a conservative might take quite a different view.  His methodology (with a few traditional Anglican blind-spots :-) ) is unambiguously evangelical.  But then, I'd say the same of Brian McLaren, even though a great many evangelicals have disowned him by now, disliking not so much his method as his conclusions.  Brian, too, is far outside the spectrum of belief which is under consideration in the book.

Although I retain a soft spot for all this stuff, it all seems a bit detached from reality.  There's a needy world to serve, and an intellectual cadre which doubts that faith has any place in modern society.  Discussions of whether surplices should be replaced by preaching robes for sermons, or whether it is appropriate to combine the roles of suffragan bishop and archdeacon seem, well, obscure at best.  Women in the ministry (probably ok), and the position of gay clergy (rather not ok) are two socially-notable issues for the church in its mission to 21st century England, but there's no clarion call here.

The book is positive and constructive - it is a good account of the things on the minds of a certain sub-set of evangelicals at the time.  As the book's title suggests, things are in a state of change, and I find it hard to see how this particular position can persist for very long.  Its time may already be running out.

a little gem

From On Pop Theology, a little gem.  It begins:

Apparently baseball highlights, hockey playoffs, and various unconfirmed draft rumours are not enough to fill the airtime and pages of major sports media outlets these days. Recently, we’ve seen not only sport-related speculation, but social and religious commentary as well from the talking heads on ESPN.

By now, you’ve heard of the story of the professional athlete who has become a household name for his lifestyle more than his statistics. 

and goes on to

The Church must be careful not to be caught up in the sweeping tide of celebrity worship and public opinion. Though it may make us unpopular, we must not endorse or congratulate those whose actions are in clear disobedience to the simple commands of the Bible.

 but being a bit of a satire doesn't end up quite where the hue and cry would expect.

a breath of fresh air

Douglas Murray writes:

Atheists vs Dawkins
My fellow atheists, it’s time we admitted that religion has some points in its favour

Sometimes a perfectly good argument can be stretched too far. I heard the resulting snapping noise last week in Cambridge during a debate with Richard Dawkins. We were meant to be on the same side at the Union. But over some months the motion hardened and eventually became ‘This House believes religion should have no place in the 21st century.’ While an atheist myself, it seems to me that claiming that religion should disappear is not just an overstatement but a seismic mistake. So I joined Rowan Williams and my close enemy Tariq Ramadan in trying to explain to Dawkins and co where they might have gone wrong.

The argument gets developed carefully and clearly.  He's a brave man: there's a huge amount of naive dogmatism around atheism right now, which sees "faith" as irredeemable, and the ensuing comment section has attracted a whole lot of knee-jerk nonsense. But he goes on:

In the same way that many of the religious refuse to admit what their arguments miss, for fear the whole edifice will crumble, so it is that many atheists fear any similar concession for fear that their line will break and the religious flood through the breach. But I think we should be frank. There are things which atheists miss.

I don't think he's going to fit into Brian Mountford's category of Christian Atheists any time soon, but the article is definitely worth a read.

review: Christian Atheist

Christian Atheist: Belonging without Believing
Brian Mountford

I happened upon this thoughtful book in Blackwell's Book Shop while I was Christmas shopping: so much for Amazon!  It caught my eye because Brian Mountford has been the Vicar of the University Church for as long as I can remember.  I've been aware of his ministry there almost exclusively second-hand.  Until a few years ago, I would probably have dismissed it as not for people like me. On the other hand, it's always been clear that the life of the University Church meets the needs of quite a number of people.

And that, really, is the point of departure for the book.  Through the church, and wider University life, Brian encounters numerous people who wouldn't claim to believe in God, but find themselves friends, fellow-travellers, and even active participants in the life of the Christian Church.  Mountford sets out to explore their experience and perceptions, and to consider how the Church should respond to them.

It's an interesting journey.  He points out that for all the credal, propositional public faith, the actual life of the Church, and the local congregation, and indeed the individual, is often much more tentative. It is based more on relationship, on belonging, than on belief.  "Belonging before believing" was of course a distinctive of some of the first people to write about the emerging church, so this is a meme that has a wider applicability.  Mountford, though, isn't talking of people on a spiritual journey towards God - or not particularly, anyway - but those who are quite happy with vast swathes of Christian life and practice, and with the experience of worship, without being persuaded, or even wanting to think about, the metaphysics.

So he discusses the place of Christian morality, aesthetics, and 'permeable borders of doctrine', in the lives of these Christian Atheists.  This is motivated and illustrated by lots of short 'interview' pieces with individuals he has encountered who embody these positions which seem initially contradictory.

The book is very plainly the work of a pastor.  This isn't high-blown abstract theology or philosophy, it's strongly rooted in the life and ministry of a thinking man in a city and University prone to a lot of deep thinking.  Of course, Mountford is well-read and highly-educated himself, so his work draws on countless theologians, philosophers and others throught the ages, their ideas woven together with skill to present an account strongly rooted in the western traditions of Christendom, yet moving the reader's thought into a seldom-explored category of unbelieving Christian practice.

You might guess that I'm rather taken with the book.  I don't think I fall quite into his category of being a Chistian Atheist - not on most days, anyway - though I can very much see the perspective he describes.  It strikes me as a much happier place than the militant atheists find themselves, and, dare I say it, an intellectually more satisfying place also.  I 'get' that you might want to dismiss the foundational belief system of two millenia for a significant part of the world's population, but it's simply careless to ignore at the same time the breadth and depth of cultural life and moral teaching that has accompanied it.  To liken the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the Church of England is to make a category mistake.

The book avoids over-blown conclusions or predictions, but concludes with the notion that "Christian Atheists are definitely part of the enterprise - tangential, in some sense maybe, but contributors [...]"  He provocatively suggests that some of the best theology of our age may be written by such people.  He concludes that the correct and best response to those who don't just doubt, or seek, but really don't
believe, is one of welcome.  Amen to that.