As I reported in the blog posted on Friday, A Brief Evolutionary Context for today’s Global and Christian Crises, last Wednesday a group met to explore whether our longing for transformation in the Church could be converted into a movement within the life of the Church. We might be described as a progressive, spiritual, prophetic, evolutionary movement (my words). I come across evidence every day to suggest that such a movement is already afoot, though it doesn’t have a name. My evidence often comes from a variety of sources.
What people think and believe
In the course of an article by Kenan Malik in Sunday’s Observer, Our retreat from Christianity doesn’t mean we’ve lost all sense of morality , he refers to the recent Times poll of Anglican clergy. Only a quarter think Britain today is a Christian country; the majority support the marriage of gay couples. The nature of belief and unbelief is also changing. Malik refers to surveys conducted by Professor Linda Woodhead which produced surprising results about the sources to which believers turn for moral guidance.
1% of Anglicans looked to scripture for moral direction
3% of Anglicans sought it in Christian teachings or traditions
34% of Anglicans relied on their own reason and judgement
Around one fifth set store by their own intuitions or feelings
The Times poll revealed that only 25% of clergy think Britain is a Christian country and the majority support gay marriage. Some would conclude that it’s not surprising the number of people going to church is in serious decline when ‘traditional’ models of belief are in steep decline.
Conservatives and traditionalists would say that it’s exactly because of this lack of commitment to the true faith by progressives that the Church is in rapid decline. A Daily Telegraph columnist wrote that “Britain’s moral backbone is crumbling into a thousand pieces”. Rod Liddle, in the Sunday Times, thinks the loss of influence of traditional Christianity is responsible for the decay of Britain’s moral framework.
What these figures do show is a greater willingness by Christians lay and ordained to think for themselves, using reason to guide moral decision-making and trusting their intuition and feelings. Experience tells me they do so in private, not in public. Clergy and laity are afraid of judgement and condemnation if they reveal what they really do and don’t believe. The tragedy is that were people to be honest, the Church would stand a better chance of surviving and being seen as a more genuinely Christian body both by those outside and those inside the Church.
Morality and teaching in the Church
I think the Church of England’s failure to interrogate its traditional (some would say “orthodox” and “biblical”) teachings about God’s apparent attitude to the role of women in the Church and God’s and Jesus’ attitude to sexual intimacy between same-sex couples is a more significant reason for the loss of influence of the Church. I am among those who value profoundly the growth in people’s willingness to think for themselves, to rely on their own reason and judgement and set store by their intuitions and feelings rather than remaining addicted to teachings that underpin abuse and prejudice. Many Biblical traditionalists will disagree with me, of course. As a result, the Church is perceived to be an institution that has a corrosive effect on morality and ethics in contemporary society.
Malik asks, might we be better or worse off without religion – might there be as a result no moral limits if God didn’t exist? He argues that the history of Christianity shows that it is not belief in God that defines our moral values but our moral values that shape the way we think about God.
“Christians once enslaved fellow human beings, burned witches and killed adulterers, believing such practices to have divine sanction. Few Christians today would regard such practices as morally acceptable. Not because God has changed his mind but because humans have.”
Campaigning in the Church of England
The campaigns for equality and justice for LGBTQIA+ people I have been involved with for four decades in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion have been underpinned by my moral values and are, I believe, a source of moral development, a moral development the bishops of the Church of England struggle to commit themselves to.
Many in the Church of England are involved with movements and campaigns for justice and equality: for women, LGBTQIA+ people, black and ethnic minority people, those living in poverty, the abused, those denigrated and despised as unwelcome and unwanted immigrants. All these campaigns and movements are transforming our moral universe despite resistance in the Church. In doing so, those of us involved in the campaigns are also transforming human ideas of what God deems to be good.
Yes, God, and theology, and the way people imagine Jesus, and recognition of the work of the Holy Spirit all are being steadily and irrevocably changed. Attitudes are being changed, concepts of God are being changed, and people’s assumptions about reliance on “orthodox”, “traditional”, “historical” biblical teachings and values are being changed and expanded.
Kenan Malik says that today such collective movements for change lie largely in disarray. He says the corrosive effects of social atomisation and fragmentation that in part have led to the withering of traditional religion have had an even greater impact on secular social movements, helping in turn to distort our moral compass.
Campaigning for justice, truth, love, wisdom and the ending of prejudice and abuse in the Church is still vibrant and has become more focused and united. It is not in disarray. Living in Love and Faith, the current attempt to resolve disagreements about LGBTQIA+ people, reaches a significant moment of decision when the bishops bring proposals to General Synod in November. The hope is they will propose significant positive change and that Synod will vote to approve these changes.
And then what? When will equal marriage be accepted? With progressive, evolutionary movements working together progress towards creating a healthier Church and the full equality of all creation, rooted in the Jesus essence of life in all its fullness van be achieved.