The environment of the Church of England today is no longer a place where people like me feel comfortable, someone whose faith is evolutionary. It’s become harder to talk about or preach about an evolutionary vision of God. By evolutionary people in this context, I mean all those whose understanding of God, the content of the Bible, the life and teaching of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit has continued to evolve in the post-1963 Honest to God years. In the six decades – over half a century – since Honest to God was published many other books have been written developing many varieties of evolutionary theology including Jack Spong, Richard Holloway, Verna Dozier, Harry Williams, Dorothy Solle, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Una Kroll, Vincent Donovan, Diarmuid O’Murchu, James Alison, William Johnston, Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio, John Captuo and Sebastian Moore. These and many, many others have explored and are exploring in vivid ways the dream of God lived and proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant, visionary wisdom teacher.
Contemporary theology, biblical and spiritual, had been evolving since well before 1963, of course. One result of this theology in the 1960s and 70s was that I felt able to allow my name to be put forward as a possible candidate for ordination. The DDO, selection conference, and diocesan bishop all affirmed my calling. I doubt I would be affirmed or accepted today – and I wouldn’t respond positively to anyone who suggested I should seek to be ordained – not today. I would have to compromise my beliefs far too much – or suppress my ideas and energy and dissemble truth.
We in the Church, all of us identifying as Christians, now disagree dramatically about the essence of faith, the constructs, identities, theologies of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. What is Christianity today? How would you define it – its core beliefs, theology, liturgy, ritual, attitudes, assumptions, “norms”, prejudices and abusive tendencies? For example, some people, maybe many people, are shocked when presented with images of Jesus as a woman, black, gay, lesbian, trans. And as a second example, I observe the Biblical and cultural essences – prejudices, as I would call them - we exported to various parts of the world in our creation of the British Empire that are now having an evil, deeply damaging effect in many African countries - Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, etc. - but not only in these countries and not only in Africa. Today prejudice and abuse is widespread.
What is Christianity today in the Republican Party in the USA?
What is Christianity today in the Orthodox Church of Putin’s Russia?
What is Christianity today in the Vatican?
What is Christianity today in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania?
What is Christianity today in South Africa compared with other African countries?
What is Christianity today in Scotland, Wales, Ireland?
What is Christianity today in England?
And so we might continue further – what is Christianity today for members of the CEEC as compared with members of WATCH or Inclusive Church or Changing Attitude England? Christianity in myriad contemporary forms contains elements that are not only dramatically different between various denominations, countries and cultures but dramatically different between the Biblical and Christ-like fundamentals held by different people.
In the Church of England I believe we urgently need a far more open and widespread conversation about what are the essences of Christianity for today. Without this conversation we are never going to find ourselves living either in agreement or with good disagreement. This is what I and some of my friends and followers of Changing Attitude England are longing for – open conversation about ideas, practices, teachings and theologies that underpin prejudice and abuse in the Church for some and inspire faith for others.
Following the effective ending of the Living in Love and Faith project at the General Synod meeting in November when questions of inclusion, discrimination, prejudice and abuse, let alone what we really believe are the essence of Jesus’ teachings, are far from likely to be addressed effectively, if at all, let alone resolved. In next phase of life for the Church of England, the conversation has to be expanded to deal with basic questions and ideas raised by those wise men and women named earlier in this blog. The evolving vision of God continues to inspire priests and people in parishes and groups as a virtually hidden third force, people who hear the divine call in heart and soul to integrity, unconditional love, justice, truth, life in all its fullness, and pursue it in their own pattern of faith and in their personal spiritual and contemplative lives.