From the vicarage - for Oct 2006

People sometimes say that ‘going back’ is a negative experience. Jesus encountered the difficulties of being a prophet gone back to his own home town. Here he was known for his past life as the carpenter’s son, and the miracles all dried up. We all know the difficulties that come from a hankering after the past. In the scriptures the faithless refusal to look forward is personified in Lot’s wife, who looked back and was turned to salt.

But going back can be a positive thing, too. If we think about our own spiritual lives we have to admit that there have been times of growth but also times of shrinkage. This is why repentance stands at the heart of our faith; the gospel calls us to turn to the Lord and frequently to turn back to him when we have strayed. The OT prophets saw the people of God err and stray and so called them to return. In this situation it is not the going back that is the mistake but the initial departure. So not every new thing is for the best and to go forward can mean to return to the past.

The trick is to know the difference. When is a new thing right and when is it wrong?

One way of looking at the dilemma is to distinguish between changes of substance and changes of presentation. Before the start of any new ministry in the Church of England, the Preface to the Declaration of Assent is read. This speaks about the faith received by the church but also the call to present that same faith ‘afresh’ to each generation. In other words, the faith is to be preserved and handed on its entirety, but it is to shown to people in ways that meet their needs. So, our worship at St Bart’s in the twenty-first century is and must be different from that in a church in Africa or even our own church a hundred years ago.

Another answer is to employ the classic Anglican approach to Christian decision-making – scripture, reason and tradition. We ask ourselves whether or not a belief or practice fits with the Bible, stands up to intellectual scrutiny, and can be seen in the church down the centuries as well as across the world. Tradition is just another word for the ‘voice of the church’. But it is easily rubbished by those who urge change because it smacks of being old-fashioned. But compare for a moment some of the new statements of faith in Common Worship with the Creeds given in the Prayer Book. In the latter the church is an article of faith, in the former not even mentioned. Perhaps this reflects a tendency in Anglicanism to play down Christian history and the voice of our ecumenical partners.

So what of the two issues which most torment Anglicanism today, the ordination of women as bishops and priests and human sexuality? Perhaps the best way to discern God’s will in both these cases is to ask ourselves whether they are changes of substance or of presentation. In other words, would a church with women bishops and priests and/or gay marriage be less Christian or simply more up-to-date? Or we could ask ourselves whether they satisfy the tests of scripture, reason and tradition. But the rub comes with tradition because it takes the matter out of our hands. No longer are these things subject to private judgement, or even Anglican judgement, but to the teaching office of Christ’s church. And obedience to this, even when we have private questions and difficulties, is what it means to be Catholic.

Fr P