A A Harrison The writing of this article has been prompted by an article by Daphne Hampson in The Independent (13 July, 1991), another by Hyam Maccoby in Ihe Church Times (5 July, 1991), my agreement with the maligned authors of The_ Myth of God_ Incarnate (SCM, 1977) and my acceptance of most of the ideas expressed in his books by Don Cupitt, especially in Radicals and the Future of the Church (SCM, 1989).
The first of the two articles entitled The___Eeminist Caseis_hased on_Ethic.s was written by Daphne Hampson, a lecturer in systematic theology at the University of St Andrews. In it, she makes some remarkable assertions upon which I want to comment.
To begin with, she rightly declares that to dismiss the Enlightenment as a disaster, as Geoffrey Kirk does, is to involve opposition to the most fundamental ethical beliefs of the modern world. One of these beliefs is the ideal of human equality but she says that although Christianity dare not deny it, neither can it accommodate it. I am inclined to question the second of these two negations. It is true that traditional Christianity is embedded in the patriarchal culture in which it arose with its core male symbolism but is she right in saying that Christian feminists are naive to think that (their) religion can ever be substantially modified ? I doubt it.
Traditionalists must be expected to try to cling to outworn symbols but they are only part of the 12 SOF Magazine 9, Spring 1992 Christian community. Other voices are being raised and heard. Although complete abandonment can hardly be expected, those voices might, ere long, begin to demand alternative symbols and, eventually, succeed in getting them. They must not relapse into silence nor give way to despair. (Incidentally, it remains to be seen how radical the first women priests and bishops are going to be in the Church of England.) Truly any symbols are potent but they ought not to be regarded as immutable.
Daphne Hampson goes on to say that Christianity has always "necessarily" proclaimed not simply Jesus' message but a message about him and that it cannot let go of this dogma. I say - why not ? The human race seems to me to need very much the teaching and example of Jesus but could it not get on quite well without the dogmatic claims about his person, not made by him 71 believe that the Christian myth has, in fact, become ethically intolerable.
Daphne Hampson says, for example, that the 'virgin birth' alleged for Jesus has become recognised by biologists as nonsense since a birth through parthenogenesis is not only very unlikely but that, if it occurred, it would produce a female child since no Y chromosome would be available. I assume the scientific reliability of this statement and, if it is so, is it not high time for the Church to admit it and stop expecting its members to recite belief in an absurdity and installing such nonsense in the minds of children at Church schools. ? In any case, I do not think there is much of a case for postulating a Creator who sets aside the laws of his Creation.
DEMISE OF THE CHURCH ?
Dr Hampson points to the growing alienation of the sort of women she most admires from the institutional Church and asks the question - must one hope for the demise of the Church ? - answering - Surely. She adds that to support an institution which exists to proclaim a myth believed to be untrue is intolerable. I agree. Women, in her experience, know concentrated thoughtfulness to be effective. They have learnt of the power available to them, as spiritual beings, and are cultivating modes of behaviour which are in one way dependent upon the Christian myth. As patriarchy crumbles, Christianity with its objective dogma is becoming superfluous for them. These are, for me, significant observations but they need not imply nor lead to demise for the Church although they do indicate a pressing need for change.
BOUNDARIES TO BELIEF ?
Although I believe in the indispensability of the teaching and example of Jesus, regarded as a man, born, living and dying as we all do, we can do without the dogmatic assertions in our Creeds. I much prefer G.W.H. Lampe's definition of God as Spirit and the recognition of the man, Jesus, as one in whom that Spirit supremely, and perhaps uniquely, dwelt and received a total response. I heard the Archdeacon of York say last year to a group of priests and lay readers that there are boundaries to acceptable Christian belief and that Lampe and the Bishop of Durham have heretically crossed them. I do not agree with him on either point but his opinion is shared by thousands of the members of a huge clerical vested interest and lots of uncritical laypeople. They will take a great deal of shaking and persuasion to countenance unorthodox views, let alone the provision of alternative, permitted, substitutes for their beliefs. Yet, it must be done if we are to prevent the demise expected by Daphne Hampson.
THREE REPORTS In 1976, a Doctrine Commission Report entitled ChristiaiLaelieving was published. It exposed liberal as well as conservative beliefs but it alarmed the Establishment so much that the Archbishops appointed another Commission which presented a wholly conservative report. Even this Report did not satisfy the conservative critics of the 1976 Report and a third Commission reported in 1986. There were no radicals in the second and third Commissions. The 1986 Report bore the title We Believe in Gad. It was disarmingly more liberal in tone than the second Report and it recognised the provisional character of belief and the inevitability of amendment but it defended - I thought somewhat unconvincingly - Trinitarian doctrine and it seemed to me to be over-anxious to support the doctrinal stance of conservative Evangelicals.
This third Report used language which seems to indicate total acceptance of some things regarded by the Commission as essential. The fallibility of Scripture is acknowledged along with a need to pay full regard to the outcome of biblical criticism but it seems to me to swallow whole all of its New Testament quotations without regard to a lack of authenticity in some instances and questionable speculation in others. They ignore the questioning of the contents of the Fourth Gospel, especially the words attributed to Jesus and they rely heavily upon the speculations of Paul and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews - all of which are open to question. The Report extends the divine initiative in salvation to the death of Jesus alongside his ministry and message, but is this not pure dogma based entirely on speculation ? Radicals cannot accept the notion that the cruel death of Jesus, voluntarily undergone by him, was part of a pre-ordained plan of God. Radicals cannot believe in a God who would demand it or inflict it. Moreover, the argument depends upon the two-nature theory embodied in the Creed and upon a narrow concept of incarnation.
The second of the articles to set me thinking was the Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby's The way to be reconciled with Judaism which appeared in The Church Times. It also contained some remarkable SOF Magazine 9, Spring 1992 13 statements. The writer pointed out that Jews do not accept that mankind is so much in the grip of sin that a divine sacrifice is required to afford salvation. Nor do many who regard themselves as Christians but the concept is embedded in many - perhaps most - of the celebrations of Holy Communion in the Church.
Jews believe that mankind is capable of working out its own salvation with the help of guidance by God and a human interpretation of it. So do I. 'UNIVERSAL INCARNATION' The doctrine of incarnation by which a divine figure suffers death to release mankind from sin, is alien to Judaism and its background lies not in Judaism but in the Hellenic mystery cults. I have come to believe that this is true and I much prefer Lampe's 'Spirit' Christology to Chalcedonian orthodoxy. I believe with Panentheists and the Quakers that there is something of God in everybody and, indeed, in everything - a universal incarnation, for want of a better word.
Hyam Maccoby writes that "to practice the Torah of Sinai, as a devout Jew does, is to commit oneself to ... a religious humanism, pluralism, a belief that the destiny and vocation of mankind lie in the liberation of this world, directed in love, to one's neighbours, rather than in escape to another ; a respect for bodily and communal rather than for individual spiritual rescue." Ought not Christians to take a leaf out of the Jewish book, in this respect ?
CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM Hyam Maccoby also points out that Christian antiSemitism has arisen out of certain central features of Christianity ; "the compulsion to supersede the Jews as the true Israel and people of God ... the representation of the Jews as the rejectors and betrayers of the Saviour." He goes on to question whether either Jesus or the Jerusalem Church shared the religious beliefs developed by the Gentile Church, adding that most Jewish and many Christian scholars think that Jesus did not regard himself as divine. His immediate followers, too, regarded him as a human teacher, a Messiah whose mission was to inaugurate a kingdom of God on earth.
TOWARDS JUDAISM This writer welcomes the fact that many Christians, today, are turning towards a version of Christian belief that brings it much closer to Judaism. Those Christians who are critical of the myth of God Incarnate and the myth of Christian Uniqueness are turning in a salutary way from a preoccupation with the death of Jesus to a concentration upon his life. A humanist, pluralist, liberationist Christianity will have no difficulty in achieving free reconciliation with Judaism on a basis of mutual respect. I am one of them and I agree with him. Moreover I believe such a reconciliation to be eminently worth having. Would it not be far more valuable in the on-going political and social affairs of the human race than a lot of outworn dogma ?
SOF, MCU & SCM TRUST - AN ALLIANCE TO STOP THE ROT ?
I turn now to Don Cupitt's ideas. He does not accept demise for the Church nor does he advocate deserting it. He stays in himself and encourages those who share his views to stay in with him, combining to bring about necessary change and new life. He seems to me to look for active dissent from what exists, requiring some kind of organisation. To be effective, it will have to permeate all levels of the institution - Convocations, Commissions, Synods and conferences, infiltrating spokesmen (or women) wherever possible. There will be powerful resistance at every level because so much is at stake. Ought not the Modern Churchpeople's Union, the Sea of Faith Network and the newly formed SCM Press Trust to join forces in urging the Church to do something now to stop the rot before it is too late.
We need a Church which will provide an intellectually respectable faith, associated with values and guidelines better than those displayed by the gutter Press, debased art, drama and music and mindless television programmes saturated with appeals to the lower instincts of humanity. Perhaps the most pressing need is for a liturgy which reflects, as the ASB does not, radical theology and doctrine. Archbishop Runcie expressed a hope for a lull in liturgical reform but this is the last thing we want. Fresh Doctrinal and Liturgical Commissions need to be set to work but, this time, something must be done to prevent the exclusion of radicals from them.
WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO BE QUIET I think that Don Cupitt is right in seeing modern ethics as a potential Trojan Horse in the forthcoming struggle, but the contents of the 'horse' will have to be more than a breath of fresh ethical air. He recommends quiet, persisting pressure within the Church but we live in a noisy age and quietness may be too risky and dangerous an option. We ought not to leave millions of potentially reflective men and women at the mercy of conservative Evangelicals, Charismatics and Media-evangelists, asking only for unthinking acceptance of what they teach.
A A HARRISON is a retired priest in Richmond, N Yorks.