Mike Jenkins takes a critical look at Agenda for Faith by Stephen Mitchell (Sea of Faith Network, £4.50), and asks whether radical priests are like militant miners, fighting a lost cause.
All Worked Out? close coal mines for a living. That is quite an admission for somebody brought up in South Wales and who has lived in Yorkshire for twenty years. In mitigation I can plead that I played only a minor administrative role, I was only obeying orders. The industry has all but disappeared in the last ten years but in the 1970s and early 1980s we had far too many hopeless pits. At one in the NorthEast, for example, the coal face was seven miles out under the North Sea.
Everything was drenched in salt water seeping through the strata above. The salt corroded the machinery and men working in pools of dirty sea water suffered from chronic skin diseases. The poor-quality coal was _ virtually unsaleable and the pit held vast stocks of worthless coal.
Despite all that the men who worked there were fiercely loyal to “their” pit and refused to acknowledge that it was a lost cause. Nobody would think of a move to a better pit. It was where they had always worked and what they knew and understood. There was a certain stoic dignity in that attitude but it was doomed by the realities of the wider world. Unemployment is still high in the former mining areas, a poor reflection on our society, but what is needed is new jobs and opportunities, not the artificial continuation of old, unproductive work patterns.
When I read Agenda for Faith, Stephen Mitchell’s commitment shone through. His journey from young, conservative evangelical to mature, radical, creative Christianity has not been easy.
Even now the tensions between his viewpoint, his parishioners’ expectations and his superiors’ requirements obviously make his priesthood difficult. [<= a confession to make. I used to “Using deliberate ambiguity to try and fool the bishops is counterproductive. If language can be accepted as orthodox by a bishop, why should untutored laypeople be able to see its radical message?
I would be interested to see how someone like Stephen would go about helping me to a ritual expression of my religious understandings. Being outside the Church, I am at times conscious of a lack of communal ritual. But then, that is where Stephen and I differ I reached a point where my understanding was such that I could not stay in. That is why I find Agenda for Faith such a mass of contradictions.
What does Stephen mean by “faith”?
He never defines it as such, but he does say that when one comes to faith, it changes one’s life because it affects the whole of one’s being and perception of reality. Faith is not to be confused with credal orthodoxy. In fact, according to Stephen, doctrinal credibility is irrelevant to the practice of faith which is primarily about worship, prayer and reading scripture. “Those who practise a faith” become immersed in this process and create their God and world in living out this faith. This position seems to be based on two crucial assumptions. One is church attendance — where else does one worship if one is, for example, an Anglican clergyman? The other is that being doctrinally orthodox is irrelevant to such faith practice. This is the contradiction at the heart of Agenda for Faith: the book amply demonstrates that it is not possible to practice a radical faith and to meet the institutional requirements of Christian orthodoxy.
In the first chapter, entitled “Real” Stephen discusses his appearance on BBC1’s Heart of the Matter and the press reaction to it. This, he feels, revealed that at the popular level, belief means thinking that certain credal propositions are true: the church is seen as a club with rules which the clergy, as club officials, should observe. But frankly, I do not think that this is just a “popular” misconception: it is very much the way things are. Why else was Anthony Freeman sacked? The evidence is clearly stated at the end of that very same chapter! Referring to people like himself, so-called godless vicars, he says: “Attempting to create a faith for our generation, we find our work being assessed by orthodox criteria.
Credibility may not be the criterion by which I judge faith but for the church and its bishops credal boundaries still retain their defining power”. In other words, there is an orthodoxy in force in the church and individuals’ religious viewpoints are judged against it. The authority of the church and its hierarchy is credal and defines and limits acceptable behaviour and forms of expression. In fact, the journalists were right: members and officials of the club are bound by the rules.
That same paragraph continues: “Our survival within the institution depends on our ability to paint our faith in the colours of conservative doctrine”.
This seems to mean that radicals have to resort to doubletalk, hardly a sound basis for a radical faith or pastoral integrity. Stephen then concludes, “We are like subversive artists working under an oppressive regime who are forced to submit to ideological or aesthetic conventions and regulations. And as Anthony Freeman’s case demonstrated, failure to do so results in dismissal”.
This is histrionic nonsense. Church of England clergy put themselves forward for ordination to an established church in a democratic country. Surely, they know what they are going into, but, if they can take it no longer, they can resign. Resettlement and readjustment are difficult but not impossible: thousands of miners have had to do it without the benefit of a Cambridge education.
Further, the “subversives” comparison is insulting to real dissidents who risk death and torture under vicious regimes. Anthony Freeman may have been sacked for his frankness but he did achieve something by challenging the orthodoxy very publicly. His views received massive publicity, thousands read the book and hundreds joined our Network. (If many subsequently left it that is not his fault!).
Honest to God and The Sea of Faith made an impact in their time: these are the really “subversive” texts because they are understood by nonspecialists, they “tell it like it is”. Using deliberate ambiguity to try and fool the bishops is counter-productive. If language can be accepted as orthodox by a bishop, why should untutored laypeople be able to see its radical message?
The doctrinal authority of the church is further emphasised in the chapter on “God”. Religious experiences are accepted as valid only if they conform to church norms. Attempts to devise creative prayers and liturgy are stifled by the legally binding nature of much Anglican public ritual. Conservative doctrinal positions on matters such as the church’s view of God, the soul and the self act as a brake on creative worship. Agenda for Faith shows beyond all reasonable doubt that the Church of England is authoritarian, conservatively orthodox, legalistic, unimaginative and unreceptive to new ideas. So, why bother? Stephen poses that very question himself. He answers by saying that religious stories and ritual help him to explore meaning, truth, selfhood and love, that faith helps him build relationships and to show solidarity with the oppressed. Faith becomes worthwhile when human endeavour is emphasised over doctrine.
Quite so. Stephen, and others in a similar position, are like the man who went out to nip next door but, instead of hopping over the fence, set off in the opposite direction. After travelling right round the world he eventually arrived back at his neighbour's.
It is perfectly possible to do everything Stephen wants to do outside the church. On his own account it is a lot easier — if only because one is saved the hassles involved in being inside. I cannot for the life of me understand why those most “non-realist” in their theology and exploration of religious meaning are so “realist” about the institution and priesthood.
There seems to be an assumption that there is some sort of “essence” of the true church which is currently in the possession of the orthodox. If we radicals had it, we could have our sort of church, so we have to fight our corner. But the church is not a Holy Grail; we do not have to do battle for it either openly or by subterfuge: the church is a human creation (remember!) It is what we are because we are it: there is nothing else, “For where two or three are gathered together...” We can be a “church “ anywhere and anyhow we want — if that is what we do want, and as long as we do not waste time arguing over a corpse. Let the dead bury their dead.
Resurrection means that the old must die to release the new life. Why are thoughtful insiders so reluctant to turn off the life support machine when conservative evangelicalism indicates that brain death has already occurred?
So much energy goes into squaring the circle, trying to legitimate new ideas in an archaic church. This effort could be used so much more productively outside the church talking to the world at large in contemporary terms. New wine is poured into new bottles. For generations now the consequences of biblical criticism have been skated over in the pulpit and in pastoral work. But people know fairy stories when they hear them and have voted with their feet. Why should people subscribe to a hierarchical church and its being accepted as the only legitimate form of rule.
In bringing his book to a close Stephen says that faith needs to be grounded in human needs. “This is why we bother: to discover how to be human now.” His final, valedictory sentence announces, “This is the agenda for faith: to live gloriously and bring life to all”. I can respond to that, who could not? May I finish on a slightly more mundane image by returning to those miners. Nowadays few people use coal to heat their homes. Many of those who still do are miners or ex-miners who get free coal: they have a vested interest. The rest of us have found cheaper and more convenient ways of keeping warm. Equally, there are easier ways to faith than having to look over one’s shoulder all the time.