Norman Richardson is right (SOF Magazine Autumn 1990), rigid definitions are not helpful. Less rigid ones are unhelpful too. But it is a hard lesson to learn.
Perhaps because I am an Anglican priest, I have often felt that I had to sum up my beliefs or describe SOF in a word or two. After all, a casual question in the local should not be answered by a theology lecture.
To those outside or with little knowledge of the church, I have tried the following opening gambit : “Well perhaps you could say I'm a Christian who doesn't believe in God”. I foolishly hope this might suggest that while I find much in the Christian tradition that is helpful, particularly as a forum for moral thought and action, I have no use for its supernatural doctrines and dogma.
The reply pays off in that some respond to this with the offer of another drink ! However, more likely, someone will say, “So you're really an atheist”, and 'atheist' is not a term I happily accept. So I have to try to describe how for me an atheist suggests someone who finds no use for the word God or for the practices of religion. Indeed 'atheist' suggests an antipathy to religion. By now, I begin to feel the conversation is turning into a theology lecture.
Another, in an attempt to understand the nature of this strange Anglican cleric, will try the word 'humanist' and suggests that we are all humanists. Again, I find myself fighting shy of the label. Apart from the history of the humanist movement, there is a major difference between me and my friends in the pub who might call themselves humanists - I go to church, read theology books and attend religious conferences !
One or two will dare to be challenging. Why bother carrying on, especially if one is so out of step with the church ? Not always resisting the temptation to explain that it pays the bills, I begin to describe my work. This time, my hope is that an impressive job specification will speak for itself. It is quickly dashed with the joke about doing a one-day-a-week job.
It is within the church that “a Christian who doesn't believe in God” might make sense. Yet, in church, perhaps due to a failure of nerve, I more tentatively try the description 'Radical Christian'.
This also proves to be a mistake. “What is Radical Christianity ?” they ask. The word 'radical' doesn't convey much to many people within the church, much less outside. They may have heard of 'liberals' and associate them with the Bishop of Durham. But radicals ?
So I attempt a description of Radical Christianity. “I interpret all the religious images and doctrines in terms of living life now.” I try an example, the doctrine of hell. Not many folk believe in a real hell with devils and fire, but they may use the word and imagery to describe life on earth at its worst. I try to explain what I mean by God ...
But I'm not even convincing myself. The weakness of theological gymnastics is becoming all too clear.
Some terms, like 'all-powerful', simply refuse to perform. Unlike Elizabeth Burns (SOF Magazine Autumn 1990) I simply do not believe in, nor want, any principle that “will ultimately ensure that I am not defeated by anything”. I suspect those in the pub would be suspicious of such a safety net. Other terms, when stretched and manipulated, turn out so differently that it seems almost cheeky to use the same word. Redefining God, for example, as a “religious principle” makes little sense to people. “How can a religious principle send his son into the world ?” I'm asked.
By the time I have wriggled out of that one, the verdict is given. “It doesn't sound much like Christianity to me. How can you call yourself a Christian ? How can you remain in the church ?” Or more sympathetically, “Why risk this theological balancing act ?” The truth has to be faced. Most of the theological contortions have been performed because I felt I had to justify my place in the church. I have tried to produce a Radical Christianity because I felt that I had to be able to describe myself as a Christian. It now seems all rather ridiculous, as do attempts to give systematic accounts of what 'Radical Christianity' is. What are they for ? Can any reader explain ?
Someone, perhaps thinking that I am indeed about to pack it all in, asks me what I'd do if I weren't a priest.
It's then I remember that I used to be a music student.
As music students, we learned about different styles of music. Most of us prided ourselves in appreciating a wide variety of music from Bach to Boulez and the Beatles. There were, we said, only two types of music - good and bad. Quite what the criteria were, we never really asked. At least we felt we could tell why Mozart stood above his contemporaries.
As we matured, I think we began to take a more serious interest in the culture and society which gave birth to the music. Good or bad, what was more interesting and important was the way that the economic, social, political, religious and philosophical factors were all reflected in the music and the type of music produced. Occasionally, we even dared to look at the music of “other cultures” if only through its influence upon the western tradition. 'Influence' was a word we used frequently, along with 'development'. It was the way we traced and explained the changes in musical styles through history.
The result of all this was to change our view of the “Great Composers”. When I was much younger, I had a piano teacher on whose piano stood busts of the “Great Composers”. There was Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Brahms and Liszt and one or two others.
They stood there like gods in a timeless heaven - the All Time Greats. But I was now beginning to see them as the musicians of their different cultures and societies. Their style of composition changed throughout their lives. The fortunes of the music changed from generation to generation. Even the choice of composers immortalized in bronze, plaster and plastic was an expression of a particular age.
I was at this time beginning to explore the Bible. I was a member of the Christian Union. Yet it never occurred to me, nor to the speakers we listened to on Friday nights, that one might look at the Bible and religious faith in the same way - as a human creation within a human historical context.
There were good reasons for this. One was that faith was said to be about truth, the truth about God. As true then as now, unchanging. Different faiths and expressions of faith were therefore either right or wrong in what they said about God. A second reason was that faith was said to be about living and there were good and bad, right and wrong ways to live one's life.
I had met similar arguments in music. The Immortal Composers were often portrayed as writing Immortal Music, the music of the Gods, expressing eternal Beauty. There were discussions as to the style of music that was proper for worship. (I met a woman who declared that pop music was erotic and evil and should never be allowed in church.) More general discussions examined what a composer was saying in his music. But on the whole, we believed composers were not saying anything in their music. They were writing music, creating in sound. We did not believe that music, in itself, could be morally good or bad.
And even a scant knowledge of church music and its history revealed that much so-called holy and Christian music had secular origins.
Those of us who were dipping our toes in the troublesome waters of aesthetics were, perhaps reluctantly, conceding that we did better looking for beauty not in the music itself, but in music's place in society. Beauty was not something in the music or some aspect of compositional technique. We were agreed that listening to music could be an aesthetic experience and that we valued such experiences. A good piece of music was simply one that had the capacity to produce such experience. That was humbling. No longer could we claim a privileged position as arbiters of taste and interpreters of beauty.
We did not use the word, but we were 'non-realists' in music. That is, the experience of music did not point to anything beyond our experience of it. Now, I feel we should have been non-realists in religion as well.
When, therefore, I came to see religion as an entirely human phenomenon, I began see religious writers and rituals as I now saw the Great Composers and the Classics - artists whose expressions of faith reflected the mood of the day and were capable of producing religious experiences which were valued.
In this way how we judge the integrity of composers, as with artist-theologians, does not depend upon the systematic nature or interpretation of their work and should not be confined within the rigid constraints of a particular tradition, system or school. Otherwise there would be no innovation. Artists and composers will find inspiration where they will, but the value of their work is not accounted for solely by the methods and criteria of pre-existing traditions.
As a priest, I work from and within a rich and changing Christian tradition and culture whose influence is all too apparent. But my integrity as a religious practitioner and the integrity of my religious faith need not depend entirely upon that tradition or any of its rules and systems.
Yes, some elements of Christian theism are there in my faith. Others are missing. But I do not therefore need to justify their presence by defining myself as a Radical Christian or Christian Atheist. I can eat Chinese food and say a Hindu prayer without feeling the need to call myself a Chinese Hindu or practise every other part of those cultures and traditions.
It seems, then, that my response regarding 'definition' in discussions with friends in and out of the church ought to concentrate on the nature of religious community and the sorts of religious experience that we think are valuable. For whether I should be allowed to remain a priest, and whether I am thought by friends to be working with integrity within the institution of the church, will depend on how they view the church as a religious community and the value they place on the experiences they have through the church.
SOF's discussions must move on too. If we moved on from attempts to re-interpret Christianity, (an exercise which seems to me like producing “modern antiques”) and away from tinkering with liturgy (which seems to me like evangelical “revisions” of old hymns, pace Ronald Pearse), to a more serious discussion as to the purpose of our coming together in religious communities and the sorts of religious experiences which we find valuable, then other elements would find a place.
Can religious communities be like the composition classes I enjoyed as a music student, where through the advice and criticism of a respected composer and encouragement of other students, we developed our own creative musical potential and perspective ? Or will they become even more like those school music lessons where we laboured with a book called “The Technique of Composition” and where creative writing was judged by the Book rather than by ourselves.
STEPHEN MITCHELL is rector of Barrow-on-Soar, Leics., and is Treasurer of SOF Network.