THE QUESTION John Coombes From the first stirrings of SOF, those who have been members of church communities have had to face a dilemma. The question they had to answer is the Hamlet-type question, "to stay in - or not to stay in ?".
It bears some similarities to the dilemma faced by politicians as to whether the future of the country is advanced by remaining in the European movement, and thereby helping to shape in the coming years, or by withdrawing to the sidelines, with the distinct possibility of isolation and eventual oblivion.
It is for everyone concerned, I believe, a personal dilemma. In my own case, which I am using as an 18 SOF Magazine 7, Autumn 1991 example, I chose to stay in the Church of England, into which I was born, virtually, and in which I was engaged for more than 20 years as a Reader and member of the choir. I no longer preach but I still sing.
Music has been one of my great lifelines in the difficult years. It has helped me to maintain my links with the tradition of Christian public worship and witness, and has been a means of concealing my silent dissent from much of what the church teaches.
The gradual change in my outlook, which has accelerated over the last ten years or so, made preaching very difficult. /The author has asked me to menbbn that this was written before he attended last summer's conference and not as a result of it - Edj The problem was, what to say that would be convincing, and at the same time would not give offence to people for whom I had the highest respect and regard. It was like picking one's way through a minefield and in the end I felt that the final result would be the worst of both worlds.
A major problem with staying in, is that just about everything that is said and done in church rests upon two basic assumptions. The first is that there is a Supreme Being who is in control of human affairs and to whom prayers can be addressed. The second assumption is that this Being became man in the person of Jesus Christ.
Now quite clearly, if one rejects the first assumption, one also as a matter of logic, has to reject the second. Jesus cannot be the Son of a God who does not exist. Similarly, the words of Jesus, for example, about life beyond the grave, draw their authority from the belief that he was the Son of God. If this belief is ruled out, the concept of 'everlasting life', in Biblical terms at least, is invalid.
Paradoxically, I continue to enjoy music and the reading of scripture which has been inspired by the very ideas I have come to reject. Yet the impact of Jesus of Nazareth upon my thinking has, if anything, been enhanced by separation from its supernatural trappings. I see him as a flawed rather than a flawless person, and such a vision helps me to understand and accommodate my own shortcomings.
Neither do I believe, or indeed expect, him to be right about everything. He had the world view of a Jew who lived 2000 years ago and he was ignorant of most of what we know about the physical world. I see him as a man, if an exceptional man, of his time as I am of mine, though in my case, a very unexceptional man.
While I hold these views quite strongly it would be improper, in my view, for me to express them from the pulpit, though perhaps others justifiably could.
Furthermore, there is little prospect in the near future that the climate for radical views will improve. On the contrary, the field of rapid expansion in modern Christianity is toward charismatic fundamentalism where a moderate liberal, such as the Bishop of Durham, seems like the Devil incarnate.
What then is the case for staying out ? Is my prognosis of isolation and oblivion a realistic one ?
During the deepest period of my divorce from traditional belief, I joined the Quaker local meeting as an attender. (I still go, if less frequently.) It was a small 'allowed' meeting of, at the most, ten people. I enjoyed the silence and the space to think my own thoughts, and still do. However, I felt as if, as the saying goes, I was batting against a haystack. Iron has to be shaped on the hardness of an anvil. The development of my religion needed to take shape against the solidity of tradition, and, whilst Quakerism has a lot to say about right conduct, there was little that I could find that enlightened me about the matters which concerned me most.
I think that there is a strong possibility that open declaration of my radical views could give offence and lead to isolation, and life seems too short for that.
The church does great work and needs support and guidance to continue that work. No one has, as yet, challenged me as to why I no longer appear in the pulpit. I told my parish priest at the time that I believed that every preacher should have a message and that I no longer had one, which was quite true, a statement that he seemed happy to accept without further probing. If at a later time I have to be more specific I shall hope to show that, however much my views differ from traditional Anglicanism, I am still 'in love and charity with my neighbours'.
As a movement, SOF I believe, has to proceed along similar lines if it is to avoid isolation and ultimate oblivion. 'Ginger' groups survive and prosper within political parties and help to shape their future. So it should be with SOF within the greater body of the Christian church. It needs an organ to ventilate its views, or rather the views of the individuals within it, for we differ among ourselves almost as much as we differ from each other. In the meantime we have our conferences which are a tonic to all who have attended them. Long may they continue.
JOHN COOMBES is a former teacher of Religious Studies, now retired and resident in Somerset. He is also a Reader in the Church of England, though he has not practised for some while. 20 SOF Magazine 7, Autumn 1991