Disorganised Doubt

This story can be found at www.virtueonline.org:

by Charles Raven
http://www.anglicanspread.org/

June 2, 2010

It seemed to me that pretty much all that needed to be said about Rowan Williams' Pentecost letter 'Renewal in the Spirit' had been said, with general agreement that his rebuke of the American Episcopal Church for proceeding with the consecration of Mary Glasspool was little more than a token gesture. Although his admission that the Communion has not 'found a way of shaping our consciences and convictions as a worldwide body' was surprisingly frank, he had nothing new to offer for the future beyond a plea for diversity and 'mutual exploration' within the framework of the now widely discredited Covenant process.

Yet when I heard the first of this years' BBC Radio 4 Reith lectures by the eminent cosmologist and astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees, his description of the scientific enterprise as 'organised doubt' set in motion a train of thought which led me to think that the term 'disorganised doubt' could shed some light on why Dr Williams and the other 'instruments of unity' are incapable of restoring coherence to an increasingly disordered Communion.

For science it is axiomatic that nothing should be taken on authority. Discovery proceeds through the systematic testing of hypotheses and if we may speak of a good scientific conscience, it is not so much to do with the particular facts a scientist holds to be true, but the integrity of the scientific method by which the claim is arrived at. But what does it mean for the theologian to have a good conscience?

Traditionally, the answer has been faithfulness to a body of doctrine and the GAFCON Jerusalem Statement defines the core identity of Anglicanism in this way, adapted from the Church of England's Canon A5 - The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.

For Rowan Williams, a good conscience looks somewhat different. Although we are worshippers and the Trinitarian God can never, by definition, be merely the object of our inquiry, nonetheless theology proceeds through critical questioning. He believes that the best theology is 'like the noise of someone falling over things in the dark'. Scripture is not in itself divine revelation, just a witness to that revelation in Jesus Christ mediated through fallible human authors. So he can write that 'Religious and theological integrity is possible as and when discourse about God declines the attempt to take God's point of view (i.e. a 'total perspective')'.

On this account, theological honesty is not so much about faithfulness to the teaching of Scripture as healthy suspicion of systematisation because the biblical narratives are not a clear 'Word of God', but give us an underlying theological and Trinitarian 'grammar', a way of thinking and living which can enable us to encounter Christ as we conform our lives in our particular circumstances to God's loving purpose.

This entails a willingness to doubt - in the sense of counting provisional - our doctrinal and moral positions so that truth can emerge through a kind of Hegelian dialectic, something which the Archbishop hints at in the closing paragraph of his letter when he urges that 'we must have a 'kenotic', a self-emptying approach to each other in the Church'.

But without a firm anchor in Scripture and the historic formularies, this willingness to doubt has malign results. In science it may illuminate; in theology it confuses because it relativises rather than shapes the conscientious convictions which Dr Williams seeks to address in his letter (not least about the status and role of Scripture). This becomes evident when he refers to his decision that representatives of TEC should no longer represent the Anglican Communion in ecumenical discussions - 'In our dealings with other Christian communions, we do not seek to deny our diversity; but there is an obvious problem in putting forward representatives of the Communion who are consciously at odds with what the Communion has formally requested or stipulated'.

But if this is the case, on what basis does Dr Williams continue in office as the Anglican Communion's chief representative? Is he not himself 'consciously at odds' with what he has acknowledged is the Communion's consensus on homosexuality as expressed in Lambeth Resolution 1.10? On various occasions since becoming Archbishop of Canterbury he has been invited to renounce his support for the legitimacy of same sex unions and has persistently refused to do so, drawing a distinction between the teaching he articulates in his official capacity as Archbishop and the views he holds 'privately' (which are, of course, published and therefore completely public).

Given that the Archbishop shows no sign of seeing his own position as compromised, being 'consciously at odds' must in his mind therefore refer to the rejection of institutional procedures, not simply to holding theological convictions which are incompatible with Anglican teaching. In fact the sort of double mindedness Dr Williams models may to him be a virtue, a kind of humility which is willing to embrace 'kenotic' doubt about its understanding.

But such 'doubt-as–virtue' screens out the real theological issues and reduces down to the wearily familiar quest for ad hoc structural solutions such as the ecclesiological innovation of a 'two tier' communion as proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury last summer after TEC's General Convention and general 'indaba' without end. It will only serve to intensify disorder within the Anglican Communion for three briefly stated reasons:

Firstly, neither thorough-going liberals nor conservatives could allow their consciences to be overthrown in this way as they have already demonstrated by breaching the Windsor moratoria, the former because they are committed to an ideology of radical inclusion, the latter because they see Scripture and the Scriptural teaching distilled in Anglican formularies as the decisive authority for the Church.

Secondly, it legitimises a form of insidious double mindedness on the part of Christian leaders which inhibits church discipline and means that their preaching and teaching cannot be taken at face value. They can adopt an official persona which is quite contrary to the New Testament expectation that discipline will be based not on keeping certain procedural rules, but according to sound doctrine through leaders of credible character who act out of love with 'a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.' (1 Timothy 1:5)

And thirdly, the suspicion of propositional revelation encourages the identification of consensus with spiritual progress and increases the vulnerability of the Churches of the West to the ambient secularism of their culture. This process is well advanced in England as the Bishop of Southwark recently noted, welcoming the way many people, like him, have changed their minds on homosexuality, just as they had done previously on divorce and remarriage.

The truth which the GAFCON movement and the Global South have grasped is that the only way to restore order to the Anglican Communion is to address the underlying theological issues and the emergence of the ACNA, for instance, is an example of how that principle is working out in practice. The tragedy of Dr Williams' leadership is that a formidable theological mind has become preoccupied with establishing the plausibility of the increasing implausible. We may agree with him that there is an 'obvious problem in putting forward representatives of the Communion who are consciously at odds with what the Communion has formally requested or stipulated', but unfortunately he is one of them.

END