Religion
Cathedral and laboratory
Martin Sullivan
It is constantly being affirmed that the gulf between the study and the pew is widening and that there is also a gap between the scholar and his books and the parson and his pulpit. Some academics have called our attention to this and expressed their concern that this separation is widening. There is a real danger that the study of the Bible and the examination of doctrine may be delegated to a few people working somewhere in an academic corner. This would be disastrous; before long any understanding of religion or indeed, any real interest in it, would drop out of our consciousness. The day is partly saved by two agencies, the written word and the spoken. There is an immense library available to those who want it and the publication of a wide range of paperbacks means that the cost is not prohibitive. A much wider reading public is still needed, because so much of the work of critics and scholars is so new and so startling to many people. This is also a sad commentary on the Church's failure to educate its members. The discussion and study group, the sermon, the lecture and the dialogue are all making their contribution, but with the contemporary decline, both in the quantity and frequency of the sermon, the whole business of communication has suffered. It is, therefore, vital from time to time to revive it.
The square mile of this City of London has a Cathedral (St Paul's) and no less than thirty-six Churches. Many of these latter places are constantly engaged in providing opportunities for .teaching and discussion and rather than mount an ambitious programme, which could overshadow these efforts, the Cathedral enters only occasionally into the fists. It is shortly, however, to begin two educational courses, as advertised in the columns of this paper. During the first of these, on five successive days, beginning June 9, an examination will be made of the vital relationship between faith and history, belief and conduct. Canon Anthony Dyson, of Windsor, formerly principal of Ripon Hall is a gifted interpreter who will be engaged in this task. I cannot be sure that he will be dealing with the particular problem I am about to raise or that he will approach it in the way I shall describe, but I am nevertheless confident that something like it will be discussed.
The problem is this. The early Christians believed and taught that the whole process of God's dealings with His People reached its climax in Jesus Christ. But in what way do they record this and bring it to our attention? They produced an apo logetic, and the business of those who have come after them and read their submissions is to examine critically what they have written. Did they look at some episode in Christ's life and then thumb through the pages of what we call the Old Testament (their only Bible) to try to find a prophecy or a hint foreshadowed in the ancient scriptures? Is that what the tag begiLning-as it was prophesied..." really means? Or, on the other hand, did they take some incident and shape and bend it to fit some more accurate prophecy? And a third more disturbing and more unsettling suggestion follows. Did they turn the pages of the Old Testament, discover the passage which could well be prophetic of Christ and then create some moment which would fulfil it? It is the business of scholars to untie the tangle and lay the single lines on a table before us. But there is much more to follow. How do we reflect Christianity in the arts, or the spoken word, in music and dance? It is possible sometimes that the answers we seek in the fields of philosophy and religious knowledge can be expressed in pictures and diagrams. Canon Moelwyn Merchant, sometime Professor of English in the University of Exter, is coming to St Paul's in the autumn from Monday, October 6 to Thursday, October 9 at 12.30 pm, each day, to consider these great questions.
The Cathedral is a centre of worship. It is also a laboratory for examination and research.
Martin Sullivan is Dean of St Paul's.
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