THE SPECTATOR
BELIEF IN THE BISHOPS
The 'statement and exposition' by the bishops of the Church of England, The Nature of Christian Belief, deserves more attention. It is the best thing yet to be produced by the Synodical process. This is low praise, of course, and there are parts of the document which many will find weak or evasive. But the fact remains that any agreed statement of belief from the bishops (unless it be on some modern orthodoxy like the wickedness of racism) is sufficient- ly remarkable: one that tries to reassemble and reassert the basic Christian doctrines is astounding. And this is a document which not only defends orthodox belief from the assaults of modernism, but is bold enough, from time to time, to reproach modernism itself. Although it emphasises the import- ance of speaking in ways which the con- temporary world can understand, it warns: Care, however, is needed not to introduce fatal distortions of the Gospel, nor to resort to words and images which merely reduce revelation to the narrow limits of unredeemed human vision.' The Bishop of Durham is rebuked by the document's attack on 'purely negative criticism of older ideas which are still spiritually precious'. Characteristically, Dr Jenkins has sub- scribed to the document and then criticised it. He says that it is too defensive and should be more exploratory. His objec- tions suggest the document's force. But the truth is that the document is exploratory, not in any inane search for innovation and controversy, but in its attempt to illustrate both the tension and the possible recon- ciliation between liberal scholarship and traditional belief. It is a fact that people who call themselves Anglicans differ wide- ly about many aspects of their faith (this is equally true of Roman Catholics, though less often admitted), but it is also a fact that most of them share a core of belief which, despite all the difficulties, is recog- nisably catholic and orthodox. So, in its discussion of the Resurrection, the docu- ment is able to state that, . . our Lord truly experienced human death; that that state of death was ended and wholly overcome; that there was genuine continui- ty between his dying self and his risen self; that the mode of existence of the Risen Lord was one in which his full human nature and identity, bodily, mental and spiritual, were present and glorified for eternal blessedness; and that this mode of existence was observed and experienced, and its essential secret grasped, by num- bers of his disciples in personal encounter.' Not the great phrases of the 39 Articles perhaps, but recognisably the expression of an historical and incarnational religion. What makes The Nature of Christian Belief so different from almost all the recent official productions of the Church of Eng- land is that it is actually helpful. Someone wishing to know more about the Church and what it teaches could read it with interest and profit. To be sure, he would detect a reluctance to confront painful conflicts if compromise can be made re- spectable; but for all that he could not fail to notice the coherence, clarity and con- tinuity without which no church can mean anything. He would see both how compli- cated the great questions of faith are, and how it is nevertheless possible to discuss them intelligibly and to adhere to creeds based on answers to them. By producing such a document, the bishops have con- formed to a tradition for which the English Church is justly admired. They have not demanded some self-defeating test of orthodoxy, nor sought to stamp out dis- agreement (although we would argue that a church which keeps men like Dr Don Cupitt in holy order takes tolerance to a level of lunacy — Dr Cupitt says that he does not believe in the existence of God), but they have forcefully denied the notion that one belief is simply as good as another. They have done something to restore order. What happens next? The bishops, both collectively and individually, should spend far more time trying to bring their beliefs to the people of England. For 20 years now, the Church has devoted most of its energies to internal reorganisation, the establishment of a fearful bureaucracy, the change of liturgy, the tinkering with the independence of the clergy. The public pronouncements of its leaders have either tended to undermine its existing body of belief, or have concentrated on ephemeral political controversy in desperate bids for the headlines. Bishops have been too busy to nourish their flocks with the spiritual and intellectual strength of the Christian tradition. The Nature of Christian Belief allows them to begin to do so.
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