NOT WAVING BUT PRAYING

The Church of England has one last chance.

Sandra Barwick assesses the new Archbishop

of Canterbury's evangelical style

There was an old man who said, 'Run!

The end of the world has begun!

The old Holy Ghost Is the one I fear most — I can manage the Father and Son.'

THE END of the Anglican Church, if not the world, seems nigh. In January a new Archbishop of Canterbury will be stepping through the doors of Last Chance Saloon. The Church he will head is weak, divided, and close to an exodus of its priests and members over the issue of women priests. Only 3 per cent of the population attend its services regularly. Last week Dr George Carey, its new chosen head, preached to a congregation of mixed denomination at the village church of Stoke sub Hamdon, near Yeovil in Somerset, and recited the limer- ick above to remind them of the myste- rious, even occasionally eccentric, power of God. 'The Church today is broken,' he told the congregation, 'divided — there are more than 23,000 different brands of Christianity. You look at the Church of England and you see brokenness. Can these dry bones live?' The resurrective abilities of that old Holy Ghost are much in Dr Carey's mind at present.

Not that life in the Anglican Church is yet extinguished. Its evangelical wing — of which Dr Carey is part — has flourished recently, pulling in new young worship- pers. More than half of new Anglican priests are now evangelicals, and they often revive old parishes., The experience of St Mary the Virgin, where Dr Carey was preaching, is typical. By 1979 its regular congregation had dwindled to a half dozen. Then an evangelical vicar was appointed. Now around 100 regularly take Commun- ion there.

And they are visibly keen. A large portion of the congregation on Sunday night had that shining, rapt look which outsiders find particularly irritating. At its best an evangelical service with charismatic overtones can produce the same sensation, which arouses most unease amongst con- servative Anglicans, though exhilaration is also a rare, and therefore suspect, quality in some parishes these days. The pragmatic Dr Carey, perhaps most famous for cutting

up a British Rail lunch tray to make an impromptu clerical collar, shows sympathy for the charismatics, who believe in mod- ern miracles and the gift of tongues as well as lively worship, though he denies that he can be counted amongst their number.

Before and after he spoke in Somerset, part of his present diocese as Bishop of Bath and Wells, the noise of drums, guitar and violin echoed amongst St Mary the

Virgin's 12th-century stones. At the end of the aisle a young woman writhed and leapt in a dance of worship. Three or four charismatic worshippers held their hands high in the air during the prayers, hailing God as they might a passing taxi. Perhaps charismatics will go down to posterity as Wavers, as previous spiritual enthusiasts were dubbed Quakers and Shakers from their tendency to quiver under the intensity of religious emotion.

Dr Carey, in an effort to promote tolerance, pointed out that the practice of praying on both knees was a relatively modern development. Hebrew priests had prayed standing upright, eyes open, arms outstretched, he said, widening out his own. 'Dance can be a most liberating form of prayer. We tend to pray curled up in a ball with our eyes shut — try different ways and you can find how liberating it is. Some people praise with their hands up like that — I do it sometimes but I'm a stubborn man — if everybody does it I keep my hands in my pockets and the other way round.'

Others have mentioned this stubborn trait in Dr Carey's nature. It may not be a disadvantage at Lambeth Palace, where a tendency to bend all too readily to the prevailing wind has been the usual charge against the present incumbent. If his strength of purpose survives, he may well be recognised as unofficial spokesman and leader even by those evangelicals outside the Anglican Church. The tide is running in his direction. For evangelical growth has not been confined to the Church of Eng- land. The Evangelical Alliance, which represents around one million churchgoers across a dozen denominations, estimates that around one third of Protestant church- goers in the United Kingdom are evange- licals, believing in the supremacy of the Bible as a source of doctrine, and in salvation through faith in Christ.

At its annual series of get-togethers in British seaside towns, Spring Harvest, 76,000 take their Bibles to places like Butlins in Skegness and belt out choruses in an amplified throb of worship under canvas in the grounds. Study groups attempt to shed biblical light on the new problems of the day, with the emphasis on clearing out meaningless tradition in order to rediscover old truth with a new vitality. 'Earnestness can lead to comical results. One passage hidden deep in last year's handbook focused on the humanity of Christ with a list of questions designed to stimulate new thought. 'Did He urinate?' was one of them. Even so, the sincere search for rejuvenation has produced an atmosphere of enthusiasm and adventure which pulls in the suburban young. Almost three quarters of those at Spring Harvest are under 30.

Revival has been stimulated over the last couple of decades both by a growing climate of secularism and by the contrast- ing religious fervour of the new and grow- ing Muslim and Sikh groups in Britain. The effect of these twin challenges has been to concentrate the minds of long divided Protestant churches on their common be- liefs rather than their previously cherished difference.

At the same time, some old attitudes have been discarded. There is less emph- asis on keeping a distance from worldly matters, and involvement in social issues is encouraged. British evangelicals will never equal their counterparts in the US Bible Belt for political unanimity, but as pressure groups .on moral issues like pornography and abortion their influence is likely to grow more powerful, and be highly con- servative in its effects.

Dr Carey is in sympathy with the shift of emphasis towards involvement in social issues. He told his Somerset congregation that deeds were necessary. 'To love my neighbour is a legible sign that I love God.' But his comments on such issues are likely to be expressed in a different framework from those of Dr Runcie. If at times in recent interviews George Carey has sounded a little on the wet side, with his talk of the Church as 'the Jesus Move- ment', it is a false impression. Those in the Conservative Party who have repeatedly asked for a moral lead are likely to find Dr Carey infinitely more palatable than his predecessor, though his stubborness may still produce a few tiffs. He said he does not wish to be judgmental, but he has already condemned the practice of homosexuality as a scandal and that of living together before marriage in scarcely less vituperative terms. George Carey's lack of sympathy for what are sometimes called progressive values is illustrated in the latest issue of his diocesan magazine where he is critical of the Church report 'Faith in the City' on the grounds that it has led the Church to 'go for the easy option — money-raising'. From an Anglican bishop, these are words as unexpected as they are refreshing. That money is the cure of most ills has been an assumption almost as ingrained within the Anglican Church as it is in the secular society it regularly criticises. Instead, Dr Carey is looking for a new infusion of that old Holy Ghost of his limerick with all the faith in the improbable that is natural to a man who left a Barking secondary school at 15 without any qual- ifications and ended by gaining a doctorate on second-century ecclesiology. He preached to the congregation at Stoke sub Hamdon on Acts ii 41 on the beginnings of the Church, 'when all things were held in common'. This is a passage cherished by fundamentalist evangelicals, especially by those in the House Church movement.

This sermon in Somerset was part of a three-day teaching mission to the church in which he had been preaching daily; and he intends to carry more of these out perso- nally in the parishes of Canterbury once he is in office. Dr Carey told his Somerset congregation that there was much truth in the suggestion that the Anglicans were the worst taught in doctrine of any Christian group.

But he has already ambitiously singled out a far wider future audience than that. Bow-born and Essex-reared, son of a non-church-going hospital porter, Dr Carey has been appealing to the readers of the sort of newspaper his father would have read. He may look, with a face that is at once faintly cherubic and hearty, like the popular headmaster of a good public school and speak like one, but he is fond of his roots. The Sun has been granted one of the very few audiences he has given since his appointment. The paper ran it with 'Ten Holy Fascinating Facts About the Cockney Reverend . . . . Modest George still wears a wooden cross he bought for 10p in Jerusalem . . . he loves a tip- ple . . . he supports Arsenal and would rather watch Match of the Day than Songs of Praise. . . .' Besides this list the Cockney Reverend gave his message: I'd like to see my Church more relevant to the millions of people who read popular papers like the Sun. I passionately believe God is relevant to everyday life . . . But I know it is often a giant yawn to real people . . . The Church of England has always claimed it is for everybody, but its worship is not very 'user-friendly' and we must make it more so . . . . I am not saying that we must preach hell fire, but I am convinced that all too often the Church speaks with an uncertain voice and does not appear to believe in what it is proclaiming . . . that has to change.

Important as the inner-city initiatives had been, he said, it was necessary that we remember that the Church is not a social service but has a mission to speak of God. 'I'd like to see the Church being more authentically the Church of Jesus Christ,' he concluded in an optimistic direct appeal. 'Perhaps I can look to Sun readers to help me . . . . ' The reason for Dr Carey's talk of 'the Jesus Movement' at once becomes clear. He is attempting to exercise the instincts of a tabloid sub- editor: trying to make the the message vivid. What next? A Church television channel? It becomes increasingly obvious why Dr Carey empathised so much with Mrs Thatcher when he met her that he described her to astonished journalists as 'deeply spiritual'. They share not only self-made backgrounds and an evangelical tradition, but a common eye for the importance of the mass market. It is tempting to wonder how this combination will go down with the Supreme Governor of the Church, and her traditionalist heir. Waving will not be welcomed in St George's Chapel, Windsor, if Dr Carey feels the urge to take his hands from his pockets.

Perhaps Her Majesty will make allo- wances. From her point of view, it could have been worse. Though George Carey certainly has the charisma and the energy to have been a successful tele-evangelist across the Atlantic, he is not a traditional fundamentalist. Indeed he proclaims that he is anxious not to be labelled an evange- lical archbishop — a futile hope. He has criticised a tendency amongst evangelicals to lack scholarship: he has been criticised by 'classical evangelicals' for showing too much tolerance of Roman Catholic doc- trine. In Stoke sub Hamdon he called repeatedly for understanding of those who preferred the old and the known as well as their eager opposites, emphasised the im- portance of Church tradition, and quoted from a range of sources from charismatic songsters to Pope John Paul II: 'If we are silent about the love of Jesus the very stones will cry out, for we are an Easter people and Hallelujah is our song.' The drums rolled, the Norman arch echoed. Dr Carey, chosen leader of the Evangelical Revival, is aware that he must represent the broad Church, but in those wide and ancient aisles he wants to see the Sun rise and dem dry bones dance.