AND ANOTHER THING
Anglicanism, organic sin and the Church of Sodom
PAUL JOHNSON
Is the Church of England coming to the end of the road? It looks like it. The ser- vice for sodomites and lesbians at South- wark Cathedral last Saturday, blessed by Anglican bishops, has brought home to millions of people in this country who had not thought much about the matter before what kind of an institution our national Church has become. Even more instructive was the Church's reaction when a humble vicar's wife dared to criticise the service on the BBC. Today's religious slot has been guilty of all kinds of offences, from blas- phemy to outright atheism, without evok- ing a squeak of protest from the Anglican establishment. But the moment a genuine Christian dared to reiterate what always had been, and is still supposed to be, the Church's moral teaching on sodomy, the full wrath of the Church's authority was turned upon her. What does that tell us about Anglicanism today?
It does not necessarily tell us that the Church has been taken over by the sodomites. We have certainly learned in recent years what some Anglican clerics have known all along, that the Church is riddled with deviant sexuality. Some time ago, one or two Anglican theological col- leges were dominated by sodomites, and the consequences are still with us. Anglican clergy who have practised sodomy, or still do, keep it quiet as a rule, especially if they hold, or hope to hold, or have held, high office — the case of the retired bishop who `came out' recently is rare. But it is obvious that sodomy has a strong grip on our national Church, and that any young clergy- man who speaks out against it may rule himself out of promotion. Equally, if a cler- ic is friendly with sodomite circles within the Church, it does his career no harm, to put it mildly.
That, however, though an important point, is not the key one, in my opinion. Our decision in 1967 to legalise homosex- uality between consenting adults had con- sequences which none of us foresaw at the time. We thought it wrong that the law should continue to imprison men who indulged in this practice. What we did not realise was that, by decriminalising the act, we would make it possible for a pow- erful, vociferous and aggressive lobby to come into existence, demanding not merely further concessions but privileges, and capable of penetrating important but morally confused institutions like local Labour councils, trades unions and the Church of England. The power that homo- sexuals now have within Anglicanism demonstrates not merely the inclinations of so many of its clergy but, more significantly, its vulnerability to lobby politics. In no time at all, voices in it were raised to argue that homosexuality was not really wrong, that Biblical teaching on the issue had been mis- understood, and even that criticism of homosexuality was wicked. Within a few years the entire lobby agenda was reiterat- ed by men trained in moral theology who, a few years before the lobby came into exis- tence, would never have dreamed of utter- ing such nonsense.
I have no doubt at all that if — which Heaven forbid! — we decriminalised adult sex with children, the paedophile lobby, which would instantly come into raucous existence, would soon persuade many Anglican clerics, including bishops, that seducing ten-year-old boys and girls is not forbidden by scripture either. Indeed. I dare say the same thing would happen if we decriminalised housebreaking. 'Thou shalt not steal', the Right Reverends would say, did not and was never intended to include burglary, and those who said it did were no better than kleptophobes — indeed, klep- tophobia was the real sin.
The reason the Church of England suc- cumbs so easily to the manipulative lobby — is indeed the perfect arena for lobby pol- itics — arises from its moral relativism, its lack of fundamental commitment to abso- lute notions of right and wrong. Its rela- tivism comes from its origins, what might be called the organic sin of its conception. It sprang into existence not to combat the enormities of a corrupt Rome, but to facili- tate the marital plans and dynastic ambi- tions of a powerful monarch, who was (as it happened) highly conservative on most other issues.
It was the child of a divorce between Henry and Catherine and between Eng- land and Rome, and it still bears the psy- chological bruises of its unhappy child- hood. As a result of its submission to the vagaries of the state, it lost the continuity of the Apostolic Succession, so that its orders, strictly speaking, are invalid. Indeed, in a much deeper sense, it is not a sacramental Church but an Erastian one. It is significant that the greatest of all Anglican divines, Richard Hooker, took the Erastian line in his Ecclesiastical Polity (1594). The instinct behind this attitude was self-preservation. The Anglican Church, as re-established by the wise Eliz- abeth I, was the creature of a compromise laid down by the state. Without the sup- port of the state, the Church of England would long since have ceased to exist, and were that support now to be withdrawn, and the Church be disestab- lished, it would in a few decades, perhaps within a few years, dwindle into an insignificant sect.
For long I used to argue that the Church of England, bad as it was, was bet- ter than nothing. To sever Church and state in England, I thought, would merely expedite the process of secularisation and damage the cause of Christianity general- .1y. But I have changed my mind, and I believe many other Catholics have changed their minds too. Anglicanism is now so damaged and corrupt, so obviously morally diseased, and the infections from which it suffers so catching, as to consti- tute a leprous liability to other Churches, even my own. I recall David Owen saying to me that he recoiled in horror at the thought of his Social Democrats being married to the Liberals, 'as I've no wish to catch political syphilis'. (He was proved right on that one, wasn't he?) I have exactly the same feelings of dread when I read about those ecumenical talks between Catholic and Anglican bishops. That way lies spiritual death.
I have no doubt now that the sooner the Anglican Church, as a national institution, is wound up, the better for all of us — for its long-suffering members, for the Queen and Parliament, for the country and, not least, for Christianity. The Catholic Church is already the largest religious group in this country. Catholicism has learned all the lessons which, consistent with its divine mission, can be learned. It is a sufficiently broad and welcoming and personally satisfying Church to accommo- date all Anglicans still attached to genuine Christianity and anxious for the leadership and authority their own communion has so sadly lacked. Let us get together in God. And let us leave the old hulk or rump of Anglican corruption, disestablished, stripped of its ancient cathedrals and vil- lage churches, to pursue its own way to perdition — to become in name as it is already becoming in reality, the Church of Sodom.
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