A South Bank Catechism
The Honest to God Debate. (S.C.M. Press, 6s.)
MANY people had a lot to say about Honest to God when it was first published. But now that The Honest to God Debate has also come— with the reviews, stupid, percipient, kindly, deadly, the letters, the comments and the articles that the book brought in its wake—there is not much left to say. Despite the Sunday Telegraph, the Bishop of Woolwich has not been deposed from his office; indeed, from the tone of the concluding pages in which he discusses some of the issues raised by the controversy, he has emerged from the encounter even more radical, but certainly more charitable. Nor, on the other hand, has he accomplished a one-man recon- version of the nation, as some over-enthusiastic friends predicted, Within the Church he has angered three sec- tions: first, the orthodox 'high,' who not only require no diminution of the whole Catholic faith themselves, but see no reason why anyone else should either (it's a perfectly consistent point of view); secondly, the orthodox evangelicals— their reaction is that he is a heretic and, because of his position, a dangerous one; thirdly, and most sadly, many central church-people, not ex- cluding deans, archdeacons and rural deans, accuse him passionately of undermining the simple faith of the simple faithful.
Indeed, the whole concept of the simple faith- ful is a doubtful one nowadays; it seems to hark back longingly to the time when workers in the fields leaned on their scythes and crossed them- selves when the bell was rung at the consecration of the Host. It must have been very nice for the parish clergy in those days.
But, if these groups are excluded, it would
be very 'interesting to know who bought the 350,000-odd copies that have been sold since publication. You don't normally buy books you are going to hate, nor do you buy a book about religion and devotion unless you have some prior urge in that direction; the sheer scandal value of the book can never have been very great, and the scandalmongers must have been disappointed to find that on such matters as morality the Bishop is as conservative as most rural deans. The evidence of the sales surely suggests a far greater penumbra of people who, while having no interest in the Church as an organisation or in any of the currently available means of worship, nourish semi-consciously a deep unex- pressed concern about God, immortality and the soul. It is to these people and to their needs, on the evidence of The Honest to God Debate, that the Bishop of Woolwich is speaking, though he is certainly not bringing them back into the Church. To them putative heresy and certainly inconsistency, ignorance of the history of theology (a Roman Catholic critic charges him with this, and he does not deny it) are as nothing compared to the wonder at meeting someone with the same concerns as themselves, and, through him, Tillich and Bonhoeffer.
ROBIN DENNIS I ON
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