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Not ashamed to be Broad Churchmen

by
25 October 2024

There are strong theological and practical reasons to revive the label, write Theo Hobson and Sam Rylands

ONE of us (Theo) is in the discernment process. At his first meeting with an official from the diocese, he was asked, in effect, whether his local bishop was to his theological taste. Would he prefer to explore his vocation under the authority of a bishop with different views? He was asked this in the tone in which people are asked whether they have special dietary requirements.

Is this an example of healthy diversity or disintegration?

Readers of this paper hardly need to be reminded of other aspects of the problem. In the summer, conservative Evangelicals held unofficial ordinations for would-be clergy, who see the Church’s leadership as tainted by its approach to sexuality (News, 2 August). And, last month, the Crown Nominations Commission tried to address the fact that the appointment of bishops had been stalled repeatedly by factions blocking candidates (News, 20 September).

We — a parish priest and a theologian — say: Enough. The Church is being pulled apart by its internal divisions. The old centralising impulse, the source of ballast, has weakened. It can and must be revived. We propose a revival of the “Broad Church” label and spirit.

Yes, “Broad Church” sounds a bit Victorian, a bit “muscular Christianity”, but maybe the Victorians weren’t all bad, and maybe a new toughness is needed, in defence of cohesion. It means affirming the whole rich story of Anglicanism, but especially the stable core of it. It means affirming the richness of the Catholic, Protestant, and liberal wings, but not letting any of these dominate and become a source of instability.

 

SO, WHAT went wrong in recent decades? Through a loss of centripetal confidence, the Church’s fringes took over. In the 1980s, the Evangelicals became a semi-separate force; in the 1990s, the Church made the interesting decision to dilute its own unity by allowing the (mostly Anglo-Catholic) opponents of women’s ordination to have their own bishops. And now the (mostly Evangelical) opponents of homosexuality are demanding their own separate structures, and openly defying the Church’s leaders.

Are we saying that there should be no alternative provision for those on either fringe? That centrist unity should be rigidly enforced? Not quite; but we do say that unity matters, and we are tired of the assumption that purists of either stripe are more theologically serious than the rest of us.

It might seem that we are calling for the revival of the “liberal” tradition. No: in fact, one form of liberal Christianity became too strong in the mid-20th century — that which over-values rational humanism. This provoked the revenge of the Catholic and Protestant fringes. But we do, unashamedly, affirm political liberalism. This is key to the Church of England’s unique relationship to the British State. It sees political and social liberalism as a faithful expression of the gospel.

Some readers with broad instincts will prefer the label “liberal Catholic”. But this fails to offer a unifying ground for the Church, as it implies that authenticity lies in commitment to the Catholic tradition alone. We should be proudly Protestant, too.

 

BUT surely the problem remains: “Broad” sounds like wishy-washy wetness, and this demonstrably lacks appeal. It seems that the increasing temptation is to seek refuge in the certainty of one tradition, to see it as the true source of authenticity. Take your pick from the theatrical grandeur of Anglo-Catholicism, or the counter-cultural intensity of Evangelicalism. Isn’t Broad Church Anglicanism just a nervous settlement between the two?

No. We genuinely believe in a communion of these traditions. The confidence to assert broad Anglicanism rests on theological ground; for, if God reveals himself in Jesus Christ, Christian speech about God and the world begins by trying to hold in tension two apparent opposites: Creator and creation: Jesus Christ — fully human, fully God, held together in this person found in cradle and cross. It is not one or the other, not a blending of the two, but full humanity and full divinity discovered in the person Jesus Christ.

This theological conviction is not, however, to turn Jesus into some sort of cosmic compromising principle. Jesus Christ is not an abstract theory. but the living God. And, as many of us have experienced, when we step out of the abstract into everyday reality, this communion of tradition works.

In most parishes, people gather across their theological differences precisely because they gather around the living God. While the debate over sexuality rumbles on at the national level, Christians who think differently from one another on this issue continue to gather, praying with and for one another, worshipping as one body, sharing one bread.

We are unfashionably proud of our national Church. Yes, it was born in dubious circumstances, and, yes, it looks like a compromise between two Christian traditions. And, yes, it is easily mocked by middle-brow journalists as woolly and wet; but it rises above those origins, and that image. Uniquely, it combines ancient roots with modern honesty.

Let’s broaden the horizons of our Church.

Theo Hobson is an Anglican author and journalist. The Revd Sam Rylands is the Vicar of St Andrew’s, Fulham Fields, in the diocese of London.

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