Imagining the Church

Keeping Faith in a Fragmented World

Tim Gibson

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781789591828
• eBook ISBN: 9781789591842
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

The local church holds a special place in the imagination of many people, whether or not they attend it regularly. Drawing on theology, literature, art, philosophy, popular culture and personal experience, priest and writer Tim Gibson uncovers its significance, arguing that churches play an important role in local communities and in the life of the nation, keeping faith alive for the whole population.

In a deeply personal essay, Gibson tells the story of the church through the lens of his experiences in a variety of places, including Westminster Abbey, Holy Trinity Geneva and his home parishes in Sussex and rural Somerset. His imagining is at once faithful to tradition and optimistic about the future.

Gibson's aim is simple: to identify the importance of the local church as a focus of faith and becoming in the national imagination. Considering themes such as time, place, identity and glory, he demonstrates how local church communities help us make sense of what it is to be human.

Following the spirit of Anglican writers such as CS Lewis and Michael Mayne, Imagining the Church will delight and inspire anyone with a love of their local church or an interest in ministry and mission, while posing thoughtful questions about the role of the church and faith in contemporary society.

Chapter 5

Though we are many

I have long thought that if the Church of England were personified in a character from twentieth-century literature, it would be Christopher Tietjens from Ford Madox Ford’s baffling yet brilliant Parade’s End trilogy (1924–8). Tietjens is an infuriating man whom we are nonetheless destined to admire, if not actually like. Madox Ford is at pains to signpost his awkwardness, physically and intellectually. A traditional Tory, he falls in love with a suffragette. A committed Anglican, he allows his son (who may not be his son, such is his wife’s profligacy) to be brought up as a Roman Catholic. A man with an innate respect for hierarchy, he nonetheless causes those in authority over him no end of trouble, mainly by doggedly behaving as honourably as possible in spite of their wishes.

Those familiar with the novels will know that Tietjens’s reputation is often very poor. Rumours swirl around him, often perpetuated by those who find his apparently old-fashioned values hard to stomach. Yet he rarely reacts to the insults: not his wife’s cruelty nor when facing financial ruin as a result of a love rival bouncing his cheques at the family bank. Instead, he sticks faithfully to the path that he believes to be right and true: love of one’s country, execution of one’s duty, living with honour.

It is the faithfulness that gets people, every time. In a wonderful scene, brought to life with great verve in Tom Stoppard’s screen adaptation of the novels, Tietjens is berated by his would-be lover, Valentine Wannop, the suffragette, who decries his steadiness, his unwillingness to rant and rave or behave irrationally. It is his calm that she finds unfathomable. Why can’t he just show some emotion?

For those who have followed the ups and downs of the Church of England’s internal debates about controversial topics such as the moral status of homosexual conduct or the ordination of women priests and bishops, frustration at a lack of emotional engagement is a common experience. Why is every official teaching document couched in neutral language, unwilling to nail its colours to the mast? Why so wary of offending or upsetting the status quo ante? Why can’t this church just show some humanity? Why can’t it be real?

The answer is that being real involves holding paradox in tension rather than reaching for straightforward answers. That is the stuff of life. And to do that in a way that seems rational and considered is inevitably very difficult because paradox is the enemy of rational thought. Just ask Christopher Tietjens or his Roman Catholic son. You could ask Rowan Williams, too, who has done more than many to articulate the theological basis of the Church of England’s holding not of the centre ground, as commonly thought, but of a diversity of views in one holy body.

The point is that living with paradox is very different from the old cliché about Anglicans—that we like to sit on the fence. It’s not that we’re committed to compromise. It’s rather that, for all the reasons I’ve been exploring in this essay, we recognize that the world is a messy, uncertain place, in which things can’t always be parcelled up neatly, in which answers are often far from clear, even in relation to topics about which we long to have clarity.

To take one example, let us consider the vexed topic of human sexuality and more specifically a question that the church seems unable to reach a consensus about: are same-sex sexual relations morally permissible? I long with every fibre of my being to say they are and believe intuitively that they are. But I also believe the Bible to be a source of moral insight, to have authority as the text by reference to which I am called to live. I regard it, for reasons already discussed, as the divine Word my fellow disciples and I are called to inhabit in community with each other. And no matter how hard I try to see otherwise, the Bible takes a consistent line on such behaviour: it is not the ideal for human sexual relationships.21

What, then, am I to do? Like Tietjens, having integrity necessitates accepting hypocrisy. I am liberal when it comes to same-sex relationships, even while reading from a Bible that I know is critical of such conduct. I suspend the biblical teaching not for the sake of being pastoral but because I believe, in my heart, as it were, that same-sex relationships have just as much potential as a heterosexual marriage to be life-giving, profoundly beautiful and, yes, representative to the world of God’s love for the whole creation. But my position is less than perfect, and I know my personal cost is as nothing compared to that of the people who feel slighted or, worse, are oppressed by the church’s historic position on this and many other matters. Which makes me feel worse and yet evermore impelled to occupy a space of impossibility, between yes and no, what I know and don’t know.

So the Church of England is a place of paradox. The parish embodies that in its very essence: local and national, somewhere and anywhere, familiar and unfamiliar, particular and universal. The Church of England priest feels it perhaps more keenly than most (a statement that is true a fortiori for the bishop or archbishop). And, of course, as Williams discovered, immediately we try to find words that describe the paradoxes in which we live, we seem circumlocutory, vague, perhaps even shifty. So perhaps we are better just to live them, to dwell in the midst of them, knowing that when words run out, true knowledge begins.

The Church of Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes

We share a moment in the centre of Milton Keynes, the man with the broom in his hand, scrubbing it against the ingrained chewing gum on the pavement, and me. He doesn’t know where the church is. He tells me he’s worked here for a long time, many years, and no one’s ever asked him before. He’s not a churchgoer himself, though he does believe in God—or, at least, he thinks he does. After chatting about that for a while, we cast our eyes upwards and notice the iron cross on the dome of the building just behind. Viewing it at ground level, I had thought it was an office building or possibly a branch of a supermarket. But neither of us can think of a high street chain that uses a cross as its logo, so we trust our instincts and head towards its doors. Sure enough, it is the Church of Christ the Cornerstone: an object that may well represent peak Milton Keynes. Modern by design, it’s an ecumenical space shared by—deep breath—the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union, the Roman Catholic Church and the United Reformed Church. That’s a lot of churches for one space, as my new friend observes before moving off to continue his work, shaking his head that he should have worked in the shadow of such a building for all these years and not realized what it was. A church indeed. Whatever next?

I am embarrassed by my traditionalism when it comes to church buildings, but the truth is that the Church of Christ the Cornerstone is not my favourite example of an ecclesial structure. I don’t know whether it’s the hand sanitizers at every entrance or the functional layout that can be rearranged to suit the needs of each denomination, but it doesn’t grab me. Not as a space in which to encounter God in Christ. It’s too busy, trying too hard to be all things to all people. I find it difficult to know precisely what it is seeking to embody.

I chide myself for my narrow-mindedness, noting the limitations of my outlook. Surely I don’t need ancient architecture to apprehend the risen Lord? It’s not about the grandeur of the building or its pretty stained glass. It dawns on me that maybe I am an idolater, after all. But, of all the churches I visit, often simply to sit in quiet contemplation as I seek to do now, this is the one that moves me the least. It is bland, uninteresting, and yet it should be a place of vibrancy and life. Think of the glory of all these Christians, of such varied denominations, using the same space to give thanks and praise to God. Think of the rich potential for seeing God’s unity amid the glorious differences in our human worship. Think of the powerful witness, in an age of fragmentation and disunity, of five different Christian denominations putting historic schisms to one side and cooperating for the good of the kingdom.

Yet here I am, hands smelling of disinfectant, and it’s hard to pin down a unifying theme, a sense of the story of this building. I’m sure those who use it, whose lives are configured by their shared worship in its walls, could tell you that it stands for the power of the Gospel to unite us and help us put aside our differences. But it feels to me as if it reduces the dizzying variety of Christian witness to the lowest common denominator. Rather than celebrating our differences and recognizing that there is no view from nowhere, that ultimately we are all somewhere people, it seems to opt for homogeneity, papering over the fissures that are a part of our inheritance. At best, it leads to blandness. At worst, to dishonesty about who we are as a people, as if we don’t quite believe what we say we believe. As if the differences between us aren’t so real, after all.

So I choose not to linger in this postmodern space, which could be a municipal building in any town or city were it not a church. I don’t quite understand why it exists when there are clearly plenty of denominational churches within a stone’s throw. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage worshippers to these places and be sure to meet regularly in each other’s churches in a spirit of ecumenism and mutuality? Isn’t it better to stand somewhere, even if it’s not quite your somewhere, rather than nowhere?

Making space for diversity

As I have been saying, the gift of Anglicanism is precisely this: that it always stands somewhere, even when it appears to hold the middle ground. Indeed, its beauty is its diversity, the sense that in one fragment of the church universal are contained many fragments: different expressions of the life of faith and witness that are all true because they all gesture in some way between memory and becoming, between temporality and eternity. It is why a Church of England service can involve anything from incense and football-team-sized altar parties in flowing robes and birettas to tracksuit-wearing worship leaders with drums and bass guitars, for whom sacramentalism is a dirty word. We all know where we stand on this continuum, but we all recognise that we stand in continuity with fellow disciples who we love deeply but with whom we profoundly disagree.

That is the essence of synodical government, which is another distinctive gift of the Church of England, seen too in the structures of some of our closest ecumenical partners. It establishes governance by the faithful, through debate and disagreement, in the hope that through such discourse truth is slowly (sometimes painfully slowly) uncovered. As Paul Avis, one of the most prolific exponents of Anglicanism, writes: “Anglicans are averse, by tradition and conviction, to hierarchical, monarchical and authoritarian methods of leadership and to attempts to impose a monolithic uniformity.”22

The trouble with a rejection of “monolithic uniformity” is that it is hard to commentate, let alone present to an increasingly soundbite-driven world as unity rather than fragmentation or muddle. But the Church of England is always disagreeing with itself, as many of my non-churchgoing friends observe. It’s always debating some big issue or other and making a mess of it by failing to reach a conclusion: marriage in church after divorce, homosexuality, women bishops—and so the list grows. The church has been in a perpetual muddle about these and a range of other issues for as long as any of us can remember.

Their point is that, somehow, through its perceived unwillingness to reach a consensus and deliver a clear message on a range of topics, through compromises like the apparently muddled teaching on human sexuality that says homosexuals can be together, apart from when they can’t, or the teaching around ministry, which says that women priests and bishops are fine, apart from for those people for whom they’re not, the church doesn’t do itself justice. It would be better if it could just be clear about where it stood rather than fudging everything. Even if we disagreed with it, at least we’d respect it.

What my friends don’t realize, though, is that the Anglican way isn’t about clarity or indeed consensus. Yes, synod is democratic and formulates teaching and church law by reference to the will of a (sizeable) majority. But even then there are exceptions, ways to hold the ground for those who simply can’t act in accord with the rules. Take the conscience clause relating to marriage in church after divorce as a case in point. It allows any cleric to refuse to remarry a divorcee in their parish church if their conscience does not permit it. Consider the formulation of that sentence again: it’s an opt-out, not an opt-in. Clerics are legally obliged to marry parishioners, including those who are divorced. But if they can’t in good conscience do it, perhaps because they know the new relationship played a part in the breakdown of the old one or simply because, in their own mind, marriage is for life, they can refuse.

That’s what the Church of England does so brilliantly and chaotically: it holds not the middle ground but a space in which dialogue and disagreement are acceptable, in which nuance and uncertainty are encouraged, in which the judgement of the individual, if held in good faith amid the body of Christ, is valued. In that respect it’s not only countercultural but of more fundamental importance to society than ever before. Couldn’t we all do with an organization at the heart of local communities and national life that reminds us things are never straightforward? It’s never simply a case of yes or no, left or right, leave or remain. It’s always all of those things, held in tension, articulated in a spirit of love and mutuality.

The body’s becoming

There is a neat anecdote about Rowan Williams in Andrew Brown and Linda Woodhead’s acerbic look at the Church of England, That Was The Church That Was (2016). It describes Linda asking a devoted fan of “Rowan” what one of his Oxford sermons was about and receiving the reply: “Oh, I don’t know. Something about the dark being light and the light being dark. Not sure really, but it was simply marvellous.”23

In this quotation is summed up not just the essence of Williams’s theology, and of his oversight of the Anglican Communion, but the very essence of the Church of England, which he grasps with a rare clarity. Williams has always believed that when we start to talk about anything that matters, we reach what he uses as the title for a memorable but characteristically complex volume: The Edge of Words (2014).24 We become if not inarticulate then at least aware that our language is inadequate. Whether we are talking about the incarnation, the nature of the church, the essence of being, or time itself (as Heidegger realized), we inevitably collapse into paradoxical thinking. We join Leo and the hermit, watching swans on the ridge. We can’t fully make sense of what we’re reaching for, even as the words tumble from our lips or find form on a page. That’s what it is to be human. And yet we rarely shut up (other than sometimes in church or our personal devotions). We hope that by talking, by writing, by praying and singing, we make sense of something, even if we don’t quite understand what it is we’re making sense of.

There is a twofold implication to this. The first, and most crucial, for understanding Anglican ecclesial polity is that we must remain open to the views of others. We must be committed to openness and mutuality, to dwelling with those with whom we most fundamentally disagree. Williams explores this magnificently in an address given to the Lambeth Conference of 1998 (before he was Archbishop of Canterbury) and subsequently published in a paper entitled “Making moral decisions” (2001). He talks of the diversity of views within the Anglican Church, focusing on different judgements regarding the morality of nuclear weapons as a test case. Making plain his belief that there can be no defence of such weapons, he observes:

And having said that I believe [it] is impossible [to tolerate or defend the use of nuclear weapons], I at once have to recognize that Christians do it; not thoughtless, shallow, uninstructed Christians, but precisely those who make themselves accountable to the central truths of our faith . . . I cannot at times believe we are reading the same Bible; I cannot understand what it is that could conceivably speak of the nature of the Body of Christ in any defence of such a strategy. But these are the people I meet at the Lord’s table; I know they hear the scriptures I hear, and I am aware that they offer their discernment as a gift to the Body.25

Later, he writes of those with whose position he disagrees:

. . . I am forced to ask what there is in this position that I might recognize as a gift, as a showing of Christ. It comes—for me—so near the edge of what I can make any sense of. I have to ask whether there is any point at which my inability to recognize anything of gift in another’s policy, another’s discernment, might mak...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Coming home
• Time and eternity
• Parish and particularity
• Somewhere and anywhere
• Though we are many
• Growth and glory
• Marking time
• Keeping and sharing
• The parish in lockdown
• Notes