Tag Archives: Church of England

Into Culture: Provisionality Defined

It has been a difficult month.

After months of planning, the intercultural conference I was organising was cancelled at the last minute due to a lack of funding. This wasn’t a minor event or distraction. I had invested a huge amount of energy and passion into it and had a great vision for it. It was meant to be a space where people from vastly different cultural backgrounds could come together to dream: a fragile but vital act in a world increasingly defined by division.

And yet, with a single email, the structure we had painstakingly built collapsed.

The cancellation wasn’t just an administrative setback; it felt like an indictment. Had I been naïve to believe this work mattered enough to secure funding? Was intercultural ministry just a well-meaning aspiration rather than a necessity? As I sat with the news, I felt the creeping temptation to retreat; to step back from the discomfort of advocating for something that, apparently, wasn’t a priority for everyone else.

But instead of stepping back, I found myself writing from the ruins.

With the conference gone, I turned to the academic journal article I had been meaning to write for months. What had previously felt like an abstract exercise, an attempt to articulate ideas that had been swirling in my mind, now became urgent. The cancellation forced me to confront the very questions I had been wrestling with: Why does intercultural ministry matter? Why does it so often feel like the latest fad? How do I articulate its significance, not as an optional endeavour but as a necessary gift to the Church of England?

Perhaps this was what I needed. The push to put into words what I had been struggling to articulate. The conference would have been an event, but writing would be an argument, a case that could not be as easily dismissed as a line in a budget.

And so, in the space where the conference should have been, I wrote.

Intercultural ministry inhabits no man’s land: the space between entrenched identities, where categories lose their certainty and encounter becomes possible. It is a place where cultural and theological boundaries are suspended just long enough for something new to emerge.

But it is not a comfortable space. The world prefers fortifications, fixed identities, clear allegiances, firm distinctions between inside and outside. Even within the Church, we too often treat diversity as a problem to be solved rather than a gift to be received.

Yet no man’s land is where transformation happens. It is where encounter moves beyond tolerance into something riskier: the possibility of being changed. It is a space that resists resolution, where we are required to remain, even when there are no clear answers.

Augustine’s corpus permixtum offers a theological vision of this space. The Church, he insists, is always mixed, unfinished, in pilgrimage, provisional until the eschaton. Against the Donatists, who sought a pure Church free from compromise, Augustine argued that any attempt to enforce purity before the final judgment was not just futile but theologically misguided. The wheat and tares must grow together. To be the Church is to inhabit that tension.

This is no man’s land as a theological reality. It is not an unfortunate byproduct of cultural difference but the very space where grace does its work. The impulse to resolve, to fix identity, to enforce certainty. These are the real dangers. Augustine understood that provisionality is not weakness but faithfulness: the refusal to collapse history into resolution, the willingness to dwell in the unfolding mystery of God’s work.

But if no man’s land is the necessary site of encounter, how do we remain there without being paralysed by uncertainty? How do we engage without defaulting to either avoidance or control?

Improvisation is what allows us to remain in no man land. It is not the absence of structure but the ability to shape meaning in real time. It is the posture of responsiveness, the refusal to impose a script onto an encounter before the other has had a chance to speak.

The instinct, in uncertain spaces, is either to withdraw or to dominate, to retreat to what we know or to force an outcome. But improvisation resists both. It assumes that truth unfolds in relationship, that we do not come to intercultural engagement with all the answers but discover them in the process.

Stanley Hauerwas speaks of Christian ethics as improvisation within a shared narrative. We do not act in a vacuum; we inherit a story but the story itself remains in motion. Kevin Vanhoozer extends this further, describing doctrine as improvisation in response to history as an ongoing engagement with God’s unfolding work in the world.

Improvisation allows us to stay in no man’s land when the temptation is to resolve the tension too quickly. It allows us to respond in the moment, to listen deeply, to shape meaning as we go. Improvisation without direction, however, can become either chaotic or manipulative. It requires an ethic as a way of ensuring that our engagement is neither passive nor coercive, but genuinely transformative.

If improvisation is the mode by which we remain in no man’s land, then inclusive othering is the ethic that ensures we do so faithfully.

Othering is often framed as exclusion, a way of defining oneself against another. Inclusive othering refuses this binary. It acknowledges difference without reducing it to opposition. It insists that engagement is possible without assimilation, that unity need not come at the cost of integrity.

Paul Ricoeur warns against two failures: the absolutisation of culture, where difference becomes impenetrable, and the erasure of culture, where distinctiveness is lost in the pursuit of sameness. Inclusive othering navigates between these extremes. It allows for mutual transformation without coercion.

This is not comfortable. It requires a commitment to remain in the tension of difference, to resist the easy exits of withdrawal or dominance. It asks us to trust that relationship itself is formative and that even when no agreement is reached, something vital is taking place.

And so, I return to the original question: Is intercultural ministry a necessity, or just a luxury?

Funding has not been secured, in part because the argument for intercultural ministry has not been persuasive. Writing forced me to clarify what I had already sensed: this work is not peripheral. It is the only viable way forward.

Without it, we entrench division. Without it, we mistake tolerance for engagement, proximity for relationship. Without it, the Church risks irrelevance, offering certainty when the world cries out for wisdom.

The Church of England finds itself caught between conflicting pressures: a fractured institution seeking coherence, a shifting society demanding relevance, a cultural landscape marked by division and distrust. It is tempting to respond to these crises with control, to seek definitive solutions, to shore up institutional identity in the face of decline.

What if the way forward is not resolution, but a deeper commitment to provisionality? What if, rather than retreating to entrenched positions, we learned to inhabit no man’s land? To lead not with fixed answers but with an openness to encounter? To rediscover the art of improvisation, responding to the Spirit’s movement in history rather than dictating the terms of engagement? To embrace inclusive othering, holding our convictions with integrity while remaining radically open to the transformation that only relationship can bring?

This is not weakness. It is faithfulness.

The Church is being called, once again, into the risk of relationship; not to dictate, but to dwell; not to dominate, but to discern.

Intercultural ministry is the work of inhabiting no man’s land, of improvising faithfully in the face of uncertainty, of othering in a way that does not exclude but transforms.

If the Church of England is serious about its future, it must learn to stand in this space. Not as a concession, but as a calling.

Improvisation remains. No man’s land remains. And that is precisely where we must learn to stand.

Into Culture: Kingdom Justice?

Earlier this year, I delivered a paper entitled Kingdom Justice? at the Anglican Network of Intercultural Churches conference. In it I argued that justice is never acontextual, i.e. justice is always shaped by the culture and context in which it is pursued, but this is rarely acknowledged when discussing various topics of social justice. I was invited to revisit this thinking at a recent Deanery Synod. On the day of the Synod, however, the resignation of Justin Welby, the first Archbishop of Canterbury to step down from office, shifted the conversation. His decision came amidst mounting pressure over the Church of England’s failure to adequately address historic abuse cases and embed a robust safeguarding culture.

My original paper attempted to challenge the cultural assumptions underpinning how we interpret and pursue justice. It must involve asking whether our understanding of justice is embedded in a shared set of values and narrative and is able to deliver meaningful and transformative change for all people involved rather than privileging simplistic solutions that risk compounding harm rather than addressing its roots.

Yet, I became increasingly aware of the abstraction of this argument when juxtaposed with the visceral pain of safeguarding failures. Calls for justice are never merely theoretical; they always emerge from deep wounds, institutional betrayals, and a pervasive sense of disillusionment. Augustine’s engagement with the Donatists in his time offers surprising and provocative insights into this particular, contemporary crisis. His theology compels us, both critics and defenders of the Church, to think more deeply about the naure of justice, evil, and the redemptive possibilities of grace.

In the recent debates around safeguarding in the Church of England, justice continues to solely be shorthand for accountability, transparency, and the punishment of wrongdoers. These are, of course, essential elements to consider as any just response, yet, as I argued in Kingdom Justice? and based on Augustine’s well argued definition, justice is deeply relational, concerned with restoring right relationships with God, others, and creation. It is also profoundly contextual, shaped by the realities and shared values of the community in which it is enacted.

This contextual nature of justice is often overlooked in Western culture, where justice is increasingly framed in legal or transactional terms. The predominant response to the Church of England’s safeguarding crisis from all sides of the debate reflects this assumed framing, emphasizing retribution and systemic reform. While necessary, these responses risk being insufficient as they fail to address the deeper causes of harm or offer a vision for healing and reconciliation. They can also fall prey to a simplistic view of evil that locates the problem in a few bad actors and/or outdated policies, rather than recognizing evil’s insidious presence in disordered systems, relationships, and values.

In Augustine’s day, the Donatists were deeply concerned with the holiness of the Church, insisting that it must remain pure and untainted by association with sin or compromise. They rejected the authority of bishops who had lapsed under persecution, arguing that their actions invalidated the sacraments they administered. Augustine countered that the Church is a corpus permixtum (a mixed body), inherently flawed yet sustained by God’s grace. He warned against the Donatists’ purity ethic, arguing that perpetuated the fractures in the Church’s unity and denied God’s transformative power of grace. Prioritising and pursuing purity through exclusionary action often results in embedding division and relational breakdown rather than discovering the healing that Jesus embodied and revealed.

Modern parallels to the Donatist instinct are not hard to find. The increasingly urgent demand for a ‘pure Church’, free from scandal and compromise, in its various and competing guises, seems obvious. Survivors of abuse, advocates, and disillusioned laity have seen firsthand the devastating consequences of institutional failure. Their anger at the Church’s hypocrisy is righteous, and their calls for justice are urgent. Yet there is also a risk in framing the Church’s failings in purely moralistic terms, as if the removal of corrupt leaders or the implementation of perfect policies will restore its holiness. Our approaches, unintentionally, replicate the Donatist impulse, seeking purity through exclusion rather than transformation.

Complicating this dynamic further is Western culture’s dominant concept of justice, which often equates it with punishment. In safeguarding, this can translate in different ways to a focus on identifying perpetrators, removing them from positions of power, and preventing future harm. While these steps, again, are crucial, they do not address the underlying systems and cultures that have allowed abuse to occur in the first place. They have also repeatedly left survivors still feeling unheard and unsupported, as justice becomes procedural rather than relational.

Guide Nyachuru, one of John Smyth’s victims

Augustine’s understanding of evil offers a counter-narrative. For him, evil is not a force in itself but the distortion or absence of the good. This means that evil cannot be discussed as some thing that can be dealt with directly. Addressing it can only involve restoring what has been lost or broken. In the context of safeguarding, this suggests that justice must go beyond punishment to include processes of healing, reconciliation, and the reordering of, what Augustine called, ‘disordered loves’. For Augustine, Church unity was not an excuse to overlook sin but the context in which sin is confronted and transformed. The Church must resist the cultural tendency to scapegoat individuals, recognizing that abuse distorts and disintegrates relationships throughout the society/community in which it occurs. True reform, therefore, only comes through a shared commitment to repentance, healing, and renewal; a process that will be slow, painful, and profoundly relational.

This is a different way of addressing the safeguarding crisis in the Church of England. Rather than seeking justice through punishment and purity through exclusion, Augustine prescribed an intentional mending of the specific trust and relationships that have been broken. He engaged the Donatists with intellectual rigor and pastoral sensitivity, hearing their pain and acknowledging the validity of their concerns while prophetically reminding all of the vision of the Church as a community of forgiveness and reconciliation. Similarly, the Church today must create spaces where survivors, clergy, and laity can engage in honest dialogue without fear of defensiveness or retribution, working together towards our shared hope. Independent safeguarding oversight bodies are essential, but they must be integrated with theological reflection to ensure that accountability is paired with grace.

The safeguarding crisis reveals a distortion of priorities, where the Church has too often valued reputation over truth, and institutional preservation over the care of the vulnerable. A commitment to reordering these loves must begin with a cultural shift—embedding safeguarding as a theological and missional imperative rather than a bureaucratic necessity.

The safeguarding crisis confronts the Church of England with its deepest failures, but it also grants us a great opportunity: to embody a justice that is neither transactional nor retributive, but profoundly relational and redemptive. This is not an easy path. It requires the Church to walk the way of the cross, acknowledging its sin, bearing the weight of its failures, and trusting in the redemptive power of Christ. But it is the only path that leads to true justice—a justice that heals wounds, restores relationships, and reflects the love of God in a world desperately in need of hope.

Into Culture: Sheep and Goats

Whilst trying to reacclimatise after my trip to Pakistan earlier in the month I sat in the Cathedral listening to a sermon on the lectionary reading for this week; Matthew 25:31-46. This is commonly known as ‘the parable of the sheep and the goats’ and there is a culturally accepted interpretation and usage of this imagery and language from this famous passage. The interpretation goes as follows:

Jesus/The Son of Man will return and judge us all dividing us like a shepherd divides the sheep and the goats. On one side will be the people who did good deeds; fed the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick and visited the prisoner. On the other side those who did not do these acts of charity. When judgement is passed both sides are surprised by their placement asking the judge, “when did I do/not do these things?” The response will come, “When you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The moral message, so the usual moralistic sermon goes, is that we should do all of these things and be judged righteous by Jesus/The Son of Man.

I have historically always had issues with this reading of the text as it sounds to my protestant ears too much like righteousness by good works. It is a little too karmic for my theological comfort zone. I will be judged by God not by my total dependence on Jesus’ righteousness which he gives me by faith alone but by the charitable deeds I did. Ok, I get it, faith without works is dead and meaningless but I just hope that on the day of judgement I my worthiness of the Kingdom of God is not, in anyway, dependent on my outward acts. Who could stand?

Listening through the filter developed during my time in Pakistan I found myself asking why does my culture focus solely on the actions of those who are being separated; those who have the means and choice to care or not for others? Why do we presume ourselves as those being judged in this narrative? I found myself asking, “but who are ‘the least of these who are members of family’?”

Ian Paul explores this very theme in his regular sermon notes found here. Listening to the same message proclaimed and taught whilst still wrestling with this challenging instinct that the Church in the West is overindulged, coddled and spoilt I was surprised by wanting to be judged not as a sheep/righteous or a goat/unrighteous but, in this image of the final judgement of being safely named ‘a member of Jesus’ family.’ Even if this means that I will be hungry, thirsty, estranged, naked, sick and imprisoned. Again, I found myself so yearning for a more costly discipleship.

But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogue and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify… You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. (Lk 21:12-13,16-17)

If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. (Jn 15:18-19)

Reading this biblical text alongside the persecuted Church makes me check my cultural privilege and demands the question, why is that the popular reading of the text in the West? Is it not because, even wanting to be virtuous and judged well, we, in fact, prove our own brokenness and addiction to the karmic way of the world? Even as we speak of grace with our lips we betray it with our actions.

Don’t get me wrong, I think doing all the righteous acts of kindness towards those who suffer is good and correct but what if there is a challenge to us in the West to hear not how we are to look out for and welcome the poor and needy but how we are to be poor and needy. To not seek to be a Church for the poor but of the poor. To work to identify ourselves not primarily as people who have power to welcome and include but to identify ourselves as those who will be hated by the world.

I return again to the Shane Claiborne quote which comes to me whenever I hear fellow Church leaders talk about missional relevance to justify certain actions in order to earn morally righteousness in the eyes of wider society.

We are cultural refugees. The beautiful monastics throughout church history were cultural refugees; they ran to the desert not to flee from the world but to save the world from itself… Much of the world now lies in ruins of triumphant and militant Christianity. The imperially baptized religion created a domesticated version of Christianity – a dangerous thing that can inoculate people from ever experiencing true faith. (Everyone is a Christian, but no one knows what a Christian is anymore.) Our hope is that the postmodern, post-Christian world is once again ready for a people who are peculiar, people who spend their energy creating a culture of contrast rather than a culture of relevancy.
Shane Claiborne, ‘Jesus for President: politics for ordinary radicals’ (Michigan: Zondervan, 2008) p. 238-240

Into Culture: Into Pakistan II

The night before I had sat with my generous host. He had worked all day with little sleep and had come late to be with me and share a cup of tea. Tea, in Pakistan, is as much a cultural icon as it is in England. There is, in parts of the country, a belief that you are not really befriended until you have shared three cups of tea with each other. Cup one and I am grateful for his hospitable heart towards me, a stranger.

We discussed the recent attacks on churches in Jaranwala. Attacks which had been a catalyst for me to come and visit. Attacks that opened my eyes to how fragile seeming tolerance between faith communities can be. Attacks which inspired the convening bishop, Azad Marshall, to be firm and gracious even at risk to his own life.

“How is it that many Pakistani Muslims in the UK rightly demand equality and freedom of religion and worship, and yet, once they have received it, do not offer the same courtesy to Christians back home?” my host had pondered.

The Jaranwala incident has clearly shaken the Pakistani Christian community. I know this as I have sat with brothers and sisters from Pakistan in Bradford and seen them wrestle with anger, fear and the desire to be faithful to Christ. Bishop Azad Marshall’s stance is clear: as Pakistani citizens, Christians want to know they are safe to live in their own land. This is resonant with other communities elsewhere across the globe. There is, however, not a call for revenge or retaliation in his communication. There is no bitterness towards the people who burnt their churches and Bibles and looted their homes. A simple but firm request for assurances that their lives are valuable.

I wake at 5am to a loud Friday morning adhan/azaan (the Muslim call to prayer) or it may be another liturgical proclamation. It is echoed across the city as muezzins seem to compete to be heard. I am thankful that my wife is not here and I calm my irritable tiredness and mutter my own devotions to God. I feel affinity with a neighbour in Bradford who in a moment of annoyance had complained that we rang our bell at the Cathedral at all hours of the day. I contemplate the challenge of contesting devotional practices in multicultural spaces and how interculturality should encourage a sharing of devotional rhythms whilst maintaining distinctive content to the worship. I drift back to sleep.

I wake again at 6.30am to loud bangs and rumbles. In the darkness I immediately assume it is gunfire and bombs. This same instinct is still present back home when unseasonal fireworks go off at odd times of the day. Here in Pakistan the possibility of warfare is slightly more plausible, and so I get up to investigate. It’s merely a much-needed thunderstorm which, rather than bringing death and destruction, brings lightness and the breaking of the dangerous toxic smog that has engulfed the east of the country. The Punjab region was put under a lockdown yesterday to protect further citizens contracting conjunctivitis from the polluted air. I thank God for his mercy and drop off to sleep again.

I jerk awake just before 9am cursing that my alarm was not set to go off on Fridays and I have missed morning prayer at 8am. I contemplate the consequences of this. No one is expecting me but how am I now to introduce myself to the college community in which I am staying? I acknowledge the irony of missing my own communal worship because the Muslim’s call to prayer had compounded my already disrupted body clock. I get dressed and decide to head to the chapel which doubles as classrooms and see what can be salvaged from the day.

I arrive to find people sitting in groups studying the Bible. I sit and ask God to direct me to a part of Scripture and I feel drawn to the book of Daniel. This is interesting bearing in mind last night’s discussions around interfaith relations with Muslims and reflections on being a minority faith amidst a majority population of a different creed. This is one of the aspects of my research on this trip: to explore what it feels like to be part of a minority faith community. In preparation for coming to Pakistan I jokingly added after telling people this is an area of study,

“…to prepare for the worst.”

My host had been realistic and disarming about the reality. Quoting Brother Andrew

“I was told that ‘one [man] and God is a majority.’”

I read in Daniel the story of a religious minority existing alongside people of different faith. Their witness to peaceable cohabitation whilst maintaining an integrity is freshly inspiring in relation to evangelism. I recall the same missionary approach by St Augustine of Canterbury. I return, again, to the conversation with my host.

What does it take to grow Christian communities in the context of being marginal and outliers? For my host it is focussing on discipleship, an intentional training of the small gathering of faithful people. When evangelism is denied (in the case of Pakistan, legally), a securing of the remnant is key and is seen in the story of Daniel in Babylon.

“Discipleship is always one on one, one by one.”

The stories told of the Pakistan Church facing a shocking lack of biblical literacy and doctrinal confidence is uncomfortably familiar.

“How are we to stand surrounded by a loud and popular religious culture if we are not tethered to our own conviction. This is why I start every conversation with Christians with one question, “Why have you chosen to follow Jesus?””

The use of the word ‘chosen’ is significant in Pakistan as the given religion is Islam. Is it so different in the UK? I have wrestled with this same instinct amongst the congregations I have served. What is discipleship without a choice to follow Jesus? This is not just in relation to the discussions around infant vs. adult baptism for the choice to follow Jesus must be daily. I long to have the mindset of these Pakistani Christians: to have to choose to be distinct and to hold firm to the belief in Jesus as the way of life, the truth of the world and the life to which I was made.

The response in Pakistan to the lack of basis of the faith has been to invest not in evangelistic mission but in teaching in order that wider mission can flow from it. I have long spoken of the UK not facing a missional crisis but a discipleship crisis. I now begin to think about how, in the wider, holsitic view of mission being the 5 marks of mission (tending, teaching, telling, treasuring and transforming) how slowly we have realised that teaching the faith is missional. Evangelists rightly call us to ‘tell’ and bemoan our lack of confidence to do so. There is something about Philip’s model of evangelism with the Ethiopean eunuch, which is both telling and teaching.

The General Synod of the Church of England will meet next week. I am suddenly grateful that I have limited access to the internet and will avoid the usual toxicity of Anglican social media. I contemplate on the state of my denomination. I pessimistically see the Pakistani Church as our future state and pray that, if we are called to be in real exile in our own land, I will be faithful and meet others one on one, one by one and be led by the Spirit to sure up the remnants of faith and tend to the needs of those I meet, tell them afresh the good news of Jesus Christ, teach them the faith as it has been historically handed down to me, treasure the gifts God has given to the Church and offers to them… but finally, I pray that I will, if called to do so, stand firm but graciously to see justice done; not as an act of subtle revenge on the perpetrators of injustice but to establish true justice. True justice being justice to both the oppressor and the oppressed.

I feel the shame of my lack of confidence to go and talk to others and sense their own reluctance to speak to me. The strangeness of social hierarchy baffles me afresh and I regret not asking for more formal introductions and structure to my visit. I sit in a class and pretend to follow. I notice recognisable words spoken.

“Taliban… masjid… Allah.”

If only I spoke Urdu better I could learn so much more from them.

A Short Reflection on Inclusion and Exclusion

At Saint Peter’s, where I serve as priest and vicar, we have been taking a ‘Long Look at Luke’ over 2018. Over the last few weeks we’ve been journeying through chapters 11-14 which contains some of Jesus’ more divisive statements and parables. As I have returned to preaching and leading even I, who selected the specific passages, have struggled to know what to say or how to understand the character of God within them. The end of chapter 11 begins with Jesus dismissing and seemingly excluding the Pharisees and scribes from God’s Kingdom due to their hypocrisy. Chapter 12 contains the image of a master cutting an unfaithful slave into pieces and beating most slaves either lightly or severely and Jesus concludes this image with the reality that he has not come to bring peace but division. Chapter 13 presents Jesus teaching that not all will be saved as some will be left outside the Kingdom banquet; an image that is repeated in chapter 14.

I have been reflecting, therefore, over the last few weeks, on the nature of God’s inclusion. I have been challenged afresh to revisit the prominent message of the Church at this time in history in the UK/West of ‘radical inclusion’; what do we mean by ‘inclusion’ and how do we legitimately interpret Jesus’ own depiction of exclusion of some from God’s Kingdom? Not all will be saved and therefore there will be, as Matthew’s gospel famously and powerfully depicts, a division of sheep and goats. It is right, therefore, to ask the common question of Jesus’ own time,

How then can we be saved?

When I hear the popular message of progressive brothers and sisters of ‘radical inclusion’ I am torn internally; one side celebrating the openness of God’s embrace and the other side with a multitude of questions. God, for me, clearly desires all to be saved. There is a clear, Divine plan of restoration of the whole of creation; a plan to redeem the brokenness that sin has inflicted on the world. That plan, however, requires each person to be transformed from the way of the world to the way of God’s Kingdom. The way of Jesus is not natural, otherwise we’d be living it and there would be no need for an intervention of Jesus himself. The questions that arise for me, when hearing the message of ‘radical inclusion’ are ones around the nature of sin, the impact of sin and the narrow door through which we are meant to strive to enter God’s Kingdom.

In the political machinations surrounding the discussions in the Church of England on inclusion, mirroring uncomfortably the same debates in the secular realm, there are ideologies on both sides which are unreasonable. I want to present my concerns with both sides, highlighting the unreasonableness of them and the opportunity open to them. I am going to need to present crude extremes in order to keep this short and I justify my use of them by calling on Scripture as a model (Genesis 1-3, Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 12:41-48, et al.) There are times when we need to use strong images to help us discern the nuances within ourselves. Many of my regular readers will know that I stray towards one end of the spectrum but I will attempt, as best I can, to explore the other side.

On the one hand we have ‘progressives’. This two-dimensional caricature is profoundly open to all people from every walk of life being saved. They either fully embrace universalism (everyone is going to be saved whether they make any sort of confession of Jesus’ Lordship on earth or not) or at least walk along the boundary with it. The inclusion of God’s love has no conditions or stipulations; God loves a person just as they are and there is no requirements except to accept that God loves you. Grace is given to them and that is enough.

On the other hand there are the ‘conservatives’ who, crudely depicted, share the desire for God to call people into relationship with him but acknowledge that God does put some standard on his people which differentiates them from others. There is an emphasis on sanctification and ‘setting apart’ of God’s people from others. There is a chosen-ness of God’s people which implies a non-chosen-ness of others. Grace is offered to all but not all will respond to the rigours of that life; some are excluded from the Kingdom.

Both sides have an issue with definition of terms. It is the differences in definition that, as usual, causes problems. What do we mean by ‘grace’ and ‘sin’? What is ‘baptism’ for? What is the ‘Church’? What are we doing by ‘blessing’ something? What does it mean to be ‘holy’? What is the difference between God’s ‘love’ and human ‘love’, if there is any? In this reflection, for once, I see no benefit from clarifying terms or offering definitions because it betrays another issue we face: authority.

I define terms based on a system of authorities and the interplay between them. Others will define those terms differently or feel the necessity to re-define those terms because of different authorities. Debate revolves around semantics and, not wanting to place myself in the ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’ camp, I do not feel it will be helpful to base my argument on them. It therefore leaves me with one option and that is to try, as best I can, to use the definitions as I see them being used by both sides when discussing that particular side.

Progressives

What I see as the unreasonableness of this position centres around the purpose of the incarnation. It seems strange to me that in direct response to the horrors of the 20th century and the seeming repeating of that history in the 21st century there has been a rise of a secular humanist ideal. Humanism emphasises the centrality, if not the sole authority, of human agency; human beings are free to do what they please being bound only by reason and empirical materialism, ie. what can be seen and experienced in material reality. Progressives have embraced this raising of the human person’s freedom to choose and blended it with the Christian understanding of God’s love and grace and have created a world-view that states that we are essentially good and we must accept ourselves as beloved of God as our very identity. The trouble with this is the agency of Christian believers participating and steering the horrors of history and particularly the 20th century. Progressives respond saying that they were not Christians and that they perpetrated those crimes under the name of Christ but Christ did not affirm the action. I agree that many horrific actions have been done in the name of Christ to which he will deny any part in. This philosophical move, however, creates exclusion within the world: there are some who are in Christ and there are others who are not (at least not fully). If all are made in the image of God and therefore all are good, their desires are naturally bent towards God then which actions are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’. There becomes a schema of God’s people of those who understand God’s will and others who are confused. There are some who say they believe in Christ but betray themselves by acting contrary to a particular view of Christianity. If we are all made perfect in God’s image, and are ‘task’ is to allow that natural inclination towards the Divine to restore us then Jesus’ incarnation was purely a prophetic act of teaching and gentle correction. Jesus becomes a moral teacher directing us towards our natural propensity for goodness. Jesus’ death is not about some cosmic reordering or conquering of sin (penal substitution) but a prophetic act of how we should respond to violence. Penal substitution becomes the ‘cosmic child abuse’ as an angry God sends his innocent Son to die and heaps upon him all the pain and suffering without any help.

Under a banner of inclusion of all people, baptism becomes an unconditional welcome and affirmation of a person. What of God’s demand upon us to live a life worthy of his grace with particular teaching and instruction? In their definition of grace, a person needs to do nothing in order to work out their salvation. Salvation is the total redemption of person given to people freely by God, no questions asked. It is unreasonable, however, as it is based on this supposed tendency of all humans to be morally good and to know what is right and wrong instinctively. The particular type of humanism adopted by progressives suggests that all are reasonable and we are evolving towards good and that we can, if we try hard enough, and we fight for the right causes on the right side, we will discover God’s emerging and evolving plan for good. The problem is that we clearly don’t desire good. Our seemingly good intentions lead us to do the most terrible acts. No one sets out to be evil. The most terrible thing is to become aware that we are evil without even knowing it. Our desires and passions are not inherently, God-given. We are a mass of contradictions and there is a need for reforming and change.

If you watch the Star Wars prequels and witness the development of the relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Padme you will witness how Anakin’s desires and passions seem to be good. He loves Padme, they are meant to be together, it is destiny. The advice of the Jedi Masters is to resist and control those feelings that the love will ultimately destroy them (and the very democracy they are supposedly fighting for). Many challenge the Church’s ‘restrictions’ and ‘rules’ the very way that Anakin questions the Jedis. Obedience to an institution is alien to the humanist ideal and suddenly the Church becomes a place of oppression and control. A duality emerges between the human freedom and the social/political body of which the body must embrace the individual or be destroyed. What was it that led Anakin to the dark side? What are being asked to learn from his journey? How did Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda and others try to advise and teach young Skywalker?

The progressives, however, rightly remind us of the radical love of God who deems all worthy of invitation. Nothing is to big for him to embrace. There is no limitation on what he would do for each of us. The Church has always been most impactful amongst the poor and outcasts and Jesus’ heart was to relate with those who are starved of acceptance and love. History has shown that ‘Christians’, once in positions of power in society have cowed to Political pressure to mirror the exclusions of the world. We have participated and driven terribly oppressive social decisions and actions and committed grievous suffering on others in the name of self-promotion and defence. The Church is not immune to corruption and collusion with ‘evil’ and we must be wary of sleep-walking into such states. The progressive demand we ask questions of where our heart is and to wake up to the battle that rages around us demanding us to respond as Christ.

Conservatives

The unreasonableness of the conservative position revolves around the notion of ‘grace’. It is true that Jesus saves his most damning words for the hypocritical religious leaders. The mix of political power and religion is clearly one of the most potent destructive force in the world. Power is about control, expressed primarily in rules and regulations. The legal framework that holds bodies of people together is often where abuse begins. The Church has fallen repeatedly, throughout history, for this very deception and trap. It has caused division after division and we should never rest from grasping this truth and dealing with it. We must humble ourselves to hear Christ’s warnings and woes to the Pharisees, scribes and religious leaders around hypocrisy and to often conservatives refuse to allow those challenges to be sown deep within them. It is true that Jesus is clear as to his own moral code and ethic but he handles it with a forgiving grace which does not condemn but does discipline. Too often the conservatives are selective about the weight of different expressions of sin. In their attempt at guarding and teaching perceived truths of the tradition, to not be swayed by the world and temptation to fall away, they ignore the revolutionary message of Jesus to the same mindset in 1st century Judea. In rightly dealing with the speck in their brother or sister’s eye they happily allow the plank in their own eye to remain (maybe to be dealt with tomorrow or at some point…). In the many exclusive claims Jesus makes as to who will be part of God’s Kingdom and who is not, the vast majority of those excluded are the hypocritical Jews of political power. The irony is that in embracing a protestant understanding of grace, those of a conservative bent deny salvation by faith with the post grace works of behavioural rules and dogmatic teaching. The movement of ‘works’ is from pre salvation to post salvation. God doesn’t demand anything upfront only to land all the burden afterwards.

Under the banner of holiness of God’s people, baptism becomes selective to those who can articulate enough understanding of the truth of God’s salvation. What of God’s grace that can work with even the smallest seed of faith? Grace becomes conditional on change of behaviour and life. Our own human lack of capability of holding the tension of difference and breakdown of relationships covers grace and forgiveness. We jump too quickly to the tidiness of sanctification and holiness and individuals become necessary collateral for the perfecting people of God.

Again, in Star Wars, the failure of the Jedis to pastor Anakin through his doubts and mistakes was in their lack of transparency and honesty. It was seemingly more important to protect the Jedi Order than to love and invest in Anakin. Anakin became collateral in the bigger, cosmic battle going on. It seemed to Anakin that he was being used, manipulated and ignored and trust was not built enough to hold him and engage him. The admittance of difficulty, confusion and fear is a vulnerable but necessary part of building trust between people. The conservatives have not shown enough awareness of the pain of their own sin and mistakes. Confession and lament over our part in the causes of suffering is sadly lacking in the Church and this does great damage to the message of forgiveness and grace that is so clearly taught, in theory, in conservative circles.

The conservatives are right to resist social change for the sake of being acceptable to those currently outside of the Church. As part of our current missional imperative we are having to deny the discipleship imperative of the clearly necessary transformation and demands that following Jesus require. In our ‘openness’ we are re-defining out of existence a moral code and ethic laid down in Scripture. Conservatives are right to uphold the Scripture, the Tradition of interpretation and the process of corporate discernment by Reason in opposition to individual discernment and interpretation. Unity depends upon a shared sense of authority to correct our wayward desires and lack of understanding and our culture has surely proven itself incapable of maintaining peace and unity as it seeks to individualise the discernment process and sown subjective relativism into public discourse. The conservatives demand we ask questions of the competing narratives in our world and to make clearly distinctions as to where each path leads to in the end.

Inclusion/Exclusion

So where does this lead me to the nature of God’s inclusion?

I have currently landed on the view that God clearly invites all to be in relationship with him, to receive his love and embrace. This invitation is not based on anything we have done, said or achieved but freely because of his generosity towards us. The invitation is to be in relationship with him, to know the peace of redemption and the power of resurrection that counteracts and transforms death into eternal life. This invitation has instructions attached to it as to how you accept and enjoy the party; instructions that if not followed means you will not be admitted to the party despite you holding an invitation. In this way God does not pre-empt inclusion with exclusivity but rather we, in our natural inclinations and sin exclude ourselves. When we turn up to a swimming party without the appropriate swimming costume you will not be allowed into the swimming pool and will not fully participate in the party. This does not change God’s desire for you to be included but you have chosen to ignore the instructions. God will do all that is possible to rectify that mistake or failure but it requires you acknowledge you made a mistake.

What I hear progressives saying is there are no stipulations or instructions on the invitation. People without swimming costumes get in the pool and make the pool dirty so no one can enjoy the party.

What I hear conservatives saying is that if you are not clear as to what the stipulations or instructions say then you are clearly not invited. People must come wearing the same swimming costume, have washed thoroughly, must know all the rules of the pool before getting in otherwise you will be shamed and thrown out.

We can feel as though we are being excluded because of who we are and we feel the sting of rejection profoundly. We are never good at identifying and taking responsibility in the role we play in our own exclusion. There are many parts of ourselves that technically exclude us from the party and we must be attentive to those and request help from God who, in his grace, promises to do so. The truth is that both the speck and the plank must be removed from the eyes. Anakin felt excluded from the Jedi Order; he was not welcome. This, however, was his pride and arrogance. He held a morally superior position and this contaminated his mind from accepting the necessary correction and teaching of others. The Jedi Order struggled to include Anakin in their life because he was complicated and messy and resisted the change and was a risk.

Ultimately, I do not see how the Church of England, or the global, universal Church, will maintain peace and unity whilst there is so much unresolved anger, pain and confusion. What is required, I believe, is an honest and frank admittance from both sides of sin. Sin being the natural inclination to protect one’s self from pain, trauma and suffering by either fighting a perceive external cause or running away from conflict/ignoring the painful conflict within us. Sin is the selfishness that distorts the other to maintain our misguided vision of the world. Both progressives and conservatives are victims to this and both are tearing the galaxy apart. If we are to learn anything from the Star Wars Saga (upto Return of the Jedi) is that all teeter on the edge of darkness and it requires a constant humility and watchfulness to ensure we control our desires and not our desires to control us.

Chapter 1.v Be willing to hold all things in common…

Let those that have property in the world, as they enter the monastery, be prepared to willingly hold it all in common.

It would be amiss of me not to mention, for those of you who have not been reading the poetry I have published over the last two months, that on Friday 6th July my wife, Sarah, died. Words still cannot express the devastation that I am still experiencing. The vast abyss that now characterises my inner life and the challenges I face in the chaos of my external life is exhausting and often overwhelming. I have had no inclination to do anything and continue to struggle to know which direction to move in. Slowly, however, I am becoming accustomed to this new state of being. The wound is slowly scarring and I am daring to look forward to the day when I can, like all scars, speak of healing, hope and God’s redemptive power… that day is not yet nor on the horizon, but it is a whisper of a future I cannot see but trust will be.

I start by talking about my lack of motivation in part to explain why reflecting on how the Rule of St. Augustine speaks to the strategy and structure of the Church has been far from my mind. I share my current situation, also, to say that it is in this context that I pick up the Rule of St. Augustine and continue to read on the importance of sharing property and possessions if a community is ever to share one heart and mind. This current verse is paired with the next which is its reverse, ‘Those that have no property in the world must not, in the monastery, look for those things that, outside, they were unable to have.’ I did consider putting the verses together and tackle both simultaneously but decided against it. I chose not to for the simple reason that the next verse is accompanied by further, significant teaching on ‘frailty’ and the state of poverty itself. Although I will touch on this subject here I want to say much more about it than can fit into this post.

From the outset I need to be upfront on my own particularity: I am middle class. I come from a relatively wealthy family; ‘comfortable’, we would say. I can count on one hand the times when I have experienced personal poverty in regards to possessions/material wealth and so this verse is clearly speaking to me and those in my economic bracket. It needs to be said as well that the Church of England is almost totally made up of people like me. Yes, there are wonderful exceptions, but the clergy and, therefore, bishops are mainly replicas of me, economically speaking. This verse, therefore, speaks to the Church of England. As I stated at the beginning of this series, I am interested in how the Rule of St Augustine speaks not primarily to me personally but to the wider Church as I ask how we might ‘monasticize first the clergy, by imposing on them a standard of life previously reserved for monks, and then the entire world.’ (Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.6)

When I came to my current context there was a clear intent to reach out to the estate which constitutes over half of our parish. This estate, like the one in my last parish, is not large nor does it have the levels of depravation seen in other parts of the country but it still has its profound issues with poverty. “Why,” I asked myself, “if there is such a desire to serve the estate, are we not encountering the people of that estate very often?” Like my previous parish there was a conscious effort to reach out and ‘impact’ the estate but nothing seemed to be making a difference. I battled with this missional confusion for many years. It was not until I started reading the testimonies of the Oxford Movement’s slum priests and their spiritual descendants who served in my very parish context that I realised the problem. It was not about them, the situation or the model. It was about us.

It is too easy to subtly and unconsciously slip into doing things for or to ‘the poor’. When we talk about reaching out it can, due to our deep-seated fear and insecurities, be changed in our mind to feel we are called to reach out to ‘them’. We should not berate ourselves too much, however, as this is understandable but we should name it and face the truth. Since this realisation I have been deliberate in talking about becoming a ‘church of the poor’ not just for the poor. This means that we are to seek not to offer aspirations of material and cultural wealth, to merely alleviate financial difficulty but to seek to be transformed, ourselves, in order to have relationship with others. In this way we become more like the Christ presented by St. Paul in Philippians 2:1-8 and 2 Corinthians 8:9, who gave up the riches of heaven and became poor in order to have relationship with us.

How, therefore, do we become poor whilst also seeking to help the poor?

There is a story in the gospels of Jesus being asked by a ‘certain ruler’ what did he need to do in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by listing some of the Ten Commandments (interestingly he does not list them all but, I would argue, he lists only those that legislate human relationships: adultery, murder, stealing, lying and honouring our father and mother. For more on this and the rest of the passage listen to my sermon on it here.) to which the ruler responds, “All these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus replies, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” There are several things I struggle with in this passage but I want to name just two of them: 1. Sell my property to whom? and 2. Who are the poor?

Buying and selling is a transaction where two parties agree on the relative value of certain items in order to give a fair exchange for them. When Jesus suggests the ruler sells everything he has this would require the ruler to give measurable value to all the items he he has and find someone who could give him the equivalent in return; most likely in currency (gold, silver, etc.) This is an important exercise for us all to do. What value do we give to the things we possess? What are we investing our time and money in? The gospel writers, at this point tell us that the ruler went away sad because he was ‘very rich’. He may have quickly totted up a handful of items and gave them significant market value and that would require the ruler to sell the property/possessions to another rich person. Consider the next step though. After exchanging these items for money Jesus suggests giving it all to the poor who will then use that money to buy similar items that had been sold from other people: the rich. Certainly the ruler would become poor but it would not deal with poverty itself. It will not help the poor in anyway it will only help the rich. The poor would no doubt struggle to purchase the same items at the same value, the rich would be seeking to make a profit from the purchase and so will sell it for higher value. Jesus isn’t attempting to solve the economy of the time but is talking about a personal response to wealth and where this particular person invests value. Selling everything and giving to the poor is not a catch all command. I am not suggesting that it is not a good thing to be challenged to do but we underestimate the deeper lesson being taught here.

The ruler’s initial question betrays his individualistic vision of the life of faith: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” For this ruler, the life of faith is a private individualistic endeavour which does not impact other people. Eternal life is another possession he can have. Others can also have it but he doesn’t need to share it. The pursuit towards eternal life, for Jesus, is a shared journey; we inherit eternal life. That’s why, I think, Jesus only mentions the social commandments. To tackle this problem Jesus begins to prod the rich ruler towards the heart of his personal issue. This command to sell everything is about his attitude to those possessions, the value he invests into them and the lack of value the ruler truly gives to the pursuit of eternal life. Selling our possessions doesn’t solve economic issues. Our current economic issues are symptomatic of our messed up value system. Consider briefly the hierarchy of financial value we, as a society, give to different jobs. Or consider what we as a society spend our money on and why. Buying and selling only ever benefits those who control the value system of the society in which they operate. For the ruler, as with us, we must begin to enter into a new value system.

The second concern, who are the poor that Jesus speaks of, may seem pretty obvious but let us ponder the question further.

When the rich man sells everything, he no longer possesses anything. All he has at this point is a pocketful of cash and no pockets because he has sold all his clothes! Where is he going to live? What is he going to wear? Makes me think of this great sketch by Richard Herring and Stewart Lee.

When the ruler gives money to the poor he is handing over his only possibility of survival. From that day on he will be reliant on the generosity of other people giving to him. He is entering into the life of poverty where he can no longer afford to be alone in the world. ‘The poor’ to whom he gives his money may be some of the people he will rely on and so he will return to them and beg for some of the money back. I wonder how he might phrase that request for alms. Maybe he will give his money to some distant poor who he won’t encounter again and, therefore the people to whom he goes to beg from will not know his situation nor his history.

The reason I am investigating this aspect of the story is to draw our attention to the final bit of Jesus’ suggestion, “Then come, follow me.” This is the only real answer to the ruler’s initial question. How do I inherit eternal life? Firstly I do not inherit eternal life but I share in the inheritance of eternal life given to those who pursue it together with one heart and mind. The way we inherit eternal life is by following Jesus, drawing close to him, relying on him to lead and direct our every thought and choice. The rest of life is given its proper value through the lens of Christ. If we look at the world without that lens we misvalue everything and we struggle. Jesus challenges the rich ruler as he should challenge us on our value system.

Since Sarah died I have spent time sorting through her possessions. I have had to make decisions on what I should keep and what should be given away. In order to decide what goes where I have tried to ask myself, “why did Sarah buy this?” This is trying to discern what value did Sarah give to the item and what new value do I give to it. There have been some items I couldn’t get rid of quick enough, mainly because Sarah bought them during one of her many fads/short lived hobbies. Others I got rid of because I was never going to use them, e.g. toiletries and make up. Most of her clothes were given to her friends and the rest given to charity shops for other people to enjoy (I have kept some items for the time being to act as mementos as I continue to grieve and say goodbye.) Most items, however, I have kept because we shared the. They were no longer hers or mine but ours. There are lots of things she bought for herself but I have used so often that I consider them mine. There are items, like her craft equipment, which I may use once in a blue moon but I am not sure where to put them or send them to.

St. Augustine commands that those with property and possessions, earthly riches are to be willing to hold those things in common with the community. To become poor, in this way, is to re-evaluate the riches we have. To consider that what we possess in earthly things is of little value compared with the goal of our true pursuit. To hold things for usefulness but to share out that use to others. In this way we continue to enter into the mindset we discussed last time.

So abundant was the outpouring of spiritual grace in the Early Church, that not only were the faithful content with little, but they esteemed it joy of the highest kind to feel that they had nothing of their own. “Having nothing, yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10)(Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.12)

In Hugh of St Victor’s commentary he suggests there are ‘two things we must renounce for God’s sake: the right to possess and the wish to acquire.’ (Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.13) By being willing to sell everything we have if necessary is a process of letting go of our right to possess anything at all. Giving that money away is relinquishing our capability to acquire new things. For the rich ruler this impacts not just his earthly life but his eternal life too in that he must let go of his right to possess eternal life through some moral superiority of fulfilling criteria and relinquishing his capability of acquiring eternal life through his own strength, rather relying on others to inherit it with him.

To monasticize the clergy and indeed the whole Church, therefore, begins by intentionally re-evaluating our values and our assets, both earthly and spiritual and ensuring that we prioritise all these gifts in proportion. Selling and buying only benefits those who control the value system, so how might we be a church of the poor whilst helping the poor in times of great financial crisis? I suggest it is about offering an alternative value system that judges the poor to be poor. St. Augustine is inviting us to consider that we let go of our sense of entitlement to value and possession and to see them as gift and then to relinquish our desire to invest value in objects rather than relationship. When we prioritise the relationship with brothers and sisters in pursuit of following Jesus then we receive back infinite value which possessions never return. This is the first step to growing a unity of heart and mind.

Therefore our Lord says in the Gospel: “Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:33). And again: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself” (Lk 9:23). The first of these divine utterances refers to earthly goods: the second to the will. For it is not enough to give up exterior possessions, unless we cut off all interior concupiscence as well.(Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.13)

Chapter 1.iii Being of one heart and mind in God

Before all else, the reason that you are gathered together is that you live in harmony in one house, being of one heart and mind in God.

In an introduction to the Rule of St Augustine, Tarsicius J. Van Bavel OSA suggests,

Pachomius, Basil and Augustine all laid great stress on community life. The reason for this was that they were convinced that the orientation to one’s own self and individualism formed the greatest obstacle to the realisation of the gospel.

For those who have been reading my blog for some time will not be surprised to hear that I agree wholeheartedly with Pachomius, Basil and Augustine. It is the pervasive perversion of the gospel by our increasingly narcissistic culture that must be addressed before all else and it is this which Augustine (after some short preliminary sentences) begins his Rule.
Chapter 1.3, quoted above, is filled with ‘oneness’; the community is gathered ‘as one‘(tr. together), to live in ‘one spirit'(tr. harmony) in one house being of one mind and one heart in God. This oneness, however, is rooted in reality of plurality of persons within community. This is not about being single or unique, cut off and divorced, as if we are to achieve some atomised autonomy; rather the complete opposite. The oneness Augustine is alluding to is a simplicity of life, for him, achieved only in community. In his sermon on Psalm 4, Augustine concludes,

…singleness is observed among the saints: of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, “and of the multitude of them that believed, there was one soul, and one heart.” (Acts 4:32) In singleness, then, and simplicity, removed, that is, from the multitude and crowd of things, that are born and die, we ought to be lovers of eternity, and unity, if we desire to cleave to the one God and our Lord. (St. Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 4,x)

It is in sharing a single-mindedness in God which is the source of unity. We are to, if we are to achieve the oneness expressed in Acts 4:32, cast off the multiplicity of this world, all things temporal and transient and seek the eternal, the things of our totally united, one God. It is the trinitarian unity that is our goal not some individualised peace.

This touches on an important lesson I continue to learn in our current debates on unity within the Church. We have adopted the language of tolerance which is a poor attempt at unity. Tolerance asks us to accept the presence of difference as a necessary price for peace but fails to demand the movement into true relationship with another. Tolerance says, “You’re ok as long as I don’t have to interact with you.” Tolerance keeps difference at a distance, small as that may be. Peace, the kind given by God, brings difference into a unity. This is impossible for us humans to achieve because we are hardwired to self-protect. Tolerance is an outward peace; we are to seek an inner peace of perfect unity.

In another sermon, this time on Psalm 132, Augustine observes,

Only those in whom love for Christ is perfect truly live together in unity. For those in whom love for Christ is not perfect may well live together, but they are unpleasant, troublesome and rebellious… Many sisters and brothers in religious communities are like this; only to outward appearances do they live together. (St, Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 132, 2 and 12, cited in Tarsicius J. Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1996) p.44)

It is not sufficient for Augustine for people just to live together side by side sharing an outward life together. If there is not a shared conviction that they seek to be united in mind and heart then there outward unity means nothing. Hugh of St. Victor suggests, ‘it is of no avail that the same walls encompass us if difference of will separate us.’ (Hugh of St. Victor, Dom. Aloysius Smith (tr.), Explanation of the Rule of St Augustine (London: Sands and Company, 1955) p.3) Our attitude to difference in the church interests me immensely. We seem to use the celebration of difference as a form of ‘get out of jail free’ card. This is not to say that I dislike difference or believe it should be eradicated; no. We do, however, too often claim ‘the celebration of difference’ when we feel the challenge to engage with it in our inner life. In celebrating it we hold it up as an object outside of our heart. We can continue to be us, separate from the other without any compulsion to relate intimately with them. Our celebration avoids the discomfort that should compel us to love as Christ loved us, at great cost.

This causes me to speak briefly on ‘Mutual Flourishing’.

I serve a parish in the diocese of Sheffield which, last year, was gripped by fierce division over the appointment of +Philip North as Diocesan Bishop. +Philip North is a traditionalist bishop who does not agree with the ordination of women. How would a Diocesan Bishop preside over the ministry of the Church in communion when they do not recognise the ordained ministry of nearly half his priests and deacons? As people protested and everyone shared their opinion, demanding one thing or another, a conversation on the 5 principles of mutual flourishing arose. It seemed that these principles, the single piece of legislation which enabled women to be ordained into the episcopacy, was good if it achieved the desired outcome (women flourishing as bishops) but when the principles impacted us negatively (those who disagreed were allowed to flourish) we began to question their validity.

I don’t agree with +Philip North on the issue of the ordination of women. I need to say that in case I’m pigeon-holed! I did, however, support his appointment and was willing to work with him in discovering with the whole Church how we worked towards ‘Mutual Flourishing’. I was deeply pained, therefore, with the way in which he was treated and the way in which many brothers and sisters spoke to, and about, one another. It was clear, throughout the sorry process that our love for Christ was not perfect. The form of political discourse that now runs rampant within God’s Church is unbecoming of the Bride of Christ and destroys her unity with each manoeuvre made by opposing polemical forces. For me, again and again, it is not the legislation which needs the work but the inner hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples. Our outward unity (the little scraps that remain) means nothing if we are not intentionally seeking an inner unity.

Hugh of St. Victor writes,

For what chiefly conduces to concord is that each one study to do the will of another unto good, rather than his own. This is the sign of great humility… if I seek my own will and another is intent upon following hers, forthwith divisions arise and quarrels, anger and dissensions spring up, all which are the works of the flesh.(Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.4)

As Christ’s Church we must seek to learn, in humility, what it means to work towards other people’s flourishing. Mutual Flourishing will never work when the focus is to ensure our own flourishing but rather when we begin to sacrifice our own flourishing for the sake of someone else’s. My most powerful relationships are the ones forged in the crucible of radical, risky self-denial when we dared to decide to outdo each other in love and honour and thus dismiss our own compulsion to look after ourselves first. It is when we have served one another, not looking for our own needs to be met but to meet the needs of the other, that our needs do indeed get met and, often, I have found that my perceived needs were not needs at all but wants. It is in this mutuality of love that I have found peace in being gifted the care and wisdom of others over my limited understanding of my own requirements.

This unity of mind and heart, for Augustine, repeatedly is stated as being ‘in God’ for it is in true relationship with him that we have access to the eternal unity of his very being. It is in the way the Trinity interact with one another that we are to be shaped. Perfect love is modelled in the self giving of each person to the other. Each receives honour from the others and, in their difference, unity in love is outpoured.

This is the kind of love that the world so desperately needs to see and know. It begins, not with those other Christians understanding and growing in love, but me. The judgement which I pass on those mistaken Christians who selfishly push their own will on to others, demanding to be heard and to have an impact, must be turned and used to remove the log of pride which blinds me. I must set my will on seeking the growth and flourishing of my brothers and sisters and trust that the Lord will honour my attempts at love and surround me with a mutually loving community. This community must, therefore, be intentional at sharing this single-minded will to be formed into the likeness of Christ, the image of God, Trinity in unity. Without this unity as the epitome of life the rest is useless.

Since the Psalm says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant is it, that brethren should dwell together in one”, why then should we not call Monks so? For Monos is one. Not one in any manner, for a man in a crowd is one, but though he can be called one along with others, he cannot be Monos, that is, alone, for Monos means one alone. They then who thus live together as to make one man, so that they really possess what is written, “one mind and one heart”, Acts 4:32 many bodies, but not many minds; many bodies, but not many hearts; can rightly be called Monos, that is, one alone (St. Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 133,v)

Monasticize the World

I read a quote recently which struck at the heart of my thinking and its implications for the Church and the world.

There was a common concern at the time, and especially in the period from 1100 to 1160, with the nature of religious life and the ideal of personal perfection. A set of values as well as a way of life, embodied in various institutions, was at the heart of the movement of reform, which can be seen as an effort to monasticize first the clergy, by imposing on them a standard of life previously reserved for monks, and then the entire world (Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.6)

I found the quote in a book on the theology of Hugh of St. Victor who was a canon regular in Paris during the twelfth century renaissance. Canon Regulars are priests who live together and follow a common rule and share their property in common. Most, but not all, follow the Rule of St Augustine written during the fourth century over 100 years prior to the Rule of St. Benedict. Carolyn Bynum, in her article on the spirituality of the Canon Regulars saw these priests falling between the clerical reforms of Pope Gregory VII and the Cistercian reforms of monasticism taking place at the same time. This movement saw a shift away from the monastic ideals of shared property and common life to embrace a more pastoral and evangelical ideal. Bynum distinguishes three characteristics of the canonical movement:

a conviction that contemplative action is superior to the purely contemplative life.
an emphasis on preaching.
a renewed emphasis on sacraments and history.

Hugh of St. Victor is a fascinating writer whose work centres on the theme of reformation, both personal and ecclesiastical. Again and again he writes on our need to seek God’s restoration of our nature from the fallen state that we find ourselves and to allow God to build within us a dwelling place for Himself. For Hugh this was an ordered and systematic work of prayer, study and active service. In his time the Church needed a total structural overhaul and Hugh saw this starting with a disciplined life of learning and teaching within the Church. Discipleship was an ordered way of life aimed at creating people who participated in the wisdom of God.

I am an ordained priest in the Church of England serving in a parish with a history with The Company of Mission Priests. This is important as this parish has a history of ‘monasticized’ clergy who took the service of those suffering in poverty seriously. I have been asking myself what it might look like to return to that form of ministry. I have been exploring and studying the New Monastic movement for many years, with a particular interest in the historic examples of how the monastic tradition has led the Church through renewal and reform in the past. I have a deep sense of vocation to a form of monastic life but, being married, I am limited in the way I can engage in this vocation through traditional paths. I have explored tertiary and oblate schemes as well as dispersed new monastic communities but it is the sharing of common life that is at the heart of my calling. A deeply sacramental model of parish ministry and a commitment to a social gospel, particularly in areas of deprivation, is emotionally demanding. I often feel alone in the pressures of living with such immediate and unavoidable pain and suffering. I have been praying for a community to share with me in this radical and sacrificial ministry. I am not alone, either. I have a few ordained friends who are crying out for a life of living and working alongside others, sharing the joys and struggles of ministry among the most needy in our society.

I also have a particular focus on reformation and restoration within my ministry. At this time of ‘Renewal and Reform’ I often ask myself how much are we genuinely seeking to listen to the monastic tradition as our forebears did (often after a struggle!) Hugh of St Victor’s methodical approach to the construction of an inner Ark to house the presence of God and to his commitment to the monasticizing of the clergy and, indeed, the world strikes me as deeply important and relevant to our urgent need at this time.

Whilst I served my curacy I reflected on the Rule of St. Benedict, asking myself what it might look like to live out a Benedictine life in the parish context. Many people found these reflections helpful and interesting but by the end of the project I was more convinced of my monastic vocation and, therefore, more grieved by the lack of community to share my life with. Having now moved to a new context and started a new ministry, I am returning to those deep questions of what it is God is calling me to. My journey in Parish Monasticism? was a personal one, asking questions of the individual things I could do to engage in this monastic spirituality. I am now asking more structural questions and the increased urgency for reformation causes me to think beyond the personal and seek to challenge the Church wider to take seriously the fading ‘fad’ of new monasticism.

Renewal and Reform are not new to the Church of Christ. We would be foolish to miss out on Hugh of St. Victor’s extensive writing on the subject. I want to start to explore this theme using the Rule of St. Augustine which he lived under and used to shape his life and of which he wrote an excellent commentary/explanation on. The Rule of St. Augustine is small treatise on the life within community but it is, compared to St Benedict’s later Rule, relatively bare on details. Augustine rather uses it to flesh out his major theological themes in lived relationships. Hugh and Augustine share many ideas and concepts; they share a love of urban environments, a distress at the fallenness of humanity and an appreciation for the beauty of order. I hope to sit with them both and listen to what they teach. As I learn from them I hope to pass on the wisdom and thus embrace a more canonical approach. Bynum observed,

Canonical authors see canons as teachers and learners whereas monastic authors see monks only as learners. (Carolyn Walker Bynum, “The Spirituality of Regular Canons in the Twelfth Century”, Jesus as Mother: studies in the spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) p.36)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. I pick up the Rule of St Augustine this time and, rather than ask ‘Parish Monasticism?’, proclaim ‘Monasticize the World’. I do hope you will join me.

Why New Monasticism?

Di-Vesting Authority

General Synod is an addiction for me; I know it’s bad for me and causes me great harm but yet I can’t resist engaging in it!

The latest gathering of Synod, like the recent gatherings before it, was rife with painful discord before it had even begun. As I prepared myself for social media outlets to fall into confusion and bitter rivalries (as it seems to do daily now!) I looked at an item on church vestments and thought

“At least there’s a relatively trivial debate on frocks!”

Having said that, despite the two larger decisions to be passed at Synod, it was this ‘trivial’ one that causes me to reflect most theologically about the state of the Church of England at present. As a mixed tradition mongrel of Roman Catholicism and Charismatic Evangelical I have already thought deeply about my use of vestments and, although many would say I am conflicted in my current practice, choosing to wear vestments at times and at other times not, I do know where I stand on this issue (see my post on vestments here.) This piece of legislation, for me, was going to be merely a naming of my current practice but has caused me to reflect again on that practice and the implications it presents.

My current practice is that for baptism and Holy Communion I robe for anything else I don’t. I’m Roman Catholic for their sacraments, charismatic evangelical the rest of the time! It’s not fool-proof but it’s what I have settled with for the moment. The other thing I’d want to stress is that I am, of course, contextually sensitive; if a context demands or requests I wear robes I do and if they would cause the congregation distraction I don’t.

The reason this decision has caused me to reflect, however, is an ecclesiological one. This albeit minor decision betrays the current confusion and division over the Church of England’s understanding of church and authority. This small, ‘harmless’ legislation again highlights the underlying conflict at the heart of Anglicanism in the 21st century and like the turmoil 500 years ago which caused the Great Reformation and 500 years before that the Great Schism and 500 years before that the establishing of the Great Councils it is caused by a lack of clarity on authority.

The cause of this uncertainty of authority stems from several sources sweeping across Synod and disrupting, distorting and severing fellowship and peace. One source is the individualising of society by our subjective post-Enlightenment libertarian/liberal philosophy. I have written on this so much I don’t want to unpack it anymore (if you’re interested read any other blog post and it’ll be there!) This is truly a massive problem when it comes to our understanding of Christian community.

The second source is, on it’s own, not a negative force (in fact it is quite the opposite): the rise in charismatic evangelical theology of which I am a son.

The charismatic movement began with the Pentecostal revival at the start of the 20th century and came to prominence in this country during the latter parts of the century. One aspect of this theological movement is a more egalitarian ecclesiology. If all God’s people are able to be filled with God’s Spirit, be used by God and receive prophetic words and pictures then power is no longer placed in one specific person but within the Body. The understanding of the priest as a kind of conduit for prayer and worship is dismantled. This is a good and proper challenge for the Church.

The prime time when this is exercised is in charismatic worship/prayer events where the gathered community wait on God and speak out words of knowledge and prophecy, speak in tongues and (often forgotten) interpretation of tongues. To keep in line with St Paul’s deep desire for order in church services there is a suitable place of weighing up words and pictures but ultimately everyone is encouraged to encounter God and share what they hear from Him. All voices are given a hearing. St. Paul emphasises in his important discussion on worship in 1 Corinthians 11-14 the necessity for order and the need for ‘one to interpret’ and to ‘weigh what is said’. (I don’t want to go into the exegesis of the refusal of the female voice in this context!)

In these events the ‘leader’ may well be a lay worship leader assisted by another ‘leader’ or vice versa. That ‘leader’ does not have to be ordained and they become, quite rightly, more of a facilitator. This role is key but is rarely trained with the gravity and import it deserves. People are released to lead these gatherings and imitate others without any rigourous understanding of authority. This enabling of lay leadership is rightly to be encouraged, however, but it is in this context that vestments becomes a potential stumbling block.

Vestments, historically, have sought to be signifiers of authority within the worshipping life of a congregation. The clothing is, in this respects, uniform, identifying the person in a particular role. This has meant that bishops, priests, deacons, lay readers, etc., all of whom have specific roles in a worshipping community have had these visible signs of those roles. In the new context where lay leadership is being encouraged vestments are a sign of restricting power to ordained/licensed individuals. To truly allow the laity to thrive we must, understandably, remove the vestments from the ordained but in so doing we must also remove sole authority too.

The charismatic tradition, particularly when wedded to the evangelical tradition, within the Church has really flourished over the last few decades and is one of the largest growing traditions in the Church in England. I want to stress how indebted I am to this inheritance and believe God is using it for His glory in His Church but…

It is not hard to see that within a culture where authority is placed solely on the individual and their perceived experience of the world the charismatic evangelical tradition has a lot to offer. The evangelical tradition gives, if not carefully taught, a highly individualised faith experience; salvation is for the individual, it is not a communal experience. Mix that with the charismatic tradition where the emphasis is on the personal experience of God we have created worship which is, collective in that it is expressed best with others but the experience remains rooted in the individual. The ecclesiology of the charismatic evangelical tradition is individualised, experiential and struggles to present a truly communal reality.

In his article “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, John Zizioulas outlines the difference between traditional philosophical thought on personhood and the unique Christian understanding.

…Western thought arrived at the conception of the person as an individual and/or personality, i.e., a unit endowed with intellectual, psychological and moral qualities centred on the axis of consciousness.

For the Christian, however,

…being a person is basically different from being an individual or ʻpersonalityʼ in that the person can not be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to. Thus personhood implies the ʻopenness of beingʼ, and even more than that, the ek-stasis of being, i.e. a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the ʻselfʼ and thus to freedom. (John Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood”, T.F. Torrance and J. K. S. Reid (eds.), Scottish Journal Theology Vol 28 (1975), p.406)

I have argued repeatedly that the UKʼs capitalist liberal democracy has shaped the way we participate in Christian community, i.e. limited us on the individual participants own experience of God. It is in this view that Zizioulasʼ statement is important.

Zizioulas’ ʻopenness of beingʼ lends itself to the charismatic experience seen in many of the growing churches in the UK. Charismatic theology emphasises the importance of a transcendent experience and is achieved by creating an expectation of receptivity to God’s gifts. The challenge comes when attempting to be open to God, allowing others to be used by God to speak to you whilst remaining an autonomous individual; the central authority in our post-modern philosophy.

Samuel Wells takes this idea of receiving gifts and discusses an improvisational device called ʻoveracceptingʼ as a potential tool for Christian ethics.

Overaccepting is accepting in the light of a larger story. The fear about accepting is that one will be determined by the gift, and thus lose oneʼs integrity and identity. The fear of blocking is that one will seal oneself off from the world, and thus lose oneʼs relevance and humanity. Overaccepting is an active way of receiving that enables one to retain both identity and relevance… Christians imitate the character of God to the extent that they overaccept the gifts of creation and culture in the same way God does. (Samuel Wells, “Improvisation in the Theatre as a Model for Christian Ethics”, Trevor Hart and Steven Guthrie, Faithful Performance: Enacting Christian Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) p.161)

Within this framework we can go someway in achieving both communion with others whilst remaining unique enough to have an identity. Zizioulas’ further development in his understanding of personhood challenges individualism by suggesting we must de-individualise Christ.

In order that Christology may be relevant to anthropology, it must ʻde- individualiseʼ Christ, so that every man may be ʻde-individualisedʼ too. (John Zizioulas,
“Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, p.438)

Christʼs de-individualisation is, for Zizoulas, pneumatologically conditioned because it was only ʻof the Spiritʼ that Christ united the human, one individual, and the divine, another individual. In this way the Spirit makes it possible for one to be many and so constitutes, for Zizioulas, the church.

…the mystery of the Church is essentially none other than that of the “One” who is simultaneously “many”. (John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton Longman and Todd) p112)

Zizoulas goes on to suggest that

If the Church is constituted through… Pneumatology, all pyramidal notions disappear in ecclesiology: the “one” and the “many” co-exist as two aspect of the same being. (Zizoulas, Being Communion, p.139-141)

Zizioulasʼ belief that this will ʻremove any pyramidal structutures’, as understood by our current culture, is undermined, however, by his continued assertion of the importance of the presence of a bishop, as representative of Christ, within the community. This order of precedence raises the “one” above the “many” and thus creates, for our culture, a hierarchy. Indeed, it is the role of bishops and, to a certain degree, clergy in general that has been seen as the undermining of the full realisation of an egalitarian, flat leadership encouraged within charismatic theology and the wider culture. It is the vote on vestments that deconstructs further the role of clergy within the church which have held sway over the Church, for better or worse.

Jürgen Motlmannʼs ecclesiology offers us a helpful addition.

The doctrine of the Trinity constitutes the church as a “community free of dominion.” The Trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord. Authority and obedience are replaced by dialogue, consensus, and harmony… The hierarchy which preserves and enforces unity is replaced by the brotherhood and sisterhood of the community of Christ. (Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) p202)

Moltmannʼs social Trinity is a communion free from dominion and authority and offers an ecclesiology for our generation who are hungry for the intimacy of community whilst maintaining autonomy of individualism.

Moltmann outlines three different paradigms of the church: The Hierarchical paradigm of God the Father, the Christocentric paradigm of God the Son and the Charismatic paradigm of God the Spirit. He suggests that in the Early Church there was a monarchic social structure seen through the authority of the Father and manifested itself in Papal supremacy. This caused a social rebellion in the form of the Reformation, which replaced such a view with a brotherhood of believers based on the centrality of sola scriptura. Moltmann admits,

Of course, practically speaking the distinction between trained theologians and people without any theological training has taken the place of priestly hierarchy. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23)

Tony Jones, an ecclesiologist writing about Moltmannʼs theology, suggests,

While Moltmann admits the christocentrism did not entirely overwhelm the hierarchical church, he fails to acknowledge… that hierarchy has been just as prevalent in his own Reformed tradition.(Tony Jones, The Church is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement (Minneapolis: JoPa Group, 2011) p144)

In the last of these paradigms, it is God the Spirit that brings unity whilst encouraging plurality. In the charismatic congregation, Moltmann suggests,

no one has a higher or lower position than anyone else with what he or she can contribute to the community.

In this context vestments become void of any purpose and all symbols of hierarchy and power can be dismissed. This paradigm, however, can be, and, as I am arguing, has been, too easily adopted by the individualism of our age as Moltmann goes on to say,

…all are accepted just as they are…Everyone is an expert in his or her own life and personal calling. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23-25)

And there it is: the mantra for the Church at the present time. No one can tell anyone what is right or wrong. All must be accepted and placed as equally authoritative and by so doing authority is displaced and no longer shared.

The Church of England is currently facing a new social rebellion akin to the Great Reformation and again it is about power and authority. The Reformation caused authority to be placed in Scripture and thus power/authority was placed in the hands of any who could read and interpret the text. Richard Hooker, who I would argue is the the architect of Anglican ecclesiology, later stated the need for three authorities: Scripture, tradition and reason, with Scripture having a form of primacy.

I believe we have seen an ascendance of reason as the primary authority under which the others must fall but, with the advent of charismatic theology, there is a need to rightly emphasise the Holy Spirit’s authority in the Church which has morphed intellectual reason to ‘experience’. I would say that the Holy Spirit is in all of these but I understand the move from reason to experience and it comes down to semantics for me. I would argue, however, that this ‘experience’ has been adopted by our individualised culture, abandoning objective truth and making ‘reason’ subjective experience and this is now our sole authority. It is the individualised experience, by way of the charismatic evangelical tradition being allowed to continue without rigorous ecclesiological questions being asked, that is now seen in Synod debates. The vast majority of decisions now are made on the basis of individualised experience which is a distorted understanding of reason and from this Scripture is re-interpreted and tradition is changed.

The decision on vestments opens for us the gaping hole in our ecclesiology and the social rebellion occurring in the church will only end in division if authority is not placed somewhere safe to bring about St. Pauls’ order and decency.