Rowan Williams - what’s the worry?
|
Rowan Williams - what’s the worry? |
|
See also Gary Williams booklet
Most church members will be aware that the Right Reverend Rowan Williams, currently Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Wales, has been chosen as the next Archbishop of Canterbury. They will also be aware that this appointment has caused considerable controversy, but they may not be clear why, or what this means to the ordinary parish church like ours.
Since the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Church of England has made the Bible its final authority. In the ‘Canons’, which are the ultimate rule-book of the Anglican church, it says this:
The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. (Canon A 5)
The job of a bishop is “to teach and uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions” (Canon C 18). But “sound doctrine” in the Church of England means teaching which accords with the Bible, and “erroneous" opinion is anything which contradicts the Bible. And the reason for this is given in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the oldest summary of Anglican beliefs:
The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written [...]. (Article XX)
For Anglicans, the Bible is not just a book. It is not even just the most important book about God. The Bible is “God’s word written".
Unfortunately, the man now nominated as the next leader of the world-wide Church of England does not seem to see it in those terms. That is not to say that Rowan Williams is disrespectful towards the Bible. In his recent farewell address to his diocese he said this:
Christians have to be in the habit of looking into Scripture [...]. Nowhere else do we find the questions of God put to us so authoritatively and directly.
But although he is positive about the Bible, he is very careful in what he says the Bible is and is not. Here he is in an interview on Radio 4 back in July:
I believe [the Bible] to be the primary record of the impact of God’s action on a set of human communities and the primary record of where that impact comes to its climax in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So it’s much more a set of people reacting with excitement, bewilderment, puzzlement, imagination once again to what’s been going on rather than a simple linear communication from God.
For Rowan Williams the Bible is about God - in fact it is the “primary record” of God’s action on our world. But it is not from God. It is “inspired” in the sense that “God's Spirit comes to us through the text”, but not, apparently, in the biblical sense that it is a word ‘breathed out’ by God (2 Tim 3:16). Indeed Rowan Williams believes that the Bible sometimes gets it wrong about God. Thus in 1994 he wrote that the authors of Scripture were “caught up in the blazing fire of God’s gift”, and yet they “struggle with it, misapprehend it, and misread it” (Open to Judgement, p 159, emphasis added).
In fact Rowan Williams’ theology is as complicated as some of his sentences. For, in the end, it appears that he believes God is silent. God appears to us in Jesus - and Rowan Williams’ Jesus is quite orthodox: born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day he rose again from the dead. But the impact of all this is to raise questions - “the questions of God” - not to provide answers. Thus Jesus is first presented to us as a baby in a manger. And, as Williams says in Open to Judgement,
Ask a baby about the ordination of women, about divorce legislation, violence on television, who will win the election; it is not a fruitful experience.
And, in an extraordinary passage in the same book, Rowan Williams says that the God shown to us by this ‘baby Jesus’ is like a “spastic” nine year old child:
This is the solitude of truth, the solitude, finally, of God; God as a spastic child who can communicate nothing but his presence and his inarticulate wanting.
The Bible brings us the questions raised by Jesus coming into the world. But the authors of the Bible were themselves struggling with the answers.
It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that Rowan Williams holds the views he does on homosexuality. In one interview in Australia, he said he felt that he “could no longer say the biblical account answers all the questions we have or want to ask”. Consequently, he has ordained at least one person he had reason to believe had an active homosexual relationship with a partner. In another interview in Australia he explained “I was aware that there was a long‑term friendship. But I don’t see my task as going around the bedroom with a magnifying glass doing surveillance."
Since the announcement of his appointment, Rowan Williams has said that he will adhere to the church’s present position on sexuality. But at the same time, he has made it equally clear that it is a position with which he disagrees:
I can and I do state what is the majority teaching of the Church, and I will exercise the discipline of the Church as I am bound to do. But I can’t go beyond this and say that I believe what I do not believe. (Letter to the Chairman of Reform)
Rowan Williams believes passionately in a God who asks awkward questions. But there are some awkward questions which could be asked about his own appointment. In particular, is his view of the Bible, and his understanding of God which follows from this, sufficiently representative of orthodox Anglicanism? And we also have to ask an awkward question of ourselves. Specifically, should we be prepared to accept the appointment of an Archbishop who is so far from holding a traditional understanding of Christian doctrine? And if not, what should we to do about it?
Last updated 16th November, 2002