Triumph of obtuseness


From Mr James Stephenson Did anyone else notice this


extraordinary response from the recent Report of the Revision Commitee of the General Synod? At 53,000 words, it is easy enough to miss some of the bits hidden away in its dense reporting of what must have been long and gruelling sessions. ‘205. Other members of the


Commitee expressed various concerns about the arguments put forward by traditional catholics. It was suggested that there was a risk that the position they described could in pracice be seen as involving a theology of ‘taint’. So, ignorance and stupidity are to


be enshrined in the legislation of the Church of England? I don’t believe it! We cannot have proper provision for our equal and honoured position as loyal Anglicans, because ‘there is a risk’


that some people would


misunderstand the reasons why. Tat is like saying we cannot have women bishops because there is a risk they might be seen as witches. Tis theology (sic) of taint was an


invention of the liberals in order to discredit their opponents – based on rumoured remarks from disgruntled orthodox priests in the painful days of the early Nineties. Like other urban legends, these were


generally prefixed as coming from a friend, or overheard at a meeting, or reported from some (now lost)


photocopied article. So they invent this imaginary


‘theology’, as a rather clever means of denigrating us, and then have the gall to use it as a reason for refusing proper, measured legislation and provision. You cannot have what you need, because it might be misunderstood by bigots (oh, and by the way we are those bigots). I acknowledge that this may have


been an actual report of something that was actually said, rather than a proposal, but is it not uterly outrageous? How did these people get to be on the Revision Commitee in the first place to have such stupidity solemnly recorded in a formal report of the General Synod of the Church of England? We should be told. James Stephenson


We need each other


From Mr James Merton All these expressions of goodwill


and wanting to hold the Church of England together and not to lose traditional Anglo-Catholics, and so on and so on. We have grown so tired, and bored, of these expressions of inclusiveness – from the very people who are voting for legislation that will effectively throw us out of the church of our birth – that we begin to lose all interest in inclusiveness. What is the comprehensiveness of the Church of England, when it is treated with such contempt?


Lead kindly light... CELEBRATING JOHN HENRY NEWMAN


W


e must not indulge our imagination, we must not dream: we must look


at things as they are... we must not indulge our imagination in the view we take of the National Establishment. If, indeed, we dress it up in an ideal


form, as if it were something real...as if it were in deed and not only in name a Church, then indeed we may feel interest in it, and reverence towards it, and affection for it, as men have fallen in love with pictures, or knights in romance do battle for high dames whom they have never seen.


22 ■ newdirections ■ July 2010


Thus it is that students of the Fathers, antiquaries, and poets, begin by assuming that the body to which they belong is that of which they read in times past, and then proceed to decorate it with that majesty and beauty of which history tells, or which their genius creates. But at length, either the force


And then along comes an article like


the lead article last month, by Dame Mary Tanner on the need to continue the process of reception, and one suddenly realizes the immense value of being part of the same church as someone like her. Is she not the sort of liberal who keeps us honest? I am not sure I am as keen on the idea of reception as she is: even with the best of intentions, it seems to have done more harm than good. And yet, the idea that the CofE


somehow has a vocation to take seriously the struggle for truth, in a way that others with a magisterium cannot, is rather appealing. I read what she wrote with real


interest – even beyond the current crisis in the church, there is an excitement in the theological ideas she shared with us. Yes, there really are moments


when that traditional vision of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England seem once more possible. Brief moments of sunlight between the gathering clouds, but precious for all that. James Merton


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of circumstances or some unexpected accident dissipates it; and, as in fairy tales, the magic castle vanishes when the spell is


broken, and nothing is seen but the wild heath, the barren rock, and the forlorn sheep- walk, so is it with us as regards the Church of England, when we look in amazement on that we thought so unearthly and find so commonplace or worthless.


[From Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans


in Catholic Teaching, vol. 1, 1–6]


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