Anglicanism Without God

Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney:

"If I were to preach on Sunday that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was 'a conjuring trick with bones', and unbelievable, it would cause a ripple, but I would not be drummed out of the Anglican church. But if I refuse on principle to baptise infants, I would not be able to stay, although there is a perfectly respectable and non-heretical Christian denomination which takes the same position."

Jensen thinks that there is something strange about this, and so do I. Anglicanism (by which in this context I mean non-evangelical, mainstream Anglicanism) has always been a significant mystery to me. I can fathom (and to some extent empathise with) a host of religious and philosophical views (Mahayana Buddhism, Neo-platonism, Chinese Taoism, modern neo-paganism, Christian socialism, whatever), but I find modern Anglicanism to be at best frustrating and at worst baffling.

When I was a student, one of my lecturers told us the story of a famous Anglican (I think it was Alec Vidler) who had given a public talk about his religion; words and phrases like wishy-washy, vague, diffuse, unfinished, equivocal (and so on) were used. After the talk, some people complimented Vidler for his courage and honesty and his ability to be critical of the Church to which he had devoted his life. Vidler looked puzzled. "I wasn't criticising Anglicanism", he said, "I was praising it". (Even if the story is apocryphal, it is still worth recording!)

If you think I am being unjust to Anglicanism, let me close with a snippet of local news. I live in South Africa, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Less than fifty miles from my home is a stately old Anglican church. The priest/minister of that church is a woman whose title is "Reverend Canon". For a while, this priest served on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the most powerful bodies in the Anglican Communion (if anything at all in Anglicanism can be said to be powerful).

The point of this anecdote is that this Anglican priest (priestess?) has long been a member of the Sea of Faith Network (its main website can be found here). This organisation, which was founded in the mid-1980s by a liberal Anglican priest by the name of Don Cupitt, believes that God has no real objective existence; what we call "God" is merely a human construct, a metaphor, a symbol, a focus for human values and aspirations.

Although the Sea of Faith was founded by an Anglican, its members are a mixed bag - some see themselves as Christians, others identify with other religious traditions in some way (e.g. Buddhism), while still others are humanistic, agnostic, or atheistic.

Anyway, the priestess I have been talking about, whose name is Janet Trisk, identifies with the program of the Sea of Faith. In early 2003, she wrote a review of Lloyd Geering's book, Christianity Without God. The review is available here.

So there you have it - the strange phenomenon called Anglicanism embraces the full spectrum from ardent evangelical Anglicans to people who no longer believe in the existence of God. Not only that, but it is willing to allow priests who do not believe in the existence of God to remain on their payroll, speak in their name, and preach in their churches.

Go figure.