Gadara Then and Now

Last january four dozen suffragan and assistant bishops wrote to the London Times warmly commending the current Anglican-Methodist unity scheme. Possibly the reason why it took so many of them to do it was that, like the old lady whom the Boy Scouts helped across the street, the Church of England doesn’t want to go (see “Being Ambiguous on Purpose,” Current Religious Thought, July 19, 1968).

At least a substantial part doesn’t. A vote taken this year in rural deaneries of the influential London diocese has shown that 53 per cent voted against the proposed Service of Reconciliation, and 51.6 per cent against the scheme as a whole. In many other dioceses there is a majority in favor, but overall the result has fallen short of the 75 per cent majority their church has fixed as a prerequisite of the scheme’s implementation. Both churches will take the vital vote on July 8.

Let no one imagine, however, that the establishment has admitted to backing the wrong horse. Too many episcopal shirts have been put on it. As well as the lesser luminaries mentioned above, all but one or two of the forty-three diocesan bishops favor the scheme. The loftiest Methodist brass concurs; like Winston Churchill on an occasion almost as momentous, they are not interested in defeat or retreat. As usual, my friend Dr. Jim Packer of Oxford, following Bernard Manning, has le mot juste, warning against an unthoughtful ecumenical rush. He tells of the Way-side Pulpit outside a church that displayed the stirring words: “Anywhere, provided it be forward—David Livingstone.” Underneath someone had added: “And so say all of us—The Gadarene Swine.”

Most of the objections to the present scheme are centered around the Service of Reconciliation, particularly the vexed point of whether this constitutes ordination for Methodist ministers. Objections to the original wording were considered, and a revised version published two years ago. It did little to resolve the controversy, which chiefly concerns the following section:

Then shall the Bishop lay his hands on the head of each of the Methodist ministers in silence. After he has laid hands upon all of them the Bishop shall say, “We receive you into the fellowship of the Ministry in the Church of England. Take authority for the office and work of a Priest, to preach the Word of God and to minister the holy sacraments among us as need shall arise and you shall be licensed to do. We welcome you as fellow Presbyters with us in Christ’s Church.”

Therein is the sore point. That Dr. Ramsey appreciates this was seen in his January convocation address. Here was one occasion when the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury could not have been accused of sitting on the fence. His clear partisanship on a religious occasion is a rare spectacle, and I am glad I was present to hear him. He wanted this merger to go through. In saying so he mercifully did not reiterate that if-we-can’t-unite-with-the-Methodists-who-can-we-unite-with line, out of which he has got good mileage in the past.

In its place, however, was another massive question-begger, another primatal “if.” Said Dr. Ramsey: “It won’t be surprising if other churches in the Anglican Communion do not take us very seriously if, having exhorted them to seek unity on these lines, we are unwilling or unable to do it ourselves.” This unhappily worded statement suggests a wrong motive for action, implies that the Church of England is already in some sense morally committed to the scheme, leaves no room for a courageous change of heart, and advocates uniformity more than unity.

But this point came later in his address, almost as an incidental. Very properly the archbishop spent much time discussing the Service of Reconciliation. “Of course it resembles an ordination,” he said, in reply to a common objection. Instead, however, of going on to say where it is not an ordination, he veered off to put the whole matter on his own terms. Three questions, he suggested, are important: “What is God asked in this service to do?” (which seems to me to be the very point in dispute). “Is God able to do what he is asked in this service to do?” (Who could possibly say no to the question in that form?) “What will be the result for the recipients if God does what he is asked to do?” (All right, but what will be the result if he doesn’t?)

“If we can answer these questions,” continues Dr. Ramsey (how they are answered is evidently of no moment), “we shall be saying a great deal, and perhaps saying as much as needs to be said, even though we disclaim saying within the service what the relative needs of the recipients are and what particular gifts God gives in each case to meet those needs.” The point Dr. Ramsey is tortuously trying to make here is dependent first on the validity of, and lack of ambiguity in, his questions—and then on his getting to them the answers he wants.

Thereafter he says that bishops, elsewhere referred to as “the historic episcopate,” are “necessary for a reunited Christendom.” This means that conversations with the Church of Scotland should be concerned chiefly with the terms on which the Kirk will accept bishops, so that what is lacking in Presbyterian ministers may be put right. While appearing to state that ministers of non-episcopal churches are “real ministers of God’s Word and sacraments,” Dr. Ramsey more than appears to concur in the view that all ministries are not “equally sufficient.” All must be made “equally and acceptably” presbyters in God’s Church. “I have done a good many things of doubtful morality,” admits the Archbishop of Canterbury, “but I am sure that if I am allowed to share in the Service of Reconciliation this will not be one of them.” There is an element of the bathetic in that. The primate’s past is his own affair, and is a red herring here.

Toward the end of his convocation address we find Dr. Ramsey hitting an eschatological note. This might at other times be welcomed, but I doubt if it is really helpful at this stage to make tendentious allusions to “the judgment” in the context of those who reject the merger with the Methodists.

Moreover, the primate admits that “our present understanding of the episcopate and of the Eucharist may be but a shadow of the understanding which may be ours in the future plenitude of the Church.” Precisely. If present understanding is indeed so shadowy, one might ask why earlier, in order to build up his argument, he had advocated hardline Anglicanism with regard to bishops and intercommunion.

The archbishop’s closing sentence, which immediately followed on the words quoted above, is: “It is in these ways that I think a voice is saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward.’ ” While hesitating to question any special archiepiscopal revelation, one might ask whether the same children of Israel did not discover the folly of going forward when the cloud was still.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.