Rector's Letter
FROM THE CLERGY
Dear Friends,
In spite of what the new Bishop of Peterborough has said in the past that ‘liberalism is one of Satan's greatest weapons against the Church' (a statement I suspect he will now reject having being nominated as a bishop!), I am proud to be a liberal in the Church of England and to defend the liberal position. This is not, as some would suggest, a dogmatic assertion or affirmation, but rather a recognition that rigid certainty can be oppressive and intolerant (if not inaccurate, in many respects) in that it fails to recognize the fundamental principle of growth, development and fresh insight or knowledge. Liberalism is a journey into truth, and for the Christian, and other faith traditions, into the truths of God. It has been my view for some time that it is the liberal position and insight concerning scriptural texts and doctrines that will lead the Christian faith into greater credibility amongst those who for many reasons have either never engaged with religious faith, or have rejected some of its more extreme expressions.
For myself, one of the greatest exponents of the liberal position is Bishop Jack Spong. Bishop Jack has visited Burbage, stayed in the Rectory and given a talk in St Catherine's. Having read nearly all of his books, I am amazed at the opposition he engenders amongst many Christians. Maybe we all need someone to hate, and especially if they challenge some of our deeply held views and beliefs. However, such should not prevent us from engaging with the issues of contemporary theology and the philosophy or religion. Bishop Jack has written a new book, and one he describes as his last, being in his seventy-ninth year. He also suggests that it is not inappropriate that in this stage of his life, he should consider the issue of life after death!
His book is entitled ‘Eternal Life: A New Vision' (Harper One, 2009; New York). Spong suggests that in a not-always-comfortable manner, human beings are now being drawn beyond religion in their quest for answers. They are also moving beyond religion's traditional theistic definition of God as a “supernatural being,” a miracle worker or an exalted parent figure. This image of God has died and with it any sense of purpose, meaning or immortality that is outside life. For Spong, this death of theism opens new doorways into life, into timelessness, and into the mystical experience of being one with the presence of the holy
Whilst this is an important issue both for the academic study of theology and for life within the Church, what might be its particular implication for the celebration of Christmas and our understanding of the incarnation of God in Christ? Bishop Spong writes:
‘I was never drawn to the traditional understanding of John's Gospel because it assumed the external supernatural invasive deity, the God who came from heaven to bring salvation to a fallen race of human beings. I find incarnational thinking to be bizarre in a post-Darwinian world. It pretends, in the pre-Darwinian fashion, that there was a perfect creation which preceded the fall into sin, which in turn necessitated the rescue that only the God from beyond the world could accomplish. In other words, that kind of thinking transforms Jesus into God's divine rescue operation.'
Spong, of course, is hitting upon the fundamental issue concerning the incarnation, and by implication how we understand the Christmas event and story. We can see it in two possible ways. The story, and of course that is what it is as conveyed to us, is either that of an external deity invading the world for the rescue operation (and thereby having to find a way back out again) or rather that of the birth of a very special, if not unique, God-filled person who as a consequence of his life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection brings humanity into not just the ways of God, but the very being of God himself/herself. The latter, I would suggest, is not only more consistent with how we can understand God in our scientific and post-Darwinian world, but also has more ethical and moral credibility. Furthermore, it does not fracture the truth of the incarnation, but merely sees it from a slightly different perspective and with a different emphasis than that perceived throughout much of the history of the Church. I would also conjecture that this emphasis on the humanity, but God-filled Jesus (the indwelling of the Logos from the Christmas Gospel of John) has greater biblical credibility than other more speculative views. Spong writes:
‘…John portrays Jesus as having a relationship with the holy that is of indistinguishable identity. Jesus is not absorbed into the holy. Jesus is rather alive with the holy. Jesus, for John, is the life through which the word of God is heard speaking, the being through which the Ground of Being is experienced as present. God from outside does not enter the human Jesus, as Mark suggests happened at baptism and as Matthew and Luke say occurred at the moment of conception. There is rather in this gospel a kind of intrinsic, inseparable unity, the result of which does not make Jesus more than human, but it does make him fully human and thus fully one with all that God is.'
A Happy Christmas to all Burbage and Aston Flamville parishioners.
Father David
