Columnists
Agnostics Anonymous: A clean fracture
Recently it's been difficult even for agnostics to avoid the question of whether the Anglican Church will dismember itself over the issue of homosexuality. It seems the final answer is no, or at least, not yet. A Bishop Johnson of Toronto was quoted as saying 'The third party in the conversation is the Holy Spirit, and in listening to one another and the Holy Spirit we can have an encounter and be transformed'.
It strikes me that the Holy Spirit might not be the best advert for keeping things together. What hope does the Church have if God Himself can't resist fragmenting into separate Persons? And why is fragmentation supposed to be a bad thing, anyway?
Fragmentation is healthy and necessary for religions. As a 16th-century splinter sect of a religion that is itself a splinter sect of first-century millenarian Judaism, you'd think the Anglican Church might recognise this. The Times reported Archbishop Williams' comments to the effect that 'there had never been a golden age for Anglicans and the Church because its very foundation was divided by dispute'. True enough, historically speaking. But this still implies that division and dispute are bad things.
On the contrary, it's surely the fissile nature of religion that gives it its strength. And this is perhaps particularly true of Christianity. As Chesterton wrote 'Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both positive'. He argued that its strength comes from its inherent conflicts, from its embracing of paradoxes and synthesis of opposing viewpoints and conflicting passions.
His argument is entertaining, and persuasive. But it concludes with Catholic orthodoxy, which he sees as embodying the final dynamic balance of the various conflicts in human nature. This seems a little narrow. Why should any such final synthesis by necessary or desirable?
Orthodoxies are formed in the struggle against heresies, and communions are formed by excommunications. Protestantism forced Catholicism to evolve by sparking the Counter-Reformation. Christianity conquered the world by dividing itself.
The Anglican Church was of course formed through the attempt to steer a middle path between the dogmatic extremes of 'seditious sectaries' both Catholic and Protestant. But as Nye Bevan said, 'We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down'. Schism and creative conflict could be a shot in the arm for the Anglican Church. If I ever find myself part of an agnostic community, my first move will be to try to split it up. In matters of belief, don't join any club that isn't willing to dismember.
Post a comment