by the Revd Andrew Lightbown, former member of General Synod and soon to be Canon Residentiary at Newport Cathedral in the Diocese of Monmouth.
I am about to leave the Church of England. In fact, I am going to “Cross the Severn” to take up a post in the Church in Wales. I am leaving with a sense of real excitement but also a sense of sadness.
Leaving the Church of England is proving to be a bitter-sweet experience. I need to make it clear that I am not leaving because I can no longer take the Church of England any more but because of a genuine sense of calling to a particular job, amongst particular people, in a particular place. It is this sense of particularity that has historically always been so important to my understanding of what it means to be a member of the Church of England.
The Church of England has always been my church. It baptised me, confirmed me, married me (although not in that order) and ordained me. The Church of England has been there for me, and in my family, in good times and in bad, as well as in the so-called ordinary times. I will always be grateful for the ministry of the Church of England.
The Church of England through the ministry of all the baptised has been kind and compassionate to me. It has held my hand when it needed holding, offered a hanky when the tears have flowed, baked a cake and cooked a lasagna when comfort food has been required, fed me week by week through word and sacrament, raised me up when I have felt low, and brought me down to earth when I have risen above my station. It has done for me what the church has needed to do for me, from a place of love, tolerance, and inclusion. The Church of England has taken this particular Christian seriously, enabling me to take the particularity of the other seriously.
Sadly, tragically, I feel that the Church of England is losing something of its historic focus on the particularity of people in community. It feels as though the church has become overly anxious, and in its anxiety has become increasingly generic, doctrinal, and stressful. It feels, and I know many out there in C of E land are inherently distrustful of feelings, as though the Church of England has developed a Messiah Complex, in the process forgetting that all that is required of us is to scatter the seed in the faith and hope Kingdom will grow, without us ‘knowing how,’ (Mark 6, 26 -27).
My other feeling, or perhaps, observation is that the Church of England has become increasingly transactional, where the (bitter) fruits of such transactionality are doctrinal narrowness combined with a love of all things strategic.
Our doctrinal narrowness, of course, finds its fullest expression in the ongoing discussions around sexuality, where the relentless pursuit of assumed doctrinal purity fails to respect the God given particularity of specific individuals and their right to take their place as full and equal members within the life of the church, which can only be affirmed through the liturgy of the church. There really can be no rights separate from rites. To pretend otherwise, to seek to hide behind generalised and shallow notions of niceness, changes in tone and culture, is to commit liturgical and ecclesial hypocrisy.
Other churches, our sister churches both within British Anglicanism and the wider reformed tradition, have come to this conclusion, so why is it that the Church of England seems so unwilling to come to similar conclusions? Do we have a superior claim to divergent understandings of scripture, tradition, reason and experience – in other words theology?
The problem with our strategies, and the strap lines and numbers which seek to animate them, is that they risk becoming so dominant, and domineering, that they again undermine the particular. I think there is a real and significant danger that the obsessive focus on strategy will end up undermining the very things that it seeks to promote: mission, evangelism, and growth in both number and in holiness.
The Church of England needs to be far more cautious in its use of numbers, for there is a danger that we simply become that which we choose to measure. Then, when that doesn’t work, the result will be more stress, more anxiety, and a self-perpetuating narrative of yet more blame and yet more failure. We need to sit lightly to, perhaps even let go of, magic and mythical numbers, for they serve no useful purpose.
I am not naïve enough to think that my new church, the Church in Wales, will be problem-free. Of course it won’t, but as I depart, hopefully in peace, my hope and prayer for the Church of England is for a renewed focus on the particular. Particular people, in particular places have particular needs. The church’s strategy should be essentially bottom up, incarnational, inclusive and above all particular. It must trust that the seeds that have been sown will grow, even though we may well ‘know not how.’
It’s time to let go of the Messiah Complex, transactional and generic strategic models, and the pursuit of doctrinal purity. All of these only serve to increase anxiety, stress, and the exclusion of others from the fold.
Any thoughts?