In his latest book Archbishop Peter Carnley sheds new light on controversies in the Anglican Church, but too often descends into gross caricatures of its members, writes JOHN WOODHOUSE.
Dr Carnley’s latest book begins with an account of the debate that followed the publication of his article about the resurrection of Jesus in The Bulletin just before his installation as Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia in April, 2000.
It is clear that he is aggrieved that the controversy shifted from the chief point of his article (“the depth of divine forgiveness that is revealed in the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus” and how “we encounter something of the same spiritual reality” when we forgive those who have harmed us, or experience forgiveness from our own victims) to whether the death of Jesus is properly understood as the divine bearing of the penalty due to sinners, whether Jesus is the only way to salvation, and whether his resurrection involved his physical body being raised. The culprits who hijacked the debate were “a number of key Sydney Anglicans” and “the media machine of the Diocese of Sydney”.
This book is more than Dr Carnley’s response to the phenomenon he calls ‘Sydney Anglicanism’. It provides thought-provoking insights into his own thinking about the Christian faith, and a perspective on a number of historical debates. However throughout the book ‘Sydney Anglicanism’ is never far away, and is frequently the foil against which he spells out his understandings.
The value of the book, to my mind, lies in its attempt to delineate in some depth a number of the profound disagreements that characterise the Anglican denomination today. Not surprisingly, Dr Carnley is most informative in his articulation of his own views. These views are always interesting, usually controversial and cover a vast range of topics. Although this brief review can only touch superficially on a few matters, I hope that Dr Carnley’s work might stimulate a serious discussion of such questions as: the nature of revelation and therefore our knowledge of God, what Christian doctrine is and what it is for, the reading and understanding of Scripture, the importance of the physicality of Jesus’ resurrection and what his death achieved, the character of Christian ministry, the methods of Christian ethics, and relationships between Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
Dr Carnley is somewhat less helpful in his descriptions of the views of others, which would (in my opinion) not be recognised by any supposed holder of those views. This includes not only “Sydney Anglicans” but also the majority of the Appellate Tribunal in 1997, and a number of other Anglican groups. Too often these descriptions descend into gross caricatures that reveal only how little mutual understanding exists.
The caricatures of ‘Sydney Anglicans’ include that they are “uncomfortable with an emphasis on the literary contribution of the respective human authors” of Scripture. (This would be true only if the word ‘exclusive’ were added before ‘emphasis’.) They avoid talk of encounter with the presence of the Raised Christ. (And yet I hear such talk almost every day!) They reduce the resurrection of Jesus to “a mere physical resuscitation”. (I do not believe any evangelical does anything of the kind.) They make an “overconfident rationalistic claim to know the details of exactly how the Cross effected human reconciliation with God”. (This is to mistake the claim that God has revealed something important and true with a claim to know everything.)
In his first chapter Dr Carnley develops a fundamental theme: “God, by definition, is an infinite mystery, an ineffable, transcendent reality.” All language about God is therefore by means of symbols and metaphors. Here, as elsewhere, John Henry Newman (whose theological understanding led him to convert to Roman Catholicism) is a major influence.
Dr Carnley is correct to see that the place of the essential mystery of God in his theology is very different from the faith of evangelicals. However he misunderstands the difference. For Dr Carnley, the alternative to his approach is “to suggest we possess clear and distinct answers to every conceivable question.” For my part I have never encountered a Christian who made any such suggestion. Evangelical faith recognises that our knowledge of God is partial; the reality of God will always be far beyond our full comprehension. There is, in this sense, an essential ‘mystery’. But this recognition is not itself Christian faith, or knowledge of God. Christian faith is confidence in God because of what God has made known. It believes God’s promises. Christian faith is shaped not by the mystery, but by the manifestation of God: ‘the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’ (2Cor 4:4). Dr Carnley mistakes the claim to true though partial knowledge of God for a claim to know everything. It is difficult to imagine a more profound misunderstanding.
Dr Carnley likens Christian doctrine to a dartboard with a bull’s-eye at the centre. The bull’s-eye represents “the Church’s dogmatic nucleus (as this was credally defined in the ancient Councils of the undivided Church).” Around the bull’s-eye there are less definitive doctrines such as “the doctrine of divine grace which affirms that we do not save ourselves by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” Further out are the reflections of various theologians through the ages, such as Thomas Aquinas’s view of the precise way in which Christ is present in the Eucharist.
This is another way of seeing his difficulty with evangelical Christianity. They (he says) take what belongs at the periphery and move it to the bull’s-eye. To be specific, they insist that the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement is a test of Christian orthodoxy.
This understanding of the nature of Christian doctrine is questionable. It reminds this reader of the politicians’ “core” and “non-core” promises! Serious theologians down the ages have not thought that they were dealing with matters at the periphery of Christian faith. I doubt very much that Anselm or Calvin did as they discussed the nature of the Atonement. Indeed Dr Carnley himself has recently said that the Eucharist belongs at the centre of the dartboard. But the Eucharist is not even mentioned in the ancient Creeds!
This does not mean that it is unimportant, but it does mean that the dartboard image of Christian doctrine is less useful than might appear. If evangelicals put matters in the centre that are not credally defined, so does Dr Carnley. He even indicates that if Sydney Diocese steps out of line by allowing authorised lay people to administer the Lord’s Supper (a matter on which Scripture and the Creeds are silent), this would call into question their place in the Anglican communion! That appears to make his particular (and, I must say, curious) understanding of priesthood a core issue. (He does devote three of his nine chapters to questions about ordained ministry.)
Peter Carnley’s book is a clear articulation of one (albeit somewhat idiosyncratic) understanding of Anglican Christianity. In the depth of its misunderstanding of other views it is a testimony to the enormity of the ‘tensions in the contemporary Anglican Church’.
Dr John Woodhouse is Principal of Moore Theological College.
