Sometimes a book full of blind alleys and glaring omissions can reveal more of the truth than something less adventurous and with less errors.  Caroline Miley’s The Suicidal Church: can the Anglican Church be saved?  is just such a book.

It is a book with a lot to say that needs to be heard. Yet it is also a book with, to my mind at least, some quiet crazy ideas. It is the cry of a passionate, insightful, liberal Christianity.

Very well-crafted, Miley’s writing is eminently quotable. For example, on the issue of the role of the laity: “The point of being a Christian is not to have a vague sense of reassurance that everything will be alright because you believe in God. The point of being a Christian is to glorify God and to proclaim the kingdom of God in the world. Christians who do not do so are not laity: they are lukewarm.”

The Suicidal Church is full of such clear and incisive comments about what is wrong with the Anglican Church ‘here’ in Australia. But the Anglican Church where, exactly? I suspect she has in mind the Anglican Church of her home city of Melbourne. Although Sydney is mentioned a couple of times, it is clear that Miley doesn’t understand either evangelicals or Anglican history, and her criticisms tend to be of the usual stock in trade variety.

Not that there is nothing of value here. There is much in The Suicidal Church which is exciting and challenging.

The book is an exploration of what, for Miley, is an unacceptable paradox:  “the promise of positive and creative life is embedded in Christian scripture and worship, but the churches are full of the timid, damaged and fearful, and the church itself is damaged and fearful.” It is clear that Miley has had a very powerful experience of God and is troubled that the church seems so far away from it.  The biggest challenge for Anglicans is that they are simply not passionate enough about their Christian faith. “Anglicans and Australians just don’t take their religion seriously enough, so it is not surprising that those not of the faith don’t either.”

Nothing is spared Miley’s pen. Time and time again reading the book I recognised insights I had thought but had dared not put into words, or at least not often.

In a section entitled ‘Relentless Amateurism’ she notices the puzzle of a church that is supposedly full of tertiary and professional people: “The endemic and relentless lack of professionalism of the Church is very hard to understand.” It is so entrenched in Anglican culture that it appears normal. It manifests itself in all sorts of ways, from its management structures to its morning teas. Miley comments, “Outside the church on a Sunday morning, people are consuming cappuccinos and croissants; within, lukewarm tea from an urn and Arnott’s Family Assorted biscuits.” Ouch!  She then moves on to church publications and what she calls ‘sixties folksiness and dowdy dress’.

Miley’s critique is much more profound than merely some of the simple cultural issues. It is a massive cry to the Church not to be timid about God, to organise itself in a way that actually works, to be, as she puts it, ‘more religious’ in a world hungry for spiritual truth. Her ten point plan for the Church to engage the modern world makes interesting reading.

The first four are:
“1. Become religious; 2. Love the world instead of judging it; 3. Make evangelism the top priority everywhere; 4. Make empowerment of all Christians for life in the world the next priority.”
Here is one of the moments I suddenly find myself completely at odds with what Miley has to say. For example, Miley takes it for granted that there should be no problem whatsoever with Christian practicing homosexuals and that any question mark over the ordination of women is a sign simply of sexism.

The fifth point in her ten point plan is ‘5. Abolish discrimination (abandon the exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act)’ which would be fatal to the freedom of the church and its faith, in my judgment.

Some of her solutions are naïve to say the least: for example, a nationwide central employment agency for clergy.

And who do you think Miley is quoting favourably when she writes: “He repeated over and over again with great conviction, ‘God is real. God is real.’ He seemed to speak with authority from personal belief. There was applause. It is rare indeed to hear a senior churchman speak this way and the applause showed how much people wanted and even needed to hear it. He was a priest doing the work of the gospel proclaiming God’?

It is Bishop Spong of the declining Diocese of Newark.

Yet her call for a better trained and supported, less grumpy, more religious clergy, her lament at the lack of ‘real serious theologians in Australia’ and her call for the Anglican church in this country to conceptualise itself, ‘not as an autonomous institution but as a centre for mission’ are all right on the mark.

I recommend this book as a good, challenging read. I don’t for a moment expect you will believe everything in it.  At the same time The Suicidal Church made me wonder what it would be like if Anglicans around this country took something like this really seriously. In many ways the face of a large part of Australian Anglicanism would be transformed. And a lot of it for the better.

Bishop Robert Forsyth