Frame Remain Writes Yet Again

I Was Wrong says Frame Remain

The well known Toronto theologian, admits, in an even more extensive article than usual, that he has been wrong all along.

I, Frame Remain, the well known Toronto theologian, have been wrong all along, and now wish to confess all my sins intellectually.

Now that Bishop Duncan Eyebrows has left and set up his little operation, along with others I agree but can't associate with, I must now justify where I exist.

It has been such a struggle inside The Geographical General Convention Episcopal Church (Anglican Communion) of the United States (GGCECACUSA). Let's add to that the Canadian Anglican Church Union (CAChU). And what an effect on the Worldwide Anglican Communion! Hardly a day goes by without some report on the mother of all schisms, of breaking up is hard to do, of congregations going on coach trips and committing mass suicide, and others undergoing sleep malaise during heretical sermons and wishing for the coffee afterwards. As we rattled on and on about structures, membership continued its savage decline with people instantly turning into atheists, Pagans and fundamentalists. Yet these structural conversations have been vital, even if people come at them from various architectural angles and provide a variety of diagrams and taxonomies as they rattle their cups and saucers.

All my friends have left me! There is no one left I know. They have become drinkers of Latte, Cappuccino, Macchiato, Mocha, Café Freddo, Café au lait - all orthodox arabica and robusta - whilst I have stayed here, sacrifically, with the poor remaining ones consuming Budget Coffee, full of what seems to be no more than dust scraped off the street. Still, they have said, "Come on, Smell the coffee", and those real aromas have stirred the faithful budget consumers towards the desire for a new direction of drink whilst staying in our little declining coffee bar.

My friends elsewhere have said, "You cannot drink this stuff any longer. You will be high as a kite! It's like being on the nastiest of drugs, with your eyes peeled open and wandering around like a zombie." I have indeed thought this myself at times - but as you keep drinking, you get used to it, and I have become less anxious. I, Frame Remain, have become happier in myself, wrenched from the selfishness of wishing I could have a decent beverage. Still, there is always soup when we get home. We mustn't grumble.

Here we are, now, at the season of Advent. It's like waiting for a bus. The bus is due, but has not come yet. It humbles you, especially when it is cold or raining, and here in North American Anglicanism, we have both. It is the weather we expect among the downtrodden faithful. In such weather we can warm ourselves rubbing up against other people, so long as we have first introduced ourselves to each other in the pews that are our bus stop. Otherwise we get arrested. As Lenin himself asked, when putting out his hand for the coming bus, what are we to do? Well we must wait, to see what the bus looks like, to let that bus tell us about the journey, and hope to have a cup of coffee at the other end of the journey that forms who we are.

This is what the journey tells us:

1. Not getting one's own way today

Five years this has gone on. Gosh I, Frame Remain, have struggled as I have dashed off article after article pleading for what I have now given up. No sooner was one article finished and posted on the Internet, with that dirty cup and saucer put by the sink, that I had the kettle on and was writing another one. My arguments have been brushed aside like the dust I drink. Yet, how arrogant have I been! I thought my views were so obvious that everyone would come and change the structures just for me. The Archbishop of Anglicanism - he likes a good brew - would come and sort it all out. Yet with what wisdom he sits on his hands! From that same cup, like the miracle of five loaves and two fishes, he keeps drinking, with supreme patience, as he writes in a way that no one understands and about which I am so jealous. I must find out how he does it, because he is such an inspiration, as the coffee stains on his beard constitute more than went into the cup at the beginning. Truly a miracle; his theology is so orthodox, so wonderful in its robusta flavour, and yet he starts with just a spoonful of the instant stuff like me, and a bit of water, and some of that horrible UHT milk because it lasts for ages and ages.

As I realised no one could give a toss about what I think, write and drink, I had to further realise that, quite simply, the fact that my own views, however carefully constructed and believed in, are not the measure of the Church’s life or of anybody else's, including mine. So that's that, then.

2. Parishes are mixed up and should be built up with my teaching, not fighting places

Even if you think you are faithful and knowledgeable, you realise that others have their own tipple. I just never realised before that people are different and have their own preferences! There was I saying, surely you ought to be like me, and they were saying, "When are you going to sod off?" I had to say, stop fighting these people, especially if I'm not going to go off with the other people who have gone off.

3. The Communion also requires such non-conflictive building

It must have a common mind, I mean, come on: surely I can't give up this idea as well? Well, I have been wondering, and I'll just say that there are quite some different folks in this ragbag collection we call Anglicanism. Look at the psalms, and how they show what a messed up bunch we all are. I'd always assumed the psalms meant everyone should agree with me, but a little more exegesis put that right.

No one coffee bar, café or restaurant is alike. Even if you ask for the same coffee in each place, they turn out to be different! This has such radical implications for orthodoxy that I am only now getting some paper to dash off yet another online article.

We can still dream of coming back to the same place and supping together. Archbishop Kolini of Rwanda said to me personally that we should not be too distressed if some of us in America (and anywhere really) went our separate ways in the brewing conflict: we would be like Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:39, disagreeing, but to come back and sup again. Let's be honest, we have been poisonous all the time, producing the most bitter taste, saying, we need more sugar, or perhaps those revolting sweeteners that don't seem to stop Americans getting fatter and fatter.

4. Legal matters

Tittilation has been the order of the day. We must confess, that, along with alienating, we have tittilated. We are tits. Going to court has been one big entertainment for the faithless. Too much enjoyment for those who have laid out their jars of coffee for members of the jury. It has to stop. Stop trying to nick the spoons and leave behind the saucers. Otherwise they are just going to keep getting hold of Plod and the lawyers and this will never end and we'll be on Court TV for evermore. [Editor: I have sharpened this up. It was a whole page long originally.]

5. Tricky dicky relationships between growing global culture and Christian life

"Fancy a coffee," he said to him, and we all know what this is about. We cannot have ministers of religion offering others coffee after the meeting has finished. This is a cultural trait of Americans, that they suggest this, with nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more - and it shocks the Africans who drink in public, in large polygamous Indaba groups. I have agreed with the Africans all along, ever since Bob said to me, "Fancy a coffee?" It makes my coffee go cold. Let's be honest: this is down to mission that is historically and culturally nuanced, the meaning of words that can mean several things. It's not as if he is simply saying, "Come and give me one," is it? Though perhaps he is saying this in terms of coffee, except of course he would be the giver and not the taker, as we forever imagine what they do with spoons.

6. We repeat the mistakes of the past [Editor: Keep it simple!]

As a student, professor, and learner, my miscalculation, I think, has lain in my vain hope that I could in fact gain and learn from my past mistakes! This is what I am trying to do now. But we all go on not learning from history. "Do you not remember what that tasted like?" Yet, we take it off the shelf over and over again. It's cheap: it will do! Do you have to boil the water?

But let's build this in, let's relax about this over a coffee: that we will never learn until that last day comes and Jesus will turn water into that most delicious of the equatorial drink.

7. Not a sudden change and solution or suspension

Let's face it, we've been waiting long enough for that last day. They were wrong, Jesus and Paul, a mistake made twice as they knew not each other: they thought it was instant coffee, but it was clearly a slow filter job and we are still waiting for that most excellent cup, a cup for those who accept the taste.

And so it will be with GGCECACUSA and CAChU and the Worldwide Anglican Communion: a long and difficult struggle all over the map, full of a menu of sufferings and yet the spray of the grace of God who supports our weak drink in the meantime.

I look still for the new brand, the Coffee Covenant, which we need, not because we will agree, but for a standard menu arrangement, so that we know who is in and who is out. After all, despite my reversals and realisation that I have been wrong all along, if this Coffee Covenant brand doesn't happen, it really has been a waste of all those uploaded dashed off articles.

I know this may not happen either. I, Frame Remain, know. And so, in the meantime, being ceaseless and tireless, I shall just bang on and on and on about this, so long as I have plenty of coffee to keep me awake.

8. No one person or group is capable of such filtered solution

I admit: I thought the Archbishop of Anglicanism would have stepped up to the saucer. [Editor: This is pure repetition and removed.]

But expect nothing of Primates, groups, associations, Communion structures, Nersen or anyone. I have several Bible readings about this, such as going into the wilderness, and we like to have a good scattering of quotes for our Evangelical friends. Here's one: "now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, otherwise go to sleep because you are very boring." (Lk. 21:28)

9. Not defending the integrity of adversaries or remaining silent in the face of indefensible behaviour by allies or being a bit noisy

So I am wondering just how much further I can extend this effing long article. What is the point of going on and on? Could I not write things more succinctly and perhaps get my point over more effectively? I mean we get this with students who write page after page with the intention of impressing the tutor, only to find it is full of persistent verbage and utter crap. I am such a failure with this and need to repent of all my words.

10. Avoid spiritual mice

These things get everywhere. If you have a nice piece of cheese with your coffee, the bloody things can come out of any hole and nick your cube. I find this especially likely in old churches, and so we must remove conflict where possible from these ecclesial structures. It has happened for centuries, but it should not go on, not while I repent, but may once have I supped and lain among the mice.

11. Israel, wait on the Lord (for a while)

So, I am adjusting my time-table. I think having four terms is better than three seasons. So many universities have changed like that. It gives a sense of bunging more in, and specialising for revision. For months powerful forces have come from Christian and non-Christian sources regarding timetabling, and of course there is the different time zones from Winnipeg to Singapore. Saying "wait" is not to be passive: having had five years to drink the cup, like the Archbishop of Anglicanism, is not actually long at all. After all, it will take years for Covenant Coffee to appear, if it does at all. So we can be like the spacemen at the speed of light, where time slows down and indeed can stop.

So you won't be hearing from me again, despite my toilet roll-busting output.

_______

The Mostly Reverend Professor Frame Remain is Professor of Horrible Theology and Coffee Tasting at Wycliffe Hall and senior fellow of the Archbishop of Anglicanism Wishfulfilment Society.

Religious Humanism

I am asked to expand about the meaning of religious humanism.

First of all, the position accepts as standard the usual debates and methods of the intellectual disciplines. This means evolution, of course, and no ghost in the machine with a hand on the tiller - it means local and specific, and it means humans are accidents and that all life forms evolve and evolve more quickly in chaotic or catastrophic conditions. All these disciplines have paradigms of explanations, contested and consensual. So we have mathematics, with its tautologies, logics and points where paradox comes in, underpinning physics. Philosophy has its logic and argument, its schools. There is scientific falsifiability, and then social scientific regularity and validity in primary research, and the use of maths, use of argument. Anthropology develops its valid research into rich observation that equates the report to an explained novel - we are story creating, biographical creatures. History has its houses, but gives primacy to primary documents. With the arts there are periods and styles, but difficult if impossible to objectify what is great art over the mundane.

Theology exists but in a very open approach: there are no closed hermeneutic circles, no protections offered up-front for apparently divine figures. The starting point is the disciplines; theology is just one more. God is not excluded, but can be theist, pantheist, panentheist, non-realist, representing linear time or spiral time, a Universal Principle and so on evermore.

The religious humanist asks what is special about humankind, whilst accepting humankind is but a tiny off-centre part of the universe. The answer lies in all those issues about mind and being conscious of being self-conscious. The question remains whether any machine based artificial intelligence will ever perceive of its own existence. If it does, it then acquires rights and responsibilities. Other animals have rights and responsibilities consistent with their sentience, with some generous extra. We seek, as religious humanists, the generous good.

Faith then is about orientating towards the good, and can draw on several religious and philosophical resources. I would draw upon the ethical Jewish eschatology of Jesus, as well as on insights within the Christian tradition. I would draw on Judaism and modern developments in Judaism. There is the Buddhist insight into dealing with the world in a developed and trained non-attached manner. There is the Hindu insight into plurality and modernist Hinduism's insight into philosophy and theistic rationality. There is the Baha'i insight, freed of its administrative dictatorship, into unity, peace and modernity. There is Islam's insight into purity and transcendence, and Sikh insight into removing particularities of joined insights when developing ethical faith. There is reinvented Paganism and its plurality, ritual and liturgy.

All of these, however, are approached critically: that is subject to individual and communal debate. The principles again derive from those intellectual disciplines. We can pick and choose. There is no exclusivity, but there may be a role for a consistent pathway as a critical raft to take across the water. That might exist as is, to be treated lightly, or self-constructed.

Prayer is more like meditation. Prayer may relate to any particular inheritance of the divine, or construction of the divine. It might tap into some sort of perceived energy or power. For many though, the function of prayer is collective and individual, without external, and is more like developing one's spirituality. The most useful God-metaphor may be depth. Religious content involved is like a fiction, useful fiction.

Ritual is something humans do as part of binding the individual to the group and intensifying the identity of the group. Sometimes the ritual involves considerable material sacrifice towards a spiritual benefit that may or may not come. Deities and helpers and practices are invoked, like transitory mind-body assistants. Ritual can also be moderate, or even severe in its coolness. Like meditation and prayer, it assists towards the reorientation and is chosen to be directed towards the good.

In the end faith is contemplative and reflective, and has the effect of some sort of transformation and reorientation. It requires discipline and self-evaluated behaviour. It seeks no reward other than the good generated, and although ethics must be situational there is more to this that reciprocal response: one hopes for more and better.

This is how I understand religious humanism: it uses rationality, is reasonable, draws and learns from others, and tries to deliver a spiritual benefit with a material outcome from a religious practice.

What's the difference between this and a Dawkins or de Sautoy humanism? One is that it is less sure, a little more agnostic; secondly, that it does allow concepts of God to be meaningful (however perceived); thirdly that it uses the arts far more in its expansion of meaning and support for doing religion and generating hope; but it is still consistent with the basic position of Dawkins or de Sautoy, and cannot be inconsistent withe the disciplines and their debates.

Is it modernist? In part it is, but postmodernism should be after modernism. It is more postmodern in the sense of being eclectic and drawing from around. I prefer pluralism to humanism in the end, but religious humanism offers more clarity perhaps as an arrived-at stance.

More on Self-Denial

So what am I denying myself? It's more basic than atonement theory or anything else. It's about spirituality and the consistency of appearance and an inner state in what is going on.

For years I attended churches and not had communion services. My view of it is not as God's self offering, but (this may seem similar) exists as a form of spiritual gift that we construct. The idea runs that everything between us is an exchange, usually to do with a psychological view of utility and its margin (basic economics), but we also find that exchange is something that brings people together. It's true in small societies, it's so in binding Europe together as an economic market and then a political union. But there is also the added anthropology of the spiritual gift, which does this more, and is thus a one-up gift-exchange. This is where someone or some group goes out of its way to make a material sacrifice (going out of its way is part of it) to receive a potential spiritual gift. That gift is usually contained in some sort of otherwise fairly useless token. The effect is a perspective on life and further binding of the group and a going out in a condition of refreshment.

I think that the Eucharist fits into this well, and I view it this way around. The spiritual gift is somewhat ineffable, and it may come with impact or with little effect.

The peace, where one makes hand connecting or gesture with some others, knowing that there is a pattern that connects some to all, has a similar function, so this will have to do for me - while I consider things through.

Roughly speaking, the whole litugy is attitudinal, but it is just a drama and process that contains what it contains in these elements and it is a kind of reflective discipline.

I'd be happy to operate at this level, but without being any kind of literalist, there are realist expectations around what you do in liturgy, and I don't meet them; there is an expected consistency of outer appearance and inner stance that was not being met by me.

The problem is further that membership and consistent acceptance is defined as being at the communion rail.

If there is another view for participation, then I'll change back.

One of the interesting aspects of this 'collapse' is that it has not been via any competition with another group. All other enquiries and interests have been closed. Such a condition of change like this is unusual for me, because in the past I've been to two or more places at once. Even Unitarian College was the ecumenical one, to mix with others (and they were fine, it was the Unitarians with whom I had all the problems). It is just that my present approach to faith hasn't seemingly maintained itself.

Ethical Focus, Pointless Theology

Quite why Archbishops need to release Christmas messages I don't know: are we perhaps missing something? The Archbishop of Canterbury has released his, with a focus upon children.

Already it is being misused by the doctrinal and the anti-abortion lobby. Peter Ould is bouncing up and down as the Archbishop has been "playing a blinder". Indeed, there might be some blindness involved.

Clearly, at the moment, everyone is horrified that, after all we learnt about Victoria Climbié (2 November 1991 – 25 April 2000), that there is yet another death of a child, Baby P, and yet again a failure of social services and other agencies. Yet again people wonder how such can take place to start with, and how all the warning signs get missed, and this with Baby P after the introduction of Every Child Matters. Others have discussed this at length. It says something about the human condition that people can treat the relatively helpless so badly.

As well as recent events, the Archbishop points to the difficulty of children's lives in this developed country, as well as the abuse elsewhere with child soldiers and the genocide of children in Nazi death camps.

What I object to is that this, which is self-evident to anyone with an ounce of ethical insight, has to be preceded by a lot of myth about a child being God from conception. He writes:

Although what we learn from Jesus Christ and what his life makes possible is unique, that life still means that we look differently at every other life. There is something in us that is capable of communicating what God has to say – the image of God in each of us, which is expressed in its perfection only in Jesus. Hence the reverence which as Christians we ought to show to human beings in every condition, at every stage of existence.

It says something about the dangers of religious myth that the Pastor at the Mission Ensemble Pour Christ offered prayers for Victoria Climbié to have the devil cast out, and assumed that her injuries were the result of demonic possession. This contrary impact needs to be stated. I bet the Pastor thought Christ was unique too.

What makes us unique is not a foundational religious myth: what makes us unique is that in general we are aware of our awareness, that we perceive our perception. We further express it and can do so with incredible depth and precision thanks to symbol manipulating and language abilities. We understand the complexity of pain and pleasure, and in developing an individual ethic of such individual perception, we offer that to others, and ought to offer basic standards as widely as possible, whatever the ability or disability, and we might offer it to all possibilities of aware sentience.

Uniqueness is that which comes through my eyes, ears and other senses is mine, and processed in my brain, and what comes through your senses and processed in your brain, and that collective uniqueness that we can talk about it and even record what we have talked about.

What perfection is expressed in Jesus not expressed in every other precious human being? Do we know where or how he was born? No. Do we know how he was as a child, or a teenager (if we can can have such a concept in Palestine) in terms of his behaviour? No. What was his family condition like: when his father was possibly a builder (broader than carpenter). We have no history on the whole working out of motivations and the rest.

What we do have is an insight via ealy Christians on a man with a mission, who had healing, teaching and preaching abilities (even gifts), and who reversed some of the warped ethics of the day, and put them into a context of service and sacrifice for a greater goal that God would bring. We have no insight of perfection at this or any other time, and certainly not as an embryo or foetus.

I have no sympathy for this myth making into some sort of psudo-history. Of course Christmas becomes a part celebration of childhood, as in the universal baby and the universal child and other constructions. Some people invest this child with innocence, though the argument must be that innocence is a quality achieved when guilt is possible.

I regard the foundation of the Archbishop's argument as intellectual rubbish. He can, of course, believe what he likes, and people do. The main concern is what actually happens: the abuse that keeps taking place, the exploitation, the pressures on childhood (though some pressures on children can make more assured and confident adults), and the misuse of children in adult 'tribal' fights. As for the foundation of the argument and the Archbishop as a Church leader, it just gives the fundies another "playing a blinder" he's 'one of us' thrill for five minutes.

Trying to Find Authenticity

Anyone reading the more reflective pieces I have offered here (as opposed to religious news commentaries) will have realised that I was inhabiting a position that was in of itself unsustainable as a quite disciplined, attending, communicating, Anglican. I treat all this very seriously, and the sense of internal inconsistency has been growing for some time.

My history and background in this is no secret, that I have always been on the edge of the Christian institutional world, and I have come in and fallen out on a number of occasions, and been blighted by considerations of ministry - the notion of taking commitment to its fullest and of developing a serving, pastoral, intellectual seat. I was confirmed in 1984 and almost immediately took part in the Fellowship of Vocation in the East Riding of Yorkshire (in those days there was less emphasis on younger people going into ministry). From a year or so on I had rejected the appeal of Unitarians, but with a collapse of liberal-realist belief I went across, rejected myself and eventually trained for the ministry, lasting just a year as I realised how little sympathy there was between traditional Unitarian chapels and me. It was eighteen months, 1992, after when religious observance began again, a very quick in and out of Sheffield Unitarianism, a commitment to Western Buddhist attendance and a developing relationship with a local parish church. Moving to New Holland in 1994, the old Unitarian church was revisited, to realise that I was the bad boy who'd let the side down years back at Unitarian College. As controversies half-emptied that church, I deliberately stayed marginal and I became little more than my mother's taxi driver. I was the last one to leave who was going to leave, and so when she confirmed leaving I did too (and Elena was hardly gripped either). I was, already, however, becoming more pro-symbolic and taking the view of a pathway, assisted by occasional attendance at an Anglican church in the next town to where I live.

It would be right to say that I launched into my full involvement there in 2006. Now I was wary of the ministry question again raising its head, but pursued it, let it drop, and pursued it again. It was going to be a regular conversation but the issue of the promises was raised, and I stopped it.

Now the idea was that having a fairly non-realist (or pushed to apophatic) approach to faith matters was a kind of foundation that would working the tradition on me develop. However, there was one of those remarks that made a difference: highlighting the difference between the person who takes a whole tradition and is critical on the one hand and that of the liberal who comes at each part critically on the other. Here was a crucial difference that reverberated from then on.

Then came a curate, who had given and continued to give these promises, and I realised that I could not in all honesty give such promises. I did see how I could, and I am sure some people do, but really I could not. Now it seems to me there should not be a lay-ministry divide. It should be a united entity. Nevertheless, if I couldn't symbolically handle such promises, then why symbolically handle the creed? Yes the Nicene Creed is a Church statement of faith, but the earlier Apostles' Creed is not.

I am not a creed literalist. I used to hate Unitarian sermons banging on about creeds, because they were like a mirror of literalism. It is all more complicated than this: it handles different forms of expression. Nevertheless, I had to use the analogy of taking a scroll out of a museum glass case, reading it as a reminder of historical origins, and shoving it back in again afterwards. You can still read it, but it's old and hardly relates to how to think.

All the time I have a well-rooted Eucharistic theology, which I had begun to build reflectively from late Unitarian times: my last occasional Unitarian service that I took (in 2002) was one experimental version (thus a lay-led Eucharist!). It was a pointer for me, that I took up from 2006. It has been grounded in social anthropology.

However, staying silent at the creed but going to the communion rail was inconsistent, and soon I was itching not to go forward. Here was a problem: I was attending quite a few services in a week, and part of that community (though pretty much everyone who might know does know my views). There are strong relationships there. So I decided I'd do nothing rash, nothing spur of the moment. The only argument in my mind was whether to wait until after the midnight communion for Christmas or stop now. Such was just overtaken by the decision to pause: do it now. That's another aspect of my theology: the urgency of the decision (for someone who delays and delays).

This week I just came to the view that I had to at least start a phase of not going forward, despite my theology. So this Sunday morning was different. Now the rash move would be to go forward. So when the preacher rose to give a sermon, I muttered to myself that it would take a miracle for me to rise and go to the communion rail afterwards.

His sermon was about being authentic: that in Advent to take the new road, to have the trust to leap off the diving board rather than again to do the walk back. So that decided it then. I was taking the authentic decision.

I shall probably continue with the same sort of spiritual practice, and see how it works. But really, for me, the Christian dots do not join up.

There are ethical arguments here too. For example, I've commented here on Conservative Evangelical positions, and they seem to be thoroughly unethical. From Akinola and Orombi to Sugden and Minns, the positions they spout make my flesh creep, to be honest. Then there is the kind of Fulcrum position, more reasonable as a beginning but it is just ending up somewhere near their game. Fulcrum people are bureaucratic apologists for the reprehensible. It also comes across as degrees of intellectual bankruptcy, and all about an internal dogfight over arguments lost in the wider world a long time ago.

Then there are various other strategies and positions, including those about which I have considerable sympathy, but they are all based on maintaining a frozen reasoning from the past, or at least some sort of appearance of such. Otherwise, we have practical and usual reasoning. I realise there is no contemporary developed path of religion, no easy vessel for building spirituality, but the intellectual division between liturgy and theology has become so wide it starts to lack a relationship. I don't like conserving strategies of living in bubbles, because the motive is to maintain the bubble. We should be able to see the bubble burst and have authentic religion.

These strategies and positions are more ethically sound, indeed an exemplarist approach to Jesus of Nazareth is intended to be ethical - but somehow none of the liturgical presentations deliver ethical wholeness or overcome the ethical disaster that is within an increasingly sectarian Christianity. My own position of arrival, though, is not principally an ethical one, but is an intellectual one. It doesn't work; it does not add up.

When people are identified as liberals, or misidentified as liberals, they usually have far more in the believing bank than me, and I'm afraid I have had another belief crunch. It is different from the rest, but it seems to be familiar too.

And that's it. Of course I can still reflect on the Christian tradition, and there is much inherited that challenges. It may be that a pattern of activity has to take precedence. But intellectually it strikes me as dead. The effort to blow life into it just overwhelms. Well, I'd stopped doing that some time ago, but it also stopped blowing life into me as delivered.

Maybe I'm not just a religious humanist, but this is how I am going to be for a short time at least, or perhaps it is how I have always been.

Something Evangelical

All I'd want to say really about Graham Kings' piece in Comment is Free on definitions of Evangelicalism is that he has provided something broader than Evangelicalism. Actually, he's trying to bung too much in, with reference to the community, patience, "natural" (what's that?), literature, and his walk through his Evangelical perspective on Christian belief, all in a short article.

Here is a summary of the main identifiers:

• The intrinsic dynamic of God's life in Trinity
• Good works are a "thank you" rather than a "please" ...offered to God in gratitude for the salvation already freely provided for us
• Jesus died in our place and rose into new embodied life as our pioneer
• Assurance of our sins being forgiven
• An open relationship with God in prayer via conversation with God, through written prayers, and in the study of the Bible
• Worth sharing with others

This would cover well more than Evangelicals, though it doesn't stretch to the kind of liberal approach I hold. So what is Evangelical? As part of the fourth point on prayer he just adds in this:

The scriptures are not set on a level with "reason" and "tradition" but above them and interpreted contextually by them.

I would suggest that this is all that makes him distinctively Evangelical according to this presentation. He would differ here from some Anglo-Catholics, for example, as well as those liberals who do not give priority to the scriptures.

Meanwhile Fulcrum has responded to the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) vote (after NEAC 5 had a failure to vote and the CEEC said it would anyway). There was also a statement.

It likes the CEEC apology regarding NEAC 5 voting procedure, about taking counsel from across Evangelicals, the use of C of E Canon A5, the CEEC basis of faith, Lambeth 1998 3:5 and 1:10, support for faithful Anglicans, that there is more than one strategy and that Brazil and Canada should be included.

Yet the section on Canon A5 etc. included the Jerusalem Declaration in the package, and it cannot be broken up in this manner, and this statement about faithful Anglicans includes the assumption that there are faithless Anglicans from whom the faithful need support.

Then Fulcrum questions (rather than rejects) in the CEEC vote: the Jerusalem Declaration as a whole, because it is GAFCON action based; the we rejecting the authority of unorthodox leaders because 'we' is too blunt - a we, now including CEEC, cannot give judgment on whole Churches and unspecified leaders; asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to immediately and seriously consider granting recognition to the breakaways of North America, when Fulcrum gives support to Anglican Essentials Federation in Canada and Communion Partners in the USA that would stay in their Churches, that the breakaways should follow due process and relate to the Covenant.

This seems to me to undermine not support the vote taken by CEEC, yet Fulcrum would see the Council and Executive strengthened.

If a resolution says half the things you want and half you don't want (more like one third you want and two thirds you don't), you either get to amend it (and it is not; it was formed in part by prior emails) or you end up saying it has to be rejected. Questioning it Fulcrum might, but it passes into intention and potential action aspects that Fulcrum cannot support. Perhaps everyone is feeling a bit too sore and delicate for the use of plain and clear language.

She Is but I'm Not

If you're looking for one of those liberal evangelicals, then a good example might be Christina Rees. She wrote in The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' section as one of those responding to the question, What should evangelicals believe? What must an evangelical think and do to make him or her worthy of the name?

Christina Rees writes with a heading, 'The triumph of good: We need to remember that the focus of early Christians was not a holy book or even a special rite or ritual, but a set of relationships'

Here are a few passages that might make her be regarded as a Liberal by at least other Evangelicals.

In some circles, to be considered a proper evangelical these days, you have to believe that all sexual activity should only take place within marriage and that women should always be supervised by men. The fact that I don't accept either belief means that I am considered "unsound" by some...

Although evangelicals should rightly be devoted to the Bible as the inspired word of God and the prime source for the authority of our faith, we should resist the tendency of some to elevate the Bible to the point of worshipping it, of making it an idol. The Bible is precious: it contains truths and points to the truth, but is not itself to be worshipped. We need to remember that the focus of early Christian self-understanding was not a holy book or even a special rite or ritual, but a set of relationships...

...evangelicals should always remain open and sensitive to the moving of God's holy spirit. Just as we sit somewhat more lightly than other Christians to ritual and tradition, we should also be less dogmatic about certain points of doctrine.

About this John Richardson, Evangelical, comments:

For what it's worth, my initial reaction to this headline was, "What about 'according to the Scriptures'?"

Now it can be safely assumed I am Liberal, or indeed Liberal-Radical (liberal constitutionally as an approach, theologically radical). So I agree with her that sexual activity takes place properly in a variety of relationships and not limited to marriage or indeed Civil Partnership. Of course I believe in equality of all to the highest serving authorities in faith. I would agree about relationships being more important than the holy book, but I would only say that the book contains truths: the Bible may not be coherent enough to point to truth, as much in it should be dismissed, and it is not exclusive either in its containing truths. Also doctrine should assist debate, not be a set of handcuffs or barriers. The less doctrine the better is my personal view, a view added to Bishop Alan Wilson's blog entry about Milton and liberality.

There is much, though, that baffles me about Christina Rees's presentation and thus why she is (and I am not) an Evangelical. At least, I think she is Evangelical if others may not.

Here are some passages with my own views following:

...Jesus, who we believe was sent by God to reconcile the world to God. To be an evangelical is to be someone who believes and trusts in God's redemptive grace in Jesus Christ. The good news – the "evangel" – can be summed up as the belief that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose on the third day, and was seen and met as the risen Christ, and that all this was a fulfilment of what had been prophesied about God's purpose and provision for sinful humankind.

I don't know what 'sent by God' means. Is it theology-speak? I regard him as having a normal human birth and rising in a prophetic tradition and expressing the last days transitory tradition. To say he 'died for our sins' is, to me, a derivative of a belief of the time that people died because of the weight of their sin and their demons: thus the better off and healthier generally died later. Thus early Christians reflecting back would say that the perfected person, rising upwards in the divinity stakes, did not have to die, but actually died in order to work a transfer regarding sin and salvation. Paul turns Christ into a sin-salvation scheme. Unfortunately, I take the view common with my contemporaries that people die because their biology fails. We think biology does not have a clock as such, but we conk out one way or another. Moral perfection (if such could be demonstrated, and we don't know) and divine status have little to do with death. That Jesus did die by being killed as much depends on the Romans being in power and their killing cheaply as anything he did: thus we have a moral doctrinal problem of a God who places himself, as (later believed) God the Son, in a hostile climate in order that someone who serves in that situation gets killed. Had Jesus upset a few authorities in, say, Western democracies, he might have received community service, which was what he was doing anyway.

Actually I quite like the idea that he did community service that our sins might be forgiven...

So I have little agreement about this being sent and dying for sins stuff: rather my focus is on the community service, the healing and the like in the context of his and other beliefs that the end time was upon them, and that entry into the coming Kingdom was crucial: the idea of being prepared and turning your life around with some initial assistance.

She writes further:

I think evangelicals should be those Christians most characterised by their passion for passing on the message of the risen Christ and the sacrificial, unconditional and never-ending love of God. They should be most dedicated to encouraging and helping people to come to a saving faith in God through Jesus the Christ, something we believe is made possible by the power of the holy spirit.

Trying to systematise our faith is a worthy goal, but evangelicals should always remain open and sensitive to the moving of God's holy spirit.

Nor do I go for any objective view of resurrection: the tomb story is later, about the material, the body and a proto-orthodox view of Jesus Christ meeting the leaders; the resurrection is perhaps a series of visions said to have come to leaders and congregation as part of underpinning legitimacy and authority of those leaders. Again, people who die rot very quickly, and Jesus the human could no more escape death than anyone else (especially if put to a common lime pit).

Jesus had spoken to his followers of the Coming of the Son of Man: the question was his relationship to that expectation. After he was gone they continued to believe in the last days; that they had the Jewish faith meals, that Jesus would be seen in the meal with Elijah (etc. - all gone yet recurring), that he once dead he had to be the Son of Man and Messiah or nothing - yet present, and that expectation of the End and the coming was still overwhelming. Even Paul had that end time belief, and the community of Jews and then Gentiles was charismatic in its actions and beliefs, beliefs changing rapidly under conditions of oppression and expected change.

I don't understand why people wriggle about the Ascension in church because of the space age etc., yet do not apply the same argument to resurrecting itself. To me, the Ascension is no more than the explanation to the community why there were no more resurrection appearances. That would have been on the minds of the earliest Christians: if he is the first of the resurrected, why doesn't he still visit? Because (I suggest) it is largely a roll call of leadership authority and legitimacy - about passing the torch to earthly leaders and having the new Covenant faith meal.

For me, Jesus of Nazareth is one model, as told in these scriptures, of how we might live: that is to say, to act in the immediate with urgency and passion, and to do so to the moral good, often with an ethical reversal to what is given and usual. There are different points of identity here, and these are found within the New Testament, the legacy of the Hebrew Bible and the responses of people in the Christian tradition.

What I object to is some kind of alternative physics of a mechanism existing for some 'saving faith', or indeed some mechanism by which a person spilling blood and dying can have any transference impact on another who signs on the dotted line. I object to biological rewrites that has bones dissolved and transformed into a different kind of spiritual body. I admit there is a possibility of paranormal insights or Near Death Experience discoveries, but these would be general phenomena (if any are realised and shown to be falsifiable).

Like Jesus was of his, I am a child of my time. This time period invests considerable intellectual energy into understanding regularity, chaos and methodologies across sciences, the social sciences and the arts. Whatever its changes to come, for me, Evangelicalism is an out of date fantasy, a living in another world view that cannot recover. You won't find me there for a minute. In as far as Christianity relies on living in a different world, I am not there either.