Church House Publications. £6.99
Of the 18 members of the doctrine commission that produced the report The Mystery of Salvation, published in January, seven would wish to be known as evangelicals, a fact which makes this document all the more disturbing and significant.
Its reading makes for a peculiar experience of being lifted up one minute by what seems to be clear biblical truth only to be cast down the next by woolly theological error. If ever a book was to qualify for the curate's egg of the year award (good in parts, bad in others) this wins hands down.
A form of words
The problem is in the method. What else can one expect when a volume is the product of people from totally different ends of the theological spectrum? We are told what our expectations should be in the preface: 'These drafts were discussed, rewritten, amended, refined, until at last a form of words was achieved with which everyone who was a member of the Commission at the time of final drafting could concur.' Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud of the result. However, it does make for uneasy reading.
One could find oneself in full flow thinking how good a section is when suddenly a spanner would be thrown into the works which causes the argument to come to a grinding halt. It is peppered with non sequiturs. For example, in arguing that Old Testament theology develops backward from salvation to creation, and that in the New Testament there is a backward movement from the death and resurrection of Jesus to understanding him as creator, we then find the statement that the result is 'to make the Fall less pivotal for biblical theology as a whole. It is not contemplation of the human plight as such which gives rise to soteriology, (salvation), but particular historical experiences of the saving power of God'.
But this still begs the questions: 'Why the need to be saved? How did our condition come about in the first place?' Such questions would have arisen and needed explanation (cf. Romans 5). There does seem to be an underlying scepticism on the part of the Commission that such a doctrine as the Fall might actually be divinely revealed.
The sin of Eve
There are sections which are quite excellent, the passages on the Trinity, the relationship between creation and salvation and the description of post-modernism for example. It is also refreshing to read the following on the historical particularity of the Christian faith: 'One cannot abandon the essential oddness of the particularity of God's choice of Israel - and of Jesus - without dismantling the very centre of Christianity' (p. 80). Sadly, however, this claim is seriously compromised in the section on other religions. This is very much a book which enables the writers to 'have their cake and eat it'.
The document begins by posing the problem 'From what are we saved?' The answer initially given is 'the power of sin and its consequence, death'. However, it is wondered whether such concepts would be intelligible to our modern world, a world of quantum mechanics, other faiths and feminism. Regarding the latter, it is stated that in a 'man's world' sin has been traditionally understood as pride but 'If women had been allowed to play a fuller part in the development of the concept of sin, might they not have wished to place a greater emphasis on sin as the failure to assert and take responsibility for oneself' (p. 18). (I thought the sin of Eve was her success in doing precisely this!).
Here is one of the primary weaknesses of the book, confusing intelligibility with acceptability. There is too much of a willingness to surrender to the prevailing spirit of the age instead of allowing the gospel to challenge it. There seems little confidence that God has revealed certain things to be true which are given whether we like them or not. There is an admission by the Commission that integral to the Christian faith are non-negotiables, hence the early church refusing to give in to gnosticism which fitted in with the then prevailing Zeitgeist, but the writers seem to lack the courage to be as forthright and as uncompromising as, say, the apostle John in his letters. (But then again, I doubt John would have been invited to be a member of the Commission - a bit too black and white in his opinions in spite of all his talk of love).
Character of God
The core of instability which lies at the heart of this document and which invariably affects the handling of such matters as how we are to view Christ's death on the cross, the position of those of other faiths and the nature of the life to come - especially hell, is a more than ambiguous understanding of God's character. God is love (sorry - LOVE says the Commission), but is he so holy that he might get angry with us? While belief in a God of justice is explicitly promoted (particularly in relation to the needs of the poor) there is a reluctance to say clearly that God punishes sinners because by nature he is opposed to sin.
Of course, it is the sacrifice imagery of the Bible which more than any other brings us most closely to the idea that Christ died in our place as our substitute bearing our sin. Here, the writers do not so much play down this aspect of the cross because: 'For many Christians today the notion of God offering himself as a substitute to be punished for our sins is deeply repellent. Morally they recoil from such a narrowly retributive conception of human justice, far less divine.' (page 122), but rather provide a change of emphasis by drawing our attention away from penal substitution to other aspects of sacrifice e.g. 'communication with God through its setting in a covenant relationship' as in the Exodus Passover or the writer to the Hebrews interpretation of Jesus' 'ethical obedience to the will of God'.
But this will not do, given that the Passover involved a form of substitution - the lamb sacrificed and the blood shed to avert the wrath of God on the firstborn, as well as the writer to the Hebrews contention that Jesus made 'purification for our sins'. It is not so much that God is to act justly in relation to our rebellion that is key to the writers' thinking, but that he must respect our human freedom. This determines why God 'risked' creating a world in which suffering was possible (p. 128) and makes the provision of 'hell' (p.199).
Reducing grace
However, the theological price paid by this low view of God as holy and high view of man as 'free' is considerable. Not only is the omnipotence of God reduced, but so is his grace. Therefore, while it is stated: 'We must emphatically assert the absolute priority of grace, that the initiative at every state is always God's not ours', there is a 'key human contribution that God carries us no further than our wills consent'. So in some cases God chooses not to act in relation to the proud and self-sufficient because he 'values something more, our free human response' (p. 132).
It is this notion that 'we' in our freedom of choice are key that opens the door to an unbiblical understanding of how we enter into the benefits of Jesus' death and the way in which members of other faiths or none may also enter.
In relation to the former, the writers undermine the position of the Reformers by saying that: 'The cross, Eucharist and response are all part of a single act' (p. 141). This means that what Jesus achieved on the cross is responded to by our participation in the Eucharist. Surely it is on hearing the gospel (of which the Communion service is a declaration) and believing that which is our proper response? What is being proposed here perverts the Eucharist into an essential means of receiving the full benefits of salvation.
'Works' mentality
The same 'works' mentality pervades the section on other religions. What about this for any illegitimate application of Scripture? 'The Spirit's fruit described in Galatians 5 is love, joy, peace, patience . . . this fruit of the spirit is to be seen in the life of Christ, who brings us to a realisation of the character of the Spirit . . . Thus our judging that the Spirit may be found outside the Church is not an arbitrary one . . . Those of other faiths and indeed of none who display such fruit are we believe among those who have responded to the Spirit of God; there is evidence that he is savingly at work in them, and he will bring that work to fulfilment' (p. 173).
The work of the Spirit seems to have been separated from the work of Jesus on the cross. This would be denied by the writers who would claim that whether people know it or not or are aware of it or not, it is by the cross that those of other faiths or none receive God's grace by the Spirit. This is very similar to the idea of the 'anonymous Christian''. The upshot of this is that explicit faith in the gospel is not necessary to salvation, although it is desirable (p. 184).
Forked tongue
The freedom-works mindset finally shows itself in the Commission's view of hell, which is described as a state of 'non-being'. 'If God had created us with the freedom to choose, then those who make such a final choice choose against the only source of life, and they have their reward. Whether there be any who do so choose, only God knows' (p. 199). The logic is obvious. Hell is empty, either because folk have been snuffed out of existence by their own choice (not God's) or they wise up and choose heaven (and who wouldn't?).
This is a difficult book to review because of its so many twists, turns, backtracking and inconsistencies. The writers do speak with forked tongues.
My fear is that some will hail this book as a sign of hope that progress is being made in the Church of England by 'evangelical theologians' who are now having influence. That would be very short-sighted. Is it progress that folk who at one time would have been among this document's most trenchant critics are now amongst its contributors? It would have been a far greater encouragement had they had the nerve to write a minority report, unless, of course, they really do believe this stuff, in which case they have forfeited the right to own the term 'evangelical' in any meaningful sense.
