WHEN WILLIAM Oddie wrote his book on the Crockford Preface, he called it "The Crockford File" with the subtitle "Gareth Bennett and the death of the Anglican mind".
I believe that Oddie got it right and that the real issue was not the death of a very distinguished theologian. It was not the alleged attack on the archbishop of the day. It was not even the quite inexcusable behaviour of some men in high places. It was certainly not about the behaviour of the press who were simply doing their job. The real issue was the whole matter of the future of Anglicanism and in particular the self-awareness of the Church of England in this nation.
Ever since the Elizabethan settlement, the Church of England had been a broad church and it is well known that it comprehended a wide spectrum of opinion within it. For example on the doctrine of the Holy Communion. People were able to be loyal members of the Church of England with views as disparate as "consubstantiation" and "mere remembrance". Of course there was always controversy but at the end of the day many different views were seen to be held with integrity within the one church.
Of course it is true that, at the Great Ejection of 1662, in a sense the Church of England became a sect rather than the church of the land, for 2000 clergy were thrown out of the Established Church because they would not and could not accept the dominant party's interpretation of the Prayer Book and Articles because they desired a more eirenic settlement which would include all parties.
Nevertheless there gradually came about a reversion to the original concept of the C of E which was an attempt to retain within one ecclesiastical body men and women who, while differing widely on many matters, nevertheless held to the final authority of the Scriptures as the guideline for their lives and that of the church. Hooker himself held that, while tradition and reason were important aids to understanding, what we are seeking to understand is the scriptures and their authoritative revelation to the world. So it was that men as different in opinion as Venn and Simeon, Pusey and Stanton were able to co-exist within the same church.
Moreover one of the blessings of the state connection was the fact that men of very pronounced opinions could be appointed to high office in the church. For example, the incumbent of a Suffolk village could be suddenly elevated to the Deanery of Salisbury and then, before the ink was dry on that decision, the same man could be appointed to lead the new Diocese of Liverpool as its first bishop. That man was J.C. Ryle whose writings are still in print today in considerable quantity.
It was because of this that the Church of England demonstrated (at its best) a vigour and an adaptability which made it fit to be the church of the nation. There was a ready allegiance by all to the great three strands in Anglicanism. First of all there was the maintenance of the appeal to Scripture as determinative. "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith" (Article 6). This was the primary concern of the protestant or evangelical. Secondly there was Tradition retained by the Anglo Catholic wing and it is to them we owe the rediscovery of the Fathers by the ordinary clergy and laity as a result of a vigorous republishing venture. Thirdly there was the reminder that we are not intended to leave our minds at the church door and that it is our responsibility to use our reason in order to interpret Holy Scripture. This insight was retained for us by those whom today we should call liberals.
What had happened was put like this by Garry Bennett: "Of all recent decades, the most significant is the decline of a distinctive anglican theological method".
What has happened is that a new meaning has been given to the anglican compromise. One now begins by assuming that 'anything goes' and that every possible theological and ethical position is tenable within the Church of England (whereas the reformers' "comprehensiveness" was UNDER the scriptures. Now if "anything goes", how are we to make decisions?
First of all the experiment was made of deciding doctrine and ethics at the General Synod which meant that, since a large number of "placemen" would take the "anything goes" position, the chances were that only the most mealy mouthed decisions could possible come out of the synod.
However at times the Synod managed to obtain a majority for the revealed faith and the Bishops therefore decided that it was better to work on the basis of reports produced within their own House as, with a vast liberal majority there, it would be possible to get almost anything out as the "view of the Church of England's Bishops".
But what if some bishops did not go along with the majority and said so?
The novel doctrine of "collegiality" was then concocted. This means that, once a report has been produced by the House of Bishops, no individual bishop might dissent in public from it. This meant that the media assumed that there was total agreement amongst the bishops and that any report (for example "Issues in Sexuality") had the "imprimatur" of the entire bench.
Now at last the liberal establishment of which George Austin wrote last month had a stranglehold upon the Church of England.
Now can one imagine men of real stature accepting this subtle "gagging"? Would Kirk of Oxford or Chavasse of Rochester ever have submitted to such a way of working. They would not have done so. Today's bench does. A new method of doing theology has been born.
First of all a comprehensive church must allow anyone of whatever opinion to have an honoured place within it even if they deny the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth. And secondly the House of Bishops takes over decision making by the back door and gags any minority of bishops. The Times put it wisely at the time: "The anonymous preface to Crockford's is not only about the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is also about a deeper problem - the nature and identity of modern Anglicanism".
That is indeed the issue and explains why every reader of this journal ought to re-read the Preface if they can get hold of it.
In any case we must roll back the appalling tide of pseudo-liberalism and gerrymandering which is rampant in our church and move on to a church under the Scriptures interpreted with the aid of tradition and of reason.
John Pearce. Bury St Edmunds