THE RECENT PROBLEMS in the diocese of Newcastle have forcefully raised a question to which an answer is long overdue, namely 'How can bishops be made answerable to the wider Church?'. The specific issue which led the PCC of St Oswald with St Mark to reject the oversight of the Rt Revd Martin Wharton is irrelevant. What matters is that the congregation made this decision because they felt that Mr Wharton was unacceptable as their bishop and that they had no other recourse open to them. And in fact it cannot be that a bishop could hold any views whatsoever without jeopardising his office in the eyes of others. By calling upon the bishop to "banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word", the BCP makes the presumption both that some views are wrong and that we have the means by which to know they are wrong. Moreover, Article XXI reminds us that even the Councils of the Church have erred "forasmuch as they be an assembly of men,1 whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God". Many of these "men" were, of course, bishops, and unless we are to believe that Anglican consecration removes them from this category, it must be presumed possible for our own bishops to err. Moreover, unless it is the case that only other bishops could safely deal with such error, there should be a process open to the wider Church by which it can be addressed.
Unfortunately, in the absence of such a process, both parties in Newcastle have resorted to overkill (the diocese, it must be said, rather more expensively than the PCC of St Oswald's) which is bound to happen when disagreement cannot be channelled through effective structures. If the phenomenon of road rage shows nothing else, it is the danger of combining anger with frustration in ordinary people. The present English ecclesiology generates something akin to 'Church rage' by imposing bishops on a Church which cannot make them answerable. That a PCC should declare itself out of communion with its bishop because of his views on a single issue may be equal to an adolescent slamming the door on its parents. However, for the Assistant bishop then to obtain a High Court injunction to prevent the ordination of a member of that PCC, despite his having been approved and prepared by the wider Church, is like the aforementioned parents having their offspring arrested for 'damage to property'.
Writing earlier in this century, Roland Allen made this comment regarding what happens when power is thus mishandled in the Church:
Those who are seeking to gain authority never agree to wait until those who hold it think that they are sufficiently prepared. The moment arrives only when those who are seeking to gain authority are strong enough to drive those who hold it into concession, by threats of revolt. The inevitable result of this method is discontent and strife.1
Allen was observing what happened when 'native' churches founded by Western missionaries reached the point at which they were mature enough to stand on their own feet and yet were held back by the missionary organization. Some might therefore feel that his remarks do not apply to our own situation - but a moment's thought suggests the dynamics are very similar. The so-called 'missionary congregations' of Anglicanism in England actually consist of 'mission stations' staffed by professionals deployed by a central 'missionary society' almost entirely independent of the 'natives'. The property of the 'mission compound' does not belong to the natives, nor are they required to pay for the 'missionary', though they are regularly urged to send money for this and other purposes to the society offices. And to an extent this works. But as Allen warned, success in mission means a time comes when 'the natives are revolting'. Specifically, they realize that the missionary society doesn't always get it right - for instance when its officers are more concerned to protect their own roles than to advance the gospel through the word of God in the power of the Spirit.
Of course, those officers love the society and have proved the value of its structures in the past, and they can point to what happens elsewhere when those structures are overturned. But if power is wrongly distributed the struggle between the 'society' and the 'natives' will not go away - or rather it will go away via what Allen called "schism of the most profound and far reaching character".2 That the Anglican Church continues to exist despite its many weaknesses and vicissitudes is surely a testimony to its Catholic and Apostolic nature. That since the seventeenth century it has given birth to endless, and endlessly schismatic, separated brethren is equally testimony to the profound inability of its structures to cope with either early zeal or later maturity amongst its members.
The situation in the diocese of Newcastle is thus, ironically, a manifestation of the triumph of sociology over theology - as witnessed by the recourse to a High Court injunction rather than excommunication on the bishop's own authority. Unfortunately such chief officers of the Church, who so often urge change in 'society', have not yet learned how to share power within their own institution. Until they do, more 'Newcastles' are inevitable.
1. Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962) p 25
2. Ibid p 41