In the opening pages of the Common Worship Service books you will find a list of Holy Days throughout the year. Principal feasts like Christmas, Easter and the various Apostles are print in bold red type; mere Commemorations are printed in black italics with various other major or minor feasts in between. For example John Keble and George Herbert are in black Roman typeface but John Henry Newman is only in italics. Will that have to be changed now that he has been declared ‘Blessed’ by the Pope, opening up the possibility that he may one day become the first ex-Anglican saint? Our calendar includes various post-reformation saints so why not change the Anglican status of Cardinal Newman and initiate some wider reflection on his significance for the Church of England.
Newman was an Anglican controversialist at a time when decisions on church matters were being made by the state on purely pragmatic grounds with little regard to theology. The only source of revival in the church was a form of pietistic protestant evangelicalism which Newman himself had been part of as a young man. As an Oxford academic theologian and Vicar of the University Church of St Mary’s, however, his readings of the early church fathers and the Anglican Divines of the 17th century, and his association with men like Keble and Pusey made him part of a new movement (named after his university) which began to assert the authentically Catholic nature of the Church of England. Together they claimed that Anglicanism was more truthful to the teachings of the early church than the Catholic church had become as a result of its medieval and renaissance development. Anglicanism represented a via media between the aberrations of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The majority of the Bishops, however, felt that Newman was betraying the Protestantism of their church and so gradually Newman came to feel that for all its faults Rome was his true home and he converted in 1845 at the age of 44. However, when as a Roman Catholic he gradually republished all his Anglican writings he made very few changes. During the remaining 45 years of his life he was viewed with considerable suspicion by Rome and other English Catholics because his thought was not in tune with the predominant conservative theology and its fear of change; he was only made a Cardinal when he was 78. It can be said that his thought did not receive proper recognition until the 2nd Vatican Council.
Of what significance is that thought to modern Anglicanism? Newman was a historian of belief and therefore deeply interested in the way the expression of belief could change and develop. He believed that growth was the only evidence of life and that to live is to change and to be perfect is to change often. He was therefore also concerned with the ways in which change can be validated. He also wrote extensively about the nature of faith and its relation to life, to the mind and heart; he recognised that ‘the heart is commonly reached, not by the reason, but by the imagination’ – a simple truth of immense importance for preaching and mission. What is fundamental is ‘the living idea’ which is alone capable of bringing about a change of heart. His writings often explore the way in which we actually believe rather than trying to make us aware of how we ought to believe. Personal influence and personal communication were central to his communication of the faith – symbolised in part by the motto he chose when becoming a cardinal, ‘Heart speaks to heart.’
He saw the Christian life as ‘a quest for holiness rather than peace’ in which prayer is as important as ‘the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the body.’ He regarded worship with its imagery and symbolism as the way into the mystery of God as the source and goal of life. He interpreted Scripture not as the basis of an intellectual system but as the way to form a certain character. He did not believe that it was possible to form a complete and consistent theology which could be held with unclouded certainty. Because we are trying to respond to the truth of God it is inevitable that our knowledge will be partial and incomplete. We see enough for practice. It may seem to us that much of this chimes in with a certain kind of modern liberalism which sits light to dogma. Such a view is not, however, true to Newman. His writing seeks to engage with attacks from two different flanks: an increasingly secular age which is beginning to reject faith and sees it in only in terms of outmoded dogma, and a Catholic church concerned with its dwindling political power and hidebound by a suspicious and aridly conservative dogmatic system. His quest was to reassert belief in a way which would appeal to the mind and the heart as a converting power.
Perhaps the other most helpful element in Newman’s writing is his understanding of the church and what he sees as its three essential elements, the prophetic, the priestly and the royal, related to three aspects of Jesus’ ministry. These elements can also be described in terms of a philosophy, a political power, and a religious rite. They relate to the work of theology, doctrinal analysis and teaching; to the direction and governance of the institution; and to the pastoral and liturgical ministry. Each office cannot act independently of the other, and each office has to be open to transformation by another. Often the three offices will be in conflict with one another in ways which cannot easily be reconciled. As Newman wrote ‘Whatever is great refuses to be reduced to human rule, and to be made consistent in its many aspects with itself.’ The church can never be a tidy place. The exercise of authority in the church will always be subject to theological critique and the demands of what is practical, experiential and concrete. Theology can never impose its intellectual systems on the church but needs to be informed by pastoral care, life experience and prayer and mediated through debate and authoritative preaching and teaching. Emotional experience and the concrete life of the individual cannot be allowed to give final authority to private judgement; though the conscience is primary it must be informed by the living faith of the whole community and open to the authority of tradition and its contemporary representatives among the ecclesial authorities.
And how is this relevant to us? One of the most important upcoming debates in the Church of England will concern the Anglican Covenant. This is an attempt to bind the different provinces of the communion together in a more coherent system, whereby each is restrained in its individual actions when they might give rise to difficulty in another province. It is an attempt to bring more order, consultation and reciprocity into Anglicanism as a world wide body. Behind these proposals clearly lie the problems that have been caused by the liberal policy towards homosexuality in the North American churches and the interventions made by African and South American churches to provide alternative oversight for conservative American congregations. What seems to be at work here is a tightening up of the royal or political office of the church as perceived by Newman. If it is to work, however, Anglicanism will have to discover an equally authoritative means of expressing the other two offices perhaps in the form of international commissions which will provide both theological and social insight in disputed areas to enable this to be seen not just as an exercise of power. If there is to be a covenant to help our churches to live together such communal life will only be made possible by a deep study of faith and experience as related to all the major issues for Christianity in contemporary society. Perhaps the miracle needed to make Newman a saint might be the healing of some of the divisions in the church in which he began his pilgrimage.
With my love and prayers,
The Vicar Writes
Stephen Tucker