VICAR'S LETTER
17
Sundon Road
Streatley
October, 2007
Dear
All
The attempt, this summer, to corral Streatley into an otherwise overwhelmingly Evangelical group of churches prompts the question: "What kind of church are we trying to be?" Normally answers to this question use the categories "high", "low", and "middle", distinguishing churches that have their roots in the catholic, evangelical, or liberal traditions. It is, however, possible to use other categories, categories that are not so rooted in the disagreements of the past. . One might, for example, begin by distinguishing between churches that follow the way of piety and churches that follow the way of pity.
The source of these categories is an episode in Dante's poem The Divine Comedy. The poem tells how Dante, lost in the wood of Error and assailed by lust, pride, and avarice, is rescued by the poet Virgil. Virgil then takes him on a journey which is meant to show him where he has gone wrong and to set him back on the right path. The first stage of that journey is a descent into hell. The two poets make their way down the terraces that line the pit of hell pausing on each to observe sinners enduring the various penalties that divine justice has imposed on them for their crimes. As they descend, however, tension between the two poets grows. What Dante is meant to do is to admire the exactness with which divine justice has made the punishment fit the crime. What he actually does is to feel more and more sorry for those who have to endure these torments. In the end Virgil's patience snaps. He gives Dante an ultimatum: "Here pity or here piety must cease." Dante does his best to behave as he should, He tries to elevate reason over feeling, but, to his eternal credit, he fails. His humanity gets the better of him. His pity remains.
This confrontation in the depths of Hell provides a useful way of distinguishing between different kinds of churches. First, there are churches that follow the way of piety. These churches are characterised by a sense of finding. They have found the truth. The locations in which they have discovered it vary - some have found it in the Bible; some have found it in the traditions of the church - but the sense of certainty is common to all. The principle activity of such churches is proselytising. They are anxious to share the truth that they have found. Churches following the way of piety have the strength conviction brings. They know where they stand. They can focus on marketing that product. The danger with such churches is that they can all too easily slip into dogmatism and intransigence. One stage further down the line, we find tests being set to decide who is orthodox and who is not, who is a real Christian and who is not. At the far end of that road lies fanaticism, a religion in which piety is all and pity is dead.
Churches that follow the way of pity, by contrast, are characterised not by finding but by seeking. They see themselves as contributing to humanity's search for a truth that will bring together the insights of religion and the discoveries made by scientists, philosophers, poets, and artists. Their dominant activity, born of a sense of our common humanity, is pastoral. The strength of such churches is that there is a warm and unforced naturalness about their religion that is open to the perplexities and difficulties of life. The danger for such churches is that while they retain the ideal of goodness - attentiveness to others - they can begin to lose sight of the other equally important ideal - that of holiness - attentiveness to God. At the end of this road lies a religion that has ceased to be a religion at all and has become indistinguishable from a well-intentioned humanism.
So which kind of church should we aspire to be? I suspect that the first instinct of most of us would be to follow the way of pity. Our instinctive reaction to viewing the torments of the damned would be that of Dante rather than that of Virgil. But there are, as we have seen, downsides to committing ourselves entirely to that way. What we actually want is a middle way, a way in which while the pity moderates the piety, the piety gives focus and direction to the pity. But what would such a church be like?
The core belief of such a church would be that there is something of God in every-one. This is the core belief of the Old Testament. It is spelt out right at the beginning when Genesis affirms that God made man in His own image. It is also a core belief of the New Testament. It is spelt out by St. John when, at the very beginning of his gospel, he speaks of Jesus being "the light that lightens every-one who comes into the world." It is from this core belief that both pity and piety flow.
In a church that based itself on this belief there would be a strong sense of our common humanity. That feeling would, in turn, generate pity and, with it, the desire to do everything possible to alleviate human suffering wherever and in whatever form it might be found. Such a church would reach out to the hungry and the oppressed, the sick and the lonely, the grieving, the guilty, and those who had lost all sense of their own worth. That would be the pastoral work of such a church.
But the belief that there is something of God in all of us would also awaken piety. It would be the mission of such a church to strive to release that God in its own life and in the life of the world. Within the church, the members would strive to be themselves, their very best selves. They would do so by embracing the disciplines of regular worship, personal prayer, and Bible Study. This would be the church's spiritual work. At the same time they would seek to help others to recognise and release God's presence in themselves. This would be the central focus of the teaching work of such a church.
The church of the middle way would have as its core conviction the belief that there is something of God in every-one. From that conviction would flow the piety and pity that would shape its pastoral, spiritual and teaching work. Those same forces would also shape its spirit and its goals. The spirit would be one of unforced and accepting human fellowship, the spirit that arises when people enjoying being together and look out for one another. The goals would be first a church and, ultimately, a world at in which people were at one with God with each other and with themselves. It would be the fulfilment of Jesus' prayer that: "They may all be one; as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, so also may they be in us."
It is such a church that I pray that we, here at Streatley will always, however imperfectly, aspire to be.
All best wishes,
Roger