Theological Sub-Group Plenary 26th September 2003 - Transcription
Oral witness: Dr Martin Davie
Paul Avis: Martin you’re very welcome indeed. We have your submission for which we do thank you. It is characteristically clear and to the point. I thought we might just go round the table before you speak briefly to your paper…
Paul Avis: Martin I believe that you have a paper for us. (Circulated)
Martin Davie: Now in my full paper which you have all seen, I make five basic points, divisions of what I want to say. The first point - point one - is that if we look at the biblical witness, there is no one model of the relationship between the people of God and wider society. If we start with the patriarchs and move through the Old and New Testament, what we find is that the people of God relate to wider society in a whole variety of different ways. So there is no one set model that we can read off the shelf and say this is the model, biblically speaking. That’s the first point. However, I think we can learn some general theological lessons from this biblical picture and the first of these is that there is a historical contingency to the kind of relationship God’s people enjoy with wider society. How God’s people relate to wider society depends in part upon the historical situation in which they find themselves. So, for example, there’s a different situation before and after the Babylonian exile because before the exile Israel was a political state and after it wasn’t - different context, different relationship.
However, I would want to say that not everything is historically contingent and the biblical material points us to a number of enduring principles which need to govern the ways in which God’s people relate to wider society within this contingency and I’d identify six of them. First of which is that God’s people are not to be identified with any particular ethnic identify. I would argue that the Old Testament vision of the nations coming to Zion, the nations acknowledging the God of Israel, is seen in the New Testament as being fulfilled in the Church as it goes out to bear witness to all nations and therefore we cannot say that the Church is an ethnic or should be identified, per se, with any ethnic group.
Second point – God’s people are strangers and exiles; ultimately our home land is not here.
Thirdly, we are called not only to be exiles, resident aliens, but also ambassadors - those who are speaking on behalf of another king and another kingdom.
Fourthly God’s people, like Jeremiah are called to pray for the place of their exile and like all good prayer this needs to be turned into action.
Lastly, God’s people should seek to ensure that God’s truth and God’s ways receive public recognition, and I argue this for two reasons. First of all, while we can’t read the relationship between Israel and God - Israel the biblical state and God - as a direct model for all subsequent Church/State relationships, we can learn from the history of Israel, from the exodus to the exile that God’s laws are universally relevant to society as a whole. It’s a point that Chris Wright has made in a number of his books, that there is a universal relevance of God’s law to the whole governing society. And second point that I think we can also learn from that period is that it is the responsibility of rulers, insofar as they are aware of God, to seek to govern their nations on behalf of God.
This is a politically unpopular thing to say, but it makes sense if you take the basic point made by Richard Hooker, that human beings are not as Hooker says, ‘hogs’, that is purely animal beings, they are people with eternal souls and therefore the rulers concern for the welfare of their people must extend as much to their spiritual and ethical well being as to their material. I think those are the principles. So how do we apply them today? Well I think first of all the point about contingency; they have to accept particular context. There will be a different relationship between Christians in the state in say Abu Dhabi to that which applies in Finland or the United States, necessarily.
Second point we have to affirm ethnic diversity, and I want to make two sub-points on that one. First of all I have great problems with the idea of particular ethnic churches, be they messianic Jewish synagogues, Pentecostal Nigerian churches or Swedish Lutheran churches in exile in this country. I think there is a big contradiction between ethnicity and catholicity in that sense. I know the missiological argument, but I think theologically they are problematic. Secondly, I would argue that we have to say ‘no’ to the idea that certain ethnic groups, such as the Muslim population, or the Jewish population are off-limits for evangelism, that Christianity is for certain ethnic groups and by implication not for others. I think that is reverse-racism and I’m not in favour of it.
Third point is that we have to live a distinctive way of life, and I argue in my wider paper that that’s best summed up by Augustine’s distinction between two cities orientated by two loves. And we have to be ambassadors for the kingdom, both in life and in words. People will not know what our lives mean unless we speak to them, but our words will not mean anything unless we live them out, particularly in today’s society which is deeply impressed by the need for consistency and always looking for hypocrisy. Next we have to recognise the importance of prayer, acknowledging that if we are to make an impact upon our nation it has to be an impact that comes from God in response to believers’ prayer. We have to give priority to eternity, by which I mean the most important service that we can offer people is to bring them into an eternal relationship with God and that is the overwhelming priority and perspective in which we must operate in.
And lastly, I nevertheless argue we need to be socially and politically active, both in obedience to the second greatest commandment of the love of ones neighbour and also because the public recognition of Christianity will not happen by accident - it will only happen if we get involved in the social and political system and make it happen. I also argue that the public recognition of Christianity involves a whole series of things that are on the bullet points there: promotion of Christianity in the media; laws based on the Ten Commandments; tackling hunger homelessness, poverty and disease; welcoming the stranger and the refugee; more egalitarian forms of society; and caring for God’s creation.
Having made these basic points I then go on to say that any attempt to embody Christianity in the life of society must be necessarily provisional. We operate under what we called the eschatological proviso - until the final coming of the kingdom, this world will not be the kingdom of God and therefore there is always more that the society needs to be to embody the values of the kingdom of God. We can never uncritically identify our society with Gods kingdom, as for instance Eusebius was tempted to do in his panegyric on the Emperor Constantine – say this is the kingdom of God. I think we have to have a critical solidarity. Critical because the Church must always move society towards a more complete embodiment of the gospel. Solidarity because Christians have to play their part in prayer and appropriate action in bringing this more complete embodiment about we can’t just sit on the sideline and criticise the game, we have to become involved.
Conversely I would say not only do we have to call society to account of the church, but also the governing authorities of any society have the right and the duty to call the Church to account if it‘s failing in its duties to proclaim the gospel in word or sacrament or to provide appropriate pastoral care – I think the Reformers were absolutely right to see part of the governmental duty, i.e. Romans 13, as the duty of magistrates to ensure that the Church does its God-given job. However, I then go on to say that I don’t think we should confuse the roles between the Church and government or governmental authority – I think they have two distinct roles and we shouldn’t confuse them. In my last point in this section I argue that in this current age we can only hope to anticipate the kingdom of God, only anticipate life in the new Jerusalem, which means that we have to adopt a specific approach to those of other religions or none. And I think what we have to do is recognise that two responses are equally mistaken. One would be uncritical pluralism that said all forms of belief or unbelief are equally valid and should receive equal recognition in society. I think that’s theologically and philosophically incoherent. But on the other hand I don’t think we want to go the other way as Christians so often have done and say that we should persecute those who are not Christians and attempt to coerce them into embracing Christianity. I think we want to work out a mean between the two and my suggestion in the bottom paragraph is what that might mean.
Fourthly, in the section headed ‘Being Practical’ I look at some practical steps to implement the programme and my suggestion is an education programme, explaining the principles set out in this paper; continuing and increasing involvement by Christians in the media, in education and the formation of public policy; development of specifically Christian thinking about areas of public policy - and I say that this should be marked by honesty and consistency.
An example of that – if we want to say, as many Christians now do, that we want to improve conditions of trade for those in the two thirds world to move people in the two thirds world out of poverty, there needs to be a realisation that the equalisation of world trade would mean those in the West becoming relatively more poor, given that there are a finite number of resources in the world. We would have to have less in order for others to have more and a Christian approach would have to be honest about that, as for instance Ronald Sider was in his book ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ – we have to be honest about what we’re proposing and consistent in living it out. A willingness by Christians to challenge the privatisation of religion in our society. There is a kind of unspoken contract that says religion is OK providing it is private and I think we have to challenge that.
And finally, I think we need to try and resolve the internal divisions in the church in this country, because one of the things which feeds secularisation, both historically and today, is the divisions within the Christian church. It has been classically argued for example that one of the driving forces of secularisation in Europe was the divisions of the churches with various competing brands of Christianity on offer and the secular state developing to hold between them. I think we need to be challenged by more and better and ecumenism. Finally the issue of establishment. Now I think that some form of establishment is the necessary corollary of the vision of recognition of Christianity in the life of the nation, previously outlined in this paper, because if you’re going to recognise Christianity, you’re going to have to recognise it in some form – there does have to be some public recognition of the churches as a visible body, as those who actually embody the Christian vision in practice. And I think a government that is properly concerned for the welfare of the nation would take responsibility to ensure that the Church carries out its mission to the nation. I think a truly responsible government has a religious responsibility. And finally I argue that the established status of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland has important benefits in the cause of the gospel in British society, because first of all their established status highlights the theological claim that Christianity should have a central place in the life of society – it puts down a theological marker. Secondly, it provides an opportunity for the Church’s voice to be heard in the public arena – I think the fact the Rowan Williams is on Channel Four tonight is, for example, a benefit of the establishment. He’s there because he is the Archbishop of the established Church. Now finally, it obliges those churches that are established to maintain a mission to the whole of society, argues against the privatisation, the marginalisation or ghetto-isation.
So what I want to argue, in closing, is that what we want to look for is not the abolition of establishment, but the development of a more robust and extended establishment in the context of church renewed it its unity and mission that will lead the nation to an ever greater approximation, and of course it will only ever be an approximation, of the life of the New Jerusalem.
Paul Avis: Thank you very much. I want to make my usual plea, that the panel are probably wearying of, that we make our questions succinct. Can I also request Martin that you make your answers as succinct as possible so we can cover all the ground that we need to cover in the remaining 45 minutes.
Vera Sinton: Just a point early on, Martin, because I’m very familiar – your method is very classic evangelical method – to say that you can derive these enduring principles, which gives it a very strong weight. But would you not also say there is an element of here’s a personal framework you’ve laid out in relation to what you are doing. So, for instance in (b) you take a model – God’s people are strangers – which is of course a strong biblical model, but there are other models as well. For instance one might have looked at God’s people as family and being at home in a place. So I think there’s an element of recognition that it is a biblical model, but beware of giving it the status of the only model.
Martin Davie: In response to that I would say that this should be the determinative model, not the model of the Church, but the model of its relation to the state because of the fundamental theological point made by Paul in Philippians that our homeland is not here – that we are passing through. Now the great point about strangers and exiles model is that it carries two things with the freight that it carries within the biblical material, one of which is the recognition of distance, that our homeland is not here, that we cannot identify ourselves wholly and entirely with our situation or things of this world, but also and this is the exiles bit, identification. This is the place that God has placed us, this is the place God has called us to pray for, this is the place with which we are called to be engaged, so I think it does have that model the perspective of the whole biblical picture.
Vera Sinton: Could I just press you slightly, because you’ve come back at Paul saying it isn’t a strong statement from Paul as the sort of lacking preference for this model, but you are saying there is a historical contingent and you might be arguing that that is historically contingent on the Church as he knew it in those settings.
Martin Davie: No I don’t think it is because I think it is more than that contingency and the reason I think that is that the reason that we are exiles in this country, in this world, is because of something that is enduring which is the distance until the second coming between this world and the kingdom of God. I don’t think that’s something historically contingent, I think that’s something which goes throughout history, rather than something which is contingent to a particular point in history. I think if you wanted to draw a model, all epochs in history are equally far from or near to the coming of the kingdom in that way.
Nigel Wright: Thank you Martin. I wonder how you’d respond if I said that whereas I understand that this is a vision, and visions do guide us somewhere important and construct models, it reads to me like trying to recapture what we’ve lost, rather than a reflection upon given the fact that we’ve lost it where do we go from here? In other words, I miss the note of angst in all of this about what we do in a culture which people are now calling post-Christian. How do you respond to that?
Martin Davie: I would respond to that by saying that, yes, you could see it as the vision of the cloudy conservatives – William Gladstone defending the identification of the churches in the 1830s when it was crumbling underneath him. But the point is that I think that the theological principles that lay behind the model that was axiomatic from throughout Christian history, from, I would say, the conversion of Armenia to in large parts of the world the 20th Century have good theological weight. I think the way that we get back to that is by the kind of critical engagement that I argue for in this paper that we try to get involved in the media, in the governmental institutions, with evangelism, with prayer on all levels, with the idea that we should aim to try and get back to a more overtly Christian society. I recognise where we are at the moment, but I don’t think we should be content to stay there I think we should try to get back to a more robust vision.
Nigel Wright: Can I just ask two questions of Paul about the content of the paper specifically on page 15 in the third paragraph down. "In terms of a Christian vision for society, this approach would mean that a society that sought to embody Christianity in its corporate life would permit those of other faiths and with no faith to live in peace and to follow their preferred manner of life to the extent that this did not involve behaviour that was contrary to Christian moral principles". It sounds to me rather like we’re prepared to tolerate things we don’t like up to a very definite limit, but does this mean, for instance, when people of no faith say we would like to live in homosexual relationships we should penalise that? Does it mean that we should go back upon some of the legislation that has been enacted in the second part of the twentieth century about people’s personal morality, about what they do in private?
Martin Davie: I think there are two points to make here. The first of which is that all societies, including our own, put limits to people’s moral behaviour. There is no society which says, everyone can do what they like, it’s just that the markers are put in different places. For example, with our society we are moving towards a fairly liberal attitude on matters to do with sexual ethics, but not about fox-hunting, for ethical reasons. The markers shift, but they are still there. So I see no problem, in principle in saying that those who do not buy into the prevailing ethos of society nevertheless are subject to certain restrictions because of the ethos of the society as a whole – I think all societies do that including our present one. It’s just the necessary way by which society operates. The second point is that personally I would not wish to penalise for instance homosexuality. I think the argument Michael Ramsey put forward against that in the 1950s and 1960s were cogent, but nevertheless, one could for example say that one would not go down the route of giving public recognition to same-sex partnerships or allowing divorce on demand, for example, or one could argue for, and I think I would be inclined to argue for personally, more robust restrictions on abortion. There are various areas on which I think one would be justified and could argue ethically for putting restrictions and I think you would have to argue it on a case by case basis. I couldn’t give you a global account of where I think the markers would be – you would have to argue it out on a case by case basis. And Christians themselves would differ as to where you would put the markers down. The question is, is it justified where there is Christian moral consensus to actually say: This should be reflected in whatever way in the laws of society and I would argue that if we believe that Christianity is morally good and morally applicable to everyone, yes we should.
Nigel Wright: It just seems to me that this stance, as it stands, and it may not reflect what you are now saying is somewhat all inclusive – to the extent to which this did not involve behaviour that was contrary to Christian moral principles. Well what you’re actually saying is that there will be some forms of behaviour that are contrary to Christian moral principles which will actually be permitted and tolerated because that’s the nature of the ways things have to be.
Martin Davie: Well there’s a distinction between saying, for example, that we do not approve certain ways of life to say that it would follow with penal sanctions. When we just do that in a whole variety of areas of life, we say at what point does the law cut it. I mean, for example, as a society we do not on the whole approve of drunkenness. But there are certain points in which we say drunk behaviour will attract public penal sanctions, for example if you do it in certain places in public or you cause a nuisance to your neighbour, or whatever.
Nigel Wright: So it would be permitted, but constrained?
Martin Davie: Yes – there’s another question, but I’ll defer to the Chair at this point.
Paul Avis: Yes we need to move on – we spent a long time on that particular issue.
David Porter: A couple of questions. First, your conversation within your paper highlights the whole issue of ethnicity and identity and so on and your opposition to that. And yet it seems to me, you can tell from my accent where I’m from, the very formula of the Church of England and establishment is profoundly an ethnic formula. So here you are in your paper attacking a principle which I have sympathy with, yet at the same time defending a legal structure that is dependent on our definition of nation, ethnicity, who belongs and who doesn’t and then the formal role of legalising the religious community within that, so actually Anglicanism is a profoundly ethnic thing and I would like to hear your response to that.
Martin Davie: I don’t think that Anglicanism is an ethnic thing because the original Anglican vision, the original Church of England vision, was that of a particular geographical area governed by a united Church. And regardless of your ethnic identity, your ethnic background, if you weren’t a temporary visitor, like for instance the Huguenots, worshipping as Presbyterians in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, if you weren’t that, you were Church of England. So regardless of whether you’d originally been Welsh or Irish or whatever, you were if you worshipped in this country, C of E, and that was the vision.
David Porter: You can’t say that that territorialness, even in that original vision, is experienced as Anglican, so if I was an Irish immigrant to this country, I was actually forced to go to an Anglican church or I ended up in jail, whereas I might have been Presbyterian in Ireland. And the very definition with which you defined that and therefore the role of establishment in enforcing that everybody within that territory goes to that particular church is actually experienced as quite an oppressive ethnic church and that’s certainly how it’s been experienced in Ireland.
Martin Davie: Yes and I appreciate the experience, but I would argue that that’s because of the breakdown of the vision of the united Church, well the effective breakdown of the united church, from the civil war into various grounds. I mean the existence of Presbyterianism is because of the fracturing of the post-Reformation English and Scottish churches and that’s why it exists. It’s not a necessary part of the vision of the national church, I think it’s an unfortunate result.
David Porter: How do you distinguish a vision of the national church from ethnicity? Nationhood and sense of national identity is quite linked to ethnicity.
Martin Davie: I think you distinguish it by saying that everyone in a particular territory, regardless of whether define themselves ethnically with a country, was welcome to, is a part of, an equal part of this church. So, for example, what I would see as contrary to the existence to the Church of England is the way that many West Indian immigrants coming in the 1950s were excluded either overtly or covertly from the Church of England, which in many cases they saw as their church, because they were Anglicans in the West Indies, because they were black.
David Porter: This goes to the heart of some if our definitions. Are you therefore saying, from your perspective, theologically, that a definition of nationhood is more territorial, is more biblical than the common definition of nation more widespread, certainly in the 20th Century of ethnic, national self-determination which then led to territory.
Martin Davie: Absolutely, I think it should be territorial rather than ethnic, so I have awful problems with the identification in Germany, for example, or in a different context in South Africa, of the volk with the church. I think that’s a real difficulty and gets you into real difficulties.
Stephen Williams: I appreciated very much the paper and the summary. Can I ask you this, in terms of specific examples, is there anything distinctively Christian that you would like to see the government promoting or protecting, that could not be argued for by a Jew or a Muslim or certain secular people? To what extend here are you defending the religious establishment rather than a Christian one?
Martin Davie: I think the distinction would not necessarily be a moral one because there is a large degree of overlap on many issues between Christianity, Islam and Judaism, for example. Although there are different outcomes on specific questions like purdah, Halal meat, ritual forms of slaughter etc. there would be particular points of tension. But I think the big difference would come at the point when I talk about the promotion of Christianity, for example in the media and in the education system. Because I think I would be in favour of sticking my neck out for positive promotion of the Christian faith in the education system, in the media, through the BBC as an action of government policy, which obviously would then create tensions.
Stephen Williams: Can I ask you about the grounds for that? I mean presumably you couldn’t appeal, or could you appeal, to Josiah or Hezekiah as a basis for that? I mean within their context in a community acknowledged Yahweh and they had the responsibility of promoting the worship of God. So on what grounds would you advocate that promotion?
Martin Davie: I think I would advocate it – I would go back to Hooker – and the basic point Hooker makes which is profoundly sound, that take your major premise. Governments are there to promote the wellbeing of their citizens that’s what they’re there for, to promote the wellbeing of the Commonwealth. Now the premise that the wellbeing of human beings necessarily involves their right relationship with God insofar as this can be achieved. Conclusion, a government that is truly concerned with the wellbeing of its people will seek to promote, as far as it can, that right relationship with God and as a Christian I would hold that that relationship with God comes to acceptance of the Christian religion. That would be the argument that I would pursue in the analysis of the nature of government in the promotion of people’s good necessarily takes you down that path once you accept the Christian faith.
Stephen Williams: That seems to be the crucial thing. I was looking for the Hooker reference. It does centre on the conception of government and the responsibility government.
Martin Davie: On page 7.
Paul Avis: I think the point has been made – are you content for the moment Stephen?
David Hilborn: My question is a very pragmatic one - it’s about thresholds and expectations. Should the Christian part of the population in Britain ever become less than say, another faith group – a very hypothetical question - but should it happen, would you still expect the government to inculcate Christian values, Christian understanding of life over and above the Islamic, or Jewish worldview? Is this a question purely of historical contingency and proportionality, in terms of the Christian impact upon these islands, or is there something more profound at stake here?
Martin Davie: Well I think I would say it depends upon in what way you use the term ‘expect’. If you use the term ‘expect’ in the sense that would you expect that a government in terms of right principle to do this, would you hope that it would do this because it would be right to do so? I argue that it would be ‘yes’ because the argument that I’ve just put forward to Stephen would apply regardless of the proportionality of Christians in society – it just would necessarily. If you took the ‘expect’ in the second sense in that would I expect it to happen in terms of practical politics, the answer is that it would be extremely difficult to do so. I think then that an element of contingency would come in and it would be very difficult to actually make it stick, in which case then, you’d go as so many Christians in so many place have done, into a different relationship between Church and state. But I would argue that one should nevertheless seek to work through prayer and evangelism and so forth for the conversion of sufficiently large numbers of people to return to the status quo that existed before they became a minority.
David Hilborn: But the comments we were making about schools, Christian education, a majority Christian content on BBC religious broadcasting – would that apply if the Christian percentage – the active churchgoing Christian committed percentage - became so low as to be almost off the radar would that still apply? Would you still be calling for that?
Martin Davie: In terms of theory ‘ yes’, because I think that the media has the duty to promote truth and therefore I would still robustly defend that until the last person available to do it. Whether I think it would happen, I’m not sure. I think the evidence indicates that it would be unlikely to, but in principle ‘yes’ because the fact that a few people actually hold the belief is in no way related to its truth. The point that Bishop John Jewel made in his ‘Apology for the Church of England back in the 1560s still holds good, that truth often wonders as a stranger in the world and that the agreement of the majority can be an agreement in error as in the case of the Israelites agreeing to worship the golden calf or the crowds in Jerusalem agreeing that Our Lord deserved to be crucified.
Donald Shell: Is it really in accordance with human dignity for people to have imposed upon them rules, the fundamental values of which they don’t accept? If we go back to the 1960s that you were referring to earlier and the argument then say, on divorce. Putting asunder quite clearly stated that if Christians per se happened to be in the majority, it would be unjust for them to impose their view of marriage and divorce on the whole of society, when the majority of society were not Christian. I think the same argument can be made on homosexuality too, in that Michael Ramsey’s arguments were very valid it seems in the context of the 1960s, but why do you now say that you want to put the markers, you want to hold the markers at this particular point, that the state should not recognise union between same sex people, when de facto, that is happening in society more and more through pensions, insurance and all the rest of it. I’m puzzled about how you can decide where these markers where to go, so to speak, especially when historically Christians have been in a position of power, relatively speaking, disproportionate influence anyway and it’s often amounted to defending the status quo.
Martin Davie: To go back to your first point – how does it accord with human dignity. You would be in a very odd situation if society only expected people to follow those laws with which be in agreement. Let’s take an example – if I happened to develop a pathological hatred of someone and decided that the commandment, not to murder did not apply to me. Most societies would say it was nevertheless incumbent upon me to obey them – not to carry on to the point of killing somebody, because killing somebody is intrinsically wrong. And therefore I think you have to make a distinction between society’s role in controlling behaviour of which it does not approve and its attempting to inculcate good moral attitudes in its citizens. The two hopefully should go together but they are, in theory, distinct, so that’s the first point. I don’t think in theory there is any particular problem with society imposing its vision of morality on people who do not necessarily agree with it. It happens all the time and necessarily happens in all societies unless you get 100% agreement of all the citizens all the time of all the laws which I’m not persuaded is likely to happen. The second point on that one – who sets the markers? Well, again it depends on whether you think law should reflect the consensus of society – which to a certain extent it has to in order for it to be effective or whether you think there is a degree of moral vision which should control the imposition of the laws and where the government has a right to, or indeed a duty, to impose things which may be unpopular, but which may be perceived to be morally right. And again if you go back to the 60s there’s a whole raft of liberal legislation which could be seen to have been developed in the face of quite strong popular opposition, for example, the abolition of capital punishment. So I see no problem in theory in the state actually asking people to obey laws which they might not agree with.
Donald Shell: Even if it’s the majority that don’t agree?
Martin Davie: Even if it’s the majority – because for example…
Donald Shell: But what when the minority happen to be, for historical reasons, a privileged minority – democracy being imperfect and incomplete, as it always is.
Martin Davie: So you’re saying the fact that they had been a privileged minority would disable them from…
Donald Shell: Well I would think that it would make them very cautious about taking, for example, this sentence here, that we should do everything in our power to realise the new Jerusalem, because some people would seize that and say… Supposing Iain Duncan Smith – the take over of the Conservative party by Christians that I read about in the press took place, and the next election had a quirky result and they had this massive majority in Parliament, your advice to them would be capitalise on it.
Martin Davie: Absolutely.
Donald Shell: I think it was Norman Anderson who was saying at the time of putting asunder that it is fundamentally unjust and therefore unacceptable to a Christian – to impose your values in that way.
Martin Davie: That’s why… I know the work of Norman Anderson… but I don’t think he took seriously enough the fact that all governments have the duty on occasion and in fact they do it most of the time, to impose things on people that they don’t like. We do it all the time, from wearing seatbelts to banning illicit drugs. Society does this all the time – I really don’t see this as a problem.
Paul Avis: OK let’s give this a rest for a little while. We’re getting into some very interesting areas. I haven’t asked a question yet in this round so I’d like to ask one. Martin, I’m fascinated by your method in your main paper, and reflected of course in the summary, where you seem to start by trying to meet halfway those who have difficulties about any kind of partnership between the Church and state and forms of establishment that we’re familiar with. And you start by saying there is no one biblical pattern – I’m not advocating that – I’m not advocating an ethnic identity for the people of God - that’s ruled out – we are but strangers and exiles in this world anyway, therefore there can be no wholehearted identification with the powers that be. Furthermore we are ambassadors and heralds of the gospel, proclaiming a message to those who have not yet accepted it and that becomes the sort of hinge of your argument I would say, because at that point, and I think there’s a very interesting progression through those points – you know not an ethnic identity, we’re strangers and exiles, we’re sort of wandering ambassadors in this world and then you open up the task of mission and you seem to be saying that this is the mission of God in which the Christians in the Church have their part to play and it is right to look for a matching response to that mission in the structures in society and in government and that response is one of recognition and of acceptance and of giving a place to those people and those values who are represented.
Martin Davie: That’s right.
Paul Avis: I admire the method - I’m glad that you think I’ve got it right. Now where does Anglicanism and the Church of England come into this particularly? Does it come into it necessarily or only in a rather contingent way? When you say that it is always good for the Christian faith to be recognised in that way for the mission that the church has entrusted to it, to meet with that kind of response of recognition and acceptance, it doesn’t have to be taken in Anglican form – it could take a Presbyterian form as it does north of the border – it could take a Roman Catholic form in Ireland and in other places until fairly recently, or it could take a Baptist form, but the important thing is that the Christian faith and the Christian community’s role in society and the nation should be recognised in some way?
Martin Davie: The latter point, absolutely. I don’t think establishment… I would never argue, even as quite a convinced Anglican, that the only form or the best form of the establishment can be Anglican or Anglicanism. Because Anglicanism in its present incarnation is only a particular national, or trans-national contingent form of the church. What matters is the recognition of the Christian church and the Christian religion and the mission of the church in whatever form it is encountered in that particular society. I would not be in the least bit disturbed that north of the border the established Church is the Church of Scotland, or that in Fiji, I believe, the established Church is Methodist. That wouldn’t in the least bit worry me. I would even be very happy to see an established Baptist church if such a thing were possible. The only point would be that where one would prefer one form of establishment to another, would be where one would think that one form of, one embodiment of the Christian Church was for whatever reason, more appropriate or better than another. And there could be legitimate argument for that. Unless you hold that all forms of Christian expression are absolutely equal, one could then make an argument that it would be better if they were more like this, but that’s a different argument from saying it would have to be Anglican.
Paul Avis: Thank you very much – now Don you haven’t had a chance…
Don Horrocks: I’d like to just virtually repeat the question I asked the previous person here, where I appealed to Johannine pneumatological understanding of Christian mission in the form of the Holy Spirit, through the Church, through Christians convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgement. Taking particularly your strong establishment argument, that the church must call society to account, if it doesn’t do so the governing authorities must call the church to account. The first part of my question, going from where we are now, is the established church failing, and how does the established church fulfil its calling in the Johannine commission?
Martin Davie: To take the points in reverse order. I think the Church fulfils the Johannine calling by proclaiming the gospel in word and sacrament primarily as embodied in ministry and pastoral care – I think that’s how it does it. I don’t think there’s some kind of disembodied witness – I think it does it by being what the Church is, the body which proclaims the gospel in word and sacrament, so that would be the first answer. That is actually how the Church goes about carrying out that Johannine witness, that Johannine calling – by being the vehicle of the spirit through word, through sacrament, which I think is Johannine, as John 3 and John 6 says the sacraments are the vehicles of the Spirit’s work alongside the proclamation of the word. Now you ask me if the Church of England is failing in its calling, well I think that’s too global a question – I think you’d have to ask me about particular instances of the Church of England’s area of operation because the operation of the Church of England in our society is so multifaceted and varies so much from place to place, that you’d have to say what do you think about this particular way that it’s operating, or that particular way of operating, then I might be able to give you an opinion, but I couldn’t say on the whole is the Church of England failing or succeeding because it would be…
Don Horrocks: If you could comment on the public arena…
Paul Avis: Yes, could we just draw you out on that question a bit more, because Martin made a valid point that you’re asking to globalise any response, but I think that you’re driving at a very important matter.
Don Horrocks: What I’m talking about is the public arena.
Martin Davie: Well, speaking personally, and this is personally rather than in any official capacity, I would personally wish that the Church of England would corporately take a more robust attitude, particular in matters of personal morality. I think it needs to make a stronger witness and also a stronger witness against the prevailing materialism in out society. I don’t think that I hear the Church of England speaking clearly enough in a sufficiently robust way about the way in which individualisation of morality and the priority of materialism are taking over our society. I would like the Church to give a stronger profile, even than it does, to campaigns for a more egalitarian society and for justice for the two-thirds world. I think we do need to argue that more strongly, more robustly – I wish that those who speak for the Church of England acted in that way. But again you see, there are people, and I’m speaking for the Church of England, who do an absolutely superb job in all those areas. So although globally – and I speak personally, rather than a someone who works for the Church of England – I have reservations about certain areas of the ways we operate, I think in other areas we do an excellent job and even areas where I think there are weaknesses, the Church of England has people who are doing an excellent job in all those areas.
Don Horrocks: I would love some supplementaries. What about the judgement?
Martin Davie: The judgement on what?
Don Horrocks: Sin, righteousness, but also judgement – the specifically Christian aspect?
Martin Davie: In the sense of bearing witness to the final judgement? Yes, that’s another fair point. I do not think that we have enough emphasis in the public arena of the Church of England, but I do not think it’s just a Church of England problem, I think it’s in most churches, about the awesome reality of the fact that at the end of our lives we will have to give account of ourselves to God. That I don’t think is a particular Church of England failure – I think there are very few churches who proclaim that message in a visible, or vocal or audible fashion. Including, I regret to say, a lot of churches in the Evangelical Alliance.
Paul Avis: OK can we arrest that one? I think we are coming to the end really. If anyone is dying to ask a quickie it might be possible.
David Hilborn: I think there was an omission from Martin’s paper, unless I remember wrongly and it about civil disobedience and what level of resistance to our ambassadorial role by the state would justify civil disobedience?
Martin Davie: If you turn to my paper and look at page 13 there is a whole section on civil disobedience, talking about the government’s authority does not extend to commanding anything that is contrary to what God has commanded –when they do this the commands may be legitimately disobeyed. I give a whole series of examples, and Luther and the Diet of Worms and the resistance to apartheid in South Africa. I think I have actually covered that one.
Paul Avis: Stephen this gives you an opportunity to say your piece. This is probably the last word, unless Martin wants to respond to it.
Stephen Williams: I’d like Martin to respond. It seems to me that there are two issues here that take up something that Donald Shell was advancing earlier. It’s one thing to ask a question of whether moral values can be imposed on society – although it is agreed that some level of morality is imposed. To me the crucial question here is how do you move from a claim that it was the responsibility of the king of Israel to promote the worship of God within his role to the claim that it is the responsibility of government to promote the worship of God outside his role. That was my problem, but I think there is another separate one on the question of the imposition of moral values. I’m just drawing a distinction there.
Paul Avis: Whether there is a role for government in promoting the Christian worship of God?
Stephen Williams: How you move from Josiah to that…
Paul Avis: Do you make that move?
Martin Davie: If you look at my written full paper, the move that I make – if you just bear with me while I find it. Page 6 onwards. And the way that I developed this is to say no nation today can claim to have the specific place in God’s purposes occupied by Israel in Old Testament times. There is a specific role for Israel as the governing people of God which we can’t replicate. And I think Clifford Longley’s critique of the American tendency to see themselves as God’s chosen people is apposite here. Second point, I say we can’t take the laws which govern the Old Testament as a guide for our own practice without asking hermeneutical questions. And we cannot ignore the fact that the theological function of the Levitical monarch and priest has been fulfilled and transcended in Christ, so I then go on to quote Oliver O’Donovan who said that we can’t simply identify, for instance, Edward VI with King Josiah in the original way that Cranmer’s coronation ceremony was attempting to do. But, even if we accept there are possibly two straightforward identifications of Old Testament Israel in contemporary society there are still two important lessons that we can learn. The first of which is the saving act of God has universal relevance. In other words, what God has done for the world in creation and redemption does not just apply to people who overtly name Him. They apply to everybody, simply because they are acts of the sovereign creator God. Second point is that temporal rulers ought to have regard for the spiritual wellbeing of those for whom they have responsibility. In other words, the point about Hosea, Hezekiah and Josiah is that they acted as they did in order to bring their people into a right relationship with God – to act in accordance with God’s will and God’s ways. Now even if you’re not the particular anointed king of Old Testament Israel, it still seems to me that just as a human being in governmental responsibility, you have a calling to do that because of the intrinsic nature of government. If government is not just about the exercise of raw power – if it has a moral function – then the move that says you exercise that morality in a particular way to help people develop their relationship with God and live in obedience to Him seems to me to be entirely justified.
Stephen Williams: I’d love to respond but…
Paul Avis: I think we will call a halt, but I suspect that a lot hinges on what you mean by ‘promote’ the worship of God, because that needs a lot of unpacking. I think there’s a bit of a sliding scale on the involvement of government with regard to worship of God – that’s something for another occasion. Martin, we do thank you very much for all the hard work you’ve put into this.
