Tag Archives: Church of England

Review of Peter Itzen, Streitbare Kirche: Die Church of England vor den Herausforderungen des Wandels 1945-1990

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 22, Number 2 (June 2016)

Review of Peter Itzen, Streitbare Kirche: Die Church of England vor den Herausforderungen des Wandels 1945-1990 (Baden Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2013). Pp. 437. ISBN 9783832966089.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Very few German scholars have recently published works on England, and fewer still on the Church of England. It is therefore a welcome sign that Peter Itzen has now contributed this well-researched and balanced study of the Church England in the second half of the last century, which will undoubtedly be of value to German students and theologians, many of whom usually look with both puzzlement and envy at the church scene across the English Channel.

Itzen-Streitbare This account pays little attention to theology, but instead follows in the footsteps of such authors as Grace Davie and Callum Brown in emphasizing the sociological patterns he discerns in the Church of England’s development during the fifty years following the Second World War. Itzen lays particular stress on the views and the impact of the major church leaders on the political and social life of the nation, and makes extensive use of the archives held in Lambeth Palace, the residence of successive Archbishops of Canterbury. He also appends short but useful biographical details of many church leaders. The result is a well-informed but not uncritical account of the sometimes controversial stances adopted by the church, and the often critical responses by politicians, for instance during the Suez Crisis in the 1950s, or during Margaret Thatcher’s term as Prime Minister in the 1980s.

Itzen acknowledges that public support for the Church of England, in terms of participating in its regular weekly worship services, has suffered a marked decline during these years, when compared to the situation of a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, the Church of England, like the monarchy, still remains as a symbol of tradition and continuity. As with the monarchy, there is virtually no support for its abolition or disestablishment. The Church of England has a presence in virtually every village across the realm, although the pattern of religious observances has changed greatly with the recent influx of immigrants from distant lands and other faiths. But in contrast to the countries of continental Europe, England in modern times has never been invaded, nor suffered from being occupied by enemy troops. England’s last political convulsion was four hundred years ago, and its last religious convulsion took place in the sixteenth century. This has given the Church of England a stability and an institutional advantage of inestimable benefit for its political witness. On the other hand, as Itzen repeatedly points out, the situation has changed. The Church of England is no longer “the Tory Party at prayer”, or an automatic supporter of Conservative governments, as some politicians would like it to be. The advance of secularism has meant that the Church of England no longer commands the allegiance of a large proportion of the population, and is not listened to as readily as before when advocating moral guidance on political or social issues. But the fact that its senior bishops have always been, and are still, members of parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, and frequently avail themselves of this opportunity to convey the opinion of church members, presents a very different picture from other countries. They owe their position to the centuries-old process of English history, rather than to any transient political poll. Hence they enjoy the ability to speak for the whole of society, and see themselves as the guardians of their respective diocese’s welfare. To be sure, these church leaders are aware that they can no longer command unquestioning support, or dictate standards of Christian morality to an increasingly skeptical public. Nevertheless their energetic stand against the unbridled individualism of the Thatcher years, gained respect for its vigorous defence of the need for social cohesion, and support for the poorest and weakest in society’s ranks, the so-called “bias for the poor”. This process was also helped by the professionalization of the Church of England’s administrative structures which provided its spokesmen in the House of Lords with more expert political guidance. So too the establishment of such organs as the General Synod and the Board of Social Responsibility provided help in the propagation of responsible church pronouncements. In the many critical debates and conflicts of these years, the Church of England was able to play a moderating role, so that the interventions of the church leaders served to enhance its position as a link between competing political factions.

In more recent years, such as the 1990s, the most pressing issue for the Church of England was the question of the ordination of women. Fortunately, the new Archbishop, George Carey, as an Evangelical, was open to compromises which offered the more stringent Anglo-Catholics an olive branch of friendship. And in any case, the more militant supporters of women’s rights were satisfied with the eventual agreement of the church assemblies, though it took another ten years for women’s ordination to the episcopate to be realized. Far more contentious was the issue of homosexuality, which then spilled over into the term of office of the following Archbishop, Rowan Williams. Williams himself was an advocate of a liberal and tolerant stance for the Church of England on this question. But as Archbishop of Canterbury he was also the leader of the world-wide Anglican Communion. He faced intransigent opposition to any such toleration from the majority of African bishops. He thus found himself in an insoluble impasse which threatened to break open the ranks of the Communion, and make impossible the show of Anglican unity as previously displayed at the decennial Lambeth Conferences. This situation remains unresolved. No less problematical remains the issue of Britain’s multi-cultural and multi-religious identity. But the readiness of the Church’s leaders to issue constructive appeals for national and social harmony indicates a willingness to bring the influence of this heritage to bear, and to mobilize its supporters to proclaim its ethical and historical relevance to the problems of the 21^st century

Itzen’s conclusion is therefore a positive one for the future of the Church of England’s political and social witness. He takes issue with the teleological views of such secularists as Richard Dawkins, who sees all religious activities as survivals of bygone superstition, or the modernists, who regard the Church of England as an outdated institution which is due shortly to fade away. Instead he believes that, despite all the manifold difficulties of its political and social engagement, the Church will continue to play an unrivalled and positive, though not undisputed, role in the nation’s life as the spiritual advisor to successive political regimes.

Review of Robert Beaken, The Church of England and the Home Front 1914-1918

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 22, Number 1 (March 2016)

Review of Robert Beaken, The Church of England and the Home Front 1914-1918 (Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2015). Pp. 272. ISBN: 9781783270514.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Colchester, fifty two miles north-east of London, has been a garrison town since the days of the Romans. During the First World War its military establishment was vastly expanded, including four major army hospitals where the casualties from the battlefields in France were treated. The impact of the war was immediate and very visible. Colchester’s Church of England parishes were quickly and significantly involved, as is described in Beaken’s insightful and well researched account of these critical years.

Beaken-Church Colchester’s social elite, which was well represented in the Church of England parishes, was conservative, nationalist and hierarchical. Its members supported the British government’s decision to go to war in August 1914 for moral as well as political reasons. They joined in the widespread campaign urging young men to join the armed forces, until conscription was introduced in 1916, rendering such appeals superfluous. Thereafter the leading men set an example by supporting campaigns for contributions to the War Savings Bonds, while the church ladies were very active in ministering to the troops training in Colchester and to the wounded. Church people were assiduous in providing hospitality to the troops, and at least thirty five social clubs were established where recreational facilities and food were supplied, often at little cost. In part such provision was seen as a Christian virtue, but, as Beaken notes, in part it was inspired by the desire to keep the soldiers out of public houses, and so to keep prostitution and its attendant problems at bay.

The clergy’s position was more problematic. At first many of the younger clergy had felt drawn to join their parishioners by volunteering to serve in the ranks, which they believed would be a means of getting to know their fellow men better. But the bishops soon asserted that such notions were incompatible with their ordination vows. Instead they were to remain in their parishes where their services, because of the shortage of army chaplains and the extra requirements caused by the war, would be all the more demanding. In fact, in Colchester, both clergy and laity soon recognized the need for extra pastoral witness to the many thousands of young men passing through the garrison on their way to the western front, or to those returned to Colchester for treatment in the hospitals. They were also called to officiate at the funerals of those who died from their wounds, and to comfort their surviving families. After the initial euphoria of the early months was replaced by the grim horror of the devastating and depressing stalemate of the Flanders trench-warfare, the clergy’s often self-imposed role in support of the war effort became more dubious, and even counter-productive. Since it was they who often had to bring the dreaded news to the families of men killed in action, their pastoral skills were increasingly honed to the presence of disaster and death.

In the aftermath of the war, particularly in the 1930s, there was a widespread revulsion against all those, including a few prominent clergymen, who had so eagerly preached militant sermons in favour of the war effort. And inevitably such skepticism and resentment was turned against the religion these clergymen were upholding. The contradiction between the slaughter of so many of “the flower of the nation’s youth”, and the message of love and peace as contained in the Christian gospels was too glaring to be easily overcome. Understandably, Beaken does not try to answer the question posed by almost everyone at some point during the war: “Why does the Christian God allow such a devastating catastrophe to take place?” Instead he takes issue with some of the post-war writers, particularly those who misrepresented what actually happened and instead promoted their own interpretations for anti-war or pacifist reasons. For example, he dismisses the view that the ordinary workingman, who had volunteered for army service, had been seduced by bloodthirsty clergymen and subsequently was misled by glory-seeking and incompetent army leaders. So too the charge that the Church of England chaplains were too cowardly to go up to the front line needs to be refuted by the fact that such postings were forbidden by the military leaders. It is certainly true, as Beaken admits, that, despite the almost universal support of the war effort at the time, in later years many people came to feel that the senseless and degrading conflict in the Flanders mud had made the proclamation of the Christian gospel irrelevant. But the evidence here produced for the war-time conditions in Colchester would seem to prove the opposite. Church attendance remained almost the same throughout the war years, as did the number of confirmations. The overwhelming support given to the erection of war memorials, and the sincere participation at Armistice or Remembrance Day services for the remainder of the century and beyond, would seem to disprove the contention that the Church of England had a ‘bad’ First World War. Beaken disputes the myth that things were never the same after 1918. He points to the fact that in the vast majority of parishes the Church’s witness with its emphasis on Mattins on Sunday morning remained unchanged for a further fifty years. But he agrees that, in Colchester, as elsewhere, when the fabric if the city’s close-knit, inter-dependent society came apart, so the Church of England came to occupy a peripheral position. But this does not contradict Beaken’s central argument that the Church of England fared significantly better during the First World War than has been understood or acknowledged for much of the past century.

Review of Hanna-Maija Ketola, Relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, 1941-1945

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2012

Review of Hanna-Maija Ketola, Relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, 1941-1945 (Helsinki: University of Helsinki Faculty of Theology PhD thesis, 2012), 231 Pp.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

It was a striking paradox that the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 led to a major change in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Communist dictator, Stalin, after twenty years of hostility and persecution of the church, suddenly recognized his need for popular support from church members. So he changed his policy and allowed the Russian Orthodox Church unprecedented new possibilities. Amongst the changes was the permission to enter into relations with churches abroad. One of the first with whom contact was made was the Church of England. Dr. Ketola’s valuable account of how these relations developed is drawn largely from British sources, since the Russian documents are not (yet) available. She describes the opportunities and complexities which this unprecedented encounter gave rise to, and outlines the intricate balancing act which faced the British church leaders. Political pressures to support Britain’s new-found ally competed with deep-set suspicion of Soviet Communism and all its ways. There had been virtually no contact since the Bolshevik Revolution, though considerable sympathy had been extended to the clergy and laity who had fled abroad. The Communists’ murder of the Czar and his family had appalled everyone from the royal family down to the common man. Could this crime, and the subsequent oppression of the churches now be overlooked for reasons of political expediency? The only prominent Anglican supporter of the Soviet regime was Hewlett Johnson, the Dean of Canterbury, but he was a known maverick and enjoyed no support.

In the following month, the dilemma for the Church of England’s leaders only intensified. On the one hand, they were criticized for giving moral support to a regime which still maintained anti-religious propaganda in its official ideology; on the other they were criticized for not expressing more sympathy with the Russian people in their struggle. The main difficulty lay in the fact that no one in England had accurate knowledge about church life in Russia. Wishful thinking that the Soviet anti-church policy could change was not enough. And the British Government was concerned lest admiration for the Russian people’s resistance could turn into admiration for Communism.

In 1942 the situation became more problematic when the Metropolitan Nicolai of Kiev approached the British Embassy suggesting an official exchange of visits between the churches, and bringing a gift of a newly-published and handsome book “The Truth about Religion in Russia.” This was followed by an offer to translate the book into English, and a request for a foreword by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. The book stressed the Orthodox members’ devotion to their country and gave details of the devastation wrought by the German invaders. Shortly thereafter, 700 copies were delivered to Lambeth Palace. This resulted in a flurry of exchanges between the British Foreign Office, the Ministry of Information and various Church of England officials. But Temple declined to write anything since he could not paass over the earlier persecution of the church, nor the conduct of the Soviet occupiers in the Baltic countries. “I should either offend the Soviet authorities by what I put in, or the Continental Churches by what I left out.” It all pointed to the regrettable absence of first-hand information about the true state of the Russian Orthodox Church.

So at the end of 1942 the Church of England leaders came to the conclusion that the invitation to send a church delegation to the Soviet Union was an opportunity not to be missed. It would be politically interesting but very delicate. However much the church connection was stressed, the political overtones were inescapable. On the other hand, there had been no contact for twenty-five years. It was time to begin again. The British churchmen wanted to be the first to visit, and in return agreed to make a joint declaration against fascism. But how far was the Russian Orthodox Church eager to promote Christian brotherhood, or just to escape from the solitary confinement of so many years?

The Anglicans then chose their second highest cleric, the Archbishop of York, Cyril Garbett, to lead a small delegation. His instructions were very narrowly drawn. He should avoid any open political pronouncements. No substantial discussion of dogmatic or liturgical questions was envisaged. It was simply to be a goodwill visit without commitments. But, in order to avoid any criticism from their own members, the visit should be kept secret until the Archbishop arrived in Moscow. War-time security prompted the same caution. So in fact it was not until mid-September 1943 that Garbett and two younger clerics flew out via Gibraltar, Cairo, Tehran and Stalingrad. They arrived a few days after Stalin had unilaterally made a significant concession to the Orthodox Church by allowing the revival of the Patriarchate and the election of a new Holy Synod. This seemed a good augury for the future of the Church in Russia, and Garbett’s visit as the first foreign dignitary was most welcome. In return the British churchman gained first-hand impressions of the Russian church leaders, even though the language barrier prevented any heart-to-heart exchanges. But they gathered as much information as they could, and reciprocated with news about the Church of England. They attended several lengthy church services and were impressed bgy the piety of the worshippers. More significant issues were however skirted. Ecumenical friendship prevailed. And the delegation met briefly with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, which indicated the support given by the Soviet Government to the visit.

On his return, Garbett stressed that he had found that worship in the churches was fully allowed, and that the Russian people were now giving wholehearted support to the war effort. His impressions had been positive, and he looked forward to a return visit by the Russians to Britain. This would help to break the isolation of the Russian Church, and would enhance the prospects of future peace. But Garbett was realistic enough to acknowledge that the positive achievements of his visit were rather limited. The religious situation in Russia had improved but the state was still ”non-religious” and very many churches were still closed or secularized.

In early 1944 the idea of a return visit was taken up. But the death of Patriarch Sergii in March, the Normandy invasion in June and the sudden death of Archbishop Temple in October caused a postponement Not until June 1945 did the Russian delegation eventually arrive in Britain. By that time the European war had ended. After the defeat of Germany and the overthrow of Nazism, the need for Anglo-Soviet co-operation was no longer a top priority. At the same time, the climate of relations between the Soviet Union and its allies had grown noticeably cooler. In church circles, increasing concern, even alarm, was felt about the Soviet re-imposition of control over the Baltic countries and Poland, and to a lesser extent over Finland. The Russians had shown no willingness to join in the task of European reconstruction to which the Church of England was heavily committed. The warmth of sympathy expressed by the hosts could not obscure the fact that no substantial dogmatic or political issues were touched on. So the return visit proved to be even less of
a success that Garbett’s two years before.

Dr Ketola’s careful appraisal of the extensive documentation on this matter shows how assiduously the British officials, both governmental and ecclesiastical, took up the complex issues involved. She does not however attempt to give an overall assessment of the events she so capably describes. In fact, the verdict must be a negative one. The outbursts of sympathy for the Russian people were short-lived; the optimistic hopes that the Russian Church would gain more scope for its activities and that the Soviet state would allow more freedom for religion, were soon enough disappointed. It was to be many more years before relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church could improve. But we can be grateful that Dr Ketola has shed such a clear light on this short and transient period of apparent reconciliation and inter-church harmony.

Article Note: Keith Robbins, “Contextualizing the ‘New Reformation’. John A. T. Robinson and the Church of England in the early Sixties”

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2011

Article Note: Keith Robbins, “Contextualizing the ‘New Reformation’. John A. T. Robinson and the Church of England in the early Sixties,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 23 no. 2 (2010): 428-446.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The latest issue of our parent journal, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, has an interesting article—the only one in English—by Keith Robbins, a distinguished scholar of modern history and a former university president. He throws new light on the celebrated debate launched in Britain in the 1960s with the publication of John Robinson’s book Honest to God. Robinson, who had recently been appointed as a junior bishop in Woolwich, south London, was by training a New Testament scholar. But he took the opportunity to popularize the ideas of three contemporary German theologians, Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul Tillich. The impact of their radical views was tremendous. Honest to God became the
best-selling theological work of the century.

Robbins’ article outlines the context for the remarkable explosion of interest among church members and highlights the personal and institutional linkages behind the book. According to one commentator, its impact could be compared to the nailing of Luther’s theses to the church door in Wittenberg. The ‘New Reformation’ was hailed as a turning point. It came at a time when many thoughtful people in Britain were attempting to come to terms with the aftermath of the Second World War, the loss of empire, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the awareness of world poverty and the wholly new relationship with Europe. All these issues included a religious dimension, and Robinson’s controversial views reached out to many of those who believed that the new circumstances required new answers. Certainly Robinson desired to see reform, not only in the church’s dogmatic orthodoxies but also in its social witness and its political stance. These ideas were in fact propagated by a Cambridge coterie of younger theologians, many of whom went on to practise their convictions on the local parish level, often in south London. They were attempting to engage with contemporary culture by shedding much of the historical baggage and structures, which the Church of England had built up and maintained for centuries. A new morality which would revolutionize ethics was in fact already happening, but not necessarily in the transcendent sense of Bonhoeffer’s world without religion.

In the end, the hopes for new church structures came to nothing, as the establishment proved capable of institutional survival, even if its popular support has been much reduced. And even the desire for reformulating Christian doctrines in a non-mythological fashion has hardly gained momentum. As Robbins rightly concludes ‘A radical had been unable to deliver the change he wanted’.

New Research: Church of England and the Early Cold War, 1945-48

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2010

New Research: Church of England and the Early Cold War, 1945-48.

By Tina Alice Hansen,Trinity College, Oxford University

Tina Alice Hansen is a D.Phil. Candidate at Trinity College, Oxford University, studying in the Department of Politics and International Relations. Here she describes her dissertation research. Ms. Hanson can be reached at tina.hansen@politics.ox.ac.uk.

This thesis investigates the role of Church of England in the early Cold War years, 1945-1948. It has an institutional focus in the Church of England itself. It sets out to explore the Church’s collaboration with British government institutions, and involvement in the rehabilitation of the British Zone in Germany and the subsequent shaping of the Cold War framework. The role of Church of England in the shaping of a ‘Spiritual Union’ established between United Kingdom and United States will be investigated with particular examination of the role of the church in the shaping of a Cold War rhetoric and mindset.

It is known that leading bishops within Church of England had a significant role in creating a Cold War strategy and culture in Britain and abroad. This thesis takes these arguments further and looks at the double role of the church as a politically powerful institutional actor in Britain itself, where the church was in a position of both autonomy and state power through its links to the British government, and as a well-established trans-national actor with strong global network ties. It thus situates itself within recent historiography on the cold war as a domestic cultural phenomenon, as well as with political-scientific scholarship on institutions.

Based on archival work in United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, three cases will be examined: the role of Church of England in the re-construction and division of Germany; the role of Church of England domestically in the shaping of a Cold War mindset and, finally, Church of England and the idea of a Western Spiritual Union as a counter force to Communism.

The case studies involve examination of the Church’s work with the Labour government and the Control Commission in Germany, as well as with other churches in the UK. It also involves examination of Church of England’s influence through the British Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches and its close collaboration with the German Evangelical Church.

Although the analysis will be mainly of the church, the focus of the study will also need to be upon the British government as well, given my interest in the dialectic relationship between these two institutions and the institutional implications of decisions reached among them. The aim of this study is not to establish an academic account of the relationship between state church and state in Britain in general, but to come to an understanding of how they got to a mutual understanding of how to confront the challenges of the beginning Cold War, based on their experiences from total war, Nazi atrocities, the rise of Communism, and a shifting power balance in Europe, as well as their institutional relationship within the UK power structure. Further, I am interested in how the church managed its spiritual obligations while performing as a political and diplomatic institution; how the Cold War shaped the mindset of the Christian churches; how the British state managed to ‘harness the power of Christianity’ for political purposes; and how their joint strategy fitted into the larger puzzle of western political strategy-making in this period.