Anglican Diversity: Challenges for the 21st Century

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Anglican Diversity is published at a time when the Anglican church
internationally, nationally, and in many local dioceses seems to be
tearing itself apart in an often dramatic confrontation between a new
radical liberalism (personified by John Spong, Richard Holloway, and
Michael Ingham) and a reawakened conservatism (personified by Richard
Kew, N.T. Wright, and Anthony Burton). Patricia Bays, speaking out of
the older, moderate Anglican liberalism, uses this book to consider
three issues: How much diversity can there be before Anglicanism falls
apart? Are there limits to Anglican diversity? How do we define these
limits?

Chapter 3, “The Lord’s Song,” is the heart of the book. Here Bays
explores the possibility of a distinctive Anglican approach to doing
theology that will enable Anglicans to cope with their increasing
diversity. Her conclusion is summarized in one key sentence adapted from
Charles Gore: “A living theology clearly must always be a new
theology.” By “a living theology,” she means a statement of
Christian faith that responds to the issues and questions of a
particular era. But her meaning of “a new theology” is less clear,
although her approving quote from Gore—that religious beliefs must be
brought “into harmony with the thought of their time, with all truth
so far as it is known”—suggests that Christian belief ought to bend
in accommodation to popular thinking. However, the author’s use of the
word “clearly” reminds the reader of a major problem with this book.
Several times Bays writes “clearly” as part of making a conclusive
statement, but seldom does she advance her arguments so that her
conclusions are indeed self-evident from what she has been saying. She
usually moves too quickly over too much ground for her conclusions to be
quite so clear and easy for the reader to accept. Yet Bays does point to
a traditional Anglican strength: “We look to the whole church to help
us make decisions.” If the radical minority within First World
Anglicanism actually does seriously look to conservative Third World
Anglicans, who are in the majority at the moment, it will be interesting
to see what shape Anglicanism takes in the future.