by Colin Craston
Reproduced with permission from
the Church of England Newspaper 27 October 2006
Some people are born and brought up in the evangelical tradition. Others are drawn in by coming to faith through contact with it. The former route was mine. Till I left school and joined the Navy in 1941 a very close and narrowly conservative approach to Christian faith and practice was all I really knew.
The context in which a person comes to a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ crucified and risen will always remain precious. But as the majesty and mystery of God, and the wonder of him as supreme Creator and upholder of all that is, and his saving grace as Redeemer, begins to dawn on the mind, a challenge ensues. Is the primary commitment to defend one's tradition or to be open to new truth through whatever avenue it comes? Truth is human perception of the reality of God and all he is, all he has done, is doing and will do. When with enthusiasm we sing "How great Thou art" we are on the way to explore with open mind all that God has to give us. This will not inevitably mean leaving behind the tradition we owe much to. It will mean testing critically its convictions, developing its best insights, discovering new understandings.
Basic to openness to new truth is the recognition that no one tradition in the wide Christian spectrum, and certainly no individual, will ever this side of Heaven comprehend the fullness of God's revelation. As St. Paul says, "Now we see through a glass darkly; only then (in the consummation of God's purposes) will we know as we are now known."
It is the above thesis that underlies the book, "Evangelical and Evolving" which has recently been published. The mind I have been given, and the experiences of life, have conditioned me to critical questioning. As I try in the book to establish, foundation truths of evangelical grasp of the Gospel remain. Thirteen years of retirement with the leisure to study and meditate have led me to be less certain of some of the convictions I once held but more certain of others. If God grants us years in old age it is a most important time of life. We are in Heaven's "waiting room". Some, perhaps through mental diminishment, lose their grip on faith. For those not so affected there is need to be certain where they are going and why.
But it is not necessary to await the later stages of life to test present and generally inherited convictions and search for new truth. The book I have written shows that process from ordination preparation just after the War. I was blessed to receive guidance from a widely-read parish priest, William Leathem, who promised stern criticism if I did not keep up with my reading after ordination. Perhaps most valuably he introduced me to the writings of P T Forsyth, regarded by other able theologians as the greatest British theologian of modern times. If my book leads evangelicals today to turn to his great works, it will have been worthwhile.
An evangelical, but of course persons of other traditions as well, knows that the controlling centre of all God's redemptive revelation is Christ crucified and risen. There were somewhat crude and simplistic presentations of the Atonement in evangelical circles. Forsyth, testifying to the Holiness and Moral Perfection of God, which must rule whatever else falls, emphasises that in the Cross God judges evil at total cost to the Godhead, and thus saves the humanity he loves. Only when God's Holiness is affirmed is his Love rightly known. The Atonement is, Forsyth says, "Grace through judgement."
As evangelicals centre faith on the Cross so also submission to the authority of the Bible is paramount. At the heart of the divisive issues in Anglicanism is a deep, at times fierce, controversy on the way the Bible is to be interpreted and applied today. There were two widely held evangelical convictions I was familiar with which I cannot now hold with intellectual integrity.
One was that the original documents of Scripture, the autographa, were free from all error through human limitations. But we have no access to the autographa. All we have is the result of centuries of copying, the results showing variations in the text. And now there are numerous translations, the production of which is subject to human limitations.
The other conviction was that as in the Incarnation we have a perfect blend of divine and human perfection, so we have in the Bible. Any idea that diminishes the uniqueness of the Incarnation is dangerous. God did indeed reveal his will and purpose to his chosen recipients but it could only be within the culture and understanding of their time. Otherwise it would not have made sense. This is not to deny that much that was given had relevance beyond the immediate context. For instance, as I learned from Forsyth, the exposition of God's saving act in Christ given to the Apostles partakes of the finality of God's redemptive revelation. But in matters more periphery they reflect the culture and understanding of their time. This includes their anthropology and their connection of physical death with the Fall in Genesis 3. Birth, life, decay and death had ruled throughout the Universe and this planet from the beginning. But the Apostles could not have known what modern science has revealed. I am increasingly disappointed that in all the controversies raging in the Church careful, prayerful, shared attention to the interpretation and application of Scripture is neglected. Not least this relates to matters of gender and sex.
Doctrines of the Church, ordained ministry and the Sacraments were defined by evangelicals in terms of what they were not, rather than what they were. This seemed to be in reaction to Anglo-Catholic beliefs and practices. There has been a welcome re-assessment and development of positive understandings, though still a way to go.
More than ever in my ministry I am glad to be an Anglican evangelical and evolving.
The Revd Dr Colin Craston, served 15 years on the Anglican Consultative Council including six years as Chair. He was in parish ministry in the Church of England for 50 years and in retirement lives near Bolton.
These posts are by guest authors for Fulcrum