The Bishop of St Albans

The Bishop of St Albans: Presidential Address

Diocesan Synod: 12th June 2004

In 1807 a man called John Britton produced a book, complete with exquisitely detailed engravings. It was entitled The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. It was the first of five volumes, produced between 1807 and 1826, all of them descriptive of some of the major buildings of our country. They make fascinating reading. One of the chapters, for example, which is based on Round Churches (the Round Church in Cambridge is described), opens with a view expressed by eighteenth-century antiquarians that Round Churches had begun their life as Jewish synagogues. Britton attempted to dispel that notion. He was part of a remarkable sequence of authors in the nineteenth century who set themselves the task of defining and classifying architectural styles. In 1829 a man called Matthew Bloxam produced a book with the gripping title Principles of Gothic Architecture. It, too, was an attempt to classify and describe architectural styles. It sold over 17,000 copies in thirty years. Then, in 1836, because the debate about architecture was so intense and the interest in it so strong, J H Parker produced a Glossary of Terms; in that book you could look up what was meant by a 'pinnacle' or a 'finial' or a 'crocket'. Throughout the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, a number of glossaries of architectural terms were published – all of them attempting to classify, to describe, to delineate.

In the centre of all this activity, like a raging lion, was the architect A W N Pugin, who believed with obsessive zeal that the only architecture which deserved the name 'Christian' was Gothic. He was a genius – a man of astonishing energy and skill. Then, in 1839, came the creation of the Cambridge Camden Society, whose object was 'to promote the study of ecclesiastical architecture and the restoration of mutilated remains'.

I know that you are not here to listen to an address on the architectural history of the nineteenth century - but I tell you about it to make three points:

· Firstly, in the nineteenth century in the worlds of architecture and history, there was a powerful desire to learn and to classify – in ways that had never been done before.

· Secondly, as a result, there was a need to create dictionaries and glossaries to assist mutual understanding.

· Thirdly, the debates were conducted with a vigour and power which put most of our twenty-first-century debates into the vicarage-tea-party category.

I want to suggest that the equivalent desire to learn and to classify in the twentieth century centred not so much on buildings (the nineteenth-century predecessors had very largely completed that task) as on our own humanity. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) burst onto the scene and gave us classifications of illnesses which involved a new vocabulary: about the Ego and the Id, about the subconscious and regression. Karl Gustav Jung (1875-1971) brought us the language of introversion and extraversion, and concepts such as the collective unconscious and archetypes. In its way, the language of classification was as complex and subtle as that used by the Victorians in trying to describe arches, buttresses and doorways; and just as their classification processes raised considerable and energetic debate, so did (and does) the classification processes within what we now refer to as psychology and psychotherapy.

But the twentieth century did not just attempt to classify human beings in new ways using the language of Freud and Jung and others, it also brought us very, very powerful insights about our physical structure and the nature of disease; think of the impact of Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928. Then, in the last three decades of the twentieth century, there have been other startling breakthroughs – in 1968 the work of Crick and Watson was published (in Penguin Books in 1970) under the title The Double Helix', their remarkable discovery of DNA. And since then, in the 1990s we have seen the origin of the Human Genome Project, whose task is 'to discover all the estimated 30,000 to 35,000 human genes and make them accessible for further biological study'.

Words that were completely unknown to our Victorian forebears - like 'DNA', 'antibiotic', 'psychoanalysis' – are now simply part of our everyday vocabulary. But such has been the growth and pace of change that our capacity to provide overarching and commonly agreed classifications of our humanness has not been really up to the task. The desire to categorise and to classify, however, remains very powerful.

Meanwhile, within the life of our Church, and in the field of biblical studies in particular, in the twentieth century there were also some remarkable developments. In 1921 Rudolf Bultmann, a German New Testament scholar, published The History of the Synoptic Tradition in which he introduced the concept of 'form criticism' – the attempt to 'recover the traditions underlying the Gospels, in the form in which they circulated during the oral period'. This led to some fascinating and complex work – but proved to be much more problematic and elusive than perhaps had originally been thought. However, it gave rise eventually to classic books such as F C Grant's The Gospels, Their Origin and Growth, published in 1957, which classified the sources used by Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.

Another kind of biblical scholarship then emerged: 'redaction criticism' which sought to understand the rôle played by the authors of the Gospels as they edited their pre-existing material. Then in the 1970s came books about Jesus, such as Geza Vermes' Jesus the Jew, which sought to understand him in his Jewish, religious and cultural context. And in the past couple of decades, the work of literary theorists has become more prominent. They are particularly interested in the relationship between the text (the words on the page, their signals and meanings) and the reader, himself (or herself). And there are further scholars working on areas of biblical material which take account of the literary and public discourse in use at the time of Jesus – for example 'rhetoric' – who try to discern how those forms of discourse might have shaped the thinking of early Christian theologians, such as St Paul (Dennis Stamps is deeply involved in that kind of study).

Well, I have given you a huge panoramic sweep, from the architectural classifications in the nineteenth century to the arrival of psychoanalysis and the human genome project in the twentieth century - and have touched on, in passing, some of the ways in which Christians now read biblical material. And what you expected was something about the new Dean …

I give the panorama in order to put all the discussions there have been in the Church and the Press recently into a context. The appointment has highlighted the complexity that now surrounds the desire to classify human beings. Perhaps I can put it like this: what weight do we put on the language of psychology and its therapies? What weight do we put upon our understanding of human genetics? What weight do we put upon the part played by society in determining how any of us see ourselves? What weight do we put upon the Christian tradition? And what weight do we put on biblical material?

Within all the debate surrounding the appointment, there are these huge and important issues - about which, I believe, we have not yet been able to come to an agreed conclusion. One of the saddening features of my postbag, over the past few weeks, has been the way in which biblical texts have been used. It is not that they are quoted - that is not the issue - but it is as though all the thinking and study that has gone on in the Church during the twentieth century concerning the Bible has simply not been recognised.

And furthermore, questions about the Incarnation and of God's continuing revelation of Himself in Scripture and in the world, have hardly featured at all.

I recognise, of course, that many people feel dismayed, angry and hurt by the appointment; their sincerity as fellow Christians is not in question. I recognise also that many people feel happy, elated and encouraged by the appointment, and their sincerity as Christians is not in question, either. When there are, in the areas of human self-understanding, biblical understanding and understanding of God, so many deeply held beliefs in a social and cultural context which is constantly in change, it seems to me that two things are necessary. At an intellectual level we need firstly to have the humility to listen deeply and patiently to each other. Secondly, we need to continue to think about the nature of God, the nature of the Bible, the nature of society, the nature of self-understanding - and the relationship between all four.

Then there is something we need to do at the level of our hearts, which is to treat each other within the Church with a love which is marked by Christ-likeness. To love each other within the Church is a matter not of intellect but of will; and as the fundamental command of Christ is that we should do that, we need to make Christian love the fundamental energy of all our relationships. In the complex and beautiful world in which we live, that seems to be good news in itself, refreshing and entirely invigorating.

The Victorians had it relatively easy in trying to categorise and classify buildings; even so, their debate was frequently quite strong. In the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, our attempts to categorise and classify ourselves and each other are proving to be much more difficult and uncertain. And for us, as Christians, we have the added beauty of trying to understand the purpose and nature of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. But we have something else; our faith, ultimately, is not about classification or definition. Our faith has a focus on the future. We are being called, each one of us, towards our destiny in heaven with God in and through Christ. Full understanding, full knowledge, full comprehension, does not exist this side of the grave; it is only by grace that in eternity we shall come to know even as also we are known.

This is not to say that we abandon our attempts to understand this side of the grave - but those attempts, because of our finitude, have to be marked by both honesty and humility. They should also, it seems to me, be marked by the knowledge that God, Himself, is also deeply embedded in the processes we undergo, whether as individuals, as a society, or as a Church - and that deep, deep within everything, the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Our lives, therefore, as followers of Christ, should be grounded not on fear but on the love we experience within and through Christ.

And now, to conclude, let me speak more personally. I am fully aware that my part in the process of appointing Jeffrey John has caused some of my fellow Christians in this diocese great dismay and hurt. To them I have to offer my apologies. It is not my desire to hurt or cause offence to anyone. It is also clear that it may take a while to bring greater mutual understanding and reconciliation - and I can only ask that those of you who write to me do so in a way which recognises that whilst there may be dozens of you, there's only one of me and I simply cannot, because it is physically impossible to do so, engage with everyone in detailed discussion. We shall have to find other methods of discourse - and patience will be required. But I also ask that, just as I recognise the sincerity of Christian conviction which moves the hearts of those who criticise what I have done, so my own desire to be a disciple of Christ be recognised. The assumption amongst some that because I have been party to the appointment of the new Dean, I cannot possibly be either a 'real' or a 'true' Christian is one which is itself unchristian.

But if I have had a bumpy few weeks, imagine what it is like for Jeffrey John, himself - to have to live all his life, wherever he goes, whatever he does, knowing that his innermost being is being watched, picked over or rejoiced in, by those whom he meets. That is a very great burden to impose on anyone.

And finally, the Cathedral and Abbey staff and congregation have been magnificent. They have quietly, steadfastly and with good humour and a gracious lightness of touch, got on with the task of living in and through this new situation. They deserve our profoundest gratitude.

So, as I have said elsewhere: pray for Jeffrey John, pray for the Abbey, pray for the diocese and pray for me, that bound together by the love of Christ, we may in our generation try to witness faithfully to God's saving love - and finally, after this life, may attain joy and life everlasting.