When I first became a vicar I was 29 and very wet behind the ears (some would say signs of dampness remain). One of the Readers in the church, Ken, was a Christian of great experience. Ken took me in hand like a sergeant major with an officer fresh from cadet school. One of the best things he ever taught me was what he called the ‘fruit test’. Jesus says that one of the tests we need to apply to everything is the fruit test:
‘You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.’ (Matthew 7.16-17)
One of the great saints, Ignatius Loyola, developed a similar principle for discerning God’s will but it lacks the catchy title. Put bluntly, the failure narrative fails the fruit test. What are its fruits? They are blame and division, cynicism and despair. These are not fruits of the Holy Spirit or the signs of God’s handiwork. But there are other reasons also why we should reject it.
The failure story depends on something of a myth of a golden age in British Christianity in earlier generations from which we have fallen. That myth simply does not stand up to historical examination. In every period in Church history when we look closely there are good things to find and also bad things to discover. At the time of the greatest excesses of the medieval papacy we find the simplicity of Francis. When the Church is all dry formality, God raises up Whitfield and Wesley. Christian witness and church life have always been something of a struggle since the Acts of the Apostles and the Church has always been imperfect. For every Peter and John there is an Ananias and a Simon the Magician.
This is not to deny the truth that many measures of Christian allegiance have been in decline or that our situation is serious – simply to explode as fiction that there was once a time when things were perfect. There was no golden age.
The failure story also makes us close our eyes to the very good things happening in the Church in the present. We are blind to them because these good things do not fit the script that everything is in decline and going to the dogs and it’s all our (or someone else’s) fault. I’ve often felt when talking with some people about all the good things happening in fresh expressions of church that some groups will not take them on board. New growth and new hope in the British Church simply can’t happen (according to their worldview). The story of the established Church in particular has to be a tragedy with a bad ending despite the evidence of their eyes and ears. It’s more important to their own identity to preserve the frame of this tragic story than to recognize the truth of growth and renewal before their very eyes. Eeyore is alive and well in many congregations, synods and pressure groups. In the last of the Narnia stories, C. S. Lewis paints a compelling picture of a group of dwarves who are admitted to the great banquet at the end of time but they can neither see nor taste the good things because of their own cynicism and despair. It’s not hard to find similar groups in the councils of the Church. But they need to be challenged.
But the main and final reason why I do not believe the failure story is that it is simply much too Church-centred. We have lived in the last hundred years through massive change in our society, which has embraced two world wars, a seismic shift in Europe’s place in the world order, immense technological change, economic shifts that still surprise us, political change and counterchange, philosophical and cultural revolutions. The Church has been part of all of this change but it has not been a leading instrument. It is these different levels of change in the culture that have led to the immense shifts in the relationship between Church and society. To argue that the Church is primarily to blame for this shift is, quite simply, to give the Church too important a place in the scheme of things. Like the disciples we find ourselves in a storm. It would be foolish indeed to see that storm as caused by our own actions.
As I read the Scriptures, the people of God are often caught up in immense cultural changes. They have to respond to them, but they do not cause them. The prophet Samuel at the end of his life found himself in a settled pattern of ministry, judging Israel on an annual circuit and maintaining order. But he, like us, lived in a time when the world was changing rapidly. There were huge people movements caused by migration. There was great technological change as iron replaced bronze. There was economic change in the great empires to the north and south of Israel. There was religious and moral change as all of these other changes threatened Israel’s way of life.
God’s people had to respond to these massive changes, but they did not cause them. 1 Samuel 8 tells the story of Israel’s request for a king, for a different pattern of society and governance that would enable the nation to survive and flourish in this changing context. Samuel is uncertain about the request at first. He is inclined to blame others and to blame himself. But his final position is to accept that change is indeed necessary and to devote the remainder of his ministry to bring it about.
Navigating change
The failure narrative itself fails the fruit test, the test of history, the test of present reality and the test of Scripture. Much more convincing and wholesome for me is the narrative that says the Church, like the rest of society, is living through times of immense change. We can only understand this change in part as yet. This change has affected every single part of our society and culture and that includes the Christian Church and the relationship between Church and society.
Does the change narrative pass the fruit test? The idea that we are navigating change produces much better fruit. People searching for a way forward tend to draw together as a community in the midst of a bewildering environment. Our focus is finding a way to progress rather than apportioning blame in the past. We are, therefore, open to help from others and generally willing to explore the past and the present, the Scriptures and the Christian tradition. We can look back to the story of God’s people in the Scriptures and find many stories of journeys and moments of change in which new direction was needed. We can look back in Christian history and discover similar moments of change. Perhaps most of all, in times of change, we are encouraged to look deeper to the very core of our faith to find inspiration and a path to move on.
Discovering the compass
I believe that the sense of being lost in a strange landscape fits the present situation of the Church much better than the narrative of failure, which produces only blame and despair. Many others think so too. But if we think we are lost, that means we have to pay careful attention to how we find a path.
When I was learning how to be a Scout and walk the Yorkshire Dales I was taught how to use two vital pieces of equipment. The first was a map. The Ordnance Survey series we used was detailed, tried and tested and in clear weather with lots of landmarks it was easy to find our way. But if the fog closed in or we were on the moors without landmarks or we were simply unsure where we were, the second piece of equipment was much more vital. When we were having trouble finding the way, it was the compass rather than the map that was essential.
In this present moment for the Church we lack the precision of a satellite navigation system. We have only the sketchiest of maps. We are blazing a trail in the new territory of a global post-Christian culture. No Christian and no Church has been this way before us. But we do have a compass: a means of navigating forward creatively, constructively and fruitfully at local level, in a diocese or district or in the Church nationally. It is a compass we can all own whatever our tradition or emphasis or history.
The compass and the content of our vision for the Church is Jesus Christ. In times of uncertainty and confusion, if we navigate by this compass we are likely to stay on course. In so far as the Church reflects the nature and priorities and values and character of Jesus Christ, then we will be on course whatever the changes around us. In so far as we do not, we will be drifting away and losing our vision and direction. It is Jesus who gives the Church its DNA, its genetic code. While the Church may need to take a variety of shapes as our culture changes, it will be on course providing we discern that the risen Christ is at the centre.
This may sound a very simple and obvious thing to say. But it is worth pausing to reflect on the rock-solid