From The Spectator-
Sorry to sound sectarian, but the
Archbishop of Canterbury should really be able to articulate a
preference for Anglicanism over other variants of Christianity,
including Roman Catholicism. Interviewed here in this week’s Spectator,
he was more or less invited to do so; instead he said that he was
entirely positive about Anglican priests converting to Rome. Hard to
imagine the Pope saying the same thing in reverse. Ecumenical enthusiasm
is all very nice, but a Church is in trouble if it can’t say why people
should stay within it, or choose it over other options.
So what is Anglicanism’s selling point?
The answer is unfashionable but unavoidable: its socio-political
liberalism. Note that I do not say simply ‘liberalism’. For one form of
liberalism, in theology, is not at all helpful: the sort of liberalism
that over-promotes rational humanism, undermining respect for
traditional religious teachings and practices.
The Church of England should unashamedly
tell a story that middlebrow types will dismiss as ‘Whiggish’. It has
played a huge role in the emergence of political liberty, human rights
and so on. And it remains the form of Christianity that is most in tune
with such values (along with the liberal wings of some other Protestant
churches I suppose). Catholicism has its virtues (we can leave it to
Catholics to trumpet them), but it has not fully managed to affirm
various aspects of modern humanism, to banish the reactionary spirit.
Until quite recently, the 1960s, it officially denigrated religious
freedom, and its theocratic habits live on.
More here-
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