Hannah Glickstein

Thoughts on the Church of England..

Those running the Church of England have displayed terrifyingly little self-awareness. Knowing about violent abuse committed over four decades by an acquaintance, Justin Welby – in his own words – ‘personally failed to ensure that…the awful tragedy was energetically investigated.’ Still he didn’t choose to resign. One day after being forced to resign, Welby attended a drinks party at the British Museum where he encountered Ian Hislop and – not expecting to be criticised – remarked, ‘isn’t this lovely.’ In a speech at the Lords three weeks later, he cast himself as some sort of martyr: ‘…the shame of what has gone wrong, whether one is personally responsible or not, must require a head to roll. And there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough.’ Listening to that on the radio made me wonder whether a brief (non-violent) encounter with a mob might do the outgoing Archbishop some good. But a mob could teach nothing if the man didn’t choose to consider his personal responsibility.

Changes to safeguarding policy are clearly necessary. But also, anyone presuming to hold Christian authority must practise self-awareness.

Self-examination, through contemplation, has always been a Christian discipline. The Desert Fathers and Mothers (3^rd – 6^th Centuries) lived in the wilderness in order to confront themselves. According to the Centre for Action and Contemplation, the movement ‘preceded the emergence of systematic theology and the formalization of doctrine.’ In some areas, ‘…you had to be a long-standing monk before you could be a bishop.’ Welby and others responsible for leading the Anglican Communion might benefit from practices of self-examination developed by these early Christians.

Happily for them, Rowan Williams published a book on the subject last year. In ‘Passions of the Soul’, based on a series of retreat addresses given for an Anglican Benedictine community, Williams articulates his understanding of Desert Fathers and Mothers’ teaching. He outlines ‘eight passions’ identified by Evagrius: a more subtle idea of sin than the list of seven no-nos we are familiar with. Evagrius’ ‘passions’ fall into two groups: ‘the aggressive and the greedy,’ or – as Williams explains it – ‘either pushing reality away or making reality serve your purpose.’ His book is intended to help the reader find ‘the balancing point of truthfulness’ where a human can acknowledge the complex reality of their being in order to see the world around them ‘in its simple thereness.’ I’m hoping whoever becomes the next Archbishop will be able to achieve this sort of honesty – at least sometimes.

Williams wrote his talks for people on a monastic retreat. Since the 3^rd Century, monasteries have been the silent centre that influences a wider community of believers. In monasteries, Christians follow contemplative practices that enable self-knowledge, but not for its own sake. The point of knowing oneself is to relate truthfully to God and the world around you. As the Trappist monk and writer, Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968), puts it: ‘Go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God.’ (New Seeds of Contemplation, 1961.) Self-knowledge achieved in isolation enables a person to relate to others with love. Merton’s books sold widely during his lifetime; in the preface to New Seeds of Contemplation he explains he is thinking of fellow monastics as well as ‘the loneliness of people outside the Church…’ This book can be read in tiny segments. It makes me wonder why modern monasteries – fading away due to lack of recruits – don’t offer temporary memberships that would teach people at all stages of life to gain self-knowledge through contemplation in order to exist in the wider world with some degree of love for their fellow humans. (Think, Leonard Cohen after he came out of a Buddhist monastery.)

It isn’t only from Catholic or Buddhist monks that we can learn about the tradition of self-examination. Evelyn Underhill (1875 – 1941) published 39 books on the subject of mysticism and spiritual life as lived by ordinary people. Underhill was an English convert to Christianity, originally drawn to Catholicism who chose Anglicanism because it seemed to her ‘the demands of Rome postulated a surrender of her intellectual honour.’ She encourages her readers to seek Reality in their own experiences: ‘…as your meditation becomes deeper… You will hear the busy hum of that world as a distant exterior melody, and know yourself to be in some sort withdrawn from it.’ Through practise:

‘You will…know your own soul for the first time: and learn that there is a sense in which this real You is distinct from, an alien within, the world in which you find yourself…’ (Practical Mysticism, 1914.)

Underhill’s instruction enables her readers to seek Truth in ordinary moments.

Or you could try Etty Hillesum, the Dutch Jewish woman whose journals, leading up to her capture by the Nazis show a development towards acute consciousness of God’s presence in each moment.

‘…the main thing is that even as we die a terrible death we are able to feel right up to the very last moment that life has meaning and beauty, that we have realised our potential and lived a good life.’

Hillesum’s solution to existing in Nazi occupied Holland was ‘to turn inward and root out all the rottenness there.’ After serving fellow Jews in a Nazi transit camp, she died in Auschwitz. Her realisation that self-knowledge led to good relationships with others and the world, echoes Evagrius and Merton.

There are countless Christian mystics who practised self-examination. But you don’t need to become an expert in mysticism to get the point. Realistic awareness of one’s true self is an essential part of seeking God within. Self-awareness requires a willingness to acknowledge the unlovely aspects of one’s own behaviour. Or, as Jung expresses it, ‘The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow.’ (Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, 1959.)

The Evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton, where Welby was a lay leader whilst working in the oil industry, encouraged ‘freedom in worship, intimacy with God, ministry with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and church growth.’ (fulcrum-anglican.org.uk.) Evangelicals at HTB avoided traditional forms of worship and focused on expansion. But focusing on expansion could make you lose sight of why you want to expand. Giles Fraser has criticised the Church’s recent tendency to favour top-down bureaucracy and to fund churches that conformed to the HTB model.

‘Evangelicals, like Welby, have always thought they know how to do evangelism best, because they have a number of large and numerically successful suburban churches.’ (Unherd, Nov 24.)

Self-knowledge through contemplation is more likely to develop later in life: after you’ve made a few mistakes and realised your own limitations. (Take it from me, I’ve been there.) The Church of England needs to revive traditional forms of worship, which seek self-knowledge through contemplation. Practises, such as centering prayer, might appeal to older people, though not exclusively. (The Taize movement is popular with young Catholics.)

But this much I know: mature people need a space away from home – away from dependents, debt, mess and blaring TVs – where they can encounter themselves in silence in order to find God within themselves and afterwards be with others in the world with some reserve of genuine caritas.