THE NEW LIBRARY Y LLFRGELL NEWYDD – PUBLIC EDUCATION
On Being A Broad Church
Five lectures on refreshment and depth in British Christianity today
by John Rogerson
Our central collection of books in the New Library is John Rogerson’s The Kingdom of Heaven collection. In the following five 30-minute public lectures John Rogerson introduces a 19th century initiative to redicover and renew Christian faith in Britain. The Broad Church movement was Biblical, Evangelical and Catholic with the strong sense of the national church. Here you can discover the importance of this Broad Church movement – John Rogerson was an Anglican Priest and a remarkable international scholar – learning of its deep relevance and offer to the life and mission of the church today. Its offer is the foundation of the New Library…
Lecture 1: Beginnings and History
OVERVIEW: The church in Britian today is offered a deep tradition from Anglicanism that could provide spiritual insight, intellectual energy and social capacity. In the 19th century it was called the broad church movement, but really it is not broad – it is deep. 0.30 What kind of churches do we have? 4.17 Nothing in Britain anything like a German Luthern church. Profound sermons preached at German Lutheran services. The top students training for ordination in Germany have a deep understanding of what Christianity is about. The German church is taken seriously in the public sphere. 7.28 There is a tradition within Anglicanism that would enable this – the broad church tradition. 11.07 Four Anglicans who responded to the church crisis of the 19th century. 12.06 Connections to Germany and influence of Coleridge. 13.10 The broad church group’s distinctive contribution to theology and practice during the Gorham Controversy on Baptism . 16.35 F. W. Robertson’s analysis and declaration on Baptism. 18.39 Social implications of the declaration. 20.10 The state of baptism today. 21.20 Truth inside Catholic and Evangelical conflict is not in a middle course, but in a truth deeper than either of them. 21.58 Introduction to the deeper way. Frederick Dennison Maurice. German theology. Intelligent faith. Profound understanding. Critical thought and belief. 24.02 Humans as spiritual beings with a sense of home. The Bible. The spiritual kingdom not identical with the church. The consecration and holiness of God’s entire family. 27.50 Society requires judgement. Maurice’s wideranging social concerns. The beginning of Christian socialism in 1848 – different from Marxist socialism. 30.18 The broad church view on the most important theological question – how did the ministry and death of Jesus bridge the gulf between God and humanity? A deeper way.
Lecture 2: Scripture
OVERVIEW: Modern biblical scholarship caused a scandal in England 160 years ago when it began. That continued scholarship today brings wonderful insights into the dynamics and depth of Christian faith, helping us to better understand God’s initiative to humans through the Bible. 0.30 Scandal provoked by the 1862 book on biblical criticsim by missionary Bishop Colenso. Problems in the biblical account in the Book of Exodus. Geology and science. Fact and historical narrative. 7.55 F.D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley devastatd by Colenso’s scholarship. 160 years later we know that Maurice and Kingslet were wrong. 9.12 Can a modern Broad Church accept the findings of Biblical criticism, while still maintaining the position of Maurice who drew such important consequences from the Bible for Christian faith and practice? Can critical scholarship distinguish the true historical Jesus rather than the Christ of faith? 10.20 How critical scholarship affects our understanding of the Old Testament. Israel and the ancient world. History of Jerusalem. 12.20 A summary of the history of Israel. 14.48 The Bible not a handbook on science, geography, geology and technology. 15.43 History of biblical interpretation. Cultural memory. 18.00 How to interpret filtered cultural memory. The concepts of UNDERSTSANDING and REASON. The difference between facts and meaning. 18.47 The meaning if the experience of the Israelites and their belief in the graciousness of God. Ethics. 19.58 Remakable that we have an Old Testament. Ethical monotheism and the texts of ancient Israel. The scriptures they gave to the world. 22.08 The value of the Old Testament. 22.57 The New Testament. Biblical criticism and the Jesus in whom the church believes. 24.10 The scholarship of Charles Kingsley Barrett. The interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. The unexpected newness of Jesus. The church did not misunderstand Jesus. 28.28 The Gospels as cultural memory, using the concepts of UNDERSTANDING and REASON to discover the word of God in our speech. 29.19 God’s love and the love of truth. There is nothing to fear from bibliclam crirticism and without it Chritianity cannot be presented to our current generation.
Lecture 3: Reason
OVERVIEW: The existence of God cannot be proved by examining nature. Spiritual insight distinguishes bewtween the facts of the world and meaning. English culture has struggled with this distincition of facts and meaning, yet the broad church movement managed to break free of one-dimentional, materialist thinking 0.30 A popular hymn ‘All things bright and beautiful” may lead to agnosticism. Can one use nature to prove the existence of God? Lice. God is not an obeject in our world of time and space. Anglican educational mistakes in the 1960s. The ambiguity of nature. 4.36 The biblical beleif of the world as created by God. Hebrew experience of famine. Israel’s belief in God did not come by nature, but through involvment, judgment, salvation and spiritual insight. 7.46 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the difference between UNDERSTANDING and REASON. The distiction enabled Coleridge to break free from mechanical and materialistist thinking.UNDERSTANDING cannot explain literature. German idealistic philosophy. Immanuel Kant. Phyiscal knowledge and moral knowledge. The world created is a moral world. Goodness. beauty. Music, sublime in nature. 12.33 Coleridge clear that great mischief done if UNDERSTANDING was used to explain things that belong to the sphere of REASON. Arthur Clutton Brock and art. Beauty, values, nature and the Bible. 16.49 William Temple: belief as practical trust. Committment based on REASON. 18.30 Committment comes as a response to proclamation through services, hymns, dramatic enactment and preaching. The initiative in proclamation comes from God. UNDERSTANDING, REASON and the God revealed in a man on the cross. 22.32 Christian belief today and the Apostle’s Creed. The ordination of William Temple. UNDERSTANDING, REASON and the Creed. Theology cannot decide matters of history. Belief in God is not a deduction. 33.47 The Christian affirmation is that God was in Christ. English philosophy has teneded to be one dimentional, not dialectic. 35.12 Colerdige breaks free of one dimential thinking. Dialectical thinking about belief and procalamtion is important for the church today.
Lecture 4: Tradition
OVERVIEW: Tradition means constant critical engagement, exploring the history of tradition and the history of biblical interpretation. Tradition includes hymns, preaching, prayers and worship. Tradition should be liberating. 0.30 The view that Church tradition passed down guarantees the Christian faith. Tradition and disputes in the early church. 5.15 Christian tradition is not a process of adding on, but must be a continual critical engagement. 6.15 The importance of studying the history of tradition. Eg. marriage and divorce, and what the Bible says on eating meat. 9.05 The study of the history of biblical interpretation. Eg. Questions about the beginning of Saul’s reign. Augustine 4th c. Miamonides in 12th c. We should not fear to look at the Bible critically. 13.32 “The 1938 Anglican report “Doctrine in the Church of England”. John’s Gospel “The Truth will make us free”. Biblical criticism is liberating. Critical engagement part of 19th c. Broad Church movement. 16.37 The tradition of church hymns. Lutheran hymns, Paul Gerhardt (17th c) and Jaochim Klepper in the 20th c. The translation of German hymns by John Wesley. Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley’s poetry use biblical language and thought in theological depth. The importance of hymns for the whole culture. Hymns at school. 23.39 The importance of sermons as part of tradition. The 19th Broad Church contributed sermons by Robertson, F.D. Maurice and Kingsley. 20th century Leslie Wetherhead’s honesty and positive preaching of his discipleship. 26.31 Tradition should be liberating and not imprisoning. Critical engagemnt is liberation. Not believing “that”… but believing “in”. 27.46 Sermons of Helmut Thielicke and Paul Tillich. 28.45 Collections of prayers at thier best contain the accumulated wisdom and experience of people’s encouter with God over many generations. 31.20 Does tradition safeguard the church from risks? A Broad Church approach trusts and believes in the Holy Spirit. Honest and prayerful work. The Gamaliel principle: “…let them alone, for if this counsel or work be of humans it will come to nothing, but if it be of God you cannot overthrow it.”
Lecture 5: Broad Church Today
OVERVIEW: Education about the bible is a vital role for the broad church today. Such education is evangelism, and part of the worldwide church. In modern societies the broad church proclaims that the kingdom of God to be a kingdom of right relationships. The broad church offers a deep encounter with Christian faith. 0.30 Broad church today is biblical, evangelical and catholic. 1.00 Bible is a remarkable human achivement but would not exist without God’s initiative. Suffering of servants and the cost to God of God’s intiative: Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah. Jesus’s ministry of suffering and his abandonment by his closest male followers. The cost of responding to God. The bible as a library. The psalms. The bible read with help of biblical criticism is essential for a Broad church. Broad church helps members to understand biblical criticsm. The Bible remains an umread book. The Bible is central. 10.42 Broad church must be evangelical becaue it is biblical. Evil is taken seriously. The forgiveness of God. A Broad church sees the Old Testament as God’s reaching out in love and mercy to a rebellious and disobedient people. In the New Testament God in Christ enters personally into the human wickedness that creates the gulf between the divine and the human. Selfless love. It essential for people to know what has been done. Judgement is part of the good news. 19.58 For Anglcians “Catholic” means being aware of its membership of the Church of Christ throughout the world. Liberation theology. Learning from other churches. The 19th century Broad church leaders had no inkling of the rise of ecuminism and identified with the state. The church does not have its authority from the state, but from God. The need for interdependence of church and state. The 1934 Barmen Declaration in Germany is biblical. Church has a mandate to proclaim the realtionship between church and state. Theology contributes tot he idea of the state. Jubilees and property ownership are connected. The church must wage war on those systems that disgracefully prevent the unity of the human race. The kingdom of God ought to be a kingdom of right relationships. the battle is education, argument and convincement. A great vision mobilises the church. Education has become secularised, and finance preoccupied. The ancient universities were founded by the church. Education a prority for a modern Broad church. The Broad church has a mandate from God to proclaim that without God humanity is incomplete. Not a middle way, but a deeper way.
The book of these five lectures On Being A Broad Church by John Rogerson is available – click here.
